This is an archive of the former website of the Maoist Internationalist Movement, which was run by the now defunct Maoist Internationalist Party - Amerika. The MIM now consists of many independent cells, many of which have their own indendendent organs both online and off. MIM(Prisons) serves these documents as a service to and reference for the anti-imperialist movement worldwide.
MIM Notes 286 · September 1, 2003 · Page 1
MIM Notes
September 1, 2003, Nº 286 The Official Newsletter of the Maoist Internationalist Movement (MIM)
Free
INSIDE: Oakland schools * Texas prisons * Censors * Una Página en Español...
MIM
PO Box 29670
Los Angeles, CA 90029
Return Service Requested
PRESORTED STANDARD
U.S. POSTAGE PAID
PERMIT #56365
BOSTON, MA
On the web: www.prisoncensorship.info/archive/etext
You are not on a mailing list. You will not receive this paper again unless you take action.
Spain sends
Adolfo
Olaechea
to Peru
VIOLATES LAW,
TREATY WITH
PERU
by mim3@mim.org
August 7, 2003
B
ourgeois newswire service
Reuters reported that Spain
extradited Adolfo Olaechea to
Peru and that he landed in Peru by plane
on August 7 with a bullet-proof vest. Peru
sought Olaechea for openly political
reasons concerning Olaechea's speaking
in England for the Maoist road in Peru
blazed by the Communist Party of Peru
(PCP).
Luis Arce Borja in Belgium responded
that the extradition of English permanent
resident Adolfo Olaechea was an
international kidnapping done with the
coordination of a certain Spanish judge
and Peru's embassy. Peru openly admits
that the charge it used to extradite Adolfo
Olaechea was "defending terrorism." As
Adolfo Olaechea's attorney pointed out
on July 24th, article 5.1 of the extradition
treaty between Spain and Peru says
terrorists may be extradited but not people
with differing political views. So much for
Spain belonging to the "free world."
September 11 report
Reactionaries' failed `security'
policies exposed
John Ashcroft and other Bush henchmen
have detained thousands without charge --
without preventing `terror' attacks.
A
t the press conference
announcing the release of the
Congressional report on
September 11, the chairman of the House
intelligence committee admitted he did not
know who would be behind the next attack
on the United $tates or when, where, or
how it would happen. Whether the
Representative understood it or not, this
was an admission that the U.$.
government's police-style approach to
ending violence is a failure. Amerikans
should stop supporting a government
which imprisoned thousands of
immigrants without charge and which
spends billions attacking countries around
the globe in the name of security, yet
admits that it cannot stop the next attack.
Days before the September 11 report
was released, an internal Justice
Department report leaked to the New
York Times found evidence that law
enforcement officials were guilty of
"serious civil rights and civil liberties
violations" while enforcing the Patriot
Act. Over the last six months, the Justice
Department received an average of
almost six Patriot-Act related complaints
per day, with allegations ranging from
verbal abuse to beating.(1)
However, the Justice Department
report apparently did not comment on the
basic injustice of the sweeping arrests of
largely Muslim immigrants under the
auspices of the Patriot Act, which allows
non-citizens to be held for up to a week
without charge. Nor did it comment on
the absurdity of these arrests: only one
of the thousands arrested has been
charged with any crime related to
September 11. To paraphrase Benjamin
Franklin, an Amerikan "founding father"
supposedly revered by the Amerikan
government, those who give up essential
liberties for temporary security will have
Continued on page 5...
Continued on page 8...
Notes
Rouges
hits the
streets
The first issue of the French
publication "Notes Rouges" came out
at the end of July. At the Gay Pride
parade of August 3rd, 150 free copies
went out to the revelers, many sporting
stickers and buttons supporting the
struggle against AIDS. MIM supports
the right to gay marriage, even within
the existing oppressive patriarchal
system. MIM has always struggled at
the forefront to end discrimination
against gays/lesbians.
The significance of the "Notes
Rouges" is that it is the first print
publication in French to uphold Mao and
oppose imperialist country parasitism
in its true extent.
Big change needed to
avoid situations like this
The media
Something the public needs to
understand is that the capitalist media is
making big money off the Kobe case. The
media should not be trusted on questions
of fact especially in this case, because
its first priority is to entertain the public
to boost ratings or sales and increase
advertising revenue. In contrast, we at
MIM put out a newspaper called "MIM
Notes," which far from being for profit
Communist opinion on
the Kobe Bryant case
gives us the
dubious honor of
d r a i n i n g
comrades' bank
accounts. We
drain our bank
accounts out of a
sense of duty and
we believe the
public should
often take advantage of such non-
commercial sources of political and social
analysis.
MIM would like to emphasize that it
has no first-hand involvement in the Kobe
Bryant case just like 99.9% of the media.
We have no secret stash of info on the
accuser, but we are willing to talk about
Continued on page 6...
MIM Notes 286 · September 1, 2003 · Page 2
What is MIM?
The Maoist Internationalist Movement (MIM) is the collection of existing or emerging
Maoist internationalist parties in the English-speaking imperialist countries and their English-
speaking internal semi-colonies, as well as the existing or emerging Maoist Internationalist
parties in Belgium, France and Quebec and the existing or emerging Spanish-speaking
Maoist Internationalist parties of Aztlan, Puerto Rico and other territories of the U.$. Empire.
MIM Notes is the newspaper of MIM. Notas Rojas is the newspaper of the Spanish-speaking
parties or emerging parties of MIM. MIM upholds the revolutionary communist ideology
of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism and is an internationalist organization that works from the
vantage point of the Third World proletariat. MIM struggles to end the oppression of all
groups over other groups: classes, genders, nations. MIM knows this is only possibly by
building public opinion to seize power through armed struggle. Revolution is a reality for
North America as the military becomes over-extended in the government's attempts to
maintain world hegemony. MIM differs from other communist parties on three main
questions: (1) MIM holds that after the proletariat seizes power in socialist revolution, the
potential exists for capitalist restoration under the leadership of a new bourgeoisie within
the communist party itself. In the case of the USSR, the bourgeoisie seized power after the
death of Stalin in 1953; in China, it was after Mao's death and the overthrow of the "Gang
of Four" in 1976. (2) MIM upholds the Chinese Cultural Revolution as the farthest advance
of communism in humyn history. (3) As Marx, Engels and Lenin formulated and MIM has
reiterated through materialist analysis, imperialism extracts super-profits from the Third
World and in part uses this wealth to buy off whole populations of oppressor nation so-
called workers. These so-called workers bought off by imperialism form a new petty-
bourgeoisie called the labor aristocracy. These classes are not the principal vehicles to
advance Maoism within those countries because their standards of living depend on
imperialism. At this time, imperialist super-profits create this situation in the Canada, Quebec,
the United $tates, England, France, Belgium, Germany, Japan, Italy, Switzerland,
Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Israel, Sweden and Denmark. MIM accepts people as
members who agree on these basic principles and accept democratic centralism, the system
of majority rule, on other questions of party line.
"The theory of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin is universally applicable. We should
regard it not as dogma, but as a guide to action. Studying it is not merely a matter of
learning terms and phrases, but of learning Marxism-Leninism as the science of revolution."
- Mao Zedong, Selected Works, Vol. II, p. 208.
Editor, MC206; Production, MC12
Letters
MIM Notes
The Official Newsletter of The Maoist Internationalist Movement
ISSN 1540-8817
MIM Notes is the bi-weekly newsletter of the Maoist Internationalist Movement. MIM
Notes is the official Party voice; more complete statements are published in our journal,
MIM Theory. Material in MIM Notes is the Party's position unless noted. MIM Notes
accepts submissions and critiques from anyone. The editors reserve the right to edit
submissions unless permission is specifically denied by the author; submissions are
published anonymously unless authors insist on identification (prisoners are never
identified by name). MIM is an underground party that does not publish the names of its
comrades in order to avoid the state surveillance and repression that have historically
been directed at communist parties and anti-imperialist movements. MCs, MIM comrades,
are members of the Party. The Revolutionary Anti-Imperialist League (RAIL) is an anti-
imperialist mass organization led by MIM (RCs are RAIL Comrades). MIM's ten-point
program is available to anyone who sends in a SASE.
The paper is free to all prisoners, as long as they write to us every 90 days to confirm
their subsciptions. There are no individual subscriptions for people outside prison.
People who want to receive newspapers should become sponsors and distributors.
Sponsors pay for papers, distributors get them onto the streets, and officers do both
distribution and financial support. Annual cost is: 12 copies (Priority Mail), $120; 25
(Priority Mail), $150; 50 (Priority Mail), $280; 100, $380; 200, $750; 900 (Express
Mail), $3,840; 900 (8-10 days), $2,200. To become a sponor or distributor, send
anonymous money orders payable to "MIM." Send to MIM, attn: Camb. branch, PO Box
400559, Cambridge, MA 02140. Or write mim3@mim.org.
Most back issues of MIM Notes are available free on our web site. The web site con-
tains thousands of documents, with ordering information for many more.
MIM grants explicit permission to copy all or part of this newspaper for any reason, as
long as we are credited.
For general correspondence, contact:
MIM
P.O. Box 29670
Los Angeles, CA 90029-0670
eMail: <mim@mim.org>
WWW: <http//www.prisoncensorship.info/archive/etext>
Trotskyist website
reader perturbed
Dear MIM,
I hope that you people eventualy realise
the absolute babarity of Mao and Stalin
and get on board with the rest of us
communists. You are discrediting
everything that Marx - Engels - Lenin -
Trotsky - Luxembourg - and the every
other true communist out there has done.
Stalin and Mao were and are not the way
forward.
Mao and Stalin coming to power meant
the death of international socialism for an
indefinable amount of time.
The only thing that pleases me on your
web site is your admission at being a small
party - may it stay that way.
--Trotskyist, July, 2003
mim3@mim.org replies for MIM:
Barbarism is dying from hunger and lack
of medical care. Barbarism is not shooting
a small portion of society spreading
confusion and otherwise throwing up
obstacles to progress as the writer above
does by referring to a movement that has
produced no social change in the last 75
years. Whether he is objective enough to
know it, the above critic of us is a part of
the status quo.
Barbarism is also not having universal
education. Stalin and Mao fixed those
problems--hunger, medical care and
education. That's why the life
expectancies of their countries doubled
despite all the repression of liberal-radical
idiots.
What this sort of criticism always boils
down to is two things: 1) A defense of
the status quo in the guise of Trotskyist
(or fill in the blank) principles which have
failed to bring about changes like Stalin
and Mao did. 2) Valuing the lives of
liberal-radical dissidents at 100 or 1000
times that of the toiling peasants and
workers. There is no other explanation
for how people supposedly interested in
the Soviet Union's history could ignore
the progress there in the name of their
impotent principles.
by mim108
Some people see a "silver lining" in the
cloud of budget crises facing state
correctional operations. In Texas, for
example -- which had to cut $172 million
from its corrections budget by June 2003
and another $525 over the next two years
-- the state has passed a law mandating
treatment probation and treatment for
some first-time drug offenders.(1) So, the
need to save money helped reformers
get some of what they wanted. We don't
know the details of this change yet, but it
could be a positive development. At the
same time, Texas Rep. Ray Allen claims
that the parole rate in Texas has risen
from 16 to 25 percent in the last year, as
the parole board faces pressure to reduce
the prison population.
On the other hand, the budget crisis also
lent support to those who want to
increase the privatization of Texas prisons
-- private prisons currently hold 7% of
Texas prisoners -- although in the end
the bill did not pass. And, in a supremely
humanistic move, they proposed a policy
of paroling prisoners who are in a coma
(there were two at the time) -- to save
money.(1)
A prisoner sent us a newsletter
published by a lawyer named James
Randall Smith, which summarizes the
past year in Texas like this: "A quick
evaluation ... indicates that if the bill would
have made the inmates or parolees life a
little easier, the bill did not pass, if it made
life more difficult ... it passed."
Smith reports that the worst law will
allow the parole board to set off prisoners
for 5 years. One prisoner tells us, "I can
smell prison riots all over that bill, and so
can they."
