This is an archive of the former website of the Maoist Internationalist Movement, which was run by the now defunct Maoist Internationalist Party - Amerika. The MIM now consists of many independent cells, many of which have their own indendendent organs both online and off. MIM(Prisons) serves these documents as a service to and reference for the anti-imperialist movement worldwide.
MIM Notes 296 · February 1, 2004 · Page 1
MIM Notes
Feb. 1, 2004, Nº 296
The Official Newsletter of the Maoist Internationalist Movement (MIM)
Free
INSIDE: California corruption * Under Lock & Key * Una Página en Español...
web: www.prisoncensorship.info/archive/etext
T
he ambitions of U.$. imperialism
in Afghanistan and Iraq have left
its military stretched to the point
where its strengths and weaknesses are
readily apparent. Now CNN is concerned
enough that at the end of December it
started a discussion of re-instituting the
draft of men and wimmin aged 18 to 26.(1)
Whether through ineptitude or
intentional chutzpah, Amerikkkan rulers
have done everything they can to make
voluntary military service unattractive
while increasing the hatred of the world's
people for U.$. imperialism. The long
one-year terms of service and the long
call-ups of reserve forces have likely put
a pinch on future recruitments. This can
only serve to speed up the global
revolution against U.$. imperialism.
Now the U.$. military has gone the
extra step and prevented those due to
retire from retiring while also extending
the terms of service of others. The Army
hopes to limit retirement delays to 30 to
60 days, but there is no guarantee at the
moment of how long the Army is delaying
retirements. Word is "up to 90 days."(2)
To be sure, the government is offering
$10,000 bonuses to people who re-enlist
for longer terms, but the killing of U.$.
troops in Iraq has brought new factors
into the equation that U.$. rulers have not
had to contend with since the Vietnam
War. That is no small accomplishment for
the Iraqi liberation forces. If the Arab
people ever gain a Maoist vanguard party
to lead People's War against U.$.
imperialism, we expect Uncle $am to
face even greater difficulty and end up
the same way he did in Vietnam.
The military image of the United $tates
right now is very strong--with the military
budget surpassing the rest of world's
budgets combined being a major factor
in that image. Supposedly there is only
one superpower since the end of the Cold
War.
The United $tates has 1.4 million people
in military services, but many of those are
office and technical back-up personnel.
Of the remaining combat personnel, not
all can serve abroad simultaneously
without seriously hurting recruiting and
retention efforts. Protracted personnel-
intensive warfare is still the weakness of
IS THE DRAFT NEXT?
U.$. military approaches limits
During the Vietnam War, Uncle $am ran into problems at home when thousands of young
men burnt their draft cards, like this one.
See more coverage of the war on Iraq, including an expose of Amerikkkan
efforts to export pornography to Iraq, on page 5.
GOVERNMENT
DIVERSIFIES
CAMPAIGN
AGAINST CIVIL
LIBERTIES
T
he Bush administration has been
compelled by popular and elite
opposition to diversify its
campaign against civil liberties.
Nevertheless, state surveillance,
repression and persecution continue to
intensify, particularly against foreign
nationals.
The "Patriot Act II" bill circulating last
year--which would have intensified the
repression measures permitted under the
original USA PATRIOT Act, passed
shortly after September 11, 2001--has not
been introduced in Congress. This seems
to be because there was substantial
opposition to the bill. MIM was a leader
in opposing it--last spring we delivered
more than 3,100 signatures to California
Senator Barbara Boxer's Los Angeles
office (1)--but there were also
campaigns by traditional civil libertarians
as well as anti-big-government
conservatives, including many
Republicans.
For example, more than 200 local
governments have passed resolutions
objecting in one way or another to the
Patriot Act.(2) Also, a group of U.$.
Senators, including Republicans and
Democrats, attempted to pass legislation
at the end of last year that would have
somewhat limited some of the
government's new powers under the
Patriot Act, including "sneak and peak"
searches in which the subject is never
told the search took place. The House of
Representatives effectively limited that
part of the Patriot Act last summer,
denying it funding by a vote of 309 to
118.(3)
[This mainstream opposition to the
Patriot Act was also seen during
President Bush's State of the Union
address, when many legislators applauded
the line, "Key provisions of the Patriot
Act are set to expire next year," instead
of the line Bush wanted them to applaud:
L
ast year, we wrote that President
Bush used his State of the Union
address to feed the public
"concrete details" proving that Saddam
Hussein had weapons of mass
destruction--details we showed were
either old fabrications or greatly
exaggerated.(1) This year, Bush lapsed
back into vague, hypocritical rhetoric and
sophism, apparently trusting the kind of
"father knows best" quasi-monarchism
exemplified by Fox News to drown out
persistent criticism of his arguments for
expanding the war in Iraq.(2)
Last October, before the ground
invasion of Iraq, Bush and co. claimed
that Iraq had "a massive stockpile of
biological weapons that has never been
accounted for and is capable of killing
millions." Two days before the invasion,
Bush said U.$. troops were to enter Iraq
"to eliminate weapons of mass
destruction."(3) Then, last summer, after
initial reports of weapons discoveries
turned out to be wishful thinking on Bush's
part, Bush backpedaled and talked about
weapons of mass destruction
"programs."(4) Finally, in this year's State
of the Union address, Bush could only
point out "weapons of mass destruction-
related program activities," a phrase that
has been correctly mocked as so vague
as to be meaningless.(5)
Even worse for Bush, David Kay, head
of the U.$. weapons-inspection team and
the author of the report Bush cited as
identifying those weapons-related
program activities, resigned three days
after the State of the Union speech, saying
"I don't think [weapons of mass
destruction] existed. What everyone was
talking about is stockpiles produced after
`State of the Union'
same sad story
Continued on page 4...
Continued on page 8...
Continued on page 6...
MIM Notes 296 · February 1, 2004 · Page 2
What is MIM?
The Maoist Internationalist Movement (MIM) is the collection of existing or emerging
Maoist internationalist parties in the English-speaking imperialist countries and their English-
speaking internal semi-colonies, as well as the existing or emerging Maoist Internationalist
parties in Belgium, France and Quebec and the existing or emerging Spanish-speaking
Maoist Internationalist parties of Aztlan, Puerto Rico and other territories of the U.$. Empire.
MIM Notes is the newspaper of MIM. Notas Rojas is the newspaper of the Spanish-speaking
parties or emerging parties of MIM. MIM upholds the revolutionary communist ideology
of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism and is an internationalist organization that works from the
vantage point of the Third World proletariat. MIM struggles to end the oppression of all
groups over other groups: classes, genders, nations. MIM knows this is only possibly by
building public opinion to seize power through armed struggle. Revolution is a reality for
North America as the military becomes over-extended in the government's attempts to
maintain world hegemony. MIM differs from other communist parties on three main
questions: (1) MIM holds that after the proletariat seizes power in socialist revolution, the
potential exists for capitalist restoration under the leadership of a new bourgeoisie within
the communist party itself. In the case of the USSR, the bourgeoisie seized power after the
death of Stalin in 1953; in China, it was after Mao's death and the overthrow of the "Gang
of Four" in 1976. (2) MIM upholds the Chinese Cultural Revolution as the farthest advance
of communism in humyn history. (3) As Marx, Engels and Lenin formulated and MIM has
reiterated through materialist analysis, imperialism extracts super-profits from the Third
World and in part uses this wealth to buy off whole populations of oppressor nation so-
called workers. These so-called workers bought off by imperialism form a new petty-
bourgeoisie called the labor aristocracy. These classes are not the principal vehicles to
advance Maoism within those countries because their standards of living depend on
imperialism. At this time, imperialist super-profits create this situation in the Canada, Quebec,
the United $tates, England, France, Belgium, Germany, Japan, Italy, Switzerland,
Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Israel, Sweden and Denmark. MIM accepts people as
members who agree on these basic principles and accept democratic centralism, the system
of majority rule, on other questions of party line.
"The theory of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin is universally applicable. We should
regard it not as dogma, but as a guide to action. Studying it is not merely a matter of
learning terms and phrases, but of learning Marxism-Leninism as the science of revolution."
- Mao Zedong, Selected Works, Vol. II, p. 208.
Editor, MC206; Production, MC12
MIM Notes
The Official Newsletter of The Maoist Internationalist Movement
ISSN 1540-8817
MIM Notes is the bi-weekly newsletter of the Maoist Internationalist Movement. MIM
Notes is the official Party voice; more complete statements are published in our journal,
MIM Theory. Material in MIM Notes is the Party's position unless noted. MIM Notes
accepts submissions and critiques from anyone. The editors reserve the right to edit
submissions unless permission is specifically denied by the author; submissions are
published anonymously unless authors insist on identification (prisoners are never
identified by name). MIM is an underground party that does not publish the names of its
comrades in order to avoid the state surveillance and repression that have historically
been directed at communist parties and anti-imperialist movements. MCs, MIM comrades,
are members of the Party. The Revolutionary Anti-Imperialist League (RAIL) is an anti-
imperialist mass organization led by MIM (RCs are RAIL Comrades). MIM's ten-point
program is available to anyone who sends in a SASE.
The paper is free to all prisoners, as long as they write to us every 90 days to confirm
their subsciptions. There are no individual subscriptions for people outside prison.
People who want to receive newspapers should become sponsors and distributors.
Sponsors pay for papers, distributors get them onto the streets, and officers do both
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Mail), $3,840; 900 (8-10 days), $2,200. To become a sponor or distributor, send
anonymous money orders payable to "MIM." Send to MIM, attn: Camb. branch, PO Box
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Most back issues of MIM Notes are available free on our web site. The web site con-
tains thousands of documents, with ordering information for many more.
MIM grants explicit permission to copy all or part of this newspaper for any reason, as
long as we are credited.
For general correspondence, contact:
MIM
P.O. Box 29670
Los Angeles, CA 90029-0670
eMail: <mim@mim.org>
WWW: <http//www.prisoncensorship.info/archive/etext>
Readers will notice that MIM talks
quite a bit about Amerikan
democracy--a.k.a. "dumbocracy"--in
this issue. We reprint this short essay
to give readers some background on
what we mean when we talk about
democracy and what we think of it.
If we define "democracy" as majority
rule, then MIM opposes democracy in
principle because we prioritize serving
humyn needs --peace, healthful
environment, food, clothing, healthcare
and shelter. If a majority decided (as in
the United States) that a minority or
another country should have to do without
survival "rights," then we communists will
fight that majority to the end, so we
cannot say we are for democracy in
principle. Survival rights are non-
negotiable. On the other hand, in the
distant future, majority rule might be
acceptable in a world where there are
already actually existing survival rights.
Exaggeration
1. The most common reason we oppose
"democracy" is that it is used by
conservatives (including people calling
themselves democratic socialists) to
exaggerate the merits of the status quo.
