Letters

Prisoner upholds spirituality

Dear MIM, I respectfully disagree on your view about spirituality not being 
concrete enough to help convicts. I believe you meant it doesn't help inmates. A 
real convict is naturally rebellious plus not all of us real cons use 
spirituality as a crutch. If it wasn't for my faith I wouldn't have the courage 
to keep fighting the oppressors.

-- An Illinois prisoner, 10 February, 1999.

MIM responds: It is true that different people use different definitions of 
spirituality. When we said "Spirituality is not going to help prisoners, or 
oppressed people anywhere, to fight the imperialist system that is oppressing 
them" (MIM Notes 175), we followed it up with: "When everything is up to a 
higher power it is much easier for people to be complacent and just pray rather 
than take action against oppression."

There are also people who do not use what they think of as spirituality in this 
way. Under conditions of oppression, people draw personal strength from many 
sources. MIM's point is that we focus on developing the ideological basis for 
revolution. In providing revolutionary political leadership, this is the correct 
choice. Some people do use what they call spirituality to help them focus their 
energies on the fight against the oppressors. We warn against spirituality 
detracting from concrete matters, and we argue that revolutionaries have to keep 
our eyes on the earthly prize if we are to be successful.

Many revolutionaries are sustained by a faith in the masses of people who will 
overthrow imperialism and create a just society where no group of people 
oppresses any other. This is a materialist faith and the one which we encourage 
all activists to take seriously whether or not you support spirituality in other 
forms.



Take up materialist science, not conspiracy theories

Revolutionary Greetings, Comrades! I was just re-reading over MIM Notes 204, 
about Nation of Islam theory on AIDS and other "man-made" diseases ["Final Call 
undermines public health, analysis of imperialism," 15 Feb. 2000]. What struck 
me about the article was that MIM stated that the conspiracy theories discourage 
"people from taking the preventive action they should to stop themselves from 
getting or spreading AIDS." I disagree with this.

Regardless of the origin of AIDS, its existence cannot be disputed, thus the 
conspiracy theories succeed only in making people wary of government run 
vaccinations. And rightly so given the track record of the U.S. when it comes to 
poor people and people of the Third World, and even their own people. Tuskegee, 
Vietnam, the Gulf War, dumping toxic waste primarily next door to poor oppressed 
nation communities, etc., etc. and the list goes on.

Now, my position is like that of MIM, only I agree with the "conspiracy" 
theories only I say that they are an inevitable tributary to the imperialist 
economic structure. Conspiracy theories should not be attributed to "individual 
evil medical researchers" as MIM states. They should be attributed to the whole 
system of imperialism, which is where they have their roots. Imperialism 
distinctly promotes capitalist expansion and surplus value at the cost of 
environmental destruction, population decimation due to war, hunger and 
oppression, economic enslavement, militarism and fascist-in-disguise regimes. 
Dialectical materialism calls for an in-depth analysis of past events in order 
to form concrete theories to practice.

Vaccines have been used to test experimental drugs on people. November 1, 1996 
the FDA [Food and Drug Administration] amended its requirement of expressed 
written consent on people, stating "narrow exception to the requirement of 
obtaining and documenting informed consent from each human subject, or his or 
her legally authorized representative, prior to initiation of an experimental 
intervention."(1) The imperialists are telling us that they can and will test 
drugs on us! Now is that conspiratorial or is that explicit?

Also, the high rate of AIDS cases in Third World countries may well be blown out 
of proportion, although I am not disputing that it is rather high, nor am I 
disputing that it is a direct effect of the imperialist economic order, which 
deprives whole countries of the basic medical benefits which would prevent much 
of this.

According to Dr. Kary Mullis, "The CDC has defined AIDS as one of more than 30 
diseases accompanied by a positive result on a test that detects antibodies to 
HIV. But those same diseases are not defined as AIDS cases when the antibodies 
are not detected. If an HIV-positive woman develops uterine cancer, for example, 
she is considered to have AIDS. If she is not HIV-positive, she simply has 
uterine cancer. An HIV-positive man with tuberculosis has AIDS; if he tests 
negative he simple has tuberculosis. If he lives in Kenya or Colombia, where the 
test for HIV antibodies is too expensive, he is simply presumed to have the 
antibodies and therefore AIDS, and therefore he can be treated in the World 
Heath Organization's clinic. It's the only medical help available in some 
places. And it's free, because the countries that support WHO are worried about 
AIDS... We supply dressing for a machete cut on their left knee and call it 
AIDS."(2)

Now the point is not to make bourgeois doctors or organizations look as if they 
are trying to stop imperialism, but rather to show that numbers provided by them 
are always (or should be) suspect. None of this negates the point stressed by 
MIM that basic hygiene and health care would cut down the numbers of infectious 
diseases in Third World countries, but it does show that many people have a 
materialist justification for being wary of vaccinations. And that goes double 
for those of us who are within these walls of the capitalists' prison economy. 
Conspiracy theories, coupled with a dialectical materialist analysis of 
conditions, serve to educate people to the ills and evils of the imperialist 
system. It invades every sector of life and the profit-over-all mentality is 
inbred in every sector of the economy and establishment.

What is needed is Communist or Revolutionary doctors to provide the vaccines for 
people who are wary of the bourgeois doctors and scientists who are motivated 
more by capital than by health care or the real needs of the people.

Again, I want to reiterate that the evil medical researcher theory is not a 
conspiracy at all, but a very predictable effect of capitalism, particularly 
imperialism. It is a development from a state of mind that jettisons any and 
everything that is not geared to enhance surplus value and decrease variable 
capital. Perfect examples are found through this kountry in HMO emergency rooms, 
where "technicians" are being used instead of registered nurses. Although cases 
of vaccination poisoning are relatively small internationally, when dealing with 
the U.S. and primarily the oppressed colonies within the U.S. it is still 
relevant.