Smith also reports that budget problems
cost more than 145 jobs at the Windham
School District, which runs programs that
help people qualify for parole, and 600
jobs in the corrections department, many
of them in health care. Those who lose
their jobs have an opportunity to become
prison guards - - because the state can't
hire people to fill these. These bitter,
untrained ex-bureaucrats sound like
excellent additions to the prison guard
population.
We conclude that most of the effects
of the budget crisis will be bad for Texas
prisoners, although it might also prompt
some positive reforms. But MIM has
always resisted the argument that the
oppression of the prison system is bad
because it wastes government money.
The real issue is national oppression and
social control. The comings and goings
of budget travails don't change that
underlying dynamic.
Notes:
1. "Dollars and Sentences: Legislators
Views on Prisons, Punishment, and the
Budget Crisis," by Robin Campbell. Vera
Institute of Justice, New York, July 2003
(http://www.vera.org/publications/
publications_5.asp? publication_id=204).
Texas prisoners feel
brunt of budget crisis
MIM Notes 286 · September 1, 2003 · Page 3
The Japanese parliament voted in July
to send troops to Iraq, despite public
opposition to the Iraq war and the
Japanese Constitution's ban on the use
of force in settling international disputes.
The government of Prime Minister
Junichiro Koizumi claimed that Japanese
troops would only be sent to non-combat
zones; his critics correctly noted that
"there are no noncombat zones" in Iraq
(1).
The deployment of Japanese troops in
a combat zone outside Japan is the latest
rutsch down the slippery slope of
resurgent Japanese militarism--or
perhaps it would be better to say, it's the
latest crack in the crumbling façade of
official Japanese pacifism. The Japanese
military, called the Self Defense Forces,
is among the five largest in the world.
The Japanese navy sent ships to the
Indian Ocean to support Amerika's war
in Afghanistan. Japan bankrolled
Amerikan military adventures such as the
1991 Gulf War. And, of course, the
massive military bases that the Japanese
government grants the Amerikans played
important roles in the Korean and Vietnam
wars and continue to threaten much of
Asia (2).
Japanese reactionaries including some
in Prime Minister Koizumi's Liberal
Democratic Party have been pushing for
a more aggressive military in recent years.
In part, this campaign has been cultural.
Schoolbooks have been re-written to de-
emphasize Japanese war crimes; movies
have been made glorifying Japanese
militarists (3) or promoting the line that
the Japanese were the victims in World
War II (4); Koizumi has offended his
Chinese and Korean neighbors by visiting
shrines to Japanese war veterans--visits
analogous to Ronald Reagan's official
stop at a German cemetery honoring dead
SS men--and Koizumi wants to change
the name "Self Defense Forces" to
Japan approves sending troops to Iraq
Continued on next page...
Parents and activists have come
together in response to a series of events
within Oakland schools in the last school
year including abuse by teachers, the
threat of denying many students the right
to graduate and one incident where the
Secret Service was called in to berate
students.
A recent public forum featured Dr.
Randolph Ward, the newly appointed
administrator of Oakland Unified School
District, and Nneka Simon who is the
mother of a boy who was beaten by his
teacher in the Claremont school in
Oakland. The beating of Simon's son was
one of the many recent incidents that has
brought attention to the education system
in the community. Despite having 16
witnesses there has been no investigation
and the teacher was not brought to jail in
handcuffs as is common procedure with
students who use physical violence.
The International Peoples' Democratic
Uhuru Movement (InPDUM) sponsored
the forum, which also featured Chairman
Omali Yeshitela of the African People's
Socialist Party. While we have political
disagreements with Yeshitela and the
InPDUM,(1) we agreed with what they
had to say about education for oppressed
nation youth in oppressor nation schools.
In her presentation, Simon brought
together anecdotes and statistics to link
the education system to the systematic
oppression of Blacks in the United $tates.
She cited that Black students are expelled
twice as much as they were in 1974 and
they are 2.6 times as likely to be expelled
as white students, who usually have to
break the law to be expelled. This
treatment of oppressed youth as criminals
from such a young age only prepares
them for the more aggressive treatment
they will receive by the criminal injustice
system. This system in turn takes away
oppressed people's access to education
through the Higher Education Act which
prevents convicted felons from getting
financial aid. That's 13% of Black men
who cannot get financial aid or even vote
in most states. These questions of access
to knowledge and political power have
existed since Africans were first brought
to this continent as slaves. Therefore to
attempt to solve the problem of education
in the Black community without solving
national oppression by imperialism is
attacking a symptom without killing the
disease.
After touring some Oakland schools for
the first time, Dr. Ward's first criticism
of their condition was the prevalence of
graffiti, which he claims prevents "a
sense of pride." Besides being the
expression of students themselves in
making the school their own, graffiti is
hardly the greatest concern for their
successful education. Maybe a sense of
respect for the school would decrease
graffiti. But even if that is so, Ward's
approach is backwards. The solution is
to make the school serve the kids, not
eliminate graffiti to create "a sense of
pride." Other problems in the physical
conditions include leaking ceilings and the
usual lack of materials in oppressed nation
schools. Yeshitela's response to all this
is that you should be able to get a good
education sitting outside under a tree with
no books. The fundamental aspect of the
problem being the approach of the system
and not the materials available to the
school.
The greatest example of this is the
Eurocentric curriculum that comes from
the materials that are available. How can
students relate to school when the system
is telling them that they have no worth
and do not even merit mention? Yeshitela
stressed that Bill Cosby and peanut
farming do not represent the reality of
Blacks in the United $tates now or ever.
As long as that is the Black history that
appears in text books, more books is not
going to help the situation.
In an effort to exert real power in the
Oakland school system, InPDUM will be
holding weekly meetings for a committee
to address education in the community
that will be in direct contact with Ward
and will work with parents and teachers
who have seen their efforts crushed by
the school system. Continued vigilance
on these issues is urgent since education
is one of the biggest concerns facing the
Black community in Amerika. Along with
prisons and the police, it is of the most
blatant faces of oppression that the u$
government is showing the oppressed
within its borders. And without the bigger
picture, provided by Yeshitela and Simon
at this forum, reforms in the school system
are nothing more than a band aid for the
problems of oppressed people under
imperialism.
The Amerikan school system is
threatening the oppressed by alienating
children. Rather than giving them an
education that will help them survive, it
prepares them for life in oppressive
government institutions. As Yeshitela
Oakland school system channels
oppressed youth to California prisons
pointed out, this is not an issue of money,
this is the issue of why do oppressed
people exist in this system and how the
system treats those people. It is the
seizure of control that will change things,
and the shifting of funds is only secondary
to the question of power. Fighting to win
requires the complete elimination of all
forms of oppression to ensure quality
education and other survival rights for all
people.
Notes:
1. See our review of the African
People's Socialist Party in MIM Theory
8.
MIM Notes has seen a big spike in
circulation since the "war on
terrorism" began. It's not surprising:
MIM Notes is a free and independent
newspaper. Yes, there are especially
now knee-jerk patriots who believe
everything Bush says and pass by a
chance to read MIM Notes. There are
other patriots and internationalists
who realize that at this time papers
like MIM Notes can undo the huge
spectacle that Uncle Sam is creating
for its own benefit.
Sure, you have seen MIM Notes
around, but MIM Notes needs people
to do two simple things: 1) Pay for it
(postage and printing), 2) Distribute
it!
MIM is looking for sponsors,
distributors and officers. Sponsors pay
for papers; distributors get them onto
the streets and officers do both
distribution and financial support.
Distribute # Cost per year
12 (Priority Mail)
$120
25 (Priority Mail)
$150
50 (Priority Mail)
$280
100
$380
200
$750
900 (Express Mail!)
$3,840
900 (8-10 days)
$2,200
If you know you have some good
places to do distribution, we suggest
starting at 200 and working your way
up higher. If you are not willing to do
distribution, just send money. If you
are not willing to pay, then request
papers after somehow proving to the
party that you are serious (words
won't count). You who will cough up/
raise the money to distribute 900
papers each issue and then do the
distribution, you are what drives this
party forward.
A call for MIM Notes
sponsors and distributors!
Make anonymous money orders payable to "MIM." Send to MIM,
attn: Camb. branch, PO Box 400559, Cambridge, MA 02140. Contact
MIM in regards to this campaign by writing mim3@mim.org
MIM Notes 286 · September 1, 2003 · Page 4
Hotaru no haka, 1988
Isao Takahata,
director
Nobody will confuse this animated
Japanese film with a Disney cartoon.
Grave tells the sad story of two Japanese
children orphaned by an Amerikan
bombing raid during World War II. Left
to fend for themselves, they slowly starve
to death. However, like other films which
simply try to convey the horrors of war
-- the German films Das Boot and
Stalingrad come to mind -- Grave
makes no attempt to explain the causes
of wars and how they can be avoided in
the future.
Because of that, MIM can't
recommend the film, but we will say that
it is more progressive in the Amerikan
context than in the Japanese. Grave
reminds Amerikans that the firebombing
of Tokyo -- to say nothing of Hiroshima
and Nagasaki -- had brutal consequences
for the civilian population, on a scale far
surpassing anything Amerikans have
experienced. It's a far cry from the
jingoistic Pearl Harbor (2001), which
portrayed an Amerikan raid as a great
spectacle over empty warehouses,
watched from afar by two kimono-clad
women on a lazy afternoon.
In the Japanese context, Grave bolsters
the prejudice that Japan was the victim
in the war. The children's father is a naval
officer, and he is simply portrayed as doing
his duty and defending Japan. No mention
is made of Japan's imperial ambitions in
Asia and the Pacific; no discussion of the
rape of Nanking, the occupation of Korea,
etc. etc. When the older boy Seita learns
that Japan lost the war, he weeps, not
believing that the invincible Japanese
empire could lose. Just as in the United
$tates today, most children in Japan and
Germany brought up during World War
II were taught to identify with their
militaristic governments, so there is
nothing wrong with acknowledging this
fact -- but Grave does so without
comment. The scene where Seita breaks
down could provoke outrage that the
Japanese militarists twisted his mind, but
it could just as easily promote nostalgia
for the good old days when Japan had a
strong navy and army.
One reviewer (out of over 100) on an
internet message board argued that
Grave contained a subtle critique of great
nation pride. If so, it was too subtle, as
most of the other comments did not pick
up on this. Grave suffers from what
could be called the "Mother Courage"
effect.
Mother Courage and Her Children
is a play written by the German anti-
militarist Bertolt Brecht during World War
II. The title character tries everything she
can in the context of war and
capitalism to keep her children alive, but
by the end of the play, war has killed them
all. The play was intended as a critique
Grave of the Fireflies is no Disney cartoon
of Mother Courage and a reminder that
suffering the horrors of war was not
enough to teach people how to avoid it in
the future. When it premiered in the rubble
of Berlin after the war, however,
audiences hailed Mother Courage as a
heroic character, indicative of the
"Armed Forces."
The militarization campaign has also
been structural. "Although Japan's richly
financed military forces boast some of
the world's most sophisticated
hardware--weapons systems like the
[U.$.-supplied] Aegis destroyer and
[U.$.-supplied] F-15 fighter jets--their
actual configuration, as well as training
for their use, has been overwhelmingly
defensive.
"That is changing abruptly. The country
is acquiring in-air refueling capacity for
its fighter force, as well as developing a
sophisticated air support ship--part
destroyer, part helicopter carrier--that
news reports say is intended to allow
operations near the Korean Penninsula."
Furthermore, calls for Japan to build
nuclear weapons are apparently getting
louder--this in a country with strong anti-
nuclear sentiments (2).
There are economic reasons behind the
military expansion. Instead of cutting the
United $tates a check for services
rendered, Japan could invest in its own
formidable defense industry.
Although the United $tates helped draft
Japan's "pacifist" constitution, it has
sheltered and nourished Japanese
militarism when convenient. The
Amerikans helped Japanese war
Japan approves sending troops to Iraq
criminals escape prosecution; many
eventually served in the post-war
government. The CIA paid off Liberal
Democratic Party officials for their
service in keeping Amerikan bases in
Japan during the Cold War.(5) Amerikan
politicians pissed and moaned in 1991 and
again this spring that Japan was not
pulling its weight in the campaigns against
Iraq.