The public is told there is majority rule
again and again in situations where there
is in fact none. So it is a factual question.
Conservatives believe majority rule of
the world should not apply in economic
matters, matters of property rights. Along
with the European and Amerikan
"democratic socialists" they have a history
of believing the majority rule of their
country should decide what happens in
other countries. For these two reasons
alone, Lenin said communism was
millions times more democratic than the
status quo.
Imprecision
2. Many who use the word
"democracy" including many foggy-
minded scholars use the word to refer to
something that should more precisely be
called the "American way of life." They
are referring to a situation created when
a country kills off the inhabitants of a
continent, empties another continent for
slaves and then builds its wealth. These
people are largely unaware that India also
has democracy, with more people
practicing it there, than in the rich
countries combined. Yet people starve to
death in India by the millions every year.
Doesn't work
3. Democracy is a goal that often gets
people excited and then slaughtered. The
rich and the U.S. government spend
money at home and abroad to win
elections. When the Yankee imperialists
and their lackeys lose elections they send
in the Marines and depose elected
governments or pay to subvert them.
Money or guns settle the matter, not the
interests of the majority.
We Maoists have read history and see
that people have to be prepared to fight a
people's war for their destinies. Some
people in the imperialist countries see the
facts but do not draw the same
conclusions. They know "democracy" is
A MIM Frequently Asked Question: "Why do you oppose democracy?"
not working in practice, but they downplay
the problem or try to reform the system.
Widespread hunger and transcontinental slavery are two of
"democracy's" accomplishments
MIM Notes 296 · February 1, 2004 · Page 3
by MC45
The bar "Damons" in upstate New
York may be the first to receive a waiver
of the state's restaurant and bar smoking
ban. The state is allowing Damons'
customers to smoke indoors since the
bar's owner reported that his business
was down 40%, and he was supporting
the bar with his retirement savings and
social security payments. MIM wants to
know: if the state is going to grant
exceptions to the smoking ban every time
a restaurant or bar is about to go under,
what's the point of the ban to begin with?
MIM supports measures like banning
Profit-friendly NY smoking ban has no teeth
smoking in public places as partial
reforms under capitalism. Under
socialism, profit from peddling cancer will
be banned altogether. For us this is the
whole idea of a ban on smoking in bars
or restaurants. In other words, when the
ban starts to put smoking-dependent
proprietors out of business, that means
it's working. If these capitalists really
can't succeed without getting people
together to promote cancer, we want
them to find something else to do with
their money. (The Damons case is
especially interesting from this
perspective. Clearly the owner is not
depending on the bar to survive--and
before he started losing money he had
only one part-time employee--if he has
government and private retirement
benefits to pay into the bar's coffers. This
is a case where pure profit is driving the
exception to the smoking ban.)
A smoking ban is just part of an
elementary platform on public health, as
is a ban on profiting from meat, alcohol
and candy bar production at the expense
of people's health. We communists are
the most resolute supporters of the
people's right not to be poisoned by their
environment; you won't see us backing
down on these questions to win the
support of capitalists. A dictatorship of
the proletariat--socialism--will be
necessary to fully ban profit from
products that harm public health, because
such will demand placing the good of the
majority ahead of the well-funded
interests of capital. When our post-
revolution policies push some people out
of health-eroding jobs, we will move them
in positions that contribute to the social
good.
Source: New York Times 13 Jan., 2004. For
MIM's program under capitalism, socialism and
communism, see http://www.etext.org/Politics/
MIM/wim/pcongres.html
MAOIST
SEMINAR A
FIRST IN
EX-USSR
The Russian Maoist Party reports that
it held a seminar on Maoism in
commemoration of Mao's 110th birthday.
It was the first such legally held seminar
in the ex-USSR.
The Russian language is the fifth largest
in the world with 320 million or 5% of the
world's people speaking it. For this reason
alone, the seminar would be highly
significant. MIM and the RMP make
Russian language documents available on
our respective web pages and the RMP
has agreed to participate in our
forthcoming DVD.
From MIM's point of view, the seminar
is also important in showing that Maoists
representing exploited white people can
arise. Not all white people in the world
are exploiters and to conduct agitation and
propaganda among those white people
who may be unclear how U.$.
imperialism really attained its wealth is a
distinct task unto itself.
Chairpersyn Dar Zhutayev delivered an
extensive report on the basics of
Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. Comrade
Oleg Torbasow also delivered a report,
one on the task of bringing Maoism into
the Russian language. According to
Zhutayev, "The evening began with `The
East Is Red' and ended with `The
Internationale.'"
Source: Encyclopedia Britannica
Almanac 2003, p. 723.
In January the Los Angeles Times ran
a few stories exposing the California
DOC "code of silence," which protects
guards who abuse prisoners and engage
in corruption. The San Francisco
Chronicle also picked up on the story.
We're pleased to see this story reaching
the pages of the mainstream media and
we hope that people will take this as a
call to action. It is clear the Department
of Corruptions will not reform itself.
The basis of these stories was a report
on the California DOC by John Hagar.
Hagar was appointed to monitor Pelican
Bay prison's progress in complying with
court orders specifying reforms. He was
appointed after the U.S. District Court
found, in 1995, that poor medical care and
guard brutality violated the civil rights of
Pelican Bay prisoners. Last year, in a
federal trial, two Pelican Bay guards
were convicted of beating prisoners and
setting up the stabbing of an inmate.
Federal prosecutors gave the state
corrections officials evidence that at least
three guards lied under oath during the
trial, but the department shut down its
investigation into this misconduct. Hagar
spent the last six months investigating why
these cases were shut down and this
report is his findings.
Code of silence exposed
Hagar's report exposed the "code of
silence" and the leaders who "neither
understand nor care about the need for
fair investigations."(1) For years
California Prisoners have been reporting
in the pages of MIM Notes that their
attempts to legally appeal corruption and
abuse are met with resistance, lost
paperwork, and retaliation. This report
brings the truth of the prisoner's claims
to an even broader public.
As the Times reported, "Hagar's
report, still subject to review, amounts to
a sweeping indictment of the department's
ability to police itself, and recommends
criminal charges against former
Corrections Director Edward S.
Alameida and a high-ranking deputy."
Further, "[h]e concluded that Alameida
was moved by union meddling to
improperly close a perjury investigation
of two guards at Pelican Bay State
Prison, then conspired with others to
conceal his actions. Alameida should be
charged with contempt, and Thomas
Moore, former chief of investigations,
should be charged with perjury for lying
in federal court, Hagar said."(1)
Alameida resigned as Director in
December, and it now looks like he took
the fall for the department so that they
will be able to claim things have changed.
But he remains on the department payroll
and will resume working in an unspecified
post after an extended vacation.(1)
This report comes at the same time the
State Senate has convened hearings on
mismanagement and cover-ups in the
DOC.
According to the Times, "Hagar's
report included other episodes of what
he described as improper union influence,
including a department decision to pay
for the legal defense of an officer who
shot and wounded an inmate at Pelican
Bay."(1)
A Union vice-president stated that he
agreed with the report's findings that the
prison investigations are a problem. But
his view is that there are too many
charges resulting from these
investigations, making things out to be
important when they should not be.
The Chronicle summed up the report
as "[a] sweeping summary of corruption
and cover-up among high-level
administrators, Hagar's 71-page report
depicts a department that has lost control
of its efforts to police rogue correctional
officers, in part because of the influence
of the state's politically powerful prison
guards union. The result, according to
Hagar, is a systemic code of silence
...."(2)
We're pleased to see this information
come to light, but we note that Governor
Schwarzenegger's proposed budget
eliminates the independent state agency
that investigates prisons. While we don't
think that agency is going to solve the
criminal injustice system problems, this
decision, in light of the tremendous funding
given to the DOC, reveals the
government's priorities and lack of
interest in doing anything remotely in the
interests of prisoners.
Folsom prison riot cover-up
In January KCRA Channel 3 reported
that it had obtained documents that
demonstrate "Folsom Prison officials
intentionally allowed an April 2002 inmate
riot to happen and that those same officials
then launched a cover-up." It goes on to
report, "[t]he documents show that a
group of current and former Folsom State
Prison supervisors and staff presented
their allegations before two state senators.
Included in that group is Evette Pieper,
the widow of Capt. D.F. Pieper--a
custody captain who committed suicide
during the investigation into the riot."(3)
KCRA did some further digging and got
a copy of the Inspector General's
investigative report on the riot: "In it,
investigators point out there were
`substantial irregularities' in the prison's
own internal investigation of the riot, and
that those reports "contained statements
contradicted by other information." The
report even shows the warden ordered
an `...audio portion of the riot videotape
to be removed.'" No surprise to those
who understand that the criminal injustice
system is all about protecting it's own, the
Inspector General's conclusion read: "This
investigation did not reveal criminal
misconduct."(3)
As KCRA explains: "Evette Pieper
says state senators need to dig deeper.
She says her husband left a suicide note
behind, saying he did what he did because
of extreme pressure during a cover-up.
She says the Office of the Inspector
General's official report even lends some
credence to her claim. The report points
Reports of California prisoncrat
corruption go mainstream
We constantly update MIM's
coverage of the U.$. war on
our web site, with news and
opinion, agitation materials,
articles in English, Spanish,
French, Chinese and
Russian!
Read and distribute the
newspaper -- and get the
latest:
www.etext.org/ Politics/MIM
Continued on page 7...
MIM Notes 296 · February 1, 2004 · Page 4
U.$. imperialism; yet protracted
occupation is what the U.$. imperialists
want to re-order the Middle East the way
they re-ordered Japan and Germany after
World War II. The imperialists believe
they can accomplish more of their
goalsthe longer they are able to keep
troops in the Middle East.
MIM cannot confirm the analysis of the
Associated Press on this question, but the
general questions raised in the following
quote are correct: "Back-to-back wars
in Afghanistan and Iraq have stretched
the Army thin. Nearly two-thirds of its
active duty brigade-sized units are
deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan. When
the troops currently in Iraq rotate out this
spring, the U.S. plans to lean heavily on
the National Guard and Reserves for
replacements. The Pentagon said
Wednesday that the number of U.S.
military reservists called to active duty
jumped by more than 10,000 in the past
week."(3)
The U.$. army served as a "rent-a-cop"
and Japan the "cash register" to pay for
it in Gulf War I, and the truth is that the
U.$. military is not 1.4 million people who
are going to fight to the death in any
politico-military situation. They are 1.4
million rented people, people who will
often complain about one-year terms
abroad. There are only so many rural
white kids thrilled to go off to war no
matter what Bush says the reason is. The
more people the Pentagon needs, the less
pliant the people available will be--not
so much for political reasons of opposition
to war and empire, but for simple selfish
reasons limiting how long one is willing to
serve in the military in exotic but
unfriendly places and at what salary.
