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.
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THE MAOIST INTERNATIONALIST MOVEMENT
MIM Notes 127 DECEMBER 1, 1996
MIM Notes speaks to and from the viewpoint of the
world's oppressed majority, and against the
imperialist-patriarchy. Pick it up and wield it in
the service of the people. support it, struggle
with it and write for it.
IN THIS ISSUE:
1. CELEBRATE THANKSGIVING: EXPOSE THE GENOCIDE
2. FASCIST U.S.-RAMOS REGIME PREPARES FOR APEC
SUMMIT'S ARRIVAL
3. LETTERS
4. JURY OF HIS PEERS ACQUITS WHITE MURDERER
5. STATE GIVES IMMUNITY TO POLICE BATTERERS
6. MEXICO STEPS UP ATTACKS AGAINST THE PEOPLE
7. MLM ONLINE: MIM LEAVES NY TRANSFER NEWS
COLLECTIVE
8. AMERIKAN ELECTIONS PROVE THEMSELVES A WASTE
9. MIM AND RAIL ANTI-ELECTIONS EVENTS BUILD ANTI-
IMPERIALIST MOVEMENT
10. ELECTIONS DEBATE AT A OBERLIN COLLEGE
11. INDIAN FEMINISTS SHOCK "MISS WORLD" ORGANIZERS
WITH THEIR PROTEST
12. AMERIKAN ARMY = GLOBAL PATRIARCH
13. TEXACO'S DISCRIMINATION EXPOSED: IMPERIALIST
BOURGEOISIE CONDONES RACISM
14. MASSACHUSETTS PRISONERS STILL STUCK IN TEXAS
15. FIRST NATION IN "PANAMA" DEMANDS TERRITORIAL
AUTONOMY
16. SPORTS PLAYERS ARE BOURGEOISIE
17. POST-MODERNIST NEUTOPIA OPPOSES TURKISH
REVOLUTION
18. UNDER LOCK AND KEY: NEWS FROM PRISONERS AND
PRISONS
* * *
WHAT IS MIM?
The Maoist Internationalist Movement (MIM) is a
revolutionary communist party that upholds Marxism-
Leninism-Maoism, comprising 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
Spanish-speaking Maoist internationalist parties of
Aztlan, Puerto Rico and other territories of the
U.S. Empire. MIM Notes is the newspaper of MIM.
Notas Rojas is the newspaper of the Spanish-
speaking parties or emerging parties of MIM.
MIM is an internationalist organization that works
from the vantage point of the Third World
proletariat; thus, its members are not Amerikans,
but world citizens.
MIM struggles to end the oppression of all groups
over other groups: classes, genders, nations. MIM
knows this is only possible 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
human history. (3) MIM believes the North American
white-working-class is primarily a non-
revolutionary worker-elite at this time; thus, it
is not the principal vehicle to advance Maoism in
this country.
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
* * *
CELEBRATE THANKSGIVING: EXPOSE THE GENOCIDE
On Thanksgiving Day, MIM recalls the genocide of
First Nation peoples by the white settlers of North
America. We also look to the thousands of teachers
who have the job of presenting history to young
children and adult students. These teachers have
the responsibility of deciding whether to convey
Amerika's history with the First Nations positively
or negatively.
To go through grade-school and have at least one
teacher who explains the real history of the
genocide is important. The people of the oppressor
nation already have at least a vague sense of that
genocide, given that teachers have a limited
license to discuss oppression that happened
hundreds of years ago, even though they are
required to hide the present oppressive reality.
Too often intellectuals are too flexible-minded and
they advise teaching compromise and complexity
where none is appropriate. The history of First
Nation and white settler relations is a story which
should be taught in black and white terms. It is a
task that demands much of what the bourgeoisie
calls the "integrity" of teachers in the
imperialist u.s.a.
In mythology, Thanksgiving is a story of
cooperation between the settlers and the First
Nations. The dominators and exploiters perpetuate
this myth to obtain cooperation from the oppressed
today and prolong the collapse of the oppressive
system. Progressive intellectuals must expose these
imperialist fairy-tales for the snow job they are,
rather than encourage the eternal cooperation of
the murdered with their murderers.
The vanguard party plays an important role in
stiffening the backbone of the intellectuals, who
are under pressure for both monetary and career
reasons. The fact that many graduate students,
teachers and contract working faculty are in the
bottom 20 percent of income in the United Snakes is
a two-edged sword. Only those most dedicated to
teaching will teach, which is good. But at the same
time, the children of the rich are the ones able to
afford to become teachers. MIM cannot change the
social organization of teaching at this moment, but
we can do our best to influence already-progressive
intellectuals.
Progressive intellectuals in Euro-Amerikan
imperialism spontaneously exude pragmatism. They
believe in lesser evils and compromise. They
constantly tell MIM that they agree with MIM's
goals, but they choose different methods. But these
different methods boil down to persuading people of
the need for change, rather than exerting
leadership over the form this change will take. The
intellectuals often forget that there are already
many proletarians and lumpenproletarians very angry
with the system. People who are already angry take
to armed struggle of the individualist sort--
fighting amongst themselves and missing the target
of their anger, the oppressors. So while
proletarians and lumpenproletarians are ready for
big change, the intellectuals are busy using
pleasant tones to persuade the most armchair
conservative of the middle-classes.
The intellectuals' job is not to persuade the
oppressed that they want change. The oppressed
already want change. The intellectuals' job is to
inject the "how to get change" thoughts into the
minds of the oppressed. This means teaching the
science of revolution. Understanding settler
history from the point of view of oppressed peoples
and classes is a key part of understanding how to
get change. On Thanksgiving Day and throughout the
year, MIM calls on progressive intellectuals to
teach Amerikan history responsibly. Brutal honesty
about the Amerikan genocide against the First
Nations is the minimum of respect to the oppressed.
* * *
FASCIST U.S.-RAMOS REGIME PREPARES FOR APEC
SUMMIT'S ARRIVAL
THE PHILIPPINES, 12 November--The Fourth
Ministerial Conference and Leader's Summit of the
Asian Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum (APEC)
will be held here on the 25th of this month.(1)
This event is an important step in further
strengthening U.S. and Japanese economic dominance
in the Asia Pacific region--which now accounts for
half of world output and 41% of world trade.(2)
This event is also an occasion for U.S. imperialism
to showcase its continuing political supremacy in
the region.
For the fascist U.S.-Ramos regime, the upcoming
summit is an opportunity to convince the
imperialists, and their press entourage of 2,500,
that the Filipino economy is ripe for foreign
investment and superexploitation.(3)
The Ramos regime is working overtime to entice
foreign investment. From a "beautification"
campaign which displaces thousands of squatters to
increased militarization intended to thwart
protests, Ramos is using his power to convince the
imperialists that the Philippines is prepared for
further integration into the capitalist world
order.
SUPPRESSING MASS PROTEST
The U.S.-Ramos regime has prepared for the APEC
summit by forming and reactivating "paramilitary
units" (death squads) in at least six Central Luzon
provinces, according to human rights groups
KARAPATAN and BAYAN. The groups' report said the
regime's military has formed the Community-Based
Special Action Force (COBSAF) in Zambales,
Pampanga, Tarlac and Nueva Ecija. In Pampanga
alone, COBSAF has been formed with 2,000 recruits.
Additionally, the Civilian Armed Forces
Geographical Units (CAFGUs) and Community Volunteer
Organizations (CVOs) have been reactivated in
Bulacan, Bataan, Nueva Ecija, Pampanga and Tarlac.
Many civilian members of these groups are being
armed as backup for the fascist regime's military
forces.(4)
KARAPATAN's spokesperson said that students and
civilians were being recruited to spy on activist
organizations including BAYAN, of which 16 members
have repeatedly been listed in the military's
"order of battle."
On 6 November, members of the Criminal
Investigation Service raided the house of a member
of the League of Filipino Students (LFS). The
student was not at home, but the police took his
father to an undisclosed location. They had no
warrants to search the house or to arrest anyone.
According to the LFS-Central Luzon, men in military
uniform are also going room to room in Aura College
in Olongapo City, warning students that they will
"salvage" anyone who participates in the anti-APEC
activities. "Salvaging" is a popular euphemism from
the years of martial law for summarily executing
people.(5)
The Ramos regime has also attempted to thwart
international participation in the Anti-APEC
summits. Two Azanians were scheduled to be deported
from the Philippines upon their arrival because
they were classified as "troublemakers."(6) The
U.S.-Ramos regime reversed course and allowed them
entry in the face of public outcry and work of
human rights advocates.(7) The Azanians were
greeted with cheers of solidarity at the Anti-
Imperialist World Peasant Summit (AIWPS). Though
Ramos' thugs allowed them to enter, on 10 November,
the regime temporarily banned three more AIWPS
delegates from South Africa and two from Vietnam
from attending the conference as Ramos attempted to
undermine the gathering of peasant organizations
from around the world.(8)
In addition to cracking down on local and
international anti-imperialist activists, the U.S.-
Ramos regime is spewing propaganda to create the
image that the APEC protesters are terrorists. A
key objective of this propaganda is to justify
increased militarization. The government has
emphasized that "not even a fly" will be able to
touch the 18 heads of state attending the APEC
conference, --which includes U.S. President Bill
Clinton and Japanese Prime Minister Ryutaro
Hashimoto.
The fascist regime has said it is prepared for
"Atlanta type" bombing attacks and has alluded to
fantasies of grenade attacks as a possible scenario
the military is prepared for. This fantasy notion
only serves Ramos's interest in bolstering
legitimacy for militarization and repression. The
activists of the People's Conference Against
Imperialist Globalization are united against
imperialism and plan to stage a peaceful protest
against the APEC Summit.(9)
U.S.-RAMOS REGIME EVICTS SQUATTERS AND DEMOLISHES
HOMES
Another aspect of Ramos' preparation to impress
imperialist leaders is to "clean up" the streets.
Hoping to hide the effects of neocolonialism from
visiting delegates and media, the U.S.-Ramos regime
has demolished thousands of squatters' homes.
First, Ramos' thugs attempt to entice squatters to
leave through relocation programs. But only 230
bunkhouses have been built--housing for 1,840
families. Second, the police force the families to
leave using high-powered weapons, truncheons,
handguns, tear gas, water cannons and goon
squads.(11)
Ramos ordered Metro Manila mayors to clear the area
of "eyesores" before the APEC summit. This
directive will affect close to half a million
residents of Metro Manila.(11) By March 1996,
350,000 homes in Metro Manila had been
demolished.(12) Demolition is ongoing in all
provinces of the region, including Olongapo.
Olongapo is the site of the APEC conference and the
city passed an ordinance which will clear 10% of
all of the barangay community lots.(11)
Additionally, in Olongapo, 10 p.m. to 4 a.m.
curfews have been imposed on everyone over 18 years
old in order to slow down organizing attempts.
Checkpoints and spot-checking of vehicles on
strategic highways in the region have also been put
in place.