Disturbingly, Amerikan provocations in
Korea--starting with Clinton's non-
compliance with the 1994 "Agreed
Framework" agreement with north Korea
and extending to the Bush administration's
charges last Fall that north Korea was
making nuclear weapons--may be aimed
in part at Japan. This wouldn't be the first
time the United $tates manufactured a
threat or the appearance of a threat to
force countries to play ball--or even just
buy Amerikan weapons. The United
$tates did this in Iraq in the early nineties.
Koizumi's government uses the supposed
threat from north Korea to justify both its
close alignment with U.$. foreign policy
and its own expanding militarism.
Gregory Clark, a former Australian
diplomat, argues that sending troops to
Iraq may backfire on the militarists.
"[Koizumi and his hawkish advisers] like
to talk about the need for Japan to `shed
blood' in support of various pro-U.S.
causes. They want to galvanize the
Japanese public out of `heiwa boke'
(peace loving stupor), and to force Japan's
wimpish [Self Defense Forces] to
become a bloodied, full-fledged fighting
force.
"But can this happen if the blood is shed
for a shabby cause fought brutally and
unfairly in a distant country and with little
chance of success? This is what we saw
in Vietnam. It is likely what we will see
in Iraq."(6) MIM agrees with this
dialectic, although we frankly fear that
militaristic sentiments will initially increase
as the first score or hundred casualties
arrive home. It took close to a decade of
steady Amerikan military losses far above
those currently seen in Iraq to turn
Amerikan opinion against the war in
Vietnam. It took absolute military defeat
in World War II and terrible civilian
suffering in Dresden and Hiroshima to
bring down Germany and Japan and
create the possibility that those militaristic
and imperialistic societies might rejoin
humynity. That chance was squandered,
principally by Amerika, as it groomed
militaristic and imperialistic elements in
Germany and Japan for its own ends.
With the tools of war becoming more
and more destructive, we cannot squander
our next chance to destroy militarism and
imperialism once and for all. This means
taking the re-humanizing process for
formerly imperialist societies seriously and
preventing them from lapsing into their
old, exploitative ways. In other words, this
requires an international dictatorship of
the proletariat over the defeated
imperialist countries. In principle, this
would be similar to the much-ballyhooed
Amerikan occupation of Germany and
Japan after World War II--except that
instead of being run by an imperialist
power for its own ends the dictatorship
of the proletariat would be run by people
aiming to end war and exploitation,
globally.
Notes:
1. New York Times, 28 Jul 2003.
2. New York Times, 25 Jul 2003.
3. MIM Notes 168, 15 Aug 1998.
4. See our review of "Grave of the
Fireflies," in this issue.
5. Chalmers Johnson, ITAL Blowback
END, New York: Henry Holt, 2000, pp.
16-17.
6. The Japan Times, 13 Jul 2003.
Reprinted at: www.zmag.org/content/
print_article.cfm?itemlID=3908&sectionID=17
persistence of ordinary Germans to carry
on with their lives as they always had
despite the trauma of defeat.
Although perhaps intended to challenge
oppressor-nation complacency, as
Mother Courage was, Grave never
goes beyond sentimental humanism.
MIM Notes 286 · September 1, 2003 · Page 5
Did you
know?
There are
more than 200
back issues of
MIM Notes
available on
the MIM
website? Not
only can you
browse more
than 15 years
of the
newspaper,
you can also
keep up with
the very latest
on MIM
agitation
campaigns,
prisoner
news, all the
latest on the
U$ war, and
much more.
MIM's website
is an
indispensable
tool for the
revolutionary
movement.
Get involved!
www.etext.org/
Politics/MIM
Much of the spin surrounding the
release of the Congressional inquiry into
September 11 focused on so-called
"intelligence failures." For example, the
CIA allegedly had information it did not
share with the FBI and vice versa. This
discussion is largely a re-hash of
complaints made by reactionaries
immediately following September 11:
intelligence agencies' hands are tied; they
can't talk to each other; they can't recruit
some bad guys to catch the other bad
guys; they can't try and kill the bad guys
themselves; etc.
Then and now, these complaints miss
the main point: in the "good old days" when
Amerikan spy agencies officially had--
or simply used--these powers, they could
not stop attacks on Amerikan troops and
civilians. Heavy CIA presence in Iran
provoked the embassy hostage situation;
it did not stop it. Amerikan involvement
in Palestine and Lebanon provoked the
attack on the Marine barracks in Beirut;
it did not stop it. And we know where
CIA support for the mujahideen in
Afghanistan like Osama bin Laden got
the United $tates.
Furthermore, the official restraints
placed on spy agencies in the late 70s
aimed to stop the abuses of powerful
government officials. Not only was the
FBI's illegal COINTELPRO killing
scores of radical Black Panthers, but even
staunchly bourgeois-liberal critics of
government policy found themselves
surveilled and harassed. The "unshackle
our intelligence agencies" types and the
Amerikans who follow them out of
"father knows best" mentality have
forgotten these recent lessons--indeed
they've forgotten the lessons their own
"founding fathers" learned regarding
government accountability.(1)
Regardless of the supposed constraints
placed on Amerikan spy agencies,
however, the Congressional report
illustrates a point we made in the last issue
of MIM Notes at length: just because the
imperialist spend $100s of billions yearly
on spying doesn't mean they know
everything. The spies may lose the crucial
piece of information in background noise,
or they may be fed false information.
An FBI official said, "This report gave
us a good overview of where a number
of failures took place, but just at the FBI
but throughout the government. But
nothing in the report says we really could
have stopped it... There are any number
of ways to second-guess this."(2)
Amerikan spy agencies have also
emphasized the incompleteness of their
knowledge in an attempt to justify their
earlier (false) claims that Iraq was trying
to buy African uranium.
Azanian freedom fighter Steven Biko
used to say "never underestimate the
inefficiency of the Security Police."(3)
MIM agrees, and urges activists not to
concede the security struggle in the face
of the imperialists obvious material
advantage. To recap our previous
conclusions:
Although the imperialists spend much
more money on intelligence than the
Imperialist `intelligence failures' -- imagined and real
proletariat does, the imperialists are not
[always] able to use what they collect
and when they do use what they collect
they come into conflict with other
imperialists with other property interests
and government agendas. For this reason,
it is always justified to struggle to make it
a little harder for the imperialists to spy
on the oppressed and exploited...
The reasons not to surrender are
numerous: 1) Raising the cost to the
enemy, because even when s/he does
espionage correctly it costs him/her. 2)
The enemy must sort out true from false
once information is obtained. 3) The
enemy may not bother.
Notes:
1. See our review of Gore Vidal's
"Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace: How
We Got to Be So Hated" at our online
bookstore or in MIM Notes 278, 15 Mar
2003.
2. Los Angeles Times, 25 Jul 2003.
3. Donald Woods, "Biko," New York:
Henry Holt, 1987, p. 86.
neither.
Benjamin Franklin is not the only
"founding father" the Amerikan
government has turned its back on. The
authors of the Federalist Papers were
suspicious of large standing armies and
warned against giving "ITAL just END
causes of war to other nations."(2) Now
the Amerikan military budget of $360
billion per year is larger than that of the
next ten (or more) largest armies
combined.(3) The United $tates spends
$10 billion per year to keep 9,000 troops
in Afghanistan, while it has promised $1
billion a year to fight AIDS in Africa--a
promise which has yet to be fulfilled.(4)
As the occupations of Afghanistan and
Iraq drag on, with 16 of the army's 33
combat brigades in Iraq alone,(5)
Amerikan generals and Secretary of
"Defense" Donald Rumsfeld are
discussing expanding the already massive
Amerikan military--reversing the
"smaller, faster" dogma Bush ran for
president on and Rumsfeld clung to as
recently as April.
The authors of the Federalist Papers
were worried that a militarily weak
United $tates would invite attack from
larger colonialist powers. Nowadays, 100s
of other countries offer easier targets than
the United $tates--yet the Bush
administration concedes it is in a
protracted "war on terror." According to
the reactionaries' own logic, then, the
attacks on the United $tates are not just
a matter of opportunism but have a basis
in just cause.
Instead of investigating the real basis
September 11: Reactionaries' failed
`security' policies exposed
for the attacks, the U.$. government
persists in its policy of "peace through
strength," even though that strategy has
not stopped the "post-war" casualty rate
for U.$. soldiers from increasing,(6) just
as it did not prevent September 11, the
Oklahoma city bombing, the embassy
bombings in Africa, first World Trade
Center bombing, the bombing of the
Marine barracks in Lebanon, etc. etc.
As we noted in our January comments
on the massive Amerikan military
budget,(3) the Amerikan "founding
fathers" warned repeatedly of the dangers
of an overbearing, permanent military.
"The violent destruction of life and
property incident to war, the continual
effort and alarm attendant on a state of
continual danger, will compel nations the
most attached to liberty to resort for
repose and security to institutions which
have a tendency to destroy their civil and
political rights. To be more safe, they at
length become willing to run the risk of
being less free. The institutions chiefly
alluded to are STANDING ARMIES and
the correspondent appendages of military
establishments."(7)
The alternative to the Amerikan
leaders' failed solutions is to struggle to
eradicate the causes of violent conflict--
foremost of which are militarism and
capitalism. The billions the United $tates
spends on military preparations more than
suffice to solve some of the most pressing
problems in the world, such as hunger and
infectious disease. Vast resources sit idle
to preserve the profits of a minority--think
of the billions given to U.$. farmers either
not to grow food or to undercut
international prices and drive Third World
farmers out of production. There is plenty
of slack in the economies of the world
that could be used to put unemployed
people to work for food, clothing, shelter
and other things that make people happy.
Amerikans need to break with their
current leaders' and their disastrous
policies and find new leaders who offer
real solutions to conflict.
Notes:
1. New York Times, 21 Jul 2003.
2. The Federalist Papers, Number 4.
3. MIM Notes 274, 15 Jan 2003.
4. New York Times, 28 Jul 2003 and
16 Jul 2003.
5. New York Times, 22 Jul 2003. This
editorial by Paul Krugman shows that
some in the ruling class worry Amerikan
military might is spread too thin. "Military
experts say that with almost two-thirds
of its brigades deployed overseas, mainly
in Iraq, the Army's readiness is eroding:
normal doctrine calls for only one brigade
in three to be deployed abroad, while two
retrain and refit." Only by ignoring their
precious "Founding Fathers'" advice and
giving cause for just grievance against the
United $tates around the world could the
U.$. government ensure that even the
largest military in history would be
overstretched.
6. According to the U.$. military, more
Amerikan soldiers died in combat during
the week ending 27 Jul 2003 than any
other week since President Bush
declared "major combat" over. NPR
Morning Edition, 28 Jul 2003.
7. Federalist Papers, Number 8.
Continued from page 1...
MIM Notes 286 · September 1, 2003 · Page 6
the details as a matter of principle. That
means that we talk about the Kobe case
by ASSUMING certain things to be true
and then wondering about the implications.
Our assumptions may be entirely wrong
in the Kobe Bryant case, but the
implications drawn would not be in other
cases where those assumptions would be
true.
Kobe and Tyson in the bourgeois
legal senses
Something undeniable is that sports stars
like Kobe Bryant are constantly besieged
at hotels by attractive young wimmin
plying them for sex. Those who did not
know this: count yourself naive. This is
not something the public likes to talk about
much, because it is afraid of the message.
There is a strong need to identify with
these stars and judge them by ordinary
reasoning, such as when Tracy McGrady
told Kobe to "stay with your wife." Many
surveys show that a majority of the public
cheats on its spouses (See MT2/3 on this.)
and other surveys show a large minority
say around 40% cheat, but a tiny
percentage of that cheating group faces
rape charges, so it is wrong to connect
anything legally to Kobe's cheating on his
wife--unless we take the law literally. If
we take the law completely seriously that
means that rape occurs where there is
not consent, in which case, those people
having sex under conditions where their
partners lied to them about the conditions
have suffered rape, which means most
of the population on that account alone.