Bush's greatest ally right now in military
recruitment is the unemployment rate.
It would be a mistake to fail to give the
proper tactical respect to the U.$. military,
but we should also understand the longer
term forces acting on the U.$. armed
forces. Long before anyone faces 1.4
million armed people in the field, the U.$.
forces acting outside U.$. borders for the
oppression of Third World people will be
soundly defeated.
MIM would warn that the situation of
the U.$. rulers is not exactly the same as
the British. There is a lot more room in
the U.$. force for shifting people around
into different roles, because of the size
of the force relative to its obligations. The
talk of the military's difficulties may be
aimed at Congress's budget deliberations
and it may encourage attacks in Iraq that
the rulers would like to see there instead
of elsewhere. We should not forget that
Bush said "bring them on" as in "bring it
[the fight] on" in response to questions
about U.$. enemies in the Mideast and
Iraq in particular. That could be pure
DRAFT NEXT?
U.$. military approaches limits
macho ineptitude pandering to certain
Bubba-type voters or it could reflect the
flawed calculation that the United $tates
would rather fight in Iraq than at places
like the World Trade Center.(4)
The very size and complexity of the U.$.
military relative to the British one allows
the British to shift around troops without
drawing international attention. The
stretched situation of the British military
is much more important for political
reasons than for logistical reasons on the
ground in Iraq or Afghanistan. At times,
the U.$. imperialists may want to cover
for the weaknesses of its ally and at other
times, it may want to see the British
contribute combat troops in proportion to
their population. That's a question
concerning relations among imperialist
countries who are not bound by a selfless
ideology.
In addition, the British situation is
objectively more developed than the U.$.
political situation for other reasons. One
is that England has its own oil and it is
difficult to persuade the English labor
aristocracy that it is completely necessary
or beneficial to serve as the tail on the
Amerikkkan dog in the Middle East.
Secondly, the anti-war movement in
England has already demonstrated its
strength with a much higher portion of
demonstrators than in the United $tates.
2.5 million out of 60 million in England
demonstrated simultaneously against the
war. In contrast, with 290 million people,
the United $tates may have had only the
same 2.5 million demonstrators at the
greatest point of upsurge.
In MIM Notes 290, "Britain faces
quasi-revolutionary opportunity," MIM
explained how, absent logistical cover
from the United $tates, the British military
is operating at its limits. Although the
same general reasoning process applies
to Uncle $am, the development of the
revolutionary situation is not as far along.
As proved by the success of Paris
Hilton in the reality television show that
gained higher ratings than Bush did talking
about Saddam Hussein's capture,
Amerikkkans may be more nationalistic
than the European imperialists, but skin-
deep beauty is still deeper than any notion
of group--whether nation or class--in the
United $tates. The selfish and narrow
concerns that drive men to pornography,
video games and drugs are an excellent
defense of the status quo of bourgeois
society, but they limit the ability of
imperialism to go on offensives to re-order
the world. Most young men would prefer
to stay at home and watch Paris Hilton
on TV than join military operations in
Afghanistan. That is the particular nature
of how U.$. culture relates to its military
strength.
Hot air can only go so far. Tony Blair
of England said that England would have
had to invade Iraq if the United $tates
did not. However, reality is that England
would have to pare down its ambitions or
work out a new deal with French, German
and Russian imperialism if it were not for
the U.$. imperialists. The British military
simply does not have the ability to do all
that the United $tates covers now and
for the foreseeable future the same is true
of any other combination of imperialists.
Only Amerikkkan imperialism can fill the
role it does right now and the Iraqi people
have already started to expose the limits
of U.$. power. This gives us a slight
inkling of how the end of imperialism may
come about.
Notes:
1. http://www.cnn.com/2003/
ALLPOLITICS/12/29/timep.draft.tm/
2. http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/01/05/
army.delay.reut/index.html ; http://
w w w . r e u t e r s . c o m /
newsArticle.jhtml?type=domesticNews&storyID=4076094
3. http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/news/
story.jsp?floc=FF-APO-1107&idq=/ff/
s
t
o
r
y
/
0001%2F20040107%2F194828439.htm&sc=1107
4. http://www.usatoday.com/news/
world/iraq/2003-07-02-bush-iraq-
troops_x.htm
Continued from page 1...
Militarism is war-mongering or the
advocacy of war or actual carrying out
of war or its preparations.
While true pacifists condemn all
violence as equally repugnant, we
Maoists do not consider self-defense
or the violence of oppressed nations
against imperialism to be militarism.
Militarism is mostly caused by
imperialism at this time. Imperialism
is the highest stage of capitalism--
seen in countries like the United
$tates, England and France.
Under capitalism, capitalists often
profit from war or its preparations.
Yet, it is the proletariat that does the
dying in the wars. The proletariat
wants a system in which people do not
have self-interest on the side of war-
profiteering or war for imperialism.
Militarism is one of the most
important reasons to overthrow
capitalism. It even infects oppressed
nations and causes them to fight each
other.
It is important not to let capitalists
risk our lives in their ideas about war
and peace or the environment. They
have already had two world wars
admitted by themselves in the last 100
years and they are conducting a third
right now against the Third World.
Even a one percent annual chance of
nuclear war destruction caused by
capitalist aggressiveness or "greed" as
the people call it should not be tolerated
by the proletariat. After playing
Russian Roulette (in which the bullet
chamber is different each time and not
related at all to the one that came up in
previous spins) with 100 chambers and
one bullet, the chance of survival is
only 60.5% after 50 turns. In other
words, a seemingly small one percent
annual chance of world war means
eventual doom. After 100 years or turns
of Russian Roulette, the chances of
survival are only 36.6%. After 200
years, survival has only a 13.4%
chance.
What is militarism?
MIM Notes 296 · February 1, 2004 · Page 5
Thousands of Iraqis and hundreds of
Amerikkkans are dead from the latest
round of the Gulf War, but the only
"freedom" the Iraqis have so far is the
freedom to buy pornography and see
prostitutes--this admitted by the
bourgeois media which has reported on
Amerikkkan shootings of anti-U.$.
demonstrators and Iraqi journalists.(1)
Under Saddam Hussein, prostitution was
illegal while effectively available to the
rich. Now there are popular pornography
publishing houses making a fast buck and
ordinary Iraqi men also have the U$A to
thank for their freedom to utilize the
services of prostitutes.(2)
At least when it comes to the
oppression of wimmin, Amerikkkans can
say they are no hypocrites. George
Bush's television interview on the capture
of Saddam Hussein received fewer
television viewers than a competing
special featuring Paris Hilton of
pornography video fame.(3) Now there
are men in both the U.$.A. and Iraq who
can say the war was never really about
weapons of mass destruction, Saddam
Hussein, or even oil: for many apolitical
men, it's about sex, because everything
is about sex and trying to talk politics with
them is almost a waste of time.
Paris Hilton is the "socialite"--polite
language for parasitic playgirl--heir to a
multi-million dollar fortune. Her sex acts
on video have stirred up the world's
pornographic fascination concerning the
availability of a rich white man's daughter.
There seems to be some dispute as to
whether Paris Hilton knowingly posed
nude or gave proper permission, and
that's all that was necessary to make the
video of Paris Hilton extra special.
While many suspect that oil is the
reason for the war on Iraq, we have to
admit that Iraqis have gained some
Amerikkkan-style freedom. The
pornography and prostitution allowed in
Iraq today are the first signs of respect
by Amerikkkan men for Iraqi men. Just
to show the Iraqis how special
pornography is and to add to the taboo
excitement of it all, the British arrested
two of their own troops in Iraq for owning
pornography in Iraq, one for child
pornography and one for adult
pornography.(4) Meanwhile, one Iraqi
accused U.$. troops not just of owning
but distributing pornography to Iraqis free
The fact that Paris Hilton's appearance
on a reality television show had higher
television ratings than Bush right after the
capture of Saddam Hussein (1) shows
that young men in the U$A have taken
pornography to a whole new level. After
September 11th, 2001, it was a source of
some embarrassment that
nakednews.com had to stop operations
for a few days. The viewers realized that
maybe their grip on politics was not what
it should be and that at least for that
moment, nakednews.com would not do.
By the end of 2003, the pornography
consumer openly ditched politics for Paris
Hilton.
It is actually a return to "normalcy" that
less than three years later, Bush captures
Saddam Hussein and the under-40 crowd
changes the channel to Paris Hilton. That
is a huge political watershed moment. It's
tempting to say that when Amerikkkans
are watching their porno videos at least
they are not lapping up Bush-league
propaganda. The government has tried
so often to link Saddam Hussein and his
sons to unrestrained sexual appetites
indulged in luxury pads that then become
the subject of tabloid story after tabloid
story. Yet, now it is difficult to tell if this
was just a way of getting the attention of
readers. There is obviously good money
to be made in telling and re-telling the
stories of the sex lives of men who
supposedly procured wimmin at will.
The next image from all this that comes
Amerikkkans export their pastime
Iraqis freed to drool and whore
on laser disc.(5) It makes us think that
maybe R Kelly took the child pornography
charge as part of a team contribution
called for by the U.$. military, because
he subsequently dedicated a song for the
troops in Iraq. OK, we're just joking, but
it shows how impossible it is for
Amerikkka to do anything, even
supporting its troops, without a heavy
pornography undertow. (Even if R Kelly
is innocent of child pornography, there is
no doubt he is making adult pornography
a part of his profession.) Every arrest of
pornography producers under capitalism
only restricts supply and causes the price
to go up. The rise in price may even come
with a rise in demand thanks to the taboos
violated by those willing to risk arrest. In
any case, as the price goes up, the people
willing to supply the product also
increase. Capitalism can in no way break
out of the cycle.
As an attempt to placate the people of
Iraq into accepting the U.$. colonial
administration, the pornography/
prostitution strategy is bound to bring
some converts while antagonizing others.
On the whole, we do not believe such a
strategy can work where a people's
economic livelihood is at stake as it is in
Iraq today.
Notes:
1. http://www.dissidentvoice.org/
Articles7/Fisk_US-Censorship.htm ;
http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Articles8/
Fisk_Iraq-Censorship.htm ; A newspaper
closely linked to British military
intelligence has reported it all. There is
no dispute of fact: "Two months after
`liberating' Iraq, the Anglo-US authorities
have decided to control the new, free
press." www.independent.co.uk
2. See for example New York Times
17Dec2003. Newspapers and television
media throughout the Third World have
been criticizing the united $tates for the
spread of pornography and prostitution in
Iraq.