Ramos' wife Amelit has also started the pseudo-
environmentalist "clean and green" campaign. So far
three people have been killed and hundreds of
children have been injured by this fascist
"beautification" campaign.(11)
Another aspect of the "clean and green" preparation
is cleaning bars and nightspots. Prostitutes and
nightclubs along the highways where imperialists
will parade project the image of a developing
country. Ramos is turning the old military bases
into tourist spots and encouraging the development
of the Philippines as an international recreation
capital. In the past, it was a recreation capital
for U.S. soldiers and Japanese businessmen to buy
and abuse prostitutes. Since tourism has been
emphasized, there has been an even greater number
of Filipinas working as commercial sex workers. The
beautification campaign is a temporary disguise
thrown over the sex industry, which the U.S.-Ramos
regime thrives on.(12)
Additionally, as the U.S.-Ramos regime opens up the
economy to further imperialist plundering and
exploitation of cheap labor, workers in the Subic
Bay Economic Zone were served notice of forced
leave without pay. Many factories and shops were
closed because the regime thinks they would present
an image problem if left open.(4) Also, "tricycle"
operators-- --have bee ordered to stop work and
have been replaced by special buses in the areas
where APEC imperialists will travel. Tricycles are
usually a major form of transportation in the urban
areas.(4)
APEC --RIPENING THE ASIA PACIFIC REGION FOR
IMPERIALIST PLUNDER
The APEC leadership is contested. U.S. imperialism
has strengthened its hand in directing APEC,
parrying the Japanese challenge. Both imperialist
groupings are united in using APEC as a forum for
the advancement of trade liberalization in the Asia
Pacific region by brandishing the General Agreement
on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). GATT's implementing
arm, the World Trade Organization (WTO), requires
participating countries to remove barriers to free
trade. The U.S. and Japanese imperialists exacted
commitment from other APEC members to full
liberalization by 2010 for countries with
industrial economies and 2020 for others. In this
month's meeting, each APEC member country is
expected to come up with a specific plan to meet
this goal.(2)
PHILIPPINES 2000: RIPENING THE PHILIPPINES FOR
IMPERIALIST PLUNDER
This drive by the imperialists for trade
liberalization and increasing dominance in both the
world generally and the Asia Pacific region
specifically is the background for the Medium-Term
Philippine Development Program (MTPDP), the
Philippines' U.S.-Ramos regime's economic plan
which is better known as Philippines 2000.
The regime promotes this plan as a nationalist plan
for making the Philippines a Newly Industrialized
Country (NIC) like Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore and
Malaysia by the year 2000. Its three main goals are
liberalization, privatization and deregulation of
trade and industry. The regime has hyped the plan
in various ways, including having "Philippines
2000" engraved on all new license plates.
Philippines 2000 has various components, all of
which aim to remove obstacles to increased plunder
of the natural and human resources of the
Philippines by foreign multi-national Corporations
(MNCs), principally U.S.-based MNCs.
One such component is the 1995 National Mining Act
which allows mutual agreements between foreign
investors and the U.S.-Ramos regime. The foreign
investors under these agreements get 81,000
hectares of land for $50 million, are given
exploration rights to the land for 25 years and
rights to mine the land for another 25 years. This
is land which small miners are forced off of and
are limited only to mining in peripheral areas.
The imperialist mining corporations then get rights
to water and timber, further depleting natural
resources, on which local peoples depend. The
company is guaranteed profit and is subsidized for
mining losses. The foreign mining companies are
enticed to invest with additional benefits such as
the right to unhampered operations. In other words,
no group can bring criminal suits against the
corporation for damaging the area.
Local communities have fought against imperialist
plundering, but have been met at the gates of the
mines by Philippines police and army thugs. In late
August of this year, the people of Loacan in the
Cordillera region of Northern Luzon barricaded the
operations of the Benguet Corporation and 240
people were arrested.
Local protests against multi-national mining
corporations aim to stop the bulk mining practice
which destroys the region's natural resources,
depletes the local water table, destroys rice
production and makes competition by small miners
impossible. In Bontac, mountain province, the
Newcrest Exploration and Newmont mining
corporations were forced to stop exploration and
bulk mining because of opposition from local
tribes.(13) This is a victory for indigenous people
over the 1995 Act which legally supersedes the
ancestral rights of people to land as well as the
rights of small-scale miners.
Another aspect of Philippines 2000 which subverts
the rights of indigenous peoples is the National
Integrated Protected Areas System (NIPAS). NIPAS,
started by then-President Corazon Aquino in 1991,
divides indigenous people's land up into seven
zones. One zone is a "strictly protected zone" in
which there can be no human activity. The
indigenous peoples are dispossessed of their land
in order to have environmental restoration and
endangered species zones. Another area taken from
the indigenous peoples is slated as a cultural zone
for tourism. The indigenous people are given the
"buffer zone" which creates a fence between the
protected and cultural zones and the rest of
society. The indigenous peoples are then given the
role of park rangers or tribal entertainers or
servants in the tourist areas. The environment is
thereby "protected" and tourism brings in money for
the comprador-bourgeoisie, but the indigenous
peoples are forced off their land, stripped of
ownership and relegated to small areas and
demeaning jobs to eke out a living.
Philippines 2000 has enabled the privatization of
universities, hospitals, the airlines and other
industries. This privatization paves the path for
foreign investment and domination of the national
economy. In their struggle, many sectors of the
Filipino people, including wimmin, students,
workers, youth, religious peasants, are united
against bureaucratic capitalism, feudalism and
imperialism. We support these struggles and
specifically oppose imperialist plundering through
the mechanisms of Philippines 2000, APEC and
globalization. Long live the Filipino people's
struggle for national democracy!
NOTES:
1. Philippine Daily Inquirer (PDI) 5 November,
1996, p. 5.
2. Tentative Programme for the November 1996
People's
Conference Against Imperialist Globalization
(PCAIG) by the
Philippine Organizing Committee of the PCAIG.
3. PDI 4 November 1996, p. 10.
4. Ibid. 3 November 1996, p. 3.
5. Ibid. 8 November, 1996, p. 6.
6. Ibid. 6 November 1996, p. 1.
7. Ibid. 7 November 1996, p. 1.
8. Ibid. 10 November 1996, p. 1, 7.
9. Ibid. 9 November 1996, p. 1.
10. Ibid. 3 November 1996, p. 22, 24.
11. APEC Watch Dispatch 24 October, 1996, p. 2.
12. Anti-Imperialist World Peasant Summit, Press
Release 5
November 1996.
13. PDI 3 November 1996, p. 18.
* * *
LETTERS TO MIM
SO WHAT'S WITH THE REVOLUTIONARY FEMINISM SYMBOL?
Dear MIM,
I recently picked up a copy of MIM Notes 123. I
thought it was very well put together and thought
provoking. I have a good grasp on communist
philosophy and I think I understand the position(s)
of your movement.
I just have one question: Why do you use the symbol
with the two female symbols with raised fists in
them? I take this to mean militant lesbianism. I'm
not anti-lesbian but I don't understand it's
significance to the Maoist International[ist-ed]
Movement. What does women having sex with each
other have to do with class struggle?
Thanks for your time,
--Internet Reader
MIM RESPONDS:We appreciate your letter and are glad
to respond to your question.
Gender appears to be a missing part of your
understanding of MIM's positions. We do not think
wimmin having sex with each other has more to do
with class struggle than any other aspect of social
life. But there are two problems with the question.
First, the revolutionary feminism symbol that you
ask about does not represent just lesbian
liberation, or wimmin having sex with each other
per se. Rather, it is an original symbol developed
by MIM to represent revolutionary feminism in all
respects: this is why we put the fists inside the
wimmin symbols.
MIM's gender line is original to Maoism in that we
argue for gender to be considered as a "separate
strand" of oppression, which, along with class, is
fundamental to oppression in the world today. Class
and gender together form the basis for national
oppression, the latter of which today is the
principal contradiction in the world under
imperialism and patriarchy.
There can be no national liberation, and no
communist revolution, without revolutionary
feminism, and there can be no communism without the
abolition of gender oppression -- which is not
simply a form of class oppression, or a "special
case" of class oppression. Gender oppression exists
alongside of class oppression, and both need to be
challenged and eradicated together.
National liberation struggles, which are first on
the agenda for communist revolutionaries today,
require leadership that is both proletarian and
feminist in character. Neither one of these
political lines alone can successfully lead
national liberation struggles to overthrow the rule
of imperialism and commence socialist revolution.
Eradicating gender oppression means abolishing sex
hierarchies and enforced sexual orientations, as
part of the process of eliminating the
appropriation of some people's sexuality by others.
To understand MIM's gender line, we recommend
beginning with MIM Theory 2/3, our original in-
depth statement of revolutionary feminism.
Subsequent issues of MIM Theory advance this line,
in particular MIM Theory 7, "Proletarian Feminist
Revolutionary Nationalism on the Communist Road,"
and MIM Theory 9, "Psychology and Imperialism." Any
one of these is yours for $6 postpaid, and well
worth it.
We hope that answers your question, and we urge you
to struggle with us over these issues in practice
by either working with MIM to advance revolution
because you don't have a better alternative, or
trying to convince us that you do have a better
alternative.
NEW REVOLUTIONARY WANTS TO FIGHT IMPERIALISM
Dear Comrades,
I have decided to become a revolutionary and fight
against imperialism everywhere. You are right the
Democrats is a party of pigs too. Do you have a
party that I can join? I have made some pictures
that I had cut out from old magazines and I had
made some changes in the pictures and added some
writing to them. Could you put some in the MIM
Notes paper? There are more pigs than ever running
for government offices all over the country this
year. The kind of welfare I don't like is welfare
for the rich. Big companies and corporations.
More and more Amerikan companies are closing down
factories in cities all over the country U.S.A. and
putting more and more Amerikan people out of work
and force to go on welfare because they can't find
any work. Most people on welfare want to work. But
they are trap on welfare because they can't find
any work because their factories had been closed
down and moved to the Third World countries. The
pigs who own the companies are moving the factories
to Mexico and other Third World countries because
they can pay the workers less money than Amerikan
workers. They import the things that they made back
in Amerika to sell to Amerikan people along lots
Amerikan people unemployed and on welfare! The
Amerikan companies make big profits by exploiting
the Third World countries.
Even the revisionist government of China is letting
Amerikan companies do business there exploiting the
Chinese people. I see lots of things in stores that
is made in China.
I called it U.S. imperialism and exploitation of
the Third World countries. The worse exploitation
is child labor and child slavery in Third World
countries.
I had heard on the news about child labor and child
slavery in carpet factories in Pakistan and in
India. Exploitation of children how low you can go!
We must have a revolution right here in Amerika to
stop this exploitation.
I am looking forward to the day when the United
States will become a People's Republic of Amerika.
I want to see the White House painted black so it
will be called the Black House. I want to see the
U.S. Capital building painted red with a big red
star on top. Paint the Washington Monument red and
rename it the Lenin's Monument. Change the name of
Washington D.C. to Karl Marx's city.
You had said in your letter you can send me thirty
copies of MIM Notes papers each month. My city has
a University and several colleges. I can distribute
the MIM Notes to several libraries and bookstores
around town.
Sincerely,
A friend in the east
P.S. You may print my letter and pictures in a
future MIM Notes paper. Please leave out my name
and address. Because I don't want the FBI pigs to
come knocking on my door some night.
MIM RESPONDS: Thanks for the letter. You should now
be receiving 30 copies of MIM Notes each month. If
you can get to the university and colleges in your
town, you could probably distribute more than this.
The university in your city is big enough that in
the student center and in other places where
newspapers are left, at least 25 copies in each
place would be appropriate. If you are willing to
do this, let us know and we will start sending you
more papers.
We do ask that people who are distributing MIM
Notes help us out with the cost of printing. For a
bundle of 200 we ask for $20. Alternatively you
could just buy a year subscription for $20 and we
will be happy to continue sending 30 papers.
Basically, any money you can send to help out with
the cost of printing MIM Notes will be appreciated
as it is entirely paid for by donations from
comrades and paper sales.
We have a lot of unity with what you say in your
letter. But MIM does make a distinction between the
majority of people who are on welfare, those from
oppressed nations, and the white working class.