After all it is not possible to consent to a
lie; although probably in Kobe's case his
wife knew the conditions before she
became his wife. This is something we
do want the public to look at more
carefully before it claims it understands
what the existing law is about. In actual
fact, the law can convict a large portion
of society--probably a majority for
rape-- but the court system selects only
a small minority for prosecution. As one
might guess the targets are the usual
suspects--the oppressed nationalities and
youth. We at MIM are tired of the
bourgeois legal system's opportunism and
we seek to redefine the crime and the
approach to eliminating it.
McGrady's statement against adultery
may help him get a new endorsement deal,
but it has nothing to do with the reality of
famous athletes and musicians. Any NBA
wife exists in a world unknown to the
commoner, but we do not believe they
are naive going into their marriages. Rock
stars and athletes much less famous (and
by the way not always wealthy) than
Kobe Bryant have wimmin lined up
outside their hotel doors taking turns to
have sex. It's not a question of views,
only of what the public knows about this
fact and how the public processes it.
Hence, the commoner should try not to
judge either Kobe or Woody Allen,
because they simply live in different
worlds, and quite frankly, while we are
Communist opinion on the Kobe Bryant case
for monogamy at MIM, we do not think
it is so crucial that we want people to get
distracted by this sort of case.
In the Mike Tyson case, the media
reported that earlier in the day of his
alleged rape of Desiree Washington he
had gone among young wimmin in public
at a Black beauty pageant--any and all
that he could find--to ask "do you wanna
fuck?" From what we can see in the
media, Mike Tyson's "crudeness" may
have appalled some jurors; even though
the point was that Mike Tyson always
asked for consent. He was crude but
asking. It is apparent that at the very least
reactionary talk show host Rush
Limbaugh did not see the point, because
he equated crudeness with rape in his
talks on the subject.(1) We at MIM have
to stress that that is wrong. Asking in
crude language is still asking for consent
and consent is what rape is all about. Rape
is not about DNA, semen or crude
language if the accused says s/he had
consent. Let us add that Mike Tyson's
approach has no doubt worked countless
times in his and other media stars' cases.
The public should not hold Mike Tyson to
blame for that. That's how it is and it has
nothing to do with rape in the bourgeois
legal sense.
An example is Chris Elliott calling
Tyson a "monster." Here is what Tyson
said that caused it, "`I seen this Tori Amos
video. I couldn't tell what she was singin'
about, but she had this nice, big ass hangin'
off da piano bench, and she got them big,
fluffy lips. I'd love to fuck that bitch.'"(2)
Whether or not this story is exactly true,
it fits Tyson's language and image, but
let's be clear it in no way makes him a
rapist. If people did put him in prison for
language like that, they are in fact
oppressing him by appropriating Tyson's
sexuality.
Let's also be clear that the Kobe/Tyson
cases are great reasons why MIM
rejected the line that "rape is theft"
(thereby putting the whole subject on a
consent/contract/property ground) instead
of "all sex is rape." Yes, from a sexual
point of view, these stars see so many
wimmin it's probable that they have a
certain attitude toward them. On the other
hand, we do not want to rule out the
possibility that a star may have done
something particularly twisted just
because he is a star (and let's be honest
that wimmin are not accused of the crime
despite evidence that a high percentage
also do not obtain men's consent, but
that's something to read up on in MIM
Theory 2/3). Yet, what will happen with
the "rape is like theft" line (where some
men are rapists and others are not) is this:
people will question why Kobe and Mike
Tyson would ever steal sex when they
can always get it for free. The best
defense will be that someone has had
thousands of wimmin and is good-looking
and famous, and this is something the
public thinks but it is wrong--a whole
other reason why MIM disrespects the
"Justice System." At the very least we
have to allow that someone might have
gone nutty and started attacking wimmin,
but the point is that the we should never
"have to go there." It's our pornographic
system's fault that we do go there.
Rumor also says that consent issues
aside, the physical evidence in the Mike
Tyson case carried the day. We at MIM
only hope so, because as we shall see
MIM shares the stinking suspicion along
with most Black people about what really
settled the case. Given that the courts
convicted Tyson, we hope that it was
possible to prove physically that Mike
Tyson submitted Desiree Washington to
something she could not have wanted. We
at MIM do not know. Tyson says that he
is innocent and the 1991 rape conviction
was wrong. He does so in such colorful
language that he no doubt raises his public
profile to sell more tickets for boxing
matches--part of the whole problem of
having an entertainment media for profit
that ends up spreading pornography of
the worst sort.(3)
Related to the question of consent and
superstar contexts is the rumor that in
Colorado where Kobe is charged, the
court system convicts men without
corroborating physical evidence or
witnesses.(4) In other words, there have
been cases where juries found the accuser
so much more credible than the accused
that they convicted him.
On this question we part ways with
Catharine MacKinnon. We at MIM would
much prefer to advocate the total
separation of men and wimmin in the
strictest Islamic fashion before
countenancing an ancient abuse--
especially given that the imprisonment rate
in the united $tates is already the highest
in the world. Since the French Revolution
of 1789, we Marxists have been very
clear that the ability of one persyn to
imprison another strictly on his/her word
is an injustice left behind in the feudal era
and outlawed in France. Such a method
belongs in an open dictatorship not a
democracy with some pretense of equality
before the law. If convicting someone of
crime on the strength of one persyn's
word is not illegal in the united $tates and
just overlooked by judges, it should be
illegal in order that Amerika catch up with
the France of 1789. In 1789 the issue was
lords accusing peasants and imprisoning
them without any need for proof or
procedure other than their word. Today,
we can be sure that what a jury finds
"credible" in someone's word is entirely
subjective and will only reek of class,
nation and even gender privileges, where
a persyn of female genitalia may
nonetheless rank higher in the sexual
social hierarchy of our society than a
persyn of male genitalia. Setting up the
beauty pageant winner against someone
with crude language who is a dangerous
Black male to boot just reeks of oppression
in Mike Tyson's case. Likewise, we do
not want to see a white womyn of the
countryside West be able to accuse an
urban Black male and put him in prison
just on her word and for that reason we
are willing to advocate many other tough
solutions to the rape problem--among the
most important the abolition of
pornography for profit.
Nation
A survey already shows that Blacks
and whites have divided on the Kobe case
just as they did on the O.J. case. Two
thirds of Blacks respect the alleged U.$.
system of civics and consider Kobe
"innocent" as he should be till "proven
guilty." However, surveys show that a
majority of whites already consider him
guilty.(5) A majority of whites believed
OJ guilty while a majority of Blacks
(55%) believed he should have been let
off. Only one fifth of whites agreed on
the OJ case.(5) Where the victim was
Black, it made no difference. In the Mike
Tyson case the alleged victim was Black,
but 71% of Blacks believe the charge by
beauty queen Desiree Washington to
have been false. One third of whites
did.(5) For MIM, this shows that Blacks
really need their own nation with their own
system of justice or issues of white
oppression will find themselves mixed in.
In this, we want to be clear that we do
not know what happened with OJ, and
unlike the rest of the media, we don't
claim to have been there for the blood or
even the trial depositions, but legally
speaking, the Black position is correct. If
the details on Mark Fuhrman,(6) the glove,
the position of the Bronco etc. did not
prove "reasonable doubt," then nothing
could ever prove "reasonable doubt." As
a result of the OJ case, Los Angeles had
to redo countless cases based on fuck-
ups like Fuhrerman. OJ Simpson was
totally vindicated for that reason alone:
his actions brought justice in countless
other Los Angeles cases re-examined
after OJ Simpson's investigations paid for
with his fortune. Whites may not like the
system regarding "reasonable doubt," but
then they should attack the whole judicial
system, not just the OJ case. We at MIM
believe almost any other society's system
regarding the causation and handling of
crime is superior in a statistical sense.
MIM will spell something out in Black
Continued from page 1...
Continued on page 9...
MIM Notes 286 · September 1, 2003 · Page 7
Militarism is war-mongering or the
advocacy of war or actual carrying out
of war or its preparations.
While true pacifists condemn all
violence as equally repugnant, we
Maoists do not consider self-defense
or the violence of oppressed nations
against imperialism to be militarism.
Militarism is mostly caused by
imperialism at this time. Imperialism
is the highest stage of capitalism--
seen in countries like the United
$tates, England and France.
Under capitalism, capitalists often
profit from war or its preparations.
Yet, it is the proletariat that does the
dying in the wars. The proletariat
wants a system in which people do not
have self-interest on the side of war-
profiteering or war for imperialism.
Militarism is one of the most
important reasons to overthrow
capitalism. It even infects oppressed
nations and causes them to fight each
other.
It is important not to let capitalists
risk our lives in their ideas about war
and peace or the environment. They
have already had two world wars
admitted by themselves in the last 100
years and they are conducting a third
right now against the Third World.
Even a one percent annual chance of
nuclear war destruction caused by
capitalist aggressiveness or "greed" as
the people call it should not be tolerated
by the proletariat. After playing
Russian Roulette (in which the bullet
chamber is different each time and not
related at all to the one that came up in
previous spins) with 100 chambers and
one bullet, the chance of survival is
only 60.5% after 50 turns. In other
words, a seemingly small one percent
annual chance of world war means
eventual doom. After 100 years or turns
of Russian Roulette, the chances of
survival are only 36.6%. After 200
years, survival has only a 13.4%
chance.
What is militarism?
WHAT
AMERICANS?
MIM unanimously passed this
resolution at its 2003 Congress.
"I wish to see the sons & daughters of
the world in Peace & busily employed in
the more agreeable amusement, of
fulfilling the first and great
commandment--Increase & Multiply: as
an encouragement to which we have
opened the fertile plains of the Ohio to
the poor, the needy & the oppressed of
the Earth." --George Washington, July
25, 1785
"Not then organised as a nation, or
known as a people upon the earth--we
had no preparation-- Money, the nerve
of War, was wanting."--George
Washington, "Fragments of a Draft of
the First Inaugural Address"
"We shou'd not, in imitation of some
nations which have been celebrated for
a false kind of patriotism, wish to
aggrandize our own Republic at the
expence of the freedom & happiness of
the rest of mankind." --George
Washington, Ibid.
"Our progress in degeneracy appears
to me to be pretty rapid. As a nation, we
began by declaring that `all men are
created equal.' We now practically read
it `all men are created equal, except
negroes.'" --Abraham Lincoln, August
24, 1855
In connection to the war on Iraq,
recently an anti-communist named David
Horowitz who claims to have been a
former radical wrote a column syndicated
in major reactionary media outlets
claiming something called the "Maoist
International Movement" upholds "anti-
Americanism." In an attempt to
rehabilitate the Joe McCarthy era,
Horowitz and his Internet allies are calling
for a congressional investigation of MIM.
Aside from the obvious ignorance of
not being able to distinguish
"International" from "Internationalist,"
thereby proving the statement's author
was never much of a radical, this
statement is also interesting for referring
to the myth of the "American." The
Maoist Internationalist Movement is not
anti-American, because there aren't any
Americans to be against.
The term "American" should refer to
all the people of America, but in practice
in English the word "American" has been
misappropriated by philistines. "America"
refers to a geographic entity that includes
Mexico and even "Latin America." The
majority of people there are exploited and
super-exploited who MIM champions as
the social forces of progress.
On the other hand, there is a parasitic
mass of people in America who MIM
does oppose--the Amerikkkans and the
barely distinguished Kanadians. The
representatives of these Amerikkkans
often refer to themselves as the only
"Americans" thereby referring to their
historic and present intentions toward the
rest of the continent --genocide and
theft.
According to legend, there once was
an American named George Washington
and he managed to distinguish American
ideas from British ideas by opposing
colonialism and upholding freedom of
speech and association. He understood
that to exist as a distinct nation apart from
England, he had to have group support.