3. http://www.cnn.com/2003/
S H O W B I Z / T V / 1 2 / 1 8 /
offbeat.hilton.bush.reut/
4. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/
2968472.stm
5. Associated Press (AP) reprinted
here: http://www.sltrib.com/2003/Dec/
12132003/nation_w/119583.asp
to mind is a military juggernaut moving
forward and crushing all underfoot, while
most of the staff of the juggernaut pays
no attention, because it is too busy with
pornography. The Amerikkkan military
can accomplish quite a bit with some
degree of efficiency even while most of
the country continues in its oblivious and
privileged existence.
By coincidence, at the end of 2003, the
bourgeois media did some thorough news
stories that show how pornography
gained mainstream acceptance in the
United $tates. At $10 billion a year in
business, the porno business is equal to
the music industry or the non-porno big-
screen industry.(2) Especially noteworthy
is how pornography videos are the key to
some cable television and hotel profits--
not in the adult entertainment production
industry, but in "mainstream" businesses
catering to pornography consumers.
CBS reported it this way: "Last year,
Comcast, the nation's largest cable
company, pulled in $50 million from adult
programming. All the nation's top cable
operators, from Time Warner to
Cablevision, distribute sexually explicit
material to their subscribers. But you
won't read about it in their annual reports.
Same with satellite providers like
EchoStar and DirecTV, which is owned
by Hughes Technology, a subsidiary of
General Motors."(2) It appears that
DirecTV would be in the red without
pornography of about $500 million in
revenue a year.
The days are long gone when it was
useful to think of pornography as some
"deviant lifestyle" to be corrected by pre-
political lifestyle practices such as advised
by Christian preachers. Many of the
largest corporations in Amerika would be
sunk without pornography. "Hilton,
Marriot [sic], Hyatt, Sheraton and
Holiday Inn [...] all offer adult films on
in-room pay-per-view television systems.
And they are purchased by a whopping
50 percent of their guests, accounting for
nearly 70 percent of their in-room profits.
One hotel owner said, `We have to have
it, our guests demand it.'"(2)
That level of economic organization is
not something that a trip down to the local
synagogue or Christian church is going
to take care of. Capitalism is another
reason that gender oppression is a system,
not a lifestyle. If one cable company or
hotel tried to do the "right thing," another
would come along and make the profits
from doing the "wrong thing." Hence, no
single individual's choice really matters
in a profit-system.
The pornography industry now lobbies
the California legislature, and among other
things, lobbyists point out that adult
entertainment brings California 12,000
jobs.(2) For that matter, all other
entertainers have to compete; thus,
Britney Spears and the "Friends"
television show have made obliging
references.(2) To restrict our view of
pornography's influence to the direct
employees of adult entertainment
companies would be a big mistake.
The biggest possible blow to
pornography is not the same old religion,
Christian, Muslim or any other. Those
religions have been around for thousands
of years without contributing to the
solution of the oppression of wimmin. The
biggest blow to pornography will come
with socialist revolution. When it is legally
impossible to make profits or spend ill-
gotten money, it is pornography and drugs
that will suffer most. Mao already proved
that by successfully abolishing thriving
drug, prostitution and pornography trades
in China (1949-1976). Taking away
someone's "right" to make profits from
pornography is indeed an act of
dictatorship at this stage in history and
until the day no one would think of making
money that way. That's why people who
want an end to the proliferation of
weapons of mass destruction, prostitution,
drugs and pornography should support the
dictatorship of the proletariat.
Notes:
1. http://www.cnn.com/2003/
S H O W B I Z / T V / 1 2 / 1 8 /
offbeat.hilton.bush.reut/
2. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/
2003/11/21/60minutes/main585049.shtml
2003: A big year for pornography
MIM Notes 296 · February 1, 2004 · Page 6
"You need to renew the Patriot Act."]
In response, the administration has
narrowed its legislative agenda, and
pushed ahead with some measures that
are less politically sensitive-- including
some by administrative fiat.
For example, in January the
Department of Homeland Security
implemented a new fingerprinting and
photographing program for adults entering
the country from most countries
(exempting those coming from countries
that don't require visas, which are mostly
European).(4) The "biometric" data
collection supposedly allows immigration
police to check entrants against databases
of potential terrorists. In practice, it
amounts to a giant data collection effort
to allow widespread surveillance of
foreign nationals--an estimated 24 million
per year.(5)
Although comprehensive new
legislation may be stalled, the
administration has made some progress
in the courts, especially regarding its
treatment of foreign nationals. Most
recently, the Supreme Court ruled that the
administration may withhold the identities
and charges against the hundreds of
mostly Muslim men rounded up and
detained in the weeks and months after
September 11. Most of them ended up
deported for reasons unrelated to
"terrorism," and the administration
doesn't want people to know who they
were, what they were charged with, how
they were treated, and other embarrassing
information. This is not surprising, given
that the court previously approved of
closed-door deportation hearings for the
GOVERNMENT DIVERSIFIES CAMPAIGN AGAINST CIVIL LIBERTIES
detainees.(6)
Both the immigration policy and the
detainee decision represent the tendency
to separate U.$. citizens from others in
terms of legal rights--which has been the
most visible pattern since September 11,
and one of the reasons the Amerikan
public has not protested more against
increased government repression. For
example, the U.$. Court of Appeals for
the 2nd Circuit in New York ruled in
December in the case of Jose Padilla that
Bush cannot declare an Amerikan citizen
an "enemy combatant" and hold him
indefinitely in military custody.(7)
However, the detention of foreign
nationals as enemy combatants has been
allowed to persist.
Other moves against foreign nationals
include crackdowns on informal money
transactions used to send money back
home to immigrants' families. In New
York, federal prosecutors have brought
charges against dozens of people from
the Middle East and South Asia for the
unlicensed transactions which used to be
extremely common. The new
enforcement has a nice side effect for
banks, as the amount sent back to
Pakistan though U.$. banks increased
from $300 million the year before
September 11 to $1.2 billion last year.(8)
The government won some legislative
gains for repression, as in a little- noticed
part of the intelligence authorization bill,
which gave the FBI new power to
demand some business records secretly
and without a court order. The law
expanded the definition of "financial
institutions"--which are covered by new
power--to include many private
businesses, such as travel agencies and
pawnbrokers.(9)
One ominous development in the war
on civil liberties has been the increasing
role of private companies in the repressive
apparatus. For example, the company
Kroll has released a new product called
"TruAlert," which it calls a "USA Patriot
Act compliance solution," part of their
"suite of risk detection products." The
product allows qualified financial
institutions access to government
databases for purposes of verifying
"compliance" with anti-money laundering
and other so-called anti-terrorism
provisions. Their press release says the
product "helps ensure that you do not
engage in transactions with `enemies' of
the United States, which is accomplished
by crosschecking the name of an
individual against the US Treasury
Department Specially Designated
Nationals and Blocked Persons list."(10)
Kroll's stock (KROL) has increased in
value by 137% since September 11, 2001,
including a 40% spike in September 2001,
while most of the stock market was
dropping.(11)
To help stem the tide of opposition, the
InJustice department has launched a
publicity campaign, under the freedom-
equals-slavery style name of
"www.lifeandliberty.gov." On this
website, the government claims that the
Patriot Act merely "took existing legal
principles and retrofitted them to preserve
the lives and liberty of the American
people from the challenges posed by a
global terrorist network." The word
"retrofit" just means to modernize
something, which falsely implies that the
government has not increased its
repressive apparatus through the Patriot
Act, but rather just improved its efficiency.
The government has shown no
evidence that the repressive measures
instituted since September 11, 2001 have
made people safer. MIM accuses the
U.$. government of perpetrating terrorism
in the name of fighting terrorism, and calls
on people everywhere to organize against
the growing repressive power of the
imperialist state. Clearly, for the victims
of this repression, the world has become
less safe. But for average Amerikans, too,
their government's belligerent aggression
and warmongering increases the threat
of all kinds of war and violence.
Opposition to the war on civil liberties is
a vital part of our internationalist duty to
oppose imperialist militarism, which
threatens all of humanity. Get involved!
Visit MIM's website at: http://
www.prisoncensorship.info/archive/etext/agitation/.
Notes:
1. http://www.prisoncensorship.info/archive/etext/
agitation/civlib/PatActRally.html
2. Buffalo News 16 Dec 2003, p. B2.
3. St. Louis Post-Dispatch 26 Oct 2003,
p. B3.
4. http://www.dhs.gov/us-visit
5. Christian Science Monitor 6 Jan
2004, p. 3.
6. New York Times 12 Jan 2004, p. 1.
7. Washington Post 6 Jan 2004, p. A10.
8. Newsday 5 Jan 2004, p. 3.
9. Washington Post 4 Jan 2004, p. B6.
10. Mortgage Mag, 7 Oct 2003.
11. http://finance.yahoo.com
This letter describes MIM's ongoing
petition campaign against so-called
Control Unit prisons.
Dear prison organizer,
As we fight to eliminate the oppression
of all groups of people, the Maoist
Internationalist Movement has
consolidated its efforts to improve the
condition of prisoners in the United $tates
into a nationwide campaign. This
campaign focuses on a particularly
repressive and growing aspect of prisons
in this country: the control units. We need
to expose and fight the brutal conditions
facing so many prisoners across the
country housed in control units. We invite
you to join us in demanding the elimination
of all control units in prisons in the United
$tates. We are circulating the petition
below and asking that prison activist
organizations, as well as anyone who
supports basic humyn rights for prisoners,
to add their signature to it. We will also
be expanding this campaign to gather
information and resources and raise our
voices against control units across the
country. If you would like to get involved
further, please contact us at the address
below.
For justice,
Maoist Internationalist Movement
Shut down
all Control Units
Control Unit prisons confine people to
small cells in isolation for long periods of
time. These prisons were first officially
used in Alcatraz and then in 1972 in
Marion, Illinois to house prisoners who
were "institutional problems" or "too
dangerous." Since then the idea has
spread, and control units have become a
common tool of repression throughout the
Amerikan prison system.
These control units are used for the
political and social control of prisoners
already locked in secure institutions. They
target Black, Latino and indigenous people
who are a disproportionate part of control
unit populations (relative to their already
disproportionate representation in prisons
in general). Control units go beyond the
usual constraints of maximum security
prisons. Better defined as a prison within
a prison, control units are used to defeat
prisoners' revolutionary attitudes,
organization, militancy, legal and
administrative challenges, and anything
else the prison administrators deem
objectionable. While conditions vary from
prison to prison, the goal of these units is
always to achieve the psychological and
physical breakdown of the prisoner.
Control units have various names such
as Adjustment Center, Security Housing
Unit (SHU), Maximum Control Complex
(MCC), administrative maximum (ad-
max), Intensive Management Unit (IMU)
and administrative segregation (ad-seg).