While it is true that some manufacturing jobs are
being shifted to the Third World because the
companies can pay lower wages there, we do not see
a trend towards overall impoverishment of the white
workers in this country. Instead, these jobs have
overall shifted to the expanding white collar jobs
maintaining the labor aristocracy in this country
that is comprised of the majority of the Amerikan
workers. In 1994, the percentage of Black families
in the under $10,000 income bracket increased
almost 6% while the percentage of white families in
all income brackets under $50,000 decreased and
whites in the brackets over $50,000 increased.(1)
You say "The Amerikan companies make big profits by
exploiting the Third World countries" and we agree.
This is exactly how the Amerikan companies are
making profits and these companies are working with
their government (the democrats and republicans) to
redistribute enough of these profits to keep the
labor aristocracy in this country pacified and
bought off. For more on this analysis we recommend
reading MIM Theory 1 (available for $3) and MIM
Theory 10 (available for $5). Both of these
magazines deal with the historical and economic
basis for the development of a large labor
aristocracy in imperialist countries.
We have an organization called the Revolutionary
Anti-Imperialist League (RAIL) which is for anti-
imperialists who are studying with and working with
MIM. MIM has dividing line questions or democratic
centralism that it's members have to agree with
while RAIL is a broader organization for anyone who
is a revolutionary anti-imperialist. We encourage
people like yourself to get involved with RAIL
while studying MIM's line so that you can become
more familiar with the party that is leading RAIL
and we can struggle over theory and practice and
commitment from there.
There are a number of things you can do to get
involved with RAIL. In addition to distributing MIM
Notes, you will be receiving RAIL Notes inside MIM
Notes once every other month. This is a publication
written and produced by RAIL. We encourage you to
get involved with this paper. We need more people
writing articles about things going on in their
city. And we need more art so please send in all
the great art that you produce. RAIL Notes also
needs help with funds: we need more money in order
to cover the costs of printing and mailing each
issue.
We ask that RAIL members make a monthly
contribution to help out with this publication. If
you can send $25 a month, or whatever is possible,
that would be a big help. We don't have any
corporate sponsors so we've got to raise all the
money ourselves. Some comrades sell the newspapers
as a good way to raise money and to get people to
talk to you about the politics in the paper. If
there are places you can go to do this, it's a good
way to spread revolutionary ideas and raise some
money.
If you are interested we can send you flyers to put
up in your city about various political topics.
Just let us know what other things you want to do
to get involved and we will work with you to
advance the revolutionary struggle.
NOTES: MIM Theory 11, Coming to Grips with the
Labor Aristocracy. P. 53. From the Statistical
Abstract of the United States 1994.
* * *
JURY OF HIS PEERS ACQUITS WHITE MURDERER
An all-white jury has acquitted Brentwood (Penn.)
police officer John Vojtas, who participated in the
murder of Jonny Gammage, a Black man caught driving
an expensive car in October 1995.(1)
The charge was only "involuntary manslaughter"
anyway.
Autopsy shows that Gammage died from suffocation
while being crushed by up to five white pigs. Two
of the officers were not charged, and the other two
recently won a mistrial and may come back for
another trial.(2) The police said Gammage became
violent and had to be attacked by all five pigs,
who called the five-on-one murder of an unarmed man
"self defense."
A friend of Gammage's told Reuters that Vojtas is
"a murderer and they're letting him walk the
streets." MIM agrees, and points out that Vojtas is
one of thousands such murderers who not only walk
the streets, but draw fat paychecks doing their
jobs of repression and occupation.
NOTES:
1. Reuters, Nov. 13, 1996.
2. MIM Notes 126, Nov. 15, 1996, p. 3.
* * *
STATE GIVES IMMUNITY TO POLICE BATTERERS
In April 1995, someone killed a Prince Georges
(Mar.) County police officer in what looked like
cold-blooded murder. The pigs were furious, and
they chose Jeffrey C. Gilbert, a Black man, to be
the killer.
Entering his apartment, supposedly on evidence that
he killed the cop, they violently beat him. He
suffered a concussion, a broken nose, and heavy
bruises all over his body. They story was he
resisted arrest, of course, and the elite task
force - the T-70 squad - all testified that they
didn't use unnecessary force: "Force was used to
the extent that resistance was present," they said.
Now the state has given immunity to a third cop
involved in the beating, in the hope that he would
incriminate his partners in crime. But instead,
Cpl. Preston Asbury testified that Gilbert deserved
what he got, and it now looks like the wall of
silence on the part of the pigs will be successful,
and the state may drop the investigation.
The case was public enough to compel an
investigation, especially why photos of Gilbert's
battered face were splashed across the pages of
local newspapers - originally on the assumption
that he had killed the cop in the first place. When
the pigs had to drop their trumped up charges, the
embarrassed state began to investigate the beating.
MIM is not surprised to see the pigs walk in yet
another case of police brutality. But we also know
that even if a few cops are prosecuted for such
violence it will not satisfy the needs of the
people for justice and reparations for many years
of violence, repression and occupation.
NOTES: Washington Post, Nov. 5, 1996. p. B1 (and
correction the next day).
* * *
MEXICO STEPS UP ATTACKS AGAINST THE PEOPLE
In late 1996 repression by the Mexican military is
increasing. The people are suffering brutality and
murder at the hands of the Amerikan supported
Mexican dictatorship. But the people are also
organizing and resisting. The recent escalation in
repression in Mexico deserves a response by anti-
imperialists in Amerika who know that the Mexican
government would not stand for a week without the
Amerikan aid it receives.
SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC REPRESSION
The repression against the people of Mexico is not
only by the army. Social and economic conditions
make life difficult for the majority of the
population. Many are proclaiming President Salinas
the king of the worst crisis in the history of
Mexico. Unemployment is approximated at 20-30% of
the labor force, and this is not counting the
underemployed who sell goods on the streets, or
work occasional jobs. The minimum wage currently
has the purchase power of 28% what it was in 1970.
Youth have to work in order to help provide for
their families so that fewer youth are attending
school and illiteracy is rising. In these
conditions, it is no surprise that street crime has
escalated in the past few years. 40-60 million
people out of a population of 90 million are below
the poverty level. 20 million of these people are
in extreme poverty--conditions that literally kill
people.
MILITARY REPRESSION
In the face of this social and economic crisis for
the people, the government has stepped up its armed
attacks on the people. First under the guise of
attacking the Zapatistas and then to attack the
"terrorist" Ejercito Popular Revolutionario (EPR),
the government is now regularly attacking small
rural towns, torturing and jailing the people,
sometimes bombing and burning entire villages. In a
recent example, the military invaded a small town
that claimed allegiance to the PRI, the ruling
government party, but still the military tortured
and jailed many of the town's people. The military
is literally occupying indigenous communities.
The Mexican government continues to enjoy strong
support from the United Snakes. The Amerikan
government just approved sending 93 helicopters to
the Mexican government in early November. These
were promised for delivery by Thanksgiving. These
are the same helicopters being used to bomb
indigenous villages. The Mexican military is also
receiving intelligence training, night vision
training, and other Amerikan imperialist assistance
under the guise of the anti-drug war. All of this
aid is used to attack the people of Mexico and
bolster the power of the Amerikan lackeys in power.
In Chiapas in 1996, half the state has been
militarized, and the military has cut off supplies
of food and medicine leading to shortages and
epidemic outbreaks of preventable diseases like
Cholera. There have been drastic corn shortages
because the government forces people to purchase
seed from government stores and many indigenous
people will not do this. In addition, the
government has been organizing vigilante squads to
attack the people. The Mexican government recently
released seven political prisoners and continues it
rhetoric that they want to talk with the
Zapatistas, but this is all said while their
military troops are harassing and killing the
people of Mexico who support the Zapatistas.
Outside of Chiapas the repression is also
escalating. 40 people were jailed and tortured in
one town as suspected members of the EPR. Even
young children were picked up and tortured.
ATTACKS ON NGOS
Even a coalition of non-government organizations in
Chiapas, Conpaz, which formed to support indigenous
struggles in Mexico, is facing increasing attacks.
Because of their ties with other countries and
external funding sources, NGOs typically escape
government repression. NGOs are tools of
imperialist countries helping to put a prettier
face on imperialism. But CONPAZ is apparently
striking a nerve in Chiapas as it receives death
threats, has its offices torched and sees its
members harassed. On November 4 the accountant of
Conpaz and his family were kidnapped. They were
released later in the week, tortured and very
frightened. At press time further information on
this situation was not available thanks to problems
getting communications out of Mexico through taped
phone lines.
THE PEOPLE FIGHT BACK
The EPR is a self-proclaimed Marxist organization
that has been carrying out armed attacks against
the military and government throughout Mexico. The
strategy of the EPR appears to be that of focoist
organizations which attack military and government
targets in a sensationalist manner without building
a strategic peoples war to overthrow imperialism.
MIM believes in the necessity of protracted peoples
war and we point to the Communist Party of Peru as
a concrete example of this struggle being carried
out in Latin America. Only by building a base among
the people and building a movement from the people
will revolution be won against the imperialists.
Focoism refuses to assess the balance of forces and
attacks the enemy when the enemy is the strongest
and we are the weakest. The results of the EPR
attacks have been positive in that they have
exposed the bankruptcy of the Mexican government
and shown the power the people can wield, but at
the same time, they have resulted in fierce
repression against the people in the towns where
these actions are carried out. While imperialist
repression is unavoidable, the strategy of people's
war takes on winnable battles and builds a power
base to protect the people against violence by the
imperialists.
In an open letter to the EPR from Subcomandante
Marcos of the Zapatistas in August, Marcos
criticized the EPR for carrying out military
actions in Chiapas which resulted in the repression
of the indigenous people of that area.(1) While MIM
also sees the EZLN strategy of attacking the
government without a clear revolutionary line that
recognizes the necessity of violent overthrow of
the imperialists as one that has proved
unsuccessful, we agree with this criticism of the
EPR.
Despite these disagreements, MIM points to the
growing revolutionary struggle of the Zapatistas,
the EPR and others in Mexico as a clear sign of the
power of the people to resist imperialist
domination. In the face of repression and brutality
the people are organizing to fight back. These
national liberation struggles are important, but
only a Maoist revolution will be successful in
defeating the imperialists and building a just and
equal society for the people.
NOTES:
1. Libertad, National Commission for Democracy in
Mexico. Aug-Sept, 1996.
All other facts for this article were collected at
a talk sponsored by TONANTZIN (Boston Committee in
Support of the Native Peoples of Mexico) at which
several correspondents from Mexico reported on
conditions there.
*** MIM has no official tie to the Communist Party
of Peru (PCP). MIM does not claim to follow
Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, Gonzalo Thought for the
imperialist countries, but MIM does support it for
Peru. Articles from MIM on Peru should be taken as
MIM's best attempt to print genuine articles in
support of the People's War in Peru. ***
* * *
MLM ONLINE
MIM LEAVES NY TRANSFER NEWS COLLECTIVE
In early November MIM informed the NY Transfer News
Collective, with whom we have worked for several
years, that we would no longer maintain our e-mail
accounts or World Wide Web site on the collective's
system. We also sent a public statement (printed on
page 1 of MIM Notes 126) explaining that our
decision was rooted in the fact that Agent "Luis
Quispe" of the "MPP-USA" has an e-mail account and
a Web site with NY Transfer. We understood that our
mutual association with NY Transfer was lending
legitimacy to a police plot.