Without it, there is no real separation from
the British Empire, only some individuals
with ideas that vary from the ideas of the
Empire. Thanks to Washington's victories
in his lifetime, it appeared for a while that
an America might start existence.
From the beginning of George
Washington's valiant struggle to create
something distinctly new and "American,"
he faced daunting odds because of the
Amerikkkans who owned slaves and
killed off indigenous people. The struggle
between Amerikkkans and Americans
raged on for decades until Abraham
Lincoln appeared to gain a definitive
upper hand for the Americans. Upon the
freedom of the slaves within the united
$tates, the Amerikkkans far from
celebrating an historic moment raised
themselves to a fury and assassinated
Abe Lincoln and organized the KKK. In
a matter of a few years, the Amerikkkans
eliminated or co-opted the remaining
Americans in the united $tates, mostly
behind a platform of opposing all the
interests of Black people.
With the shutdown of Reconstruction,
"The United States of America" of
Washington and Lincoln ceased to exist
in any legally recognizable way after this
series of assassinations, illegal voter
disqualifications, stolen elections and a
whole series of abuses of minority rights.
What we have in place of the "United
States of America" is a dominant
Amerikkkan nation within which a
minority of individuals no longer remotely
constituting a nation continue to give
Washington and Lincoln more than lip-
service. In addition we also have
oppressed internal semi-colonies on the
territory that once constituted the "United
States of America."
Although MIM is the greatest ally of
the people of America, Amerikkkans have
polluted the term "American" and we do
not use it except for historical purposes
like the present one. Amerikkkans have
turned being "American" into open
colonialism in Iraq, electing Senators who
think the South should have won the civil
war and electing presidents who defend
flying the Confederate flag in state
government buildings of the southern
region within u.$. borders. The brutality
and disease of the KKK vanguard of
Amerikkka is well known globally, but the
real power of the Amerikkkans stems
from their ability to co-opt. Thus in the
name of "Americans" and thus George
Washington they carry out colonialism in
Iraq. In the name of "freedom" they
imprison more people percentage-wise
than any other country in the world.
The correct usage of "American"
would refer to all of America, but the main
usage of the word is by the Amerikkkans
who dominate the media to use it to refer
to the interests of colonial oppressors and
exploiters. To avoid contributing to this
twisting of the original meaning of
"American," MIM calls itself
"internationalist." To stand for the
interests of America is nothing less than
a global job.
Note:
This sinister figure David Horowitz
connects the Republican Party leaders to
fringe intellectual elements and the labor
aristocracy of Amerikkka in his position
as "polemicist." He spoke at the College
Republican Convention in July along with
the House Republican Majority Leader
Tom DeLay, Bush campaigner leader Karl
Rove and more members of the Bush
Cabinet and Congress.
Art under the
dictatorship of
the proletariat
This resolution passed at MIM's
2003 Congress.
Under the dictatorship of the proletariat,
allow reactionary music and films to
continue and phase in revisions of
reactionary art, because we recognize it
takes time. We seek to improve pop
culture as fast as we can without leaving
a vacuum.
[mim3@mim.org adds context
comments: The above resolution was
significant because the party started a
two-line struggle over whether it is
possible to cut existing pop culture back
to what is progressive without leaving a
vacuum or whether the culture-saturated
imperialist countries like the united $tates
would be left in a bad "vacuum" situation.
The "vacuum theory" won out the day.
This was in line with MIM's emphasis on
its materialist tradition opposing nihilism
and for offering real alternatives.]
MIM accused of `Anti-Americanism'
MIM Notes 286 · September 1, 2003 · Page 8
Spain sends Adolfo Olaechea to Peru
Peru's motivations are clear. President
Toledo has an 11% approval rating with
the public according to the July 5th La
Republica and so the regime in Peru
needs a distraction. When people might
start blaming the government for
"terrorism," the government takes no
chances and brings in Peruvian exiles like
like Adolfo Olaechea who spent their lives
in Europe.
In the last few years, Adolfo Olaechea
took to organizing against U.$.
imperialism's wars. He was active in
opposing the bombing of Kosovo and
spent the last few months of his spare
time organizing against the war on Iraq.
[In an interview with the newspaper El
Comercio, Adolfo Olaecha stated, "I have
not committed any criminal act. [Former
President Alberto] Fujimori made false
accusations for which I am now being
judged. But this is in contradiction with
the following fact: the Peruvian Embassy
in London learned about my points of view
in the early 90s and put out a document
addressed to the Peruvian community
stating that `Mr. Olaechea is not a
member of SL, he has nothing to do with
Peru and there is no evidence or proof of
any type against him.'
"This process was initiated by a
dictatorship for concrete acts ( acts of
terrorism) which would have been
impossible for me to commit as I was
outside the country. The prosecutor who
accused me, Julia Eguia, is in prison for
her relations with [Fujimori right-hand-man
and CIA agent] Vladimiro
Montesinos."(1)]
Notes:
1. Links to the complete El Comercio
interview and other writings by and about
Adolfo Oleacha can be found at http://
www.prisoncensorship.info/archive/etext/agitation/
civlib/olaechea3.html
by mim3@mim.org
July 19 2003
It's been two weeks since the arrest of
Adolfo Olaechea on July 4th, so what
MIM regarded as a bizarre story is
increasingly looking like no accident. The
Foreign Ministry of Peru has noted the
arrest of Adolfo Olaechea on its web
page and has not said anything to back
off from it. In fact, La Republica on July
18th says that President Toledo expressed
satisfaction with the arrest of Adolfo
Olaechea in Spain.
Now we read a publication called Dawn
that calls Adolfo Olaechea "a major
fundraiser" for the Communist Party of
Peru (PCP), often referred to in the
bourgeois press as the "Shining Path."(1)
To appreciate the irony of such an
accusation, we need to know the history.
As Luis Arce Borja has pointed out, for
more than a decade the PCP charged that
Alberto Fujimori and his security-
intelligence henchman V. Montesinos
were drug-traffickers. In return, the U.$.
government and Fujimori said that the
"Shining Path" funded itself to the tune
of millions through the drug trade.
Those of us new to Maoism reading
about it at the time found in the pages of
Time and Newsweek that PCP leader
Comrade Gonzalo was a multi-millionaire
and that his one-time associates exiled to
Europe were also. This story continued
right into the late 1990s, with the picture
the bourgeoisie painted of the small
remnants of the "Shining Path" hanging
on to dear life in a small region by being
in charge of the drug trade. One Peruvian
General E.P. Alfredo Rodríguez at the
time had this to say: "`Shining Path lives
off its cut [from the narcos]; that's why
they don't want to leave the area. Where
does Shining Path hide? Wherever there
is coca. They travel together. It is their
main source of financing.... Shining Path
handles 40-50% of all the drug trafficking
activity in the area, for its share and for
providing security.'"(2)
Now things have changed. The charges
against Fujimori and Montesinos stuck.
Montesinos is in prison and Fujimori is
hiding in Japan. According to Caretas, EP
Alfredo Rodríguez was a Montesinos
appointee who faced questions from
humyn rights organizations. Yet, while the
LaRouchites quoted him above from his
typical days as a Fujimori/Montesinos
henchman, it appears that telephone-
related records actually incriminate Gen.
Alfredo Rodríguez in drug-trafficking
according to Caretas itself.(3) What a
surprise and what a surprise that the
LaRouchites and U.S. Government never
corrected themselves.
The U.S. Government's Drug
Enforcement Agency as of 2002 still sings
the same old song as if the U.$. puppets
were not caught with their pants down.
Uncle $am still says it is the "Shining
Path" that is the drug traffickers, not the
best allies of u.$. imperialism: "Testifying
on global narco-terrorist organizations and
the illegal drug profits they use to support
their activities, [the DEA's--ed.]
Hutchinson listed a number of other
extremely violent groups operating in the
Western Hemisphere and around the
world, including The Shining Path in
Peru."(3)
In 2000, a subcommittee of the U.S.
House of Representatives put it this way:
"If you look at the Shining Path, they
always look to indigenous forms of
funding and have always been involved
in the drug trade."(4)
If "Shining Path" has such money, one
is wondering why "Shining Path" needs
money from Peruvian refugees abroad.
For that matter, since when does a mafia
type organization need to persist in a
certain ideology over 20 years? It would
seem rather inconvenient. While
desperately pointing to drug-trafficking
and now refugees in England, there is one
thing certain, that the slanderers beyond
contradicting themselves about Sendero
Luminoso's funding will never face the
social conditions that capitalism has
produced in Peru.
Notes:
1. http://www.dawn.com/2003/07/08/
int13.htm
2. http://www.caretas.com.pe/1998/
1498/doc/doc.htm ; Lyndon LaRouche
agrees with the U.$. government and
lumpen-bourgeoisie of Peru on this
question. http://www.larouchepub.com/
other/1995/2246_sendero.html They're all
wrong. The people of Peru have figured
it out.
3. http://www.caretas.com.pe/1407/
mdf/mdf.html
4. http://www.uspolicy.be/issues/
Terrorism/hut.042402.htm ; See also,
http://usinfo.state.gov/topical/global/
drugs/01101003.htm
5. http://commdocs.house.gov/
committees/judiciary/hju68324.000/
hju68324_0f.htm
Low blows &
scapegoats
Peru's press says Adolfo
Olaechea linked to the RIM
While Peru's press fancies that Peru's
class conflicts arise from refugees raising
so much revolutionary money in the
world-renowned communist base area
known as London, it also fails to
understand the political milieu it attacks
in Europe. Adolfo Olaechea was never a
member of the "Shining Path" and for
that reason among others, no one should
be surprised that he wrote articles
attacking the "Revolutionary
Internationalist Movement" that the
"Shining Path" of Comrade Gonzalo had
links to. The July 5th La Republica got
this wrong, while also reporting that
President Toledo has only an 11.2%
approval rating in Peru. Perhaps for this
reason he continues with the actions of
Fujimori that La Republica also reported:
he needs to distract the people of Peru
from the truth about ruling class
involvement in drugs, bribery and
terrorism.
Notes:
Adolfo Olaechea's interview with an
Italian magazine on this point about the
RIM is available at http://www.etext.org/
Politics/MIM/ms/consur4.html
Peruvian reactionaries add new
financial bogeyman to their arsenal
What a surprise to see that the military officials who
charged the "Shining Path" with trafficking cocaine
were themselves running drugs! What a surprise that
the LaRouchites and U.S. Government who parroted
the lies about the "Shining Path" never corrected
themselves!
MIM Notes 286 · September 1, 2003 · Page 9
on white crime that most people will not.
As of a precise 1983 government survey,
63.3% of the time that a Black man finds
himself accused of rape, he is accused
by a white womyn. People who will read
MIM Theory 2/3 thoroughly will
understand why that is a key proof that
(contrary to Catharine MacKinnon)
wimmin are not innocent products of our
racist society. We also get into all the
bullshit about wimmin never lying and
rape being "underreported." And anyway
what exactly does it mean to be an
"honest" KKK member or voter for
David Duke as most whites in Louisiana
were for example? Obviously it's
completely possible to be "honest with
oneself" and create a totally bullshit racist
result as happens in the criminal injustice
system every day.Trying to find someone
to be on the jury who has not heard of
the case will lead to old white wimmin in
the remote countryside of Colorado who
pay no attention to sports or the media.
This will have the same effect of not giving
Kobe Bryant his legally mandated "trial
by peers." As MIM has said before,
whites as a nation are not ready to handle
Blacks in the criminal justice system as a
nation, and that will be true for some time
into the future of the dictatorship of the
proletariat of the oppressed nations over
Amerikkka.
Another aspect of nation in this case,
is that the population of the West (as in
Europe and Amerika) needs to recognize
that this particular situation of rape is only
possible in Western culture. In East Asia
there would be hotel hallway monitors
who would not allow a young womyn,
especially a hotel employee (off duty or
not) onto the floors. (This is the case even
in some Western hotels!) The hotel
monitors in East Asian hotels are "a drag"
in many ways, but we see that in cases
like this, much small annoyance pays off
by making the Kobe case impossible. It
also goes without saying that this kind of
thing would have no meaning in Islamic
and other cultures, which would presume
a prostitution relationship, and this would
be known to both the womyn and the man
in advance.