Prisoners spend years of isolation in tiny
cells, usually 6 by 8 feet for 22 - 23.5
hours a day. In some cases the long term
isolation is complete, in others it is small
group isolation; both conditions are
tremendously damaging to humyns. The
short time that they do spend outside their
cell is within a cement or chain link "dog
pen" that lacks any kind of equipment and
proper space for physical exercise.
Participation in programs such as religious
services, educational programs, work and
job training, congregate dining and
exercise are all prohibited. Medical care
is also greatly limited.
Prisoners are usually placed in control
units as an administrative measure, with
no clear rules governing the moves. This
makes it virtually impossible for prisoners
to challenge their placement.
Control units are designed to
dehumanize inmates through sensory
deprivation. The United Nations has put
forward clear guidelines for the treatment
of prisoners. The Basic Principles for the
Treatment of Prisoners (1990) states:
"Except for those limitations that are
demonstrably necessitated by the fact of
incarceration, all prisoners shall retain the
human rights and fundamental freedoms
set out in the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights, and, where the State
concerned is a party, the International
Covenant on Economic, Social and
Cultural Rights, and the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and
the Optional Protocol thereto, as well as
Open letter
Shut down all Control Units!
Continued on next page...
MIM Notes 296 · February 1, 2004 · Page 7
such other rights as are set out in other
United Nations covenants." The United
Nations Human Rights Committee has
further stressed the obligation of the state
to treat prisoners with dignity and allowing
them all rights set forward in the
International Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights (which the United $tates
signed in 1977).
Control units are physical and mental
torture and they very clearly violate the
humyn rights of prisoners. They
systematically target prisoners who are
challenging the legal system and other
manifestations of state authority. We, the
signatories of this statement, condemn
these units and demand that the United
$tates abide by the UN principles it claims
to uphold. We call for the elimination of
all control units in prisons in the United
$tates.
Send your signature to MIM at
mim124@mim.org or MIM, PO Box
40799, San Francisco, CA 94140
For more information on U.$.
imprisonment, Control Units and other
repression in Amerikan prisons see:
http://www.prisoncensorship.info/archive/etext/
agitation/prisons
Control Units!
Continued from previous page...
Continued from page 3...
out two men, who admitted they didn't
follow the proper procedure that could
have prevented the riot, were promoted,
while her husband and another
supervisor--both cleared of
wrongdoing--were demoted."(3)
MIM is in favor of using the bourgeois
legal system when we can, to expose and
fight the criminal actions of the injustice
system. But we know that this won't end
corruption and abuse. We hope that all
this mainstream press will lend strength
to our ongoing campaigns to fight
corruption and repression in the criminal
injustice system. We will take advantage
of the opportunity to put forward other
examples of these problems, such as the
Security Housing Units and their corrupt
and biased classification system, the
Three Strikes Laws, and other systematic
tools of repression.
Notes:
1. LA Times, January 16, 2004.
2. San Francisco Chronicle, January 16,
2004.
3. KCRA, January 9, 2004.
California
corruption
Summary statistics comparing December 2002 and December 2003
Dec 2002
Dec 2003
Change
Number of different computers MIM served
24,785
44,175*
+78%
Avg. MIM pages served per day
2,182
3,492
+60%
MIM data transferred (megabytes per day)
143.1
101.6
-29%
MIM Notes (English) printed copies compared with pre-911=100
222
All language newspapers printed copies compared with pre-911=100
222
MIM prison circulation averaged over two months Jan 2002=100
47
Number of Art page users
8,928
5,446
-39%
Number of different MIM web page files actively chosen from
4,309
4577
+6.2%
Amazon visitors sent from web page
222
748
+237%
*This report excludes all art, and most robots and developer hits for 2003 but not 2002.
by PIRAO Chief,
January 6, 2004
Recent months see a big increase in
MIM Notes distribution, but December
is a month when many activities grind to
a halt for the holidays. The most
encouraging number in this report is the
increase in pages taken per day. As MIM
expands its readership, we expect that
ever-wider circles of people will have
slightly less serious interest in politics and
thus read fewer pages per reader. 60%
growth in pages taken is a good number
as we widen our readership.
December 2003 Central Task Report
MIM's central task:
"To create public opinion and the independent institutions of the
oppressed to seize power."
Did you know?
There are more
than 200 back
issues of MIM
Notes available
on the MIM
website? Not only
can you browse
more than 15
years of the
newspaper, you
can also keep up
with the very
latest on MIM
agitation
campaigns,
prisoner news, all
the latest on the
U$ war, and much
more. MIM's
website is an
indispensable tool
for the
revolutionary
movement. Get
involved!
www.etext.org/
Politics/MIM
From the MIM "Frequently Asked
Questions" page, http://www.etext.org/
Politics/MIM/faq.
Internationalism is the ethical belief or
scientific approach in which peoples of
different nations are held to be or
assumed to be equal. Internationalism is
opposed to racism and national
chauvinism.
We Maoists believe the nationalism of
nations experiencing oppression of
imperialism is "applied internationalism."
We oppose nationalism of oppressed
nations directed at other oppressed
nations, because the economic content
of such nationalism is intra-proletarian
conflict. We seek a united front of
oppressed nations led by the
international proletariat against
imperialism.
"I must argue, not from the point of
view of `my' country (for that is the
argument of a wretched, stupid, petty-
bourgeois nationalist who does not
realize that he is only a plaything in the
hands of the imperialist bourgeoisie), but
from the point of view of my share in the
preparation, in the propaganda, and in
the acceleration of the world proletarian
revolution. That is what internationalism
means, and that is the duty of the
internationalist, of the revolutionary
worker, of the genuine Socialist."
V. I. Lenin, "What Is Internationalism?"
The Proletarian Revolution and the
Renegade Kautsky
(Peking: Foreign
Language Press, 1965), p. 80.
What is
internationalism?
MIM Notes 296 · February 1, 2004 · Page 8
the end of the last (1991) Gulf War, and I
don't think there was a large-scale
production program in the nineties."(3)
The only concrete report of possible
weapons of mass destruction-related
programs MIM has seen was in a detailed
review of the post-invasion inspections
by the Washington Post.(6) According to
reporter Barton Gellman, the former head
of Iraq's nuclear program, Khalid Ibrahim
Said, was working on a conventional
weapon: a "rail gun," which uses
electromagnetic pulses to accelerate a
small object to very high speeds. Iraq had
declared Said's device to the International
Atomic Energy Agency as an "air
defense" project. U.$. inspectors
suspected measurements taken from
smashing objects together at high speeds
could be used for atomic weapons design.
However, they found no evidence of the
necessary experiments. A "Western
physicist" Gellman interviewed believed
Said used the gun for general training.
"It's basic science. There's no relation to
actual [bomb] design and fabrication."
The take-home message of Gellman's
review was "investigators have found no
support for the two main fears expressed
in London and Washington before the
war: that Iraq had a hidden arsenal of old
weapons and built advanced programs for
new ones."(6)
The Washington Post article contains
several anecdotes describing how the
Iraqis--understandably and predictably--
gave the false impression that their
weapons programs were more active than
they were. First, faced with an invasion
apparently unstoppable by further
diplomatic concessions, the Iraqis wanted
to make Washington think twice about the
cost of war. As former U.N. arms
inspector Hans Blix explained, "You can
put a sign on you door, `Beware of dog,'
without having a dog."(6) Second, Iraqi
scientists may have been making
exaggerated claims to the central
government to justify spending on their
pet projects--in much the same way the
biology and public health departments at
Amerikan universities have jumped on the
"bioterrorism" bandwagon. Amerikan
spies reading their reports could be just
as fooled as the central government.
These anecdotes illustrate the futility
of a policing approach to the problem of
"terrorism," something MIM has
repeatedly pointed out since September
11.(7) Amerika's "we're the cops of the
world" approach to security--upheld by
both Republicans and Democrats--has
not brought global peace and security in
the past and cannot bring it in the future.
Instead, what's needed is an approach
that addresses the root economic cases
of conflict among nations.
Who's violent? Whose violence?
President Bush began his speech with
a howlingly silly declaration that shows
the bankruptcy of the imperialists' ideas
`State of the Union' same sad story
about peace and security. "Hundreds of
thousands of American servicemen and
women," said Bush, were "delivering
justice to the violent."
As if the U.$.-imposed sanctions which
killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis since
the 1991 Gulf War were not violent.
As if the invasion of Iraq was not itself
violent.
As if Bush did not immediately threaten
countries that do not play by Amerika's
rules with violence: "For diplomacy to be
effective, words must be credible, and
now no one can doubt the word of
America."
Neoconservative Irving Kristol--
whom George Bush recently awarded the
Medal of Freedom, the highest U.$.
civilian honor (8)--anticipated Bush's
point in more forthright language: "In truth,
the days of `gunboat diplomacy' are never
over... Gunboats are as necessary for
international order as police cars for
domestic order."(9)
We at MIM are not pacifists. We
believe it is possible to use violence to
prevent violence. But the kind of violence
Bush and Kristol advocate cannot reduce
violence. Such "gunboat diplomacy" could
not prevent two world wars and dozens
of local conflicts that killed over 100 million
people in the 20th century.
As we wrote in our "Statement of
principles regarding the Iraq War:"
"Bush's violence is partly fear-mongering
panic about weapons of mass destruction.
Yet weapons of mass destruction are
merely a symptom. Bush's supporters
often say `guns don't kill people; people
do.' There are reasons people create
weapons of mass destruction and use
them as in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and
Bush has never addressed the causes of
war except by making them worse.
"What Bush does is a perfect example
of reactionary repressive violence. It
whips up a furor over a symptom and
claims to tidy up after the problem.
Fascism can also be seen as one huge
effort to tidy up the problems created by
capitalism, but fascism cannot succeed
because it cannot let itself know the
sources of its own existence. In contrast,
Abe Lincoln also used repressive
violence, but Lincoln's violence ended up
being progressive repressive violence,
because Lincoln had a plan to eliminate
slavery and other causes of conflict.
Lincoln used violence against a cause of
violence. Bush uses violence that will only
inflame the world's people more. People
who understand this will readily
understand how it is that Stalin violently
repressed so many people but still the life
expectancy of his people doubled. ...
"At first glance the question of war and
peace may seem to divide neatly into
moral and tactical questions. That is
wrong. I$rael is not at peace; that is a
scientific fact. The United $tates spends
more money on the military than the rest
of the world combined and it has the
world's largest economy; yet the United
$tates is subject to terrorist attack from
people who could pick easier targets if
they were opportunist. These are also
scientific facts and they indicate
something about the approach of I$rael
and the United $tates."(10)
"Bush tries to address moral concerns
by saying Uncle $am will try to make the
war as short as possible and leave Iraq in
a happy democracy better off than it was
before the war. People with a knowledge
of Iraq or any Third World people's love
of self-determination know why the
United $tates is hated there. It may seem
to be a `tactical' question as to whether
Bush has the capability to bring about
`democracy' in Iraq, but in fact, moral
and tactical (instrumental) questions are
merged. We often hear that ideological
dispute is messier than scientific dispute,
but in this case, the morality of "world
peace" is uncontroversial. The science
of how to bring that about is
controversial."(10)
Did he really just say that?