Our decision followed months of struggle with NY
Transfer, during which we sent evidence of Quispe's
counter-revolutionary activities (as we have
printed in Maoist Sojourner and on the Internet's
Marxism List) and argued that a self-identified
progressive political resource like NY Transfer
should not accommodate Quispe by allowing him to
operate from its server.
Our decision to part company came when NY Transfer
made it clear to us that it did not want to choose
sides in what NY Transfer perceived as an
international split among Peruvian exiles. Despite
NY Transfer's good work over the years, Maoists
consider it a form of liberalism to ignore genuine
political principles in the name of conciliation
with "old friends."
NY Transfer responded to our decision by explaining
that it believes "MIM and many other activists in
this ideological firefight have been hoodwinked by
a COINTELPRO-style disinformation campaign designed
to do exactly what it has accomplished: throw the
anti-Fujimori forces into disarray, sow dissension
and mistrust, and disrupt the work of Peruvian
revolutionaries." Here, we reprint NY Transfer's
response to our notice that we were leaving; our
response to that letter follows.
Dear MIM:
We're sorry to learn of your decision to move your
electronic operation elsewhere.
Frankly, we think your position that our
nonsectarian access policy constitutes endorsement
of any of NY Transfer's member groups is absurd--as
you well know, our slogan is "NY Transfer Follows
NO Party Line."
We do wonder how you can reconcile [your position]
with your decision to move to etext
[www.etext.org], with its very eclectic membership
of groups. Of course, etext's services are free, we
believe. Perhaps it's okay in your value system to
share access on the same server with political
enemies as long as you don't pay for it.
In any case, we'll be very sorry to see you go.
Your use of the Internet has been a model for many
other activists (including lquispe and the New
Flag--a group we originally welcomed to NY Transfer
partly because of your referral and
recommendation). We're disappointed that your
political differences with this group have led you
to move to another server, but we certainly
understand your desire to cease any activity that
you consider to be "liberalism." We are also sure
you understand our position: to deny access to any
other group because MIM disapproves of them would
be completely contrary to our nonsectarian policy.
Because of our long-standing relationship with MIM
we did not dismiss lightly your allegations about
Lquispe and the New Flag, but investigated them
seriously, both here and abroad. We were unable to
find any evidence that supports your charges. On
the contrary, we found the actions and accusations
of some people (not MIM) who joined in the anti-
quispe campaign to be unethical, disreputable and
thoroughly dishonest. We have reached our
conclusions, and you are free to reject them.
But NY Transfer cannot ever allow any one group,
MIM included, to dictate who will be permitted
access on our system. Such an expectation on your
part is surprising and disappointing; it is also
inappropriately authoritarian and completely
unacceptable to us.
We were not aware that MIM considers itself a
"Peruvian exile" organization. We have always
thought of you as a homegrown Amerikan radical
movement. But regardless, far from choosing a
"middle ground" between two groups, our policy has
remained the same for years, and is quite
uncompromising: we will not censor our members,
restrict their access because of their political
views, or engage in their sectarian squabbles,
under any circumstances!
Be assured that now and in the future, we will not
hesitate to deal promptly with any threat if we
believe a member of NY Transfer is a police agent,
a provocateur, or attempting to do harm to our
system or our Collective.
We are truly sorry you are leaving NY Transfer and
we hope you enjoy the same care, attention, and
excellence of service on etext that we have always
tried to provide at NY Transfer. Best of luck to
you.
--System Administrators
NY Transfer News Collective/Blythe Systems
MIM RESPONDS: Thank you for your quick reply. We
would like to clear up a few misconceptions. First,
we did not suggest that you were endorsing
Quispe/New Flag. We do indeed understand your
policy of not endorsing or following any party
line. As we have repeatedly explained, we do not
view New Flag as a "party line," but, based on
actions towards Calero, etc., a cop. We have this
basic disagreement over your position that you are
viewing as nonsectarian and we are viewing as
accommodating cops. Notice we have never complained
about people on the system because of political
line. We understand that incorrect political lines
can be defeated with the correct line. So it is not
about our "disapproval" of Quispe, or differences
of political line. We understand that cops cause
very real harm to the oppressed and to
revolutionaries.
(By the way, MIM has never claimed to be a Peruvian
exile organization. We were simply responding to an
earlier argument you had made to us--that you saw
this struggle internationally as a struggle between
factions in the Peruvian exile community, and that
you did not want to get involved in choosing sides.
We were just reiterating that Quispe does not
represent a legitimate "side" in any such
struggle.)
As for our decision to move the Web site to the
free etext server, that was not a financially
motivated decision. We have been advertising NY
Transfer as a resource for the oppressed for years,
and you yourselves claim to be a movement resource.
We cannot reconcile that with your inaction
regarding Quispe. The etext Web server, on the
other hand, makes no such political claims, nor
will we advertise it as such.
MIM does not see its actions as authoritarian, we
did not attempt to coerce anybody into anything, we
used evidence to try to persuade you. As you say,
you looked into in and rejected it. That meant, for
us, that we had to leave NY Transfer. We fail to
see the authoritarianism in this action.
In struggle,
MIM
*** This letter is one of the responses we received
to our notice that we were moving from NY Transfer
***
Dear MIM:
Thanks for the new address. My question this week
is related to reason for the change. Is there too
much sectarianism among radical groups and what
should we do to change that, assuming you believe
there is? I look forward to your reply.
--Internet Reader
MIM RESPONDS: MIM defines sectarianism as an
unprincipled division between political groups that
obscures the real unity between them. In the case
of "MPP-USA" police-plot, or any other split-and-
wreck operation, breaking with the party in
question is not sectarianism at all.
Some big-tenters disagree with us, and with the
concept of a vanguard party altogether, and would
like to see everyone left of a certain point--left
of Clinton, say, or of Ralph Nader--get together in
the name of unity and progressivism.
MIM has several responses to this line of thinking.
First, police plots are not "left" at all, so the
question doesn't apply to such operations. Second,
historical experience shows that a principled,
disciplined party with clear dividing lines is
necessary to lead successful revolutionary
movements. Such a party, ** when its line is
correct **, exerts a powerful influence over all
other progressive activism, including those who
choose not to join the party.
The problem with big-tentism, or sizeism, in the
imperialist countries is that too many groups
organize for imperialist-country aims--such as more
pie for the labor aristocracy. This organizing is
directly counter to, rather than merely "different"
from, the revolutionary work of ending imperialism
and all oppression. So while to some extent it is
strategically true that the enemy of my enemy is my
friend, too many groups on the "left" in the
imperialist countries are not really the enemies of
imperialism at all, but merely its left wing. MIM
finds this to be the case with Trotskyist parties,
most reformist parties, and all others who put
increasing the incomes and power of imperialist-
country beneficiaries before ending imperialism and
its oppression of the rest of the world.
That said, MIM works with many activists and groups
that do not agree with all of our dividing line
questions, groups which are truly opposed to
imperialism and are interested in working under the
leadership of proletarian politics. The
Revolutionary Anti-Imperialist League, created and
led by MIM, is one such group. We hope you'll get
involved with it or contribute to the revolutionary
movement in some other way. What do you say?
* * *
AMERIKAN ELECTIONS PROVE THEMSELVES A WASTE
MIM thanks the USA Today newspaper for providing us
with figures on re-election rates for the U.S.
House of Representatives in 1996. 357 out of 377
incumbents running won their races; that's 94.7
percent. With these figures in front of us, MIM
does not believe that Amerikan democracy is truly a
system of choosing the best person for the job in
every instance. We just don't think the Amerikan
government personnel are so great that they only
need to be replaced at a 5.3% rate.
Contrary to the image of rule of the majority,
Amerikan elections in practice are a judgment on
who has the most money. When an incumbent does
lose, he or she loses to someone else who is
wealthy and supports capitalism. In major
(presidential) election years since 1980, re-
election rates were as follows:
1980 92.1%
1984 96.1%
1988 98.5%
1992 93.1%
USA Today also informs us that the oppressed are
less likely to vote than the more privileged groups
in Amerika. "Non-voters are more likely to be
younger, poorer and members of minority groups.
Gallup estimates turnout was 62% for those with
family income above $75,000, only 39% for those
with incomes under $20,000 ... 'When you have a
class-skewed electorate, only the better-off people
end up determining policy,' says Richard Cloward of
Human Serve, a voter registration group."
While 51% of whites voted in this election, only
35% of Blacks and 38% of other "non-whites" voted.
Among youth aged 18-29, people not yet completely
bought into the system, we see the same thing: 33%
in this age group voted, while 49% of 30-49 did and
people 50 and older voted at only 50%.
MIM considers voter registration efforts by
supposed progressives to be dogmatic. It's clear
from the numbers and from the similarities between
Democrats and Republicans that attempting to change
the system through reform doesn't work, yet the
voter registration advocates argue that
participation must be the best way to reform. This
is the definition of dogmatism: insisting on a
failed strategy with no evidence to support it.
These dogmatic reformists also drag us into
dogmatic pragmatism in the Euro-Amerikan world:
they raise compromise with the bourgeoisie to the
level of principle. They are so set on surrendering
to the powers-that-be and persuading everyone else
to adjust to and capitulate to an oppressive system
that they ignore all evidence contrary to their
pious beliefs in their own effectiveness.
The oppressed people constantly have their arms
twisted behind their backs by the oppressors. They
cannot express themselves within the oppressor's
system. Only through armed struggle will the
world's majority finally rule.
NOTES: USA Today Nov. 8, 1996, p. 4a.
* * *
MIM AND RAIL ANTI-ELECTIONS EVENTS BUILD ANTI-
IMPERIALIST MOVEMENT
Under titles like Boycott the Vote, RAIL held
educational events across the country in the months
leading up to the elections in November. We wanted
people to see that there is an alternative to
choosing among imperialist candidates in the voting
booth. Many of these events turned into debates
with people who thought that it is important to
work within the system to make changes to the
system. In these debates we saw the insidious
effect of the Workers World (WW) party electoral
campaign.
WW says it understands that you can't change the
system without overthrowing it. But still WW ran
candidates in the elections and the message this
gave people was that revolutionaries can work
within the system and revolutionaries should vote.
MIM and RAIL have no interest in putting forward
these lies to the people. We want to be very clear
that electoralism within Amerikan imperialist
elections is not a means to achieve any anti-
imperialist change, and that those who participate
in elections are not revolutionaries.
On election day MIM and RAIL held an event in
Boston that gave an historical overview of
imperialism under the Republicans and Democrats and
then focused on what we can do instead of choosing
between evil and evil. We did this on election day
because we wanted to show people that the
alternative to voting starts with education. We
pointed out that getting involved in activism is of
crucial importance for anyone who wants to fight
imperialism.
The event was very well attended and most who came
agreed with our message that voting is no way to
fight imperialism. One person asked what we can
possibly do instead and another person in the
audience responded saying "power to the people."
She pointed out that often people underestimate the
power of the people and that it is movements of
people just like us which can best fight
imperialism.
A number of attendees said they came to the event
to see if there really were other people interested
in doing something to fight the system rather than
just accepting the imperialist elections. MIM and
RAIL tried to provide them with some concrete ideas
for activism while also encouraging people to get
involved in the longer battle of fighting for
revolutionary change. If you also want to get
involved in anti-imperialist struggle, contact RAIL
or MIM at any of the addresses on page 2.
* * *
ELECTIONS DEBATE AT A OBERLIN COLLEGE
People in this country believe in the power of the
vote, they believe that real change happens every
four years in the local elementary school or town
hall, in a voting booth. Yet only half the eligible
voters in the United States take the time to vote.
Maybe people realize that there is limited
possibility of the vote changing anything. Or maybe
they were just uninformed, uneducated, or too busy
dealing with the everyday changes in their lives
created by the current political leadership.