We have to agree with one Muslim on
a Pakistan Internet discussion group:
"You see, in an Islamic state, ridiculous
cases like Mike Tyson's are never
possible. Islam attacks the problem at the
`root'. Isn't it ridiculous to spend millions
of taxpayer money to decide whether
Ms. whatever at 2:00 pm [a.m.] at night,
alone in Mike Tyson's room, giggling and
laughing throughout the evening in flimsy
pageant bikanis [sic.] `intended' to have
sex or not!!!!!!!!!!"(6) It is indeed
completely irrational to judge the
credibility of one of two people in an
incident with no witnesses. Because
Amerikkkans settled land with their own
individual farms stolen from the indigenous
people, they have these irrational ideas
about how far to push individualism. It's
so important that what we call "settler"
Communist opinion on the Kobe Bryant case
Amerikkkans even think they can do a
good job on cases like this and do not put
any effort into getting out of having to
judge such situations! On this point Islam
has the advantage by making matters
clear in an objective fashion before such
incidents can happen--no need for
individual determinations of fact.
In the West we like to think we are
superior to East Asia or Islam with their
confining roles. We want to think wimmin
can go anywhere and do anything without
social restrictions. However, if we believe
some of the media rumors, Kobe confined
his victim in the hotel by blocking the
door.(8) Hence, this would seem to be
one of many cases where the West lacks
accuracy in its idea of actually existing
freedom. Wishing something so does not
make it so. If we go the other way and
assume the alleged victim has a poor
sense of right and wrong and Kobe is
blameless, it still remains that Kobe's
freedom is thus destroyed. Whatever the
details in the rape case, either way
someone's freedom has been trampled
in a way that would not happen in other
capitalist or semi-feudal countries.
Conclusion
There are particular issues of the Kobe
Bryant case and there are matters that
the whole society needs to consider. For
MIM the bottom line is that the society
has failed no matter how we look at this
case. A false sense of "freedom" has
caused either someone to suffer a terrible
slander or a worse-than-usual rape.
(MIM's position is that all sex is rape until
the broader context of coercion between
genders is completely eliminated.) In the
short run, the society should either adopt
a system of consent forms required for
sex or it should bring in some social
separation of the sexes in such a way
that if a womyn shows up at a hotel room
she does not expect that she can prevail
in a rape case later. True, as a result,
some wimmin will stop showing up at
hotel rooms and we sacrifice the freedom
of wimmin going to men's hotel rooms,
as in the Mike Tyson case where rumor
has it that the alleged victim showed up
at Tyson's room at 2a.m. in pajamas and
then expected to be a credible witness
afterwards (and succeeded!). However,
losing the freedom to go to men's hotel
rooms is a small price to pay given the
alternatives which are a portion of slander
in some cases, a portion of rapes
unconvicted in others and a situation
debasing the court system where one
persyn is deemed to have such a higher
social station than another that she can
accuse someone and make it stick beyond
"a reasonable doubt" strictly on her word.
That is not to mention that in the best of
all situations where the system does
happen to convict the right man who
slashed a womyn in a brutal attack, the
fact is that the attack still happened thanks
to a premature notion of "freedom." Only
after communism has turned people into
angels by removing the causes of social
violence, by among other things putting
pornography in its place, only then will
there be a real freedom for people to visit
among each other the way they should
be able to, and only then will Islam and
other various conservative cultures putting
some confinements on us with gender
roles be completely redundant.
ITAL Further reading. END See our
review of "Unwanted Sex: The Culture
of Intimidation and the Failure of the Law"
for our critique of ever more fascist
solutions.(9) See also our review of the
most important Western theorist of rape
Catharine MacKinnon.(10)
Notes:
1. See alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, Feb 11
1992 and other dates in that proximity.
h t t p : / / g r o u p s . g o o g l e . c o m /
groups?q=%22Mike+Tyson%22+
% 2 B p a g e a n t & s t a r t = 1
0 & h l = e n & l r = & i e = U T F -
8&as_drrb=b&as_mind=12&as_min
m = 8 & a s _ m i n y = 1 9 9 1 & a s
_maxd=13&as_maxm=8&as_max
y = 1 9 9 2 & s e l m = 1 9 9 2 F e b
11.140654.1943jrs%40netcom.COM&rnum=14
2. http://www.thumpcity.com/Elliott/
InDefense.htm
3. Tyson on the 1991 incident.4. http://
www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-
dyn?pagename=article&node=&conte
ntId=A48194-2003Jul25¬Found=true
5. http://www.usatoday.com/news/
nation/2003-08-07-kobe-poll-usat_x.htm
6. "Mark Fuhrman gets away with
attempted murder" in MIM Notes 125.
7. http://groups.google.com/
groups?q=%22Mike+Tyson%22+%2B
p a g e a n t & h l = e n & l r = & i e = U T F -
8&as_drrb=b&as_mind=12&as_minm=8&
as_miny=1991&as_maxd=13&as_m
axm=8&as_maxy=1992&selm=l56gkcINN
2eo%40pageboy.cs.utexas.edu&rnum=4
8. http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/
story?id=1591387
9. http://www.prisoncensorship.info/archive/etext/
bookstore/books/gender/schulhofer.html
10. http://www.prisoncensorship.info/archive/etext/
bookstore/books/gender/mackinnon.html
Continued from page 6...
UNITED
FRONT
Get the new issue of MIM Theory, #14, and read the latest
theory on building the movement to overthrow
imperialism once and for all, in 174 pages. Articles include
MIM congress resolutions, history from the Spanish Civil
War to Puerto Rico, Kenya, and Stalin -- plus international
documents, reviews, and much more. Send $7.50 to the
address on page 2.
MIM Notes 286 · September 1, 2003 · Page 10
MIM on
Prisons & Prisoners
MIM seeks to build public opinion
against Amerika's criminal injustice sys-
tem, and to eventually replace the bour-
geois injustice system with proletarian jus-
tice. The bourgeois injustice system im-
prisons and executes a disproportionately
large and growing number of oppressed
people while letting the biggest mass mur-
derers -- the imperialists and their lack-
eys -- roam free. Imperialism is not op-
posed to murder or theft, it only insists that
these crimes be committed in the interests
of the bourgeoisie.
"All U.S. citizens are criminals--
accomplices and accessories to the crimes
of U.$. oppression globally until the day
U.$. imperialism is overcome. All U.S.
citizens should start from the point of view
that they are reforming criminals."
MIM does not advocate that all
prisoners go free today; we have a
more effective program for fighting
crime as was demonstrated in China
prior to the restoration of capitalism
there in 1976. We say that all prisoners
are political prisoners because under
the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, all
imprisonment is substantively
political. It is our responsibility to
exert revolutionary leadership and
conduct political agitation and
organization among prisoners --
whose material conditions make them
an overwhelmingly revolutionary
group. Some prisoners should and will
work on self-criticism under a future
dictatorship of the proletariat in those
cases in which prisoners really did do
something wrong by proletarian
standards.
Under Lock & Key
News from Prisons & Prisoners
Censorship updates
In the August 2003 issue of MIM Notes we
reported on the extent of censorship MIM
has experienced in the Amerikan prisons
over the past year. We reported on several
victories over censorship which have since
been overturned, as well as at least one battle
that was since won. Below are some updates
on the latest censorship of MIM Notes and
political magazines and books MIM sends
to prisoners.
Censorship in
California resumes
I am writing you to forward the address of
the warden of this camp. Recently both MIM
Notes and theory "A Spiral Trajectory" were
denied/censored. I was notified that the
materials were being returned until you
forwarded a copy of the mailing envelope.
Currently I am filing a 602 grievance on the
issue. I am also prepared to fight for the long
hall. I am in need of any and all materials that
are available on censorship. Please forward
this information my way. Certainly legal action
is an option with regard to the infringement
of educational materials being received from
MIM.
Currently this administration is using a
standard of if mail comes from a non-profit
organization that it can be destroyed without
notice to the inmate. I am in disagreement
with this procedure and I am appealing this
too! This rule comes out of the operational
procedures manual.
Be sure to include this in your letters of
support that should be sent to the warden
Darrell G. Adams, at this institution. Certainly
they believe we inmates have no support on
the outside so it will come as a shock when
they find themselves being sued for a
violation of civil liberties, and an obstruction
of Federal mail guidelines. The postmaster
general will also be involved, because they
delivered the mail. The U.S. Marshal will also
be serving the Warden of this institution.
Before all of this can happen we must exhaust
administrative remedies (in effect give them a
chance to refrain from censorship of MIM
materials). I will let you know what happens
as it happens. - A California prisoner at SATF
Corcoran, July 2003
MIM adds: This same MIM Theory journal
was censored once before by SATF officials.
In response to a protest letter the
administration backed down on a previous
policy requiring all educational material to first
be approved by the Community Resource
Manager. This prisoner was assured that the
policies had changed and SATF would be
allowing in educational material again. As can
be seen from his letter above, all that has
changed is the excuse for the censorship.
Letters of protest can be sent to:
Warden Darrell Adams
CSATF
PO Box 5246
Corcoran, CA 93212
California Corcoran
prison restricts books
Here at Corcoran SHU is a big censorship
going on. I am allowed to get just 1 book at a
time and to send me more than one book they
have to be on different days. For example,
you send me one book on July 20, the next
one has to be send July 21. It doesn't make
sense to me, the only logical explanation that
I came up with is that they want to make it
hard and keep us convicts ignorant so for
those who are going out, to be blind and come
back faster so they can keep the big "prison
industry" getting rich.
-- a California prisoner, July 2003
California CCI
censors MIM Theory
as "racist"
Dear MIM,
I have finally received the notice from the
administration as to why they did not let me
receive MIM Theory: they claim that there
were racist articles, and that MIM advocated
the overthrow of the U.S. government. I have
already filed an appeal. I have the cite for
Procunier v. Martinez as well as two other
cases that lay the guidelines on the limits of
the institutions ability to restrict prisoners
first amendment rights. The cites are:
Procunier v. Martinez 416 U.S. 396, 94 S.Ct
(1974); O'Lone v. Estate of Shabazz (1987)
U.S. 107 S.Ct 2400; McCabe v. Avave (9th Cir
1987) 827 F. 2d
O'Lone v. Estate of Shabazz is a little more
strict than Procunier and pretty much sets
the standard. I believe there is an argument
there for legitimate political literature. I am
doing more research. When I find out more I
will fill you in as well so you can share it with
others who may be combating censorship. If
you come across anything please let me know.
Their institutional policy is based around
literature that pertains to racism and promotes
the use of violence against other races or
groups to achieve their objectives. That's not
MIM, MIM is focused on class struggle. I
know, and they know it, that's why they
claimed some articles contained racism
without providing any details.
Yours in struggle,
-- a CA prisoner, CCI Tehachapi, June 2003
Victory at CCI
I received your letter last week with the
censor information enclosed in it. Thank you
for enlightening me on how to deal with my
captors. I wrote a 602 appeal on censorship,
asking why my mail was censored. I already
knew their response. They disavowed any
wrong doing. I counter punched and caught
them on the chin. My 602 went to the warden
to write the final response. To my surprise
the warden came down and talked with me
concerning my mail. He also disavowed any
wrong doing with his staff, but he also
brought my little Maoist Internationalist
Movement booklet to me. His weak excuse
was the mail room sent your mail to another
inmate with your last name. We all know it is
a lie!
-- a California prisoner at CCI Tehachapi,
July 2003
Censorship in
Alabama resumes
As you are aware, MIM Theory 8&14 were
recently denied entry into Limestone prison.
This was after I was informed that the ban on
MIM literature was lifted. This was done after
I had received information from an attorney
with the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC)
who had taken on the case against censorship
of political publication. The SPLC attorney
wrote to the attorney general notifying him
that prison officials was censoring political
publications in violation of the settlement in
Prison News vs. Haley, a settlement involving
the censorship of political and legal
publications. The attorney general notified
that this practice would cease and that there
would be no more problems in receiving MIM
Theory and other political publications.