The remainder of Bush's speech was
filled with macho posturing and head-up-
his-ass laissez-faire capitalist canards.
For example, Bush chided Iraqi liberation
fighters for "[running] away from our
troops in battle [and attacking] from the
shadows." He apparently forgot that the
Amerikan colonists who took up arms
against the foremost military power of
their day "did not fight ... like a regular
army, only like savages, behind trees and
stone walls and out of the woods and
houses."(11) Bush also touted "the
system of private medicine that makes
America's health care the best in the
world"--a patently false claim, seeing as
the United $tates as a whole ranks 29th
in healthy life expectancy (behind Japan,
France and Greece, e.g.) and the infant
mortality rate for Blacks in Boston (24
per 1,000) is ten times that of Sweden,
five times that of south Korea, more than
twice that of the Ukraine, etc.(12)
This raises the question of whether
Bush and his cronies actually believe this
stupidity or just act like they do. On the
one hand, the imperialists need objective
facts for their own planning. Bush's
machismo may just be "pandering to
certain Bubba-type voters,"(11) while the
imperialists' real reasoning remains hidden
in smoky back rooms. In the words of a
quote attributed to Irving Kristol, "There
are different kinds of truths for different
kinds of people. There are truths
appropriate for children; truths that are
appropriate for students; truths that are
appropriate for educated adults; and
truths that are appropriate for highly
educated adults, and the notion that there
should be one set of truths available to
everyone is a modern democratic fallacy.
It doesn't work."(12)
On the other hand, the corruption of
the Amerikan electoral process may give
preference to leaders who excel at self-
deception and pandering. Limited
internationalist experience, pro-imperialist
policies and stubborn chauvinism can be
a real plus in November.
Either way, Amerikan "dumbocracy"
cannot produce leaders with the vision or
fortitude necessary to break with the
imperialists and put forward international
answers to problems of poverty and war.
Amerikans need to break with rulers who
take chances with future September 11s
and nuclear war.
--MC206,
26 January 2004
Notes:
1. MIM Notes 276, 15 February 2003.
2. See e.g. MIM Notes 274, 15 January
2003, and MIM Notes 285, 1 August 2003.
3. "Kay: Lack of Iraqi WMD Requires
Review," Associated Press, 25 Jan 2003.
4. MIM Notes 290, 1 November 2003.
Former U.$. chief inspector David Kay
called Bush's announcement that the
Amerikans had found two mobile germ-
weapons labs a "fiasco," "premature and
embarrassing." The labs turned out to
produce hydrogen for observation
balloons. See (6) for more details.
5. One blogger wrote, "A cheese-food
product is closer real cheese than
`weapons of mass destruction-related
program activities' are to real
weapons."(http://www.msnbc.msn.com/
Default.aspx?id=3449870&p1=0)
Another commented, "This isn't just
moving the goalposts, it's attaching the
goalposts to a booster rocket and shooting
them into the Sun."(http://
nielsenhayden.com/electrolite/archives/
004564.html)
6. "Iraq's arsenal was only on paper,"
Washington Post, 7 Jan 2004.
7. See e.g. "Why the U.$. terrorist
faction cannot win," MIM Notes 246, 15
November 2001; "U.$. military budget
would have angered Amerikan `founding
fathers,'" MIM Notes 276, 15 February
2003.
8. The Jerusalem Post, 15 Aug 2002.
9. Quoted in: Noam Chomsky, "Middle
East Illusions," New York: Rowman &
Littlefield, 2003, pp. 8, 171.
10. MIM Notes 279, 1 April 2003.
11. Attributed to an anonymous British
infantryman after the battles of Lexington
and Concord in 1775, quoted in Tim
O'Brien's novel, "The Lake of the
Woods."
12. For healthy life index and
international infant mortality rates, see
http://www3.who.int/whosis/hale/
hale.cfm?path=whosis,burden_statistics,hale&language=English
and http://www.who.int/child-adolescent-
health/OVERVIEW/CHILD_HEALTH/
Mortality_Rates_00.pdf. For Boston, see
http://main.wgbh.org/ton/programs/
6945_02.html.
13. See "Draft next?" on page one of
this issue.
14. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Irving_Kristol.
Continued from page 1...
MIM Notes 296 · February 1, 2004 · Page 9
Before the ground
invasion of Iraq began
"The Iraqi regime . . . possesses
and produces chemical and biological
weapons. It is seeking nuclear
weapons."
--Cincinnati, Ohio Speech,
October 7, 2002
"Our intelligence officials estimate
that Saddam Hussein had the
materials to produce as much as 500
tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve
agent."
--State of the Union Address,
January 28, 2003
"Intelligence gathered by this and
other governments leaves no doubt
that the Iraq regime continues to
possess and conceal some of the
most lethal weapons ever devised."
--Address to the Nation, March
17, 2003
As we discuss elsewhere in this issue
(1), Paris Hilton's reality show drew
more viewers than President Bush's
address on the capture of Saddam
Hussein. Apparently Bush had trouble
holding viewers with his State of the
Union address as well--even though all
five major broadcast networks carried the
address live. The Fox network drew the
most viewers, largely due to the preceding
"American Idol." However, a whopping
66% of "American Idol" viewers turned
Bush off. Of the 29 million who watched
the vapid singing competition, only 9.9
stuck around for the President's speech.
The Washington Post remarked that this
performance "should have gotten him
canceled the very next morning."(2)
Such reports signify a return to
decadent "normalcy" for Amerikans.
Contrast the bonanza ratings for shows
like "My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiancé" and
"The Bachelorette" with this article, which
we wrote the day after September 11.
For the second day in a row, the
Kanada-based NakedNews suspended
its newscasts with naked announcers
at nakednews.com. The web site
advised people to tune into television
and radio broadcasts.
Somehow it was easy for North
Amerikans to enjoy openly
pornographic newscasts when the
people dying in the news were in the
West Bank or northern Korea. So easy,
in fact, that nakednews.com became
the top news source for males in the
18-34 age group. Now that the news
would be covering dying in New York
and Washington, D.C., the
pornography/bourgeois news industry
pulls the plug.
Meanwhile, in sports, the headlines
all read how baseball and football
games have been postponed. The
September 12 USA Today web page
includes a headline reading "Lopresti:
Ballparks sit empty in nation with its
soul ripped out."
MIM points out to the North
Amerikan citizens that it is better late
than never to come to grips with global
violence, but if it was indecent for
NakedNews to make money off the
World Trade Center bombing, it was
also indecent for it to make money off
deaths of Palestinians in the West
Bank. Furthermore, Israelis have
bombed several Palestinian buildings
and turned them into rubble and we
did not see the USA Today say,
"ballparks sit empty in nation with its
soul ripped out."
The belief that the lives of one
nation's citizens are somehow more
valuable than another nation's citizens
is something called "national
chauvinism." National chauvinism is
a general problem that has to be
eradicated for a peaceful world to
exist, and that is only possible under
communism.
The fact that Amerikans have returned
to their bad habits is a sobering one for
people with an internationalist viewpoint.
The kernel of internationalism can be
expressed in Christian terms as the
"golden rule." It means placing oneself
in the shoes of the "other guy." As long
as the principle of internationalism applied
as a "golden rule" among nations is
ignored, we will be stuck in "what-goes-
around-comes-around" terrorism and
war.
In every way, the Amerikan rulers and
the majority of the Amerikan public that
backs them--actively or passively by
changing channels when politics comes
up--are "asking for it." It's clear that
Amerikkkans respect nothing but force--
not international law, not the treaties they
signed, not the United Nations and not
the "humyn rights" they often speak of.
The trouble is that these war-mongers
impose their terrorism-generating system
on the rest of us in North Amerika.
Internationalists cannot delude
themselves into thinking that Amerikans
can be cajoled into respecting the non-
negotiable survival rights of other peoples
without confronting Amerikan
chauvinism. The Amerikan habit of
thinking of other peoples as "second class
world citizens"--if that even--is too
deeply ingrained. Like the beginnings of
the unfinished struggle against Amerikan
racism born in the era of slavery, this way
of thinking will only be changed in the
course of revolutionary action,
overthrowing the oppressors and righting
historic wrongs.
Notes:
1. See pages 3 and 5.
2. Washington Post, 27 Jan 2004.
Nero got out his fiddle
Amerikans get out their `clickers'
After Amerikan
inspectors found no
weapons of mass
destruction, no
stockpiles of chemical
or biological weapons,
and no advanced
nuclear weapons
program
"Let's get the words right. I said
Saddam had weapons of mass
destruction and he used them. Which
he did. And second I said he was a
gathering threat. And that's an
important distinction."
-- 13 October 2003
"Already the Kay Report identified
dozens of weapons of mass
destruction-related program activities
and significant amounts of equipment
that Iraq concealed from the United
Nations."
-- State of the Union Address, 20
January 2004
Notes: The first three quotes are part
of a collection assembled by none other
than Richard Nixon's former lawyer John
Dean, a big player in the Watergate
scandal. http://writ.news.findlaw.com/
dean/20030606.html. We cite them more
completely in our article, "George Weasel
Bush getting away with murder," in MIM
Notes 290. The fourth quote is the
Associated Press reporting Bush's
response to the question, "should
[Amerikans] feel deceived about his
rationale for the war because no weapons
of mass destruction have been found in
the six months since major fighting
ended?"
Now you see it, now you don't
Bush on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq
MIM Notes 296 · February 1, 2004 · Page 10
MIM on
Prisons & Prisoners
MIM seeks to build public opinion
against Amerika's criminal injustice sys-
tem, and to eventually replace the bour-
geois injustice system with proletarian jus-
tice. The bourgeois injustice system im-
prisons and executes a disproportionately
large and growing number of oppressed
people while letting the biggest mass mur-
derers -- the imperialists and their lack-
eys -- roam free. Imperialism is not op-
posed to murder or theft, it only insists that
these crimes be committed in the interests
of the bourgeoisie.
"All U.S. citizens are criminals--
accomplices and accessories to the crimes
of U.$. oppression globally until the day
U.$. imperialism is overcome. All U.S.
citizens should start from the point of view
that they are reforming criminals."
MIM does not advocate that all
prisoners go free today; we have a
more effective program for fighting
crime as was demonstrated in China
prior to the restoration of capitalism
there in 1976. We say that all prisoners
are political prisoners because under
the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, all
imprisonment is substantively
political. It is our responsibility to
exert revolutionary leadership and
conduct political agitation and
organization among prisoners --
whose material conditions make them
an overwhelmingly revolutionary
group. Some prisoners should and will
work on self-criticism under a future
dictatorship of the proletariat in those
cases in which prisoners really did do
something wrong by proletarian
standards.