Students at an elite liberal arts college in the
Midwest are no different when it comes to the
elections. Many students believe in the power of
the vote; although most of us are open to
challenging and critiquing it. So when election
time came around this year, the college's Socialist
Student Union organized a Left Party Debate to try
to incite debate and thought on a campus known for
its progressive tendencies.
Participants in the debate included representatives
from the New Party, the Green Party, the Left
Party, the Workers World Party, the Socialist
Workers Party, and the International Socialist
Organization; and a statement from the Maoist
Internationalist Movement was read. This debate
gave us the opportunity to discuss the alternative
candidates and the effectiveness of elections to
enact real, positive change.
The Socialist Workers Party stated that one of its
primary goals in running candidates in this
election was to educate people about the rigidity
of the current system and the myths surrounding
electoral politics. The International Socialist
Organization promoted grassroots organizing over
the extraordinary cost of running candidates or
supporting elections. The New Party supports more
local electoral campaigning and grassroots
organizing, and has succeeded in getting both
Democratic and Independent candidates into local
offices. As potential voters, we were wary of their
positions, and as students working towards changing
the present system, we questioned the legitimacy
and feasibility of change through reform, what
Audre Lorde referred to as using the "master's
tools" to liberate ourselves.
I would agree to a certain, limited extent with
MIM's stance on electoralism. Because reform within
the current system is limited and only
revolutionary action will bring about change, and
because the ruling class controls the elections, a
stance advocating a break with current electoral
politics is very reasonable. I simply have problems
with the more specific and more extreme positions
on why Americans do vote and the alternative to
voting.
Concerning the labor aristocracy, I understand
where MIM is coming from, but I disagree. Americans
benefit from the exploitation of the Third World,
but I think we need to distinguish between willing
participation in exploitation and our struggle to
fight imperialism in the Third World and on
American soil. Historically, the labor aristocracy
argument has been used to further divide the
working class: dividing black and white workers,
skilled and unskilled labor, and "First" and
"Third" World workers. Concerning the minimum wage
debate, we must recognize that the cost of living
in this country is high. Our living standard has
impoverished hundreds of countries across the
globe, so we should argue for higher wages in
America and everywhere.
What alternative to voting does MIM offer to the
oppressed class? Organizing outside of the
structures of the current system? Great, but how
does MIM do this? Are MIM representatives out on
college campuses, or in the factories, or in small
communities, organizing, and building that
movement?
The Workers World Party touted its pledge to a
$12/hour minimum wage and its pledge to peoples of
all ethnicities and backgrounds, but Proposition
209 passed in California, Congressman Jesse Helms
of North Carolina was re-elected, and the real
wages of working people across this nation barely
inched forward. I think about the organizing and
campaigns we could have taken on in lieu of the
hours and energy spent on fighting for "write-in"
ballot status.
As part of a group that sponsored a debate on the
elections, I am frustrated by the small impact we
made on the lives of people in this country, and
towards our socialist vision. I believe in the
necessity of educating people about the real
conditions of electoralism, but it is more
important to focus on the reality of people's
lives. On our campus, we have decided to fight the
attacks against affirmative action in this country,
and on a local level, fight the repeal of need-
blind admissions to our school.
MIM RESPONDS
MIM's main disagreement with the author of this
article is on the question of the labor
aristocracy. We have done scientific study of the
political economy of the United Snakes and
concluded that a vast majority of workers here are
not exploited, but are benefiting from the
exploitation of the international proletariat. As
MIM said in the statement we sent to this event:
"It is clear that Amerikan workers live at a wildly
inflated standard of living compared to the rest of
the world's workers. There is the argument that it
costs more to live in Amerika and therefore it is
not so outrageous that Amerikan workers are paid
more than their Third World counterparts. But this
is a clear ideological question. People cross U.S.
borders from Third World countries at a rate that
quickly dismisses the cost-of-living justification
for inflated Amerikan wages. Clearly with so many
people crossing borders and risking arrest and
deportation to work for less than minimum wage, we
can see that it does not cost $10/hour to keep a
worker alive."
The labor aristocracy willingly participates in
Amerikan imperialism. This pro-imperialist stance
does not come from misinformation but from material
circumstance. In the Philippines, misinformation
and lies abound and access to the truth is
difficult, but the people know that the government
is lying when it says multinational corporations
are doing good for the people. In Amerika, people
understand that multinational corporations--which
exploit the Third World proletariat and steal its
land and resources--are doing good for the people
of Amerika.
If we were to redistribute all the wealth in the
world right now, wages in Amerika would go down so
that they could even out around the world. It is
not a tenable position to call for higher wages the
world over. You have to choose: will you continue
to tell the Third World masses to wait so Amerikans
can keep munching pie, or will you side with the
majority? Most Amerikans understand these options
and will rally for fascism before they will fight
for revolution. Activists who identify themselves
as "left" must decide if they are going to continue
to coddle Amerikan privilege in the name of unity,
or work for the truly oppressed.
The author asks how MIM would organize outside
current structures. Again from the statement of
ours which was read at this event:
"We believe that the best things we can devote our
too-limited time and resources to are building
independent institutions of the oppressed and
building public opinion in favor of the just
struggles of the oppressed. ... We have conducted
[a campaign against bourgeois elections] in our
print organs, via electronic media and in public
events."
MIM agrees with this author's assessment of the
need to take up revolutionary activism rather than
fight in electoral battles in this country. We
point to the descriptions of the many small and
large battles we take on, described in the pages of
MIM Notes, as examples of our alternative to
electoralism. All these campaigns are waged with
the clear vision that worthwhile reforms to this
system should help build the forces for revolution
because reforms will never end imperialism.
* * *
INDIAN FEMINISTS SHOCK "MISS WORLD" ORGANIZERS WITH
THEIR PROTEST
Apparently the Miss World organizers have failed to
notice the long and increasingly radicalized
tradition of wimmin's protest in India. But now, as
they prepare to stage their celebration of
objectification in the South Indian city of
Bangalore, they are seeing wimmin organizing
creatively against them. Wimmin have staged rallies
of a thousand people in India's capital, New Delhi,
and have desecrated the Miss World shops with cow
dung and diesel.
The response of the pageant organizers has been
patronizing. Julia Morley, chairperson of Miss
World Ltd., said "I (regret) the controversy and I
hope they will act as women and come and talk to us
instead of acting as rebels." (1) But MIM knows
well that for wimmin of the Third World, acting as
wimmin means acting as rebels. It's a patriarchal
lie that wimmin's issues center around make-up--for
Indian wimmin resisting imperialism and its culture
is key.
Another gem of a quote from Julia Morley: ''I'm not
shocked, but I'm sad. I respect the women of India
and I know they will give us the mutual respect
that we deserve.'' (2) "Respect" that precludes
acknowledging radicalism is not respect at all.
Further, purveyors of imperialist patriarchal
culture do not deserve respect at all.
NOTES:
1. Agence France Presse, November 4, 1996.
2. United Press International November 4, 1996,
Monday, BC cycle.
* * *
AMERIKAN ARMY = GLOBAL PATRIARCH
After the announcement on November 7 that at least
three men army instructors at the Aberdeen Proving
Ground would be charged with rape and assault, U.S
army spokespersons scrambled to paint the incident
as abnormal and "not part of the [army's] ingrained
culture."(1)
MIM and oppressed people around the world know that
patriarchy and violence are indeed part of the
army's culture. Prostitution and rape surround U.S.
military bases around the world, like those in the
Philippines and Korea. Army officials wink at these
problems outside of U.S. borders. In response to
the rape and murder of a girl in Okinawa by U.S.
soldiers, an amerikan officer reportedly commented:
"what'd they have to do that for? They should have
just gone to a whore."
Making the world safe for u.s. imperialism, the
amerikan military bombs, shoots, napalms and gasses
wimmin and men, and it's not apologetic about it.
The massacre at My Lai village during the Vietnam
war killed mostly wimmin and children (many of the
wimmin were raped before being killed)--but the
army systematically covered the whole thing up.(2)
My Lai is just one famous example of thousands of
similar incidents during the Vietnam war and after.
MIM believes that feminists should not waste their
time trying to reform the sinister amerikan army.
This army is a bloody weapon used to preserve a
system which forces the majority of the world's
wimmin to live in poverty. Gender relations within
army only reflect those of amerikan society at
large; the main problem is with the system of
patriarchy, not a single patriarchal institution.
This is why MIM concentrates on the task of
building the people's forces to the point where we
can destroy the amerikan army and the system of
imperialism which makes it necessary. In its place
we will build socialism and the dictatorship of the
proletariat, which will allow us to suppress
patriarchy and capitalism.
NOTES:
1. Reuter 8 November, 1996.
2. Marilyn Young, ** The Vietnam Wars **. (New
York: Harper Perennial, 1991), p. 243.
* * *
TEXACO'S DISCRIMINATION EXPOSED:
IMPERIALIST BOURGEOISIE CONDONES RACISM
Texaco's dirty laundry is big in the news these
days: racial epithets in the workplace, racist
jokes told to Black employees, senior management
with a penchant for firing Black people who
complain about discrimination--and all this in
spite of detailed anti-discrimination policies. So
Texaco is being hung out and exposed big-time as a
boil on the butt of corporate Amerika. The public
message to Texaco is: you can't get away with
discrimination, you've got to clean up your act.(1)
But a lawsuit filed in 1994 on behalf of over 1,000
Texaco employees claiming systematic discrimination
received no publicity until recently. Amerika now
knows that the blatant discrimination at Texaco
really happened because a white Texaco executive
released a tape he had made of a meeting at which
he and other top Texaco executives traded racist
jokes and remarks freely.(2) The tape, which the
downsized racist exec released to plaintiffs'
lawyers in the discrimination suit, is evidence not
only of Texaco heads' open racism, but of their
plans to illegally hide company files relevant to
the lawsuit against the company.(3)
Black observers of and participants in the lawsuit
have compared the Texaco tape to the video of
Rodney King's beating by Los Angeles pigs 6 years
ago. As in the Rodney King case, which took a video
tape to prove that pigs would brutalize a Black
man, Amerika needed the Texaco tape to believe that
white corporations work systematically to keep
Blacks out of better jobs. But the Black nation
didn't need to hear the tape, because Amerika's
steady work to restrain Blacks as a separate and
oppressed nation is pushed in the faces of Black
people every day.
The public response to this Texaco expose,
preaching about fairness, equality and non-
discrimination, doesn't look so sincere on the face
of the Amerikan bourgeoisie and media. These are
the same clowns who imprison and execute Blacks at
numbers far disproportionate to their numbers in
the general U.S. population. Discrimination against
Blacks in Amerika is institutional and condoned at
every level of the state apparatus. Making noise
about discrimination when it is exposed in a public
way at a big corporation is only the oppressor
nation's most convenient means of drawing attention
away from much more direct forms of oppression, by
which the state does not just call Black people
names but locks them up and murders them as a means
of controlling their legitimate desire for
independence from Amerika.
According to the Amerikan Bureau of Justice
Statistics, in 1993-94 Blacks made up 44% of the
Amerikan jail population while white people made up
39% and Latino nationalities were 15%.(5) Blacks
are less than 15% of the U.S. population, so to
jail them at a rate greater than whites is truly
gross discrimination.
Of people living under death sentences in Amerika
in 1994, 1,645 were white while 1,197 were Black.