But, I do also agree that MIM summed it up best when it stated that an analysis 
of imperialism is what is needed most, because all of the above is nothing more 
or less than a reactionary, expected development of the imperialist system.

Power to the People!

Build to win -- with M-L-M!

-- A Texas prisoner, April 2000.

1. The New Federalist, 25 November 1996.

2. Dancing Naked in the Mind Field, by Kary Mullis (Pantheon, 1998).

MC12 replies:  As we stressed in the MIM Notes article to which the writer 
refers, maybe the most important problem with most conspiracy theories is that 
they leave no option of collective revolutionary political response. How do you 
organize against evil medical experimentation? If you don't do it as part of 
revolutionary anti-imperialism, you are just demanding more oversight or 
enforcement of existing regulations by the government. Sometimes that might be 
helpful, but it's not promoting a revolutionary movement, which is what we need 
to get rid of imperialism, which is the greatest causes of oppression in the 
world. So in this regard we agree with this writer much more than we do with 
conspiracy theorists like the Nation of Islam, which explicitly diverts 
attention away from systematic thinking and toward hollow outcries against 
specific agencies or programs.

The writer says that "conspiracy ... should be attributed to the whole system of 
imperialism, which is where they have their roots." By that definition they are 
not conspiracy theories anymore, so we don't disagree.

But there are problems with this writer's letter as well. Look at the hype over 
the revised FDA regulations. What did they actually do? We don't know what the 
fascist Lyndon LaRouce reported in the New Federalist cited by the writer, but 
there was a revision of the rules for experimentation in November 1996 that did 
allow some medical experiments without consent. But only in very limited cases: 
"The patients must have a life-threatening condition, like a severe head injury, 
and must be unable to say whether they want to be part of a study. They would be 
selected only if it was not feasible to obtain consent from a relative."(1) And 
yet this is reported as a "gotcha" on the FDA, and the writer concludes, "the 
imperialists are telling us that they can and will test drugs on us!"

Here is a good example of how conspiracy thinking is misleading. In fact there 
was a very open debate about these rules, and the FDA explanation was that there 
are some cases where people with head injuries are in a coma and can't consent, 
and no progress was being made in treating their brain injuries because they 
could never consent.

Whether that's reasonable or not, the greater point is missed. Less than two 
months later a report by the Cleveland Plain Dealer showed that "Since 1977, the 
Food and Drug Administration has conducted 4,154 routine inspections of 
researches testing new drugs on people. More than half the researches, 53 
percent, were cited by FDA inspectors for failing to clearly disclose the 
experimental nature of their work. ... In 46 clinical trials, drugs were tested 
on people without written evidence of consent, according to FDA inspection 
records. ... Altogether, at least 1,000 men, women and children were 
participants in the 46 pharmaceutical studies questioner by the FDA. The 
experiments, in 23 states were sponsored by federal agencies and drug 
companies."(2)

Who were the victims? Among others, they were Sioux reservation children, who 
got an experimental hepatitis vaccine; and mostly oppressed-nation infants in 
inner-city Los Angeles, who got an experimental measles vaccine that had already 
caused deaths in African experiments.(2) In these cases researchers used 
misleading language or technical jargon in their "consent" forms, making vague 
promises that the medicines would be helpful. The supposedly secret change in 
FDA regulations is not the issue here. These abuses all took place before the 
rules were changed, and the new 1996 policy does not even apply in any of these 
cases, because they weren't studies of people in comas.

As the writer correctly notes, these are the kinds of opportunity-abuses that 
will occur under imperialism, when the victims are less educated and politically 
powerless, and the researchers are motivated by potential profits. How can 
people who can't read give "consent" to medical experiments carried out by 
people from outside their communities? The same is true for prisoners, as the 
writer notes. Again, addressing the basic needs, including medical care but also 
education, and overturning the unequal power relations at work in these cases, 
is what is required to prevent these abuses.

With regard to the AIDS quote from Kary Mullis, who won a Nobel Prize in 
chemistry and doesn't believe that HIV causes AIDS, we wonder what the point is. 
AIDS is an immune system deficiency. You can't die of AIDS, you just die of 
diseases you wouldn't have gotten if you didn't have AIDS. So the uterine cancer 
and tuberculosis examples are meaningless. We do not doubt that there is a lot 
of misreporting of AIDS cases, but there are also reasons to suspect the 
estimates are too low rather than too high. And we also don't doubt that doctors 
will call something AIDS to get it paid for by the WHO. Why not? We don't 
understand the reason that conspiracy theorists want to downplay the importance 
of AIDS except to divert people from the prevention strategies necessary to stop 
its spread.

Why should this information be included in a discussion of whether people should 
get their children vaccinated? The NOI "minister of health and human services," 
included AIDS in a list of diseases that "seem to be vaccine related". That kind 
of hype is just intended to get people to avoid vaccinations. People should get 
vaccinations for their children -- they should just make sure they are getting 
the same vaccinations that are given in the white parts of Amerika.

MIM concludes this discussion by urging everyone to take a careful materialist 
look at the source of the problems we are talking about. As a Maoist party MIM 
is always striving to take on the principal contradiction in every struggle. In 
the case of poverty and disease the main enemy is imperialism. So we must take 
on this enemy very clearly in our propaganda and our actions. To fight for an 
end to suffering and disease around the world requires revolutionary communist 
leadership.

1. New York Times, November 5, 1996. p A1.

2. Times-Picayune, December 23, 1996. p. E13.