Under Lock & Key
News from Prisons & Prisoners
Washington USW wins
fight against cell
window covers
We of the United Struggle from Within
(USW), Washington State prisoners would
like to extend a letter of thanks to persons
involved in being instrumental in having the
magnetic place mat coves removed from the
IMU cell windows.
The 3 foot by 1 foot magnet covers were
being used to cover the metal cell doors in
the IMU living pods. The covers were
magnetically attached to the metal doors for
easy access for staff to pull off and cover the
windows of inmates cells so they could not
view out and witness incidents occurring in
these units. [MIM adds: This allowed staff to
abuse prisoners without fear of any
witnesses.]
I am ecstatic to report that the covers are
no longer on the doors in the units. I only
know that they have been removed recently.
There has been no official notification posted
as to why the magnetic covers were removed.
[MIM Notes printed articles on this battle
calling on people to send protest letters to
relevant administrators.] It is only due to the
efforts and contributions of outside support
that we won this victory. This letter is to
acknowledge those who helped, with sincere
thanks and humble appreciation.
It is only through your involvement that
immediate change came about. I had
challenged this practice and had exhausted
all administrative remedies without success.
Those housed in the IMUs now and in the
future will come to know how important this
change is in the interests of justice for us all.
Your help and support has reinforced my
commitment and dedication to the momentous
struggle, it has also affirmed my faith in the
statement "one person can make a difference."
- Washington USW leader, January 2004
Fixing Our Own
Problems
We are the Revolutionary Latin Kings from
NYS and NYC for many will be picked but
only a few will be chosen to fight the struggle
for what we stand for as a whole.
I would like to shout out all my true concrete
Lions that's in the feds holding it down, and
you all know who you are. My salute and
prayers towards you will remain inside my
mind, body, and soul forever & ever. I, King
Storm, come to you all worldwide to inform
you of a few things that's been going on from
the East Coast. I am coming to you from
Southport Correctional Facility inside a
Special Housing Unit. I been inside the box
for almost 4 years now for fighting against
oppression and abuse.
Right now the unity among us in prison
isn't there how it use to be. Every organization
on the North, South, East and West doesn't
want to bring the peace among ourselves
because we are all focusing on the wrong
path of direction among ourselves of
racialism. But if you ask me we all are color
blind. But if we all shut off the light switch
together, then we all become equal as one
solid color. So let's stop fooling each other
and let us bring the unity & love among
ourselves and let us also truly focus on our
real enemies that's oppressing our comrades
as well as our family. I also understand that
all organizations go through their own trial
and tribulations. But we all have to put all
that to the side and focus more on the world
of imperialism of what's been going on around
our cypher towards the united snakes of
amerika...
Right now the New York State is starting to
take back every thing that the prisoners from
the Attica riot died for, little by little in all the
prisons from college education to now
vocational programs. I truly feel sorry for all
the comrades that sacrificed their lives in
Attica. And now without the unity showing
among ourselves, we are now starting to lose
our programs, and now I am starting to see
that the Attica prisoners died for nothing
because the unity isn't standing like it use to
be. So I'm bringing out this message to all
comrades worldwide to let you know that we
al have to stop fighting against each other as
well as stop living as racial prisoners among
each other because if you don't, then you
rather say that you lost the battle against the
united snakes of amerika and among
yourselves too.
Whenever you write to publish anything
in MIM Notes, use a fake nickname OK. Much
love & respect from a Brother to another!
Revolutionary 4-ever,
--King Storm, New York, December 2003
MIM adds: We support this comrade's
efforts to unite the different nations and
organizations behind bars against the
common oppressor. The call for a color blind
approach is progressive for our Under Lock
and Key organizers, as prisoners are
overwhelmingly oppressed. Prisons reforms
will also disproportionately benefit oppressed
nations. What MIM opposes is facile "Black
and White Unite and Fight" sloganeering that
covers up white supremacy. A "color blind"
approach which claims that all peoples are
equally oppressed will lump together
oppressed and oppressor groups and delay
the liberation of the former.
Prisoners need
support immediately
In a previous issue of Under Lock & Key
we ran a proposal for a program called
Freedom Brothers, and asked the author
about the effectiveness of the Prerelease
program in NYS prisons. His response:
Some of the resource programs Prerelease
teaches no longer exist but if it does exist,
when that parolee or ex-con finally do go to
them asking for help, they don't get that
immediate help they are asking for. In some
cases they are put on a long waiting list,
forcing that ex-con to do whatever. On
average, most inmates will not remember
everything that Prerelease teaches. It would
be luck if an inmate remembers half of what
Prerelease teaches even if that inmate really
needs that program...
The information that Prerelease gives again
is good, but how good is it? Prerelease needs
to find a program to teach about that will fully
understand that we are prisoners who just
got out of prison and we need help NOW, not
in 2 weeks or 3 days.
I do feel that a lot of prisoners do try to pay
attention to what is being taught, but
Prerelease can not get you fully prepared for
that rush you will feel in the head the day the
gate opens. It is at that moment that most
inmates put in their mind that they would like
to leave jail behind, and mentally they do,
along with everything else. It is from this point
on that inmates need help from someone on
the outside. Read the enclosed letter. It will
show you how I am helping an ex-prisoner
who I've never seen... I don't do this to get
paid. I do it to help shut down this place.
Anyway, MIM, I still stand by the plan I
gave you... CA and NY needs a program just
like that.
--a New York Prisoner, December 2003
MIM responds : We are working now to
build these networks of released and
incarcerated prisoners so that support is
available as soon as comrades get out. Please
send your ideas and resources to help build
this project.
California Censorship
of BPP literature
I just received your Dec 9 letter. Your letter
states that you sent separately a "copy of
Seize the Time and the MIM BPP pamphlet,"
and "MTG and the questions for the study
group." I have recently received (yesterday)
two different manila envelopes from you; one
contained Seize the Time but there was
nothing else enclosed (no MIM BPP
pamphlet), and the other only contained MT5
(no study questions, etc.).
I currently have a lawsuit pending in the
U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Calif,
regarding the deliberate deprivation of
published material without notification (a
CDC 1819 form) or penological justification
and I just filed a supplemental pleading an d a
motion for a temporary restraining order and/
or preliminary interference with my mail.
-- California Prisoner at High Desert State
Prison, December 2003
MIM adds: This prisoner sets a good
example. We need all our comrades behind
bars to be on top of fighting censorship and
notify us when you do not receive literature
we sent.
White supremacy and
censorship in Cali.
Presently, this slave kamp's in a state of
chaos and shock at the event that occurred 3
weeks ago. See, usually the neo-nazi
prisoners (i.e. Aryan brotherhood, skinheads,
kkk, etc.) and the prisoncrats enjoy a very
close relationship. They both exist upon an
ideology which is racist in root and anti-all
right. So, it is very common for them to work
hand in hand to maintain white supremacy
behind the walls. But every now and then
one of their nazi henchmen turns on them.
This occurred in the Security Housing Unit
(SHU) with a nazi prisoner managing to stab
three kops with knives that one of them (kops)
gave them 9 times out of 10 for "us". So now,
we've entered the retaliatory stage where they
make a show of dealing with all equally via
dogging every prisoner. They seem to be
madder at the darker prisoners for not being
the ones that harmed their fellow kops, than
at them that actually did the incident!
Confuses the orderly running of a white
supremacist foundational prison, if you know
what I am saying.
As to the policy on receiving mags, books
and papers, in SHU they are saying that, due
to fire safety hazards, newspapers aren't
permitted. Magazines and books must come
MIM Notes 296 · February 1, 2004 · Page 11
Facts on U$ imprisonment
The facts about imprisonment in the United $tates are that the United $tates has been the world's leading prison-state per capita for the last
25 years, with a brief exception during Boris Yeltsin's declaration of a state of emergency.(1)
That means that while Reagan was talking about a Soviet "evil empire" he was the head of a state that imprisoned more people per capita.
In supposedly "hard-line" Bulgaria of the Soviet bloc of the 1980s, the imprisonment rate was less than half that of the United $tates.(2,3)
To find a comparison with U.$. imprisonment of Black people, there is no statistic in any country that compares including apartheid South
Africa of the era before Mandela was president. The last situation remotely comparable to the situation today was under Stalin during war
time. The majority of prisoners are non-violent offenders(4) and the U.S. Government now holds about a half million more prisoners than
China; even though China is four times our population.(5)
The rednecks tell MIM that we live in a "free country." They live in an Orwellian 1984 situation where freedom is imprisonment.
Notes: 1. Marc Mauer, "Americans Behind Bars: The International Use of Incarceration 1993," The Prison Sentencing Project, 918 F. St. NW, Suite
501, Washington, DC 20004 (202) 628-0871 Reference: SRI: R8965-2, 1994
2. Ibid., 1992 report.
3. United Nations Development Programme, "Human Development Report 1994,:" Oxford University Press, p. 186.
4. Figure of 51.2 percent for state prisoners there for non-violent offenses. Abstract of the United States 1993, p. 211.
5. Atlantic Monthly December, 1998.
Join the fight
against the
injustice
system
While we fight to end the criminal
injustice system MIM engages in
reformist battles to improve the lives
of prisoners. Below are some of the
campaigns we are currently waging,
and ways people behind the bars and
on the outside can get involved. More
info can be found on our prison web
site: http://www.etext.org/Politics/
MIM/agitation/prisons
Stop Censorship in Prison: Prisons
frequently censor books, newspapers
and magazines coming from MIM's
books for prisoners program. We need
help from lawyers, paralegals and
jailhouse lawyers to fight this
censorship.
Books for Prisoners: This program
focuses on political education of
prisoners. Send donations of books and
money for our Books for Prisoners
program.
End the Three Strikes laws: This
campaign is actively fighting the
repressive California laws, but similar
laws exist in other states. Write to us
to request a petition to collect
signatures. Send articles and
information on three strike laws.
Shut Down the Control Units: Across
the country there are a growing number
of prison control units. These are
permanently designated prisons or cells
in prisons that lock prisoners up in
solitary or small group confinement for
22 or more hours a day with no
congregate dining, exercise or other
services, and virtually no programs for
prisoners. Prisoners are placed in
control units for extended periods of
time. These units cause both mental
and physical problems for prisoners.
Write to us to request a petition to
collect signatures. Get your
organization to sign the statement
demanding control units be shut down.
Send us information about where there
are control units in your state. Include
the names of the prisons as well as the
number of control unit beds/cells in
each prison if that is known. Send us
anti-control unit artwork.