So there were numerically less Blacks waiting to be
murdered in the criminal injustice system, but
still proportionately many more Blacks than
whites.(4) In 1994, more than half as many Blacks
as whites were murdered by the state--again, the
number of Blacks in the general U.S. population is
not even equal to half the number of whites.(4)
In a state which treats Blacks with such blatant
discrimination, and which openly takes Black lives
in a far greater proportion than it does white
ones, it is the height of hypocrisy to talk of
discrimination as if it could be an isolated thing.
Those who point the finger at Texaco are doing a
good job of unearthing solid examples of national
chauvinism, which revolutionaries can use to propel
the fight against national oppression. But we must
not be satisfied with talking about how big and bad
Texaco or Denny's is; it is our task to demonstrate
how these corporations are just following the
state's lead, and to build a movement which can win
a decisive victory over imperialism.
NOTES:
1. New York Times Nov. 10, 1996, sec. 3, p. 1.
2. Christian Science Monitor, Nov. 8, 1996, p.3.
3. The Baltimore Sun, Nov. 8, 1996.
4. Bureau of justice statistics Web site
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/pub/bjs/ascii/cp94.txt.
5. Ibid,
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/abstract/jaji93.htm.
* * *
MASSACHUSETTS PRISONERS STILL STUCK IN TEXAS
On the one year anniversary of the transfer of 299
Massachusetts prisoners to Texas, Governor Weld
announced that he is extending their stay another 8
months. He said he saw no compelling reason to
bring them back. This news came as a hard blow to
the friends and families of these prisoners and
those of us who have been fighting all year to
bring them back. While we have been successful in
bringing back the sick prisoners, 250 remain in
Texas, far from their families, and in a prison
system even more repressive than the one we have in
Massachusetts.
These prisoners were transferred to Texas in the
middle of the night, as a part of Weld's prison
overcrowding crisis hoax. He took these prisoners
hostage and shipped them off to Texas in a budget
stunt that successfully got him $500 million for
prison expansion in Massachusetts. Weld got his
money months ago, but still the prisoners in Texas
remain there. It's become easier to pay Texas to
house these men than to fly them back home where it
will be exposed that the overcrowding crisis was
really a DOC fabricated problem of
overclassification of prisoners so that those who
commit the slightest infraction of the rules (like
looking at a guard wrong) are stuck in maximum
security.
MIM and RAIL held our regular monthly petitioning
rally the weekend after Weld's announcement and
continued to educate people about the injustice
system and why these prisoners should be brought
back to Massachusetts where their families live and
where there can be some accountability for their
lack of care. The number of people aware of these
transfers is increasing and we will continue to
keep this issue alive and keep the voice of
opposition to the criminal injustice system loud.
Bringing these prisoners back will be a victory,
but this is only one battle and fundamental changes
in the criminal injustice system will not be
achieved until we overthrow the system. We must
always keep that message clear while we are
fighting for small reforms to improve the lives of
our comrades behind bars and give them more room to
carry out revolutionary organizing.
To protest this anniversary and the extension of
the prisoners' stay in Texas, the American Friends
Service Committee held vigils outside of the
Governor's house every night for a week. At one of
these vigils MIM talked to a woman who said her
phone bill was $600 last month from talking to her
son. This is the expense that Weld forces many
families to endure if they want to stay in contact
with their family member in Texas. A man read a
letter from his brother, one of the inmates
transferred to Texas, which described the nightmare
of a year this has been, from the roundup and
transfer in the middle of the night, to being held
as budget hostages in Weld's political game in a
prison system in Texas that is devoted to profit
and torture.
We hope this article will let our comrades in Texas
know that we have not forgotten about them and that
we will continue the fight to bring them back while
fighting the larger battle to overthrow the
criminal injustice system.
* * *
FIRST NATION IN "PANAMA" DEMANDS TERRITORIAL
AUTONOMY
Roughly 1,000 members of the Ngobe-Bugle nation,
which resides within Panamanian borders, recently
finished a 250 mile, two-week march across Panama.
The march was staged to protest a Canadian
company's copper mining activities in the Ngobe-
Bugle territory. The nation, which has a population
of 125,000, has been struggling for autonomous
territory for the past 25 years.
The Canadian mining company, Tiomin Resources Inc.,
has been operating in Cerro Colorado--home of the
Ngobe-Bugle. In the age of imperialism, the fact
that their home is also the site of the 12th
largest copper deposit in the world is an
unfortunate thing for the First Nation, because it
means that assorted imperialist interests will use
force and tricks to get and keep control of the
land and its resources. This means the people must
be prepared to fight against the imperialist
bourgeoisie's greed if they want to achieve any
level of autonomy on their own land.
Ngobe-Bugle activist Alberto Montezuma said: "This
walk is to show that we want the Cerro Colorado
mining contract annulled and our demand of an
Indian territory accepted." He went on: "The
community will not accept meeting with any
government official except the president. If we
cannot, we will start a hunger strike."
MIM supports oppressed nation struggles for
autonomy. From what we can see of this case, the
Ngobe-Bugle leaders have a correct view of their
situation: as a separate nation there is no reason
for them to negotiate with anyone less than the
president of Panama. A nation does not have to make
deals with small government agencies, but should be
able to win victories from the comprador who speaks
for all the government agencies.
These struggles are the first necessary step
towards weakening the grip of imperialism on the
world's land and resources, and towards building
the power of the oppressed to topple imperialism
and build independent power. In this case, if the
Ngobe-Bugle are able to deny the Canadian miners
access to copper, that will directly hamper
Canada's accumulation of wealth at the expense of
the oppressed nations the world over. This will, in
turn, weaken Canada's power over the oppressed
nations and make it more possible for the oppressed
to win more and greater battles against
imperialism.
Tiomin Resources said that it had no plans to stop
its copper mining, which is what MIM would expect.
Imperialists do not respond to polite requests that
they give up power, they respond only to force
which is equal to or greater than their own. For
this reason, MIM supports the will of the oppressed
to seize what is rightfully theirs by any means
necessary.
NOTES: Reuter Oct. 28, 1996.
* * *
SPORTS PLAYERS ARE BOURGEOISIE
Interesting figures from the USA Today make clear
that professional sports athletes are not
exploited. If Michael Jordan put one year's salary
of $30 million into a savings certificate bearing 5
percent interest, he would make $28,846 per week,
enough to live on a whole year. Even if we cut that
figure in half because of inflation, we can also
calculate that Jordan should be able to put away
two years salary and obtain the same result.
At $9.0 million a year, Dennis Rodman would make
$8,654 a week in interest. Such millionaire
athletes are what we call bourgeoisie.
Saccharin "Marxists" say that the players are
exploited because they can be hired and fired.
According to them, virtually everyone is exploited.
These pseudo-Marxists are for everyone and
therefore they stand for nothing. Heads of
corporations are also hired and fired. However,
they still control the means of production.
People who collect enough dividends and interest to
live on are capitalist class. They might happen
to work and collect those dividends, but they are
still bourgeois. The person on the street knows the
difference between someone who has to work for a
living and those who don't. Unfortunately, most
calling themselves "Marxist" don't know the
difference. They are spokespeople for the
bourgeoisie corrupting the proletarian movement.
NOTES: USA Today Nov. 12, 1996, p. c1.
* * *
POST-MODERNIST NEUTOPIA OPPOSES TURKISH REVOLUTION
On November 4, Amnesty International hosted a talk
and slide show on "Human Rights in Turkey" by post-
modern Internet activist Doctress Neutopia. RAIL
attended this presentation to distribute MIM Notes
and Maoist Sojourner articles about the Maoist
revolution in Turkey, including one article about
the July hungerstrike by Turkish and Kurdish
revolutionary prisoners.
RAIL hoped that the event would be strong in its
opposition to the U.S. backed Turkish state, and an
academic article distributed by a member of Amnesty
at the door to the event further bolstered this
hope. The article contained a list of U.S. arms
contracts with Turkey and clearly implied that the
U.S. was politically--as well as militarily--
supporting Turkey's genocidal war against the
Kurds. To our disappointment, the Doctress didn't
talk much about conditions in Turkey, instead
turning this into a talk on her world view as
applied randomly to a country she happened to
visit.
RAIL had some very productive conversations with
Amnesty members and members of the audience after
the event was over on the differences between
pacifism and revolution, as well as ways in which
revolutionaries can include pacifists within the
united front against imperialism. These
conversations made attending the event worthwhile,
although we wish it would have been possible to
challenge Doctress Neutopia's spew more publicly.
At best, the Doctress preached passivity, and at
worst she encouraged anti-communism and for First
Worlders to adopt a paternalist attitude towards
revolutionary-minded Third World peoples.
The slide show was mostly the sights and people
that she met while attending a United Nations
Habitat Conference in Istanbul. The lecture
centered around her travels and her romance in
Turkey. The Doctress supports "love-olution" which
means that when people (or the Doctress?) resolve
the incest from within the Virgin Mary-Jesus Christ
relationship, good sex between men and wimmin will
exist and then there won't be patriarchy.
MIM argues that this theory is rubbish. Oppression
exists because one group has power over another
group. This group power is maintained by an entire
system--from cultural ideas to the armed might of
the government's military. To focus only on the
cultural forms as Doctress Neutopia does, is to
leave the entire system intact.
In regard to gender, under the patriarchy MIM sees
sex not as something empowering or liberating, but
as part of an oppressive system of patriarchal
dominance. Society has socialized women to
eroticize their own submission. Rather than
liberating women, the patriarchal system enslaves
women.
PATERNALISM
Doctress Neutopia described her travels and how at
a rally she felt stifled because since didn't speak
Turkish, she couldn't tell when an appropriate time
to speak to the crowd (in English) would be. The
Doctress said: "It's very difficult to be in a
country where you don't know the language [and] to
be an activist." The implication was that she
persevered and was an activist anyway. MIM would
argue that it this is a correct observation, but
would use this realization to go home where one can
concretely engage the masses and their conditions.
This admission by the Doctress exposes the
bankruptcy of her criticism of the revolutionary
left within Turkey. She criticized these
organizations for raising their banners at a rally
organized by mothers of people disappeared by the
government. The Doctress opposes revolutionary
ideologies not in synch with her "let's all get
together in something mushy" approach. That the
Doctress can't even name the organizations she is
criticizing makes her criticism even more bankrupt.
While MIM would also call Turkey a police state, we
would not call Turkey barbaric as the Doctress did.
While there is a polemical value to calling an
action barbaric, we would not condemn a society as
barbaric. But this language played well with mostly
white audience, as calling Third World governments
barbaric adds more legitimacy to movements designed
for First Worlders to write letters "enlightening"
the barbarian leaders.
THE TOPIC
Doctress Neutopia did address the advertised topic
briefly by describing the length of some activists
she met were held after being arrested. There was
very little detail, and no mention of the very
important struggle within the prisons of this
summer.
The Doctress did say "I wish I could say that human
right abuses are just in Turkey, but they are here
too." Again, there was no concrete link to the
Amerikan government and it's war against the
oppressed nations. A RAIL event on this topic would
have made clear the link between the United States
and the regime in Turkey, would have supported the
revolutionary war against the government and would
have connected that struggle to our struggle here.
Doctress Neutopia ended her talk with an appeal to
"end the war." The Doctress did not talk at all
about the validity of the revolution, because her
assumption was that it was bad. She wanted people
to just get along. Instead, MIM and the Communist
Party of Turkey, Marxist-Leninist, propose to end
the war through communist led victory.
AMNESTY
Amnesty International does good work exposing some
extreme abuses by governments against their people.
Amnesty often brings enough attention to specific
cases to protect the targeted individuals. However,
MIM believes this type of work to be limited in
several regards. First, it fails to end the **
system ** of terror against the people. This can
only be done by overthrowing the minority who rule
at the expense of the majority.