But prison officials are continuing to censor
MIM Theory and other political publications
that's critical of the U.$. political system. I've
been told that no communist literature will be
allowed.
So, you can be assured that the struggle
continues and will do so until victory. The
SPLC is filing papers to go back to court on
this issue. In the meanwhile, please re-add
my name to you mailing list for MIM Notes.
Again, the struggle continues without
doubt.
-- Inacell prisoner in Alabama, July 2003
Increased censorship
in Rhode Island
It is my hope that this letter reaches ya'll. I
have been trying to correspond with ya'll for
some time. However, the neo-fascists who run
this prison R.I./DOC/A.C.I-MSC have been
throwing my mail out to the garbage--both
personal mail and legal mail. Hopefully this
letter makes it.
The state of affairs here is continued
repression. The pending litigation against the
prison here in regards to censorship is slow.
This is due to the fact that the ACLU has had
to wait on filing the suit due to the RI DOC
getting rid of aspects of their old policy, so
those issue weren't in effect. But only until
they waited to stop the ACLU from filing.
They have now implemented the same policy
#24.01-3 with more repressive regulations.
The SIU investigators have also started to
intercept outgoing mail, and booking inmates
for the kind of speech used in letters. To be
specific they are targeting Muslims. Also
Muslim inmates have had their services
restricted to six inmates at Muslim services
only. However, the Christian services are
allowed to receive the whole module of 24
plus persons. The neo-fascist prisoncrats
have also denied an orthodox Jew from
practicing the Hebrew faith. Stating that he
has to be approved of his Judaism by a prison
Rabbi.
They also have targeted the prisoner who
is at the forefront of fighting the censorship
here, by denying him his books. Meaning he
will get pre-approved to purchase said books
in accordance with the policy 24.01-3.
However when his books arrive, they will not
be delivered stating security question as said
reason.
The mailroom officer will not notify him in
writing. And the buildings grievance
coordinator Lt. Getter will not issue him
grievance forms as required by mail policy
24.01-3 in order to appeal the denial of his
books. The books are being rejected solely
by reading the titles. There is no one who
reads the whole book in order to specify what
section is objected to.
This is in all actuality reprisal for his activism.
Books on computer programming, physics
books, and science books have been denied.
There are no TVs or radios anymore and the
only thing to occupy ones mind, books, are
being taken away too. Most prisoners are
kept here for years on 23-24 hour a day
lockdown, with no contact visits. One non-
contact visit once a week during working
hours (900 to 10:30 AM or 1:00 to 2:30 PM.)
We live in a state of despair. Hope is all but
just about gone!
-- a RI prisoner, July 2003
Pennsylvania kudos
I want to thank you for the great articles
you printed in your newsletter on censorship,
and the censorship materials you sent me.
They were a great help.
--A prisoner in Pennsylvania, June 2003
MIM Notes 286 · September 1, 2003 · Page 11
Facts on U$ imprisonment
The facts about imprisonment in the United $tates are that the United $tates has been the world's leading prison-state per capita for the last
25 years, with a brief exception during Boris Yeltsin's declaration of a state of emergency.(1)
That means that while Reagan was talking about a Soviet "evil empire" he was the head of a state that imprisoned more people per capita.
In supposedly "hard-line" Bulgaria of the Soviet bloc of the 1980s, the imprisonment rate was less than half that of the United $tates.(2,3)
To find a comparison with U.$. imprisonment of Black people, there is no statistic in any country that compares including apartheid South
Africa of the era before Mandela was president. The last situation remotely comparable to the situation today was under Stalin during war
time. The majority of prisoners are non-violent offenders(4) and the U.S. Government now holds about a half million more prisoners than
China; even though China is four times our population.(5)
The rednecks tell MIM that we live in a "free country." They live in an Orwellian 1984 situation where freedom is imprisonment.
Notes: 1. Marc Mauer, "Americans Behind Bars: The International Use of Incarceration 1993," The Prison Sentencing Project, 918 F. St. NW, Suite
501, Washington, DC 20004 (202) 628-0871 Reference: SRI: R8965-2, 1994
2. Ibid., 1992 report.
3. United Nations Development Programme, "Human Development Report 1994,:" Oxford University Press, p. 186.
4. Figure of 51.2 percent for state prisoners there for non-violent offenses. Abstract of the United States 1993, p. 211.
5. Atlantic Monthly December, 1998.
Arizona eliminates
libraries; targets
active prisoners
In 1997 a prisoner in AZ filed a complaint
against the DOC that our law libraries were
inadequate. The federal court ruled that only
enough books to process an appeal were
necessary. The AZ DOC took advantage of
the ruling and did away with the library except
for a few books necessary to file an appeal.
These few books are kept in the librarian's
office under close scrutiny and an inmate is
likely to be able to do 1 hour of research
weekly.
A few of us who are somewhat fair litigators
had to scramble to collect and build our own
private law libraries. Then the DOC came up
with a policy that prisoners can only keep a
total of 7 books in their possession, and must
store the remainder. This is not strictly
enforced except against people who are
activists and good litigators -- such as
myself.
In the 90's and up until today, prison
conditions have gotten so barbaric that the
AZ DOC had hundreds of civil rights
complaints filed against them. So they were
more than happy to find a way to take our law
libraries away.
Then about 3 months back they once again
changed the policy to take all major appliances
that were not in a "see through" case. But
their main interest was to do away with the
typewriters which would further handicap the
prisoners doing legal work. They now sell a
"see through" case TV in the inmate store
but NO typewriter.
I am presently involved in a case against
the DOC regarding their monopoly on what
they sell to prisoners -- a violation of the
RICO act. This case is in the appeals court.
Also I along with Prison Legal News attorneys
are contemplating a civil suit against the DOC
because of their censorship and banning of
the Prison Legal News Newsletter.
I'll keep you posted on that endeavor, but
would like your readers to know a few of the
things we've learned fighting censorship of
PLN.
The best way to fight censorship in prisons
is to flood the courts with civil law suits. The
only way to win these fights is to generate a
lot of attention and publicity.
Certain processes and procedures must be
strictly followed by all prison administrators
before a letter or publication may be censored.
A prisoner must be notified that such a letter
or publication has been rejected and must be
given opportunity to protest that decision.
Also, any complaints must be referred to a
prison official other than the person who
originally disapproved of the letter or
publication.
Prison officials can not just use the term
"security threat" when rejecting a letter or
publication. They must provide specific and
substantial proof that prison discipline will
be undermined by allowing prisoners to read
and possess the material in question.
Let me stress that before filing a civil action
prisoners must exhaust all administrative
procedures even though the administration
can't resolve part of the complaint.
I hope some of this letter may have been
enlightening on these issues.
-- A prisoner in AZ
P.S. Any time you need any legal advice on
any civil rights issues regarding prisoners
and prisons, just ask. MIM replies: censorship
is one of the biggest problems facing MIM's
political organizing work in prisons in
Amerika. We definitely need legal help, both
from those on the inside as well as from any
lawyers or paralegal activists on the outside.
Even if you don't have legal skills you can
contribute by writing protest letters to the
censoring prisons, collecting protest petition
and postcard signatures to send to the
prisons, and distributing educational flyers
about prison censorship. If you want to work
with MIM on this important battle, let us
know.
Penal Ill-logical
So many victims of police brutality
So many innocent people in prisons
So many distorted lies as reality
So many lives lost from judicial decisions
Few ever win their case on appeal
Far too many don't know what to do
The majority have sadly yielded
To a crime they have no clue
- a California prisoner, July 2003
Drug War Capitalizes
on Oppressed Nations
by a NY Prisoner
July 2003
The NJ Senate Bill No. 373 is an example of
imperialism and capitalism that oppresses the
people behind the fences and walls not to
mention their families because it is an extra
financial burden on them, which places them
in economical repression and depression.
The tax payers have always paid enough
taxes to cover these costs of housing and
caring for prisoners. I think that the comrades
are 100% on point for initiating the campaign.
Thanks to [Prisoners at Northern State
Prison] and RAIL because it will affect mostly
African-Americans and Latinos, which make
up a large amount of the drug offenses in
state prisons. In 2002, nearly 40% of the people
sent to state prison were drug offenders. In
1980, the figure was only 11%.
They're looking at economical
capitalization. In New York over 31% of the
drug offenders in New York State prisons,
more than 5,700 people, were locked up for
drug possession, as opposed to drug selling.
It cost over $180 million per year to keep these
people in prison. (Reference: Correctional
Association of New York)
There are over 18,300 drug offenders
locked up in New York prisons. It costs the
state about $2 billion to construct the prisons
to house these people. And the operating
expenses for confining them comes to nearly
$590 million per year.
From 1988 to 1998, the state increased
annual prison spending by $761 million and
decreased annual spending on the State and
City Universities of New York by
approximately $615 million.
The drug laws are a form of institutionalized
racism because 1) African Americans &
Latinos comprise about 93% of the drug
offenders in NYS prisons. African-Americans
51.4%, Latinos 41.5%, whereas whites make
up only 5.7%. 2) Since 1982, NY has opened
38 prisons all in upstate areas represented by
Republican State Senators. Prisons in
Republican Senate districts receive more than
$1.1 billion annually to cover their operating
expenses and to employ almost 30,000 people.
3) 93% of NYS inmates are housed in prisons
located in Republican senate districts.
How do the Rockefeller Drug Laws effect
voting rights?
1) In NYS, a person who has been convicted
of a felony and is in a prison or on parole
cannot vote. Largely because of the
Rockefeller Drug Laws people of color
disproportionately lose their right to vote.
2) Felon disenfranchisement laws were part
of a series of Jim Crow policies first adopted
in the South during the late 19th century.
Criminal disenfranchisement was the most
indirect way to deny the vote to African-
Americans, and is the only Jim Crow practice
that survives today.
3) The U.S. Census Bureau counts inmates
as residents of the districts where they are
confined, not as residents of the communities
they come from and where their families still
reside. This practice, in effect, transfers voting
power and government funds that are based
on an area's population away from the cities
where people of color really live and to upstate
communities.
Therefore, my dear comrades, in the grand
scheme of things there is more than what
meets the average eye. Yet together we shall
find the hidden mysteries and become the
problem solvers in which our people need
and have so long waited for.
MIM adds: The analysis of who is going to
prison and who is benefiting from prisons in
New York in this article is good. The only
criticism we'd make is not to get caught up in
the false divisions along government party
lines. The real dichotomy is between rural
whites and urban oppressed nations, as is
mentioned by the author. The fact that the
areas where prisons are built tend to be
Republican districts is telling of the political
leaning in those areas, but we don't want to
imply that Democrats are not also fully behind
the prison craze of the last couple decades.
Battles over Food and
Health in NJ
Greetings Comrades at MIM,
I have not received any MIM Notes,
probably due to the mailroom policy, which
does not allow newspapers over one week
old and we are limited to only 12 books. Once
I transferred from [a NJ prison], the prison
confiscated most of my political material.
Plus I'm a vegan (a very strict vegetarian).
I'm against animal cruelty. However, these
people don't respect my position. I told the
chaplain that I was a Jehovah's Witness
because I'm avoiding and refusing any &
every institutional experiment that they are
trying to perform on the prison population
like we are laboratory animals. So, it's common
knowledge that Jehovah's Witnesses are anti-
inoculation. I told the chaplain this because
you can only be approved for a vegetarian
diet by religious virtues. However, they denied
my request & basically told me to eat meat or
starve. I don't & will not eat any animal
products, so I began to fight for what I believe
in. There isn't much progress though, the
battle isn't over as of yet. If you have any
ideas on how I can proclaim victory on these
demons, once & for all I would appreciate it.
Also inform all comrades that they should
not allow them (M.S.) to inject anything in to
their bodies. I believe they're trying to poison
us all.