Secondly, organizations like Amnesty use a
bourgeois theory of "human rights." Maoists hold
that there are no rights, only power struggles. The
ability to be treated in a certain way, or for the
bourgeoisie to hold its property or any other
"right" is only supported by the ability to
actually gain and defend it. There are no abstract
"rights".
Conceiving of justice in terms of "rights" allows
the bourgeoisie to determine what is and is not a
right. Capitalism forcing whole villages to starve
or denying health care to Blacks in the U.S. is
typically not thought of as a human rights
violation.
Finally, First World-based movements like Amnesty
International are forced to work hard to avoid
alienating potential supporters, so they ignore or
tone down criticism of the First World--and
especially the local First World--country. Within
the United Snakes, Amnesty will sometimes focus
timid pressure in some death penalty cases.
People can most effectively organize in their own
territory, but Amnesty chooses to ignore the
torture in police stations and prisons right around
the corner. Even from within the reformist
perspective, the people who need to shut down the
Control Units at Marion prison--cited as torture by
Amnesty--live within U.S. government borders. For
local issues not to be an integral organizing
strategy is a mistake.
We would be happy to work and struggle with members
of Amnesty in the areas where we agree.
NOTES: Synthgesis/Regeneration 11: A Magazine of
Green Social Thought, Fall 1996, p. 9-11.
* * *
UNDER LOCK AND KEY: NEWS FROM PRISONERS AND PRISONS
PENNSYLVANIA PRISONER NOT STOPPED BY CENSORSHIP
To the staff,
I was certainly happy to receive a subscription to
your organization's paper MIM Notes, but due to the
restrictions this prison has put upon publications
that don't promote the u.s.a. (united snakes of
amerikkka), I'm going to have to have you cancel
the subscription. Since you did inform me that I
was to let you know whether or not I was receiving
the paper, I'm doing so. I did enjoy the few issues
I was able to receive before they started to censor
it.
Although I'm no longer able to receive your paper,
that will not stop me from continuing to send you
articles which give you another perspective to look
at from inside here. I believe in what you are
doing simply because this system is a dirty,
racist, and corrupt one that needs to be brought
down. Continue the good work.
--A Pennsylvania Prisoner, Sept. 22, 1996
FAT, LAZY PRISONCRATS IN AMERIKKKA
...Being an inmate I can't even begin to describe
just how incredibly, unbelievably disgusting the
Department of Corrections truly is. It is hard to
believe that there could be such incredible
laziness and apathy on the part of the staff and
the different institutions that I have
unfortunately been incarcerated at. The sheer
amount of laziness and incompetence is almost
indescribable.
It is utterly disgusting to think that the average
correctional officer makes more money in one week
of doing nothing sitting between a desk gossiping,
joking or talking sports that a subsistence farmer
in the third world makes in an entire year. Not
only do the correctional officers (CO's) do
nothing, but what few menial simple tasks that they
are supposed to do, they do reluctantly at best.
The correctional system of the state of
Massachusetts is a sham. A multi- million dollar
scam that does absolutely nothing to rehabilitate
the inmates who are incarcerated, nor does it give
them anything constructive to so with their time.
Ninety percent of all funds spent on correctional
institutions is spent on staff. The three
institutions that I have unfortunately been
incarcerated at are ridiculously overstaffed with
twenty CO's tripping over each other, just to get
out of each others way.
There is no task too menial or simple that they do
not try to avoid and are consistently trying to
fake injuries to get out of 'work'. The simple fact
is that CO's do not do anything even remotely
similar to work. Their idea of work is to sit
behind a desk and act like a juvenile delinquent.
Nor do they respond well to any emergency or
disturbance. Considering the outrageous amount of
money that they make, one would at least expect
them to at least do this competently.
The entire criminal justice system is a multi-
billion dollar scam that is thoroughly corrupt and
filled with people who could not possibly work at a
real job, one which requires anything more than
showing up for 'work' and then doing nothing for
eight hours. Meanwhile some people who actually do
produce, construct and manufacture the things that
we do use to make our lives comfortable and
convenient, often do not live as well as the scum
in the so-called criminal justice system. It is
particularly disgusting for me being a former blue
collar worker to witness this bizarre spectacle.
The longer I am incarcerated, the more painfully
obvious it is that the personnel at the
correctional jobs could not possibly do any real
work. Work that involved any decision making, any
use of hand or power tools, anything involving
measuring of any type of math, or anything that
required any thought process. They are secure in
their 'jobs' so long as they don't do anything
except the absolute bare minimum and show up when
they are expected....
The staff at prisons are no better than welfare
recipients, or should I say no different than
welfare recipients, as neither one are expected to
do anything for their checks. The entire concept of
rehabilitation is a bad joke at best. The trend to
build more maximum security prisons in the future
will turn prisons into little more than warehouses
for humans.
I would also like to call attention to the
sickening amount of sheer waste that takes place
daily at 'correctional' institutions across this
county. The attitude of the staff does much to
encourage this waste and abuse of the state's
resources. At the same time, the staff can be very
tight with these same resources if it
inconveniences the inmates. At times it is almost
impossible to obtain a bar of soap, although soap
along with a number of other items are routinely
wasted on a daily basis.
...It is impossible to even begin to articulate the
sheer insanity of prison. As an example, it is cold
and rainy outside and yet in my cell it is blowing
cold air out of the air conditioning vent. All
summer, nothing but warm air ever came out of the
vent, but now that it is getting cold outside, cold
air is coming out. Unfortunately this is all too
common for prison, everything is ass backward and
for the staff this is something that they joke
about and think is funny. Of course most staff
members have the mentality of juvenile delinquents
even thought they are supposedly law enforcement
officers. The mentality of a prisoncrat is
thoroughly incomprehensible for any rational person
to possible understand....
Unlike other people in the workplace, who must work
within strict guideline, a prisoncrat is free to
issue directives that are totally arbitrary in
their nature.... A prisoncrat is under no
restraints. He is free to do as he pleases, so long
as it is considered constitutional by the courts.
Even when a policy of the DOC [Department of
Corrections] is found to be unconstitutional,
prisons are notorious for either not changing the
specific policy, or delaying [the change] as long
as possible.
Inmates are routinely denied due process, subject
to harassment, abuse, etc. by the guards, and the
administration. Rarely if ever does a guard get
fired or even disciplined for their actions.
Prisons give those who have an authority fix, but
can't cut it as cops, a playground to abuse and
raid the state treasury every week....
...As I type these words it is a bright sunny day
outside, and yet the main yard is closed today.
Yesterday it was pouring rain and the yard was
open. Does this make any sense? Of course not! But
then again, nothing in prison makes any sense.
Considering the mentality of the people attracted
to this kind of 'work', one can not expect any of
the rules and procedures to make any sense....
--A Massachusetts Prisoner, Oct. 2, 1996
MIM COMMENTS: Overall this letter does an excellent
job demonstrating the laziness and incompetence of
pigs, who are paid extremely well. It is
intentional that prisoncrats are rewarded for their
laziness and harassment of prisoners, it is not
that the prison does not make sense. Prisons in
Amerika are meant to control and warehouse people.
Pigs put the air conditioning on in the winter and
the heat in the summer, intentionally to torture
prisoners.
It is not because of the idiocy of prisoncrats that
prisoners don't have soap and aren't allowed
outside in nice weather. This is the point of
prison, to punish and torture those who are a
threat to Amerikkkan society.
Remember it is the law enforcement officers and the
imperialists who are the real criminals. Often so-
called "juvenile delinquents" are just rebellious
youth trying to survive in an oppressive society.
While both welfare recipients and prisoncrats may
not be expected to work for their check, they are
not the same. People on welfare do not get paid to
verbally and physically harass and torture human
beings on a regular basis, but pigs do.
It is the oppressive imperialist system that is the
main enemy here. We must educate and organize in
order to dismantle this system, stop the torture
and free the oppressed.
--RCG1, Oct. 29, 1996
A NOTE TO TEXAS PRISONERS
T.D.C.J. Prisoners, if you ever had a problems
getting U.S. mail into or out of any Texas Prison,
note that a class action suit has been filed in
Federal Court. The attorney for the plaintiff
(inmates) class is:
Mr. John Paul DeGeeter, with the Law Firm of Visson
and Elkins, Attorneys at Law, 2300 First City Tower
1001 Fannin St., Houston, TX 77002.
Write a brief summary of the problems you have had
with incoming or outgoing mail, or describe your
problems with mailroom staff and send it to Mr.
DeGeeter. Keep your letter short, free of emotion
and make it businesslike.
--A Texas Prisoner, Sept. 26, 1996.
**MIM received the following article from a
Michigan prisoner. The article highlights his
battle with a new and unproven method of drug
testing . It was printed by the Spectator July 1996
on page 16, and was written by another person,
possibly a fellow prisoner.**
PRISONERS BALK AT NEW DRUG TESTING
The controversial PharmChek sweat patch used as a
mechanism to detect drug usage among prisoners has
found its was into SMI-Central Complex. The patch
began as a pilot program at the Egeler Facility and
after what could be deemed as favorable results by
the MDOC [Michigan Department of Corrections], the
patch has replace the traditional urinalysis form
of drug detection.
However, prisoners at the Egeler Facility and SMI-
Central Complex have made complaints as to the
validity of the patch. At the Egeler Facility
prisoners complained of irritation of the skin
beneath the patch, rashes, puffiness and severe
headaches. Prisoners at SMI-Central Complex have
complained of similar reactions. A new twist has
recently come into question that involves prisoners
who allege to use no types of drugs, testing
positive for morphine and opiate based drugs.
Prisoners have also complained of being allergic to
the adhesive used to secure the patch while others
have made accusations that the adhesive literally
removed their skin in the removal of the patch and
yet no remedies have been provided.
An incident concerning a prisoners whose patch was
beginning to come off in the shower, and the
prisoner reported the incident to an officer, who
in turn observed and placed their initials on the
patch to verify that the prisoner had not tampered
with the patch. However, the prisoner received a
major misconduct for substance abuse which has the
potential of forfeiting his visits for 30 days on
the first incident and on the second his visits
will be permanently revoked. Also, the prisoner
could forfeit all of his good time as a result of a
bogus substance abuse infraction. Also prisoners
who are found guilty of substance abuse will lose
their job, potentially their parole, in addition to
their security status. So as you can see, there are
serious repercussions to being found guilty of a
patch that has not yet been proven to be an
accurate detection of drugs.
The patch has been criticized in comparison to its
traditional counterpart. No one seems to know why
the MDOC has chose the patch over urinalysis. Some
feel the MDOC has an agreement with the
manufacturers of the patch. Others say testing with
the patch is less of a financial burden upon the
MDOC.
For the most part, the only people who are exempt
from patch testing are people who have excessive
hair. "If a prospective donor has excessive hair on
the parts of the body recommended for patch
application, do not shave area. If excess hair is
not able to be determined visually, apply patch. If
the patch adhesive does not provide a complete seal
around the absorbent pad because of hair, this
person is not to be considered a prospective patch
donor and another method of testing for drugs
should be used."
The PharmChek sweat patch has been cleared by the
Food and Drug Administration to be worn to collect
sweat. According to a PharmChek medical briefing
report, "PharmChek has also been cleared by the FDA
to be used to collect sweat specifically to be used
to test for cocaine, opiate and amphetamine use."
What seems somewhat suspicious is that applications
to FDA to use the patch for testing PCP and
marijuana are currently being reviewed by the FDA.
However, the PharmChek sweat patch can be used to
test for all 5 drugs for criminal justice clients
(prisoners). It doesn't make very much sense that
the FDA would allow prisoners to be tested when
they have not approved this product. Some say the
MDOC has taken it upon themselves to implement the
patch without FDA approval. Others say prisoners
are in fact the product of field testing for the
FDA which by law and policy is illegal.
A medical briefing report, states that a most
likely cause of an allergic reaction would be the
adhesive on the patch. Allegedly no allergic
reactions have been reported. However, the medical
briefing states, "at the end of the training manual
are pictures of what severe reactions look like."
If no allergic reaction have been reported where
did the pictures come from?
Writer's Note: The FDA is being contacted by this
office and we will give an up-date.
WASHINGTON CENSORS MIM NOTES
(MIM received this letter from the Washington
Department of Corrections)
Incoming mail to the offender may be disapproved
for receipt for any of the following reasons: (i)
The mail contains information that which, if
communicated would create a risk of violence and/or
physical harm to any person.
I rejected per Headquarters.
--Sgt. J. M. Sinprez, Oct. 1, 1996
Letters of protest may be sent to: Director,
Division of Prisons or Community Corrections, PO
Box 41100, Olympia, WA 98504-1100, or Sgt. J. M.
Sinprez, State of Washington Department of
Corrections, Clallam Bay Corrections Center, 1830
Eagle Crest Way, Clallam Bay, WA 98326-9723.
MIM NOTES GETS TO SOME PRISONERS IN WASHINGTON
STATE
To my Comrades in arms,
I am very pleased to inform you that MIM Notes are
being delivered here at Airway Heights Correction
Center. At this point in time, there has been only
one issue rejected. Their reasoning was it was
banned state-wide.
I would also like to tell you that quite a few
people have shown great interest in reading my
papers. I am going to talk to the library here to
see if we can get them [prison officials] to order
them [MIM Notes]. I am very interested in any books
or other avenues of obtaining more information and
insight into the movement.
Sincerely yours,
--A Washington Prisoner, Sept. 30, 1996
TENNESSEE CONTINUES TO CENSOR MIM NOTES
(MIM received this letter from Warden, Howard
Carlton to a Tennessee prisoner)
Rejected Mail - TDOC [Tennessee Department of
Corrections] Policy 507
I am in the possession of a magazine addressed to
you from "MIM" Distributors. The periodical
contains extremely racist material and is
discouraged inside a penal facility due to its
direction toward violence, therefore, I am not
allowing you to receive it.
You have the right to appeal my decision to Mr. Jim
Rose, Assistant Commissioner of Operations. You
have 15 days to appeal, after which the magazine
will be returned to the publisher. I suggest you
cancel your subscription.
His Address [Jim Rose]: Tennessee Department of
Corrections, 4th Floor, Rachel Jackson Building,
320 Sixth Ave North, Nashville, TN 37243-0465
--Howard Carlton, Warden, Sept. 9, 1996
Letters of protest can be sent to Jim Rose at the
address above or to Howard Carlton, Warden,
Department of Corrections, Division of Adult
Institutions, Northeast Correctional Center, PO Box
5000, Mountain City, TN 37683-5000
STUDY GROUP FORMED TO FIGHT REPRESSION IN ILLINOIS
Comrade,
I am writing to inform you that I have started a
study group here at this hell hole and would like
to request any and all material I can use to learn
and teach with. I would appreciate any assistance
you could provide. Thank you.
--An Illinois Prisoner, Oct. 1, 1996
P.S. Pontiac Correctional Center (I.D.O.C.) has
found a new way to prevent us from communicating
with the free world. It is called confiscation of
contraband. The following items are considered
contraband in segregation: pens, pencils, markers,
or anything that writes. This is in retaliation to
us writing the director of the I.D.O.C. about the
way Pontiac's warden deprives us Brothers in
segregation the use of the phone. No use if in c-
grade, knowing every resident in segregation is in
c-grade. And how we can't have envelopes delivered
to the outside by the state anymore even if you are
indigent.
We were also complaining about the warden stealing
our allowance pay, stating that because we are in
seg. we can't receive it even though the person is
in Adm. Lock (meaning the warden feels your a
threat to him and the institution, so he throws
them in segregation). We're fighting now to end
this injustice. Oh yeah, Illinois Department of
Corrections (Pontiac, Menard, Stateville) are still
on Lockdown!
NEW STUDY GROUP FORMS IN TEXAS
Dear MIM,
...My reason for writing is to congratulate you all
on a fine, respectful and up front newspaper.
Please keep up the good work. My other reason is to
inform you all that some more guys and myself have
launched a successful organization inside the
prison walls. Which is a self- empowerment
organization. The organization is called "Brothers
of the Future".
This organization has been created to be a catalyst
for positive change within the members' lifestyles.
We use our cultural studies as a spark that might
ignite the fire of our ancestors into our
population. We would like to start our own
newsletter, whereas we can play a part in getting
positive information into the hands of the people.
Could you send me some information on how to start
a newsletter and how to get our organization
registered, whereas we can operate legitimately in
the freeworld. If you know of some brothers who
might be interested would you please have them
write me. We are looking for outside members.
--a Texas Prisoner, Oct. 2, 1996
MIM RESPONDS: We at MIM are glad that you like our
publication MIM Notes. Maybe you would consider
working on or expanding MIM Notes instead of
starting your own newsletter. Why start a new
publication when we already have one you can use.
You could expand Under Lock & Key from 2 pages to
4, or have your own biweekly column.
We at MIM would like to congratulate you getting
organized and forming a group where you can study
and discuss important issues. As for registering as
an organization, that depends on the policy at your
institution. It varies at different institutions.
There is not reason to register on the outside,
unless this is as a non-profit to save some money
on mailings. Of course the FBI would love
organizations to register with them, but why help
them in their surveillance of the revolution.
--RCG1, Nov. 13, 1996
MIM AND RAIL GET AROUND IN MASSACHUSETTS
Friends!
First of all, let me thank you for sending me MIM's
paper and also MASS RAIL's publication. They are
always welcome and though provoking to say the
least. You guys have been the voice of the
voiceless - the convicts serving time in
Massachusetts, Texas, and nationwide, and it IS
appreciated!!!
I made copies of the Prison Awareness Week flyer,
and posted them throughout the institution. It
looks so nice and innocent, that it took a while
for the pigs to catch on. It was not until they
read the Prison Awareness Week Points of Unity, and
studied the GREAT artwork (pad-locked mouth), that
they caught on.
Special State Police Officers, known as the
"I.P.S." (Internal Perimeter Security), who even
dress like Gestapo - quickly removed each one,
while we were locked down. I fully expect an
investigation shall follow. Screw em!
I have also passed on all of your newspapers to
friend, for them to read. Then, when all are
finished, I slip them onto the newspaper rack in
the prison library. There are so many already
there, that al least for now, nobody has noticed,
and the men are reading your words along with those
of the local rags to which the institution
subscribes. Perhaps others may try this technique,
in their joints.
I must tell you up front, that although I am
thankful for all that you are doing for us, that I
do not agree, (yet) with the Maoist/Communist
ideology, and may never come totally to those
beliefs. I am willing to listen. And, I would die
to preserve the right for you to say what you say.
You may have guessed that I am white. That does not
make me a bad person. I agree with you that the
struggle shall start with the most oppressed, an we
all know it is not the white man. But, there are
many of us inside the wall who support our brothers
of all races and creeds. Do not discount us!...
-- A Massachusetts Prisoner, Oct. 27, 1996
MIM RESPONDS: MIM agrees that the revolution must
be led by the most oppressed and their interests.
But MIM does not discount individuals who are white
and have progressive or revolutionary ideas and
practices. At the same time, MIM does discount the
white nation, as a whole, as a revolutionary force.
It is not in the interests of the white Amerikkkan
nation to have revolution. They benefit from the
imperialist spoils stolen from the majority of the
world's people.
MIM would encourage white individuals interested in
ending oppression to commit nation and class
suicide and join RAIL and MIM in the revolutionary
struggle against imperialism.
MAIL TAMPERING IN MAINE
I received three copies of MIM Notes, on Sept. 20,
1996, so I know these maggots are holding back my
mail. I really enjoyed reading MIM Notes, but since
these scum bags are holding them I don't know if
I'm going to get my copies or not....
In Struggle,
--A Maine Prisoner, Sept. 26, 1996
***WHAT NON-PRISONERS CAN DO TO SUPPORT
PRISONERS***
*1. Struggle with, work with, finance and join MIM.
The best way to support prisoners is to overthrow
the system under which capitalists profit from the
exploitation of prisoners. History shows that the
best way to do this is to build a Marxist-Leninist-
Maoist party. The oppressors will not give up their
power without a fight.
*2. Finance MIM's prison work. Our biggest bill
each month is postage. Most of the prison comrades
who read MIM Notes have no way of paying for it. So
if you have money, send what you can afford. Every
cent helps, and stamps are as good as cash to us.
*3. Distribute MIM Notes and Notas Rojas. Bring the
voices of prisoners and their supporters to as
large and wide an audience of people as possible.
Contact MIM for bulk rates and distribution tips.
*4. Start or join a prison support group. MIM can
provide advice and resources to help you build
public opinion for prisoners and their struggles.
*5. Fight censorship, beatings, torture and other
fascist outrages. Under Lock and Key often features
the addresses of prisoners' friends and enemies.
Work with the friends and let the enemies know
you're watching. (Don't expect to win the fascists
to the side of humanity, however. See #1 in this
list).
*6. Stay in touch. Keep us informed of pro-prisoner
work you do. Our readers might find it educational
or inspirational.
***WHAT PRISONERS CAN DO TO BUILD MIM***
*1. Start a study group. This is the best way to
share materials and ideas. In groups, prisoners can
better benefit from the limited resources MIM has.
*2. Get MIM Notes and MIM Theory into your library.
This allows one copy of the paper to be seen by
many comrades.
*3. Contact people on the outside. MIM needs
comrades and allies everywhere. Maybe you know
people on the outside who want to subscribe to MIM
Notes or distribute it.
*4. Share materials. If MIM sends books or
periodicals, please make sure that as many people
as possible get a chance to read them.
*5. Write MIM at least every three months.
Otherwise, you will be dropped from our mailing
list. There are many cases where your keepers throw
out MIM Notes, so we need to know that you actually
get it. Also, comrades are moved around a lot,
especially those who are known to be political.
Please let us know of any address changes as soon
as you know them.
*6. Make MIM Distributors an official distributor.
Many prisons require registration before MIM can
send books or other materials. Usually we can
comply with these bogus rules. It helps immensely
to have someone there do the reasearch and send us
the proper forms.
*7. Send money or stamps. Our biggest bill each
month is postage. Most of the prison comrades who
read MIM Notes have no way of paying for it. So if
you have money, send what you can afford. Every
cent helps, and stamps are as good as cash to us.
Please make all checks payable to "MIM
Distributors."
*8. Write for MIM Notes or Notas Rojas. Prisoners
write almost all of Under Lock & Key. We don't
care if you know how to spell or write good English
or Spanish. Write on any topic you like, it does
not have to be a prison story.
*9. Translate. If you can read and write English
and another language fluently, let us know. Any
translation work you do will help us make Maoist
ideas accessible to more people.
*10. Fight censorship. When you know of censorship
of books or newspapers, investigate. Write to MIM
to confirm what has happened, then see what you can
do about it.
*11. Keep in touch after your release. Many
comrades stop doing political work after their
release. Write to MIM as soon as you know where
you'll be so we can hook you up with comrades on
the outside.
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