-- a New Jersey Prisoner, July 2003
MIM replies: MIM has been having
difficulties with the mailing of MIM Notes to
prisoners. This explains why many of our
comrades behind bars have not received the
newspaper. We are working to iron out the
problems, but we need money to ensure
continued regular mailings of the newspaper
to prisoners. MIM sends our newspaper, as
well as political books and magazines, to
prisoners free of charge. We rely on donations
from our member and supporters to continue
this important program.
MIM Notes 286 · September 1, 2003 · Page 12
Notas Rojas
setiembre 1, 2003, Nº 286
Fragmento del Periodico Oficial del Movimiento Internacionalista Maoista
Gratis
Por el MIM
Traducido por Células de Estudio para
la Liberación de Aztlán y América Latina
La diferencia de opinión sobre la cuestión
de la inmigración entre un yanqui común y
corriente y una "élite" o el círculo de poder,
supera el nivel del año 1998, según una
encuesta publicada el día 17 de diciembre. El
presidente Bush ha puesto en práctica los
reglamentos migratorios más salvajes sobre
sus vecinos, México y Canadá, y ha causado
molestia a los conservadores del occidente
canadiense con las tarifas sobre la madera.
Sin embargo, menos del 30% de los yanquis
apoyan a Bush sobre sólo dos asuntos: los
cambios en el clima y la inmigración. La
corriente del chovinismo nacionalista que
comenzó el 11 de septiembre alimenta la
opinión injusta con respecto a la inmigración.
La encuesta fortalece la tesis del MIM que
la aristocracia obrera está más opuesta al
internacionalismo que la misma burguesía
imperialista. Lenin explicó extensamente que
la psicología de esta clase sostiene que
apenas han logrado sus privilegios y por lo
tanto son más feroces en protegerlos.
Sólo el 14% de la élite norteamericana, de
"los líderes de la opinión," están de acuerdo
con la posición popular según la cual se debe
reducir la inmigración. El 60% del público
norteamericano sostiene que la política del
gobierno debe ser reducir la inmigración
oficial. Y todo esto es a pesar de la retórica
del "país de los inmigrantes" y de que aun la
ciudad de Nueva York se adorna con la
"Estatua de la Libertad." Está bien claro que
los yanquis no creen en el derecho de poder
viajar abiertamente y gracias a la estupidez
electoral de la aristocracia obrera, el promedio
de encarcelamiento en EE.UU. es el más alto
en todo el mundo.
"Según la encuesta, el 70% del público
norteamericano opina que reducir la
inmigración ilegal es `una meta muy
importante de la política internacional de
EE.UU.', mientras sólo el 22% de la élite
sostiene la misma posición." (1) Esta es la
razón de la victoria de Pat Buchanan sobre
Bush en las elecciones preliminares de Nuevo
Hampshire en 1992. En 1992, año de recesión,
tanto Perot como Buchanan lanzaron sus
programas con el lema "Yanquis Primero."
La propuesta aceptada casi por todos los
tal llamados yanquis "marxistas" es una
ilusión que postula la existencia de un
proletariado explotado que propaga el
internacionalismo de este lado de la frontera.
Al contrario, lo que debe quedar bien claro es
que el pueblo yanqui carece del
internacionalismo más que la clase con el
poder estatal y que de esta manera es aún
más reaccionario. No basta el chantaje de la
clase dominante: la aristocracia obrera es
consciente de su lucha para lograr una
lucrativa división de superganancias. La
aristocracia obrera no es nada indiferente
hacia el tema de superganancias, y no está a
punto de despojarse de una supuesta
conciencia engañosa para reemplazarla con
un internacionalismo revolucionario. Los
intereses de la aristocracia obrera son fáciles
de identificar y ésta los persigue
diligentemente, de lo cual resulta la enorme
diferencia entre su posición sobre la
inmigración y la posición de la clase
dominante.
El pueblo yanqui no aguanta a los
verdaderos representantes de la burguesía
internacionalista como los Rockerfeller, Jimmy
Carter y Bush el mayor. El iniciar pláticas
sobre el desempleo y el empeoramiento de
los salarios (¡menos beneficios!) con la
aristocracia obrera la llevaría a tomar el lado
de Buchanan. No entender esto iguala a no
entender la situación contemporánea ni la
teoría leninista de la aristocracia obrera. Salvo
los inmigrantes y la población de habla
hispana, no hay campo para discutir lo del
proletariado dentro de las fronteras de EE.UU.
Esto sólo tiene como resultado que se
molesten y se encierren más los chovinistas.
Entender la realidad en los países
imperialistas con una población burguesa
implica luchar para forjar una alianza con el
lumpenproletariado y con la pequeña ala
izquierdista de la burguesía internacionalista.
La prensa imperialista no ignora del todo este
asunto como cuando ridiculiza las protestas
en contra del Fondo Monetario Internacional
dirigidas por los "nenes anarquistas con
fondos de inversión" quienes poseen
recursos suficientes para viajar de una
manifestación a otra. En los años 60 y 70, la
prensa dijo lo mismo con respeto a los
miembros del grupo "Weather Undeground"
quienes eran poderosos millonarios y
abogados.
La sección de la burguesía internacionalista
que posee una visión de largo plazo
no se encuentra en el poder. Esta sección
ha salido en Seattle y en otras protestas a
nivel mundial pero aún es muy pequeña. El
ala izquierdista de la burguesía
internacionalista es comparable a lo que
Lenin, Stalin y Mao llamaban "burguesía
nacional," una clase que podía unirse a la
revolución en los países semifeudales. Por lo
tanto, el ala izquierdista de la burguesía
internacionalista es una amiga del proletariado.
Aunque aún sobreviven, tanto la burguesía
nacional como el ala izquierdista de la
burguesía internacionalista están en peligro
de extinción. Debemos entender que estos
grupos tienen intereses distintos a los del
imperialismo.
No es nuestro deber oponernos a tipos
como Bush, Blair, Carter y Clinton con
demandas nacionalistas en contra del Tratado
de Libre Comercio (TLC) o la inmigración.
Nuestro deber es demonstrar que la única
forma de lograr la paz y la prosperidad es
nuestra estrategia para conseguir un salario
minimo mundial, un cuerpo para la protección
universal del medio ambiente y, por
consecuencia, una lucha de clases mundial.
Aunque el Centro para Estudios
Migratorios ha llevado a cabo las encuestas,
aún carece de una teoría: "No está muy claro
porqué hay ideas tan distintas sobre la
inmigración entre los líderes del país y el
público." También se distingue la opinión
del yanqui común y corriente de la de los
líderes sobre la protección del empleo para
los yanquis y la competición económica con
otros países. Esta diferencia indica firmemente
que una de las principales razones por la cual
los yanquis se preocupan por la inmigración
es el temor que tienen a la competición por el
empleo.
El tremendo espacio entre los imperialistas
internacionalistas y la aristocracia obrera ha
rendido una serie de situaciones políticas
hipócritas. Mientras la aristocracia obrera se
aprovecha de los negocios de los empresarios
en el Tercer Mundo, a los empresarios
tercermundistas que buscan hacer negocios
en los países imperialistas se les echa de
aviones porque tienen pinta de "terroristas."
También se organizan movimientos
antiinmigrantes al estilo Le Pen en Francia y
Buchanan en EE.UU.
No debemos alegar que los tratados de
comercio e inmigración y los convenios
representan únicamente la conciencia
burguesa embucando la falsa consciencia
sobre el proletariado de los países
imperialistas. Debemos defender estos
tratados y promover su lógica.
El gobierno de Los Países Bajos le permitó
entrar a José Maria Sisón y firmó tratados y
convenios garantizándole ciertos derechos.
Los camaradas filipinos lo entienden muy
bien, hacen hincapié en dichos tratados y
convenios, los defienden y no permiten que
el gobierno Holandés los anule. Los
camaradas filipinos serían culpables de
promover una conciencia falsa si sólo se la
pasaran discutiendo tratados y los derechos
humanos de los europeos y al mismo tiempo
fuese verdad que existe algún proletariado
europeo a punto de lanzarse a la revolución
internacionalista. Pero las cosas no son así y
todavía no se alcanza este nivel de ventaja
política y, por consequencia, lo correcto es
apoyar tratados internacionals en contra de
la aristocracia obrera.
Muchos de los tratados, convenios y leyes
no prohiben que la aristocracia obrera europea
organice protestas en contra de los
inmigrantes. Así lo dijo un típico aristócrata
obrero en el grupo de Usenet
soc.culture.filipino: "Pobre JoMa Sisón. Se
queja al gobierno holandés para que le
restauren los beneficios estatales. Se queja
porque sólo recibe una miserable asignación
de 201.93 euros y porque el gobierno no paga
por su hogar. Discúlpenme pero mis
impuestos pagan por todo esto. Si tienes
alguna molestia lárgate a las Filipinas y
averigua cuánto te dan allá. Nos acusa de ser
un gobierno policíaco. Sí, qué lástima. ¿Si te
encuentras tan infeliz en los Países Bajos
entonces qué haces aquí?" Le informamos a
este imbécil que gracias a la presión política
de tipos como él los Países Bajos prohiben
que Sisón consiga empleo. Y al mismo tiempo
le acusan de no pagar impuestos.
JoMa Sisón y otros comunistas están de
acuerdo con la idea de firmar un tratado para
que los imperialistas saquen sus empresarios
de las Filipinas. Pero la aristocracia obrera lo
quiere de los dos modos. Por un lado, quiere
tratados que le permiten comprar ropa de
marca GAP fabricada por empresarios que
visitan y llevan a cabo negocios en el Tercer
Mundo y , por el otro lado, prohibe que las
personas del Tercer Mundo visiten los países
imperialistas para hacer negocios.
Estos aristócratas primero deberían chocar
con su propio gobierno sobre los tratados y
convenios que éste ha firmado antes de lanzar
su agresión contra los inmigrantes. Si la
aristocracia obrera logra que su gobierno y
las impresas internacionales salgan del Tercer
Mundo, la gente del Tercer Mundo no tendrá
razón para venir a los países imperialistas. Es
raro que un pueblo busque salir de su país de
origen; sólo lo hace bajo circunstancias
desastrozas causadas por los imperialistas.
No vale quejarse cuando el Tercer Mundo
busca visitar y vivir en los países imperialistas
ya quel imperialismo se ha adueñado de sus
tierras.
Los marxistas falsos que nos critican
buscan pretextos para torcer los resultados
de la encuesta y demostrar que los "obreros"
se encuentran en peores condiciones que los
imperialistas. Como no identifican la
contradicción entre la aristocracia obrera y
los imperialistas no logran utilizarla
correctamente. No distinguen entre diversos
intereses de clase.
La miopía de la aristocracia obrera tiene
como resultado guerras entre naciones sobre
ciertos temas de la economía doméstica. Esta
miopía encontró su máxima expresión en la
postura de Adolfo Hítler sobre la inmigración
y el comercio internacional. Por su parte, la
burguesía internacionalista cuenta sólo
consigo misma y por lo tanto su opinión sobre
la inmigración no es muy popular. La estrecha
base social para su tipo de internacionalismo
resulta en que los países imperialistas oscilen
entre el facismo y la democracia liberal.
Está bien claro que los imperialistas se
aprovechan del comercio internacional y de
la subversión en el Tercer Mundo mientras
que la aristocracia saca beneficios al punto
de venta pero siente que se ponen en peligro
sus empleos. Sólo el internacionalismo
proletario es capaz de conseguir que teoría
de la coperación internacional económica se
haga realidad. Cuando el MIM llegue al poder
nos aseguraremos de que el pueblo entienda
y descubra los beneficios del comercio y la
cooperación económica en general.
La posición de la aristocracia obrera según
la cual el mundo no saca beneficios del libre
comercio, el mercado obrero y la resultante
cooperación, es equivocada. Su posición es
cobarde e ignorante. Precisamente son los
imperialistas los que no pueden llevar a cabo
el "libre comercio" y la "libertad de
movimiento" porque ofrecen los derechos
más basicos a una pequeña élite. Sólo la línea
del MIM puede resolver esta contradicción.
Notas: (1) http://www.cis.org/circle.html
La inmigración: Se distinguen la aristocracia
obrera y la burguesía internacionalista