MIM's Re-Lease on Life Program:
This program provides support for our
comrades who have been recently
released from the prison system, to help
them meet their basic needs and also
continue with their revolutionary
organizing on the outside. We need
funds, housing, and job resources. We
also need prisoner's input on the
following survey questions:
1. What are the biggest challenges
you face being released from prison?
2. How can these problems be
addressed?
3. What are the important elements
of a successful release program?
from the publisher or bookstore, no other
sources. Guess they aren't aware of the
historical realities of prisoner resistance
movements. They begin via realization of their
common plight which is kop induced
oppression and then the thoughts begin on
how to confront it. At this point, they have
taken their lumps relatively quiet, but being
as I comprehend the dialectical science of
change, I see a total resistance right around
the corner!
-- a CA prisoner at Lompoc, November
2003
Class action lawsuit in
California
A quick update on the developments here
and to second the sentiments of the comrade
from NPPAC who correctly points out that
we have an obligation to not diminish these
few pages into mere complaint columns!
While it is important for individuals to have
a sense of what's going on around the nation.
But it's equally important to know what action
is being taken to remedy the complaints put
forth. Because words without action are
empty. This note is to update rads on the
progress to development here and to put forth
specific actions that can be taken to advance
this particular task.
I arrived at Corcoran SHU in August of
2000. After spending over 10 years in Pelican
Bay's control unit. After speaking to a lot of
prisoners here I was able to determine that
the conditions were ripe to attempt to pull
together a multi-racial/multi-national coalition
to perhaps begin to bring some challenge to
the inhuman conditions that many of today's
prisoners believe they are powerless to
change. But in reality it is quite the opposite,
prisoners can be quite powerful in affecting
change to the conditions of which they are
forced to live/dwell under.
Certainly prisoners must do more in terms
of coming to grips with dynamic history of
the prison movement of the 60s and 70s, and
how the state was so effective in its efforts to
squash that movement and isolate its
influence oppression of this sort only
advances via our default, so to the extent we
as a prisoner class cease our demands for fair
and equitable treatment under the law, we
open the door to invite in state repression.
However, we must not cease with mere
demands or empty actions, we must as a class
continue to evolve and expand our
consciousness, and understand that struggle
evolves from one stage to the next with ever
increasing consciousness of the wicked
machination of the state.
Prisoners being the lowest class in the
capitalist social strata - they are easy to
manipulate and exploit due to their low level
of consciousness and social reasoning.
In 2002 our multi-national coalition
attempted to file a "class action" law suit
bringing challenge to every aspect of life
inside the SHU at Corcoran.
We immediately met resistance and
hostility from the court: dismissing the "class
action," magistrate Judge Snyder ordered the
class to file their own individual actions
because she said prisoners could not
represent the interest of the entire class, and
she declined to appoint counsel, sensing the
difficulty she knows prisoners will have trying
to prosecute individual claims.
However we were determined to move
forward in 2002. We filed our first amended
complaint individualizing the claims.
Judge Snyder claimed she could not
understand the nature of the proceedings and
holding the complaint was to lengthy and
directing me to file a second amended
complaint, which was done in September 2002.
This time Judge Snyder permitted us to
proceed on some issues and attempted to
dismiss what we believe are the most vital
issues. We chose to file a third amended
complaint, which addresses the following
issues:
(a) Constant illumination - alleging the
policy of keeping the cell lights on 24 hours a
day is nothing but a form of torture.
(b) Outdoor exercise - the policy of
permitting prisoners less than 10 hours per
week violates the constitutions 8th
amendment.
(c) Lack of adequate outdoor clothing - The
practice of forcing prisoners to attend yard in
the coldest months of the year with nothing
more than a thin jumpsuit and a jacket that
must be shared by 98 other prisoners, is cruel
and unusual punishment.
(d) The lack of clean sanitary clothing -
The practice of providing dirty, torn and
unsanitary laundry violates the constitution.
(e) The lack of clean sanitary conditions in
the SHU - The practice of not cleaning the
housing units are inhumane and cruel and
unusual.
(f) Hygiene - The practice of providing no
cleaning supplies, toothpowder and other
essentials violates the constitution.
(g) Deprivation of property - The practice
of arbitrary cell searches taking personal
property without class violates the
constitution.
(h) Medical care - The practice of continued
deliberate indifference to serious medical
needs violates the constitutions.
(i) Lack of adequate appeals process - The
practice of not responding to prisoner appeals
violates right of access to the courts.
(j) Due Process - The policy of not
providing due process when validating
prisoners as so-called gang affiliates violates
the constitution.
(k) Equal protection - The practice of
equating historical and cultural literature with
so-called gang activity is discriminatory by
nature.
(l) False and fabricated information - The
practice of using false and fabricated
information to validate prisoners as so-called
gang affiliates violates the constitution.
Prisoners should also write to Judge
Snyder urging her to certify this case as a
class action because the issues here do not
only affect the Plaintiff but the entire
population here in the SHU.
MIM supporters on the outside can also
flood Judge Snyder with requests to certify
this case as a class action and to have the
courage to look deeper into the corruption at
Corcoran state prison.
It is obvious from many of the rulings that
Judge Snyder has issued in this case that the
u.s. District Court for the Eastern District of
California at Fresno sits in protection of the
Human Rights abuses that have gone on here
since its opening in 1988 and it openly
discourages prisoners from bringing
challenge to these violations.
If Judge Snyder is persistent in her denial
to give us class certification we are asking
that prisoners flood the court here with the
same issues presented in A-P in complaints
of their own, until our issues are taken
seriously.
Again, we recognize that prisoners must
do more to secure fair and just treatment from
their captors. And I submit that with the
efforts of USW and NPPAC we are well on
our way towards steps of unified action, the
key is persistence, creativity and endurance.
Staying focused on the task at hand and doing
what we can do to advance the cause.
We are also asking that supporters aid us
with donations of paper, envelopes and
updated case law. The prison's library is not
equipped with recent case law. Stay tuned to
ULK for updates as we press this case
forward.
Write to:
Sandra Snyder, Magistrate Judge
U.S. District Court
Eastern District of California
1130 O Street Rm 5000
Fresno, CA 93721-2201
-- a California prisoner, December 2003
MIM Notes 296 · February 1, 2004 · Page 12
Notas Rojas
feb 1, 2004, Nº 296 Fragmento del Periodico Oficial del Movimiento Internacionalista Maoista Gratis
¿Que es el MIM?
El Movimiento Internacionalista Maoísta (MIM) es un partido revolucionario
comunista que ejerce el Marxismo-Leninismo-Maoísmo. El MIM es una organización
internacionalista que trabaja desde el punto de vista del proletariado del Tercer Mundo;
es por esto que sus miembros no son amerikanos sino ciudadanos del mundo.
El MIM lucha para acabar con la opresión de todos los grupos sobre cualquier otro,
naciones por naciones, clases por clases, y géneros por géneros. La revolución es una
realidad para los Estados Unidos mientras su ejército continúa extendiendose en su
esfuerzo por asegurar la hegemonía mundial.
El MIM difiere de otros partidos en tres puntos basicos: (1) El MIM sostiene que
después que el proletariado conquiste el poder estatal, existira aún el potencial para una
restauración de tipo capitalista, bajo la dirección de una burguesía nueva dentro del
mismo partido comunista. En el caso de la Unión Soviética, la burguesía se apoderó del
gobierno después de la muerte de Stalin, en 1953; y en China después de la muerte de
Mao y del derrocamiento de la llamada "banda de los cuatro' en 1976. (2) El MIM
sostiene que la Revolución Cultural en China es la fase ms avanzada a la que llegó el
comunismo en la historia. (3) El MIM afirma que la clase trabajadora blanca de los
EE.UU. es primordialmente, una élite trabajadora no revolucionaria en el presente. Es
por esto que no es el principal vehículo para avanzar el Maoísmo en este país.
El MIM acepta como miembro a cualquier individuo que esté de acuerdo con estos
tres puntos basicos, y que acepte al centralismo democrtico, el método de gobierno por
la mayoría en lo que se refiere a cuestiones de línea del partido. El MIM es un partido
clandestino que no publica los nombres de sus miembros para evitar la represión estatal
dirigida históricamente contra los movimientos revolucionarios comunistas, y anti-
imperialistas. Si Ud. desea una suscripción para cualquiera de nuestros periódicos o
libros teóricos, en español o en inglés, por favor mandar dinero en efectivo o un cheque
al nombre de MIM a esta dirección:
MIM · P.O. Box 29670 · Los Angeles CA 90029-0670
Traducido por Células de Estudio
para la Liberación de Aztlán y
América Latina.
A menudo oímos la aserción que la
lucha política es inútil porque cada año
el Tío Sam gasta miles de millones de
dólares con el fin de espiar a todo el
mundo a través de satélites y
submarinos. Los medios de
comunicación árabes dijeron que el Tío
Sam sabía de qué color era la ropa
interior de Saddam Hussein. Hace poco
el sitio de Internet "marxists.org" (1) dijo
que era posible identificar cada
computadora por medio de equipo
colocado en servidores remotos.
Semejantes argumentos apuntan a la idea
de que cualquier tipo de lucha contra el
Tío Sam es futil y que, por lo tanto, hay
que unirnos a la lucha propagada por el
Tío Sam y respetar sus reglas del juego;
sin embargo, el lío en torno a las armas
de destrucción masiva (ADM) revela el
fallo de asumir una actitud liberal hacia
el tema de la lucha y seguridad.
Diez meses antes del discurso
equivocado sobre el Estado de la Unión
en el que George Bush citaba pruebas
falsas sobre la supuesta venta de uranio
por parte de Níger a Irak, la CIA le dijo
a Bush que dicha información era falsa.
Aparte de la CIA, un embajador
también informó a la administración
Bush que esta información no era cierta.
Esto significa que hasta la posesión de
información correcta no garantiza el uso
de la misma. (2) La administración Bush
ha emitido un sinfín de otras
declaraciones falsas sobre la naturaleza
y la justificación de la guerra contra Irak.
(3) Basándose en fuentes de información
estadounidenses, Tony Blair declaró que
Saddam Hussein estaba listo para utilizar
ADM 45 minutos después de un aviso-
algo que jamás sucedió. (4)
Los estudiantes probélicos y los que
asumieron una postura neutral
desconocían el hecho de que el archivo
de inteligencia compuesto y utilizado por
el gobierno británico con el fin de
justificar la guerra contra Irak, provenía
en gran parte de un trabajo no citado de
un estudiante estadounidense disponible
para el público. (5) En nuestro periódico
MIM Notes 274, criticamos a un
estudiante quien asumió la típica postura
monárquica que justifica la apatía y la
falta de lucha contra la guerra. Según el
estudiante, "Basamos nuestras opiniones
sobre la política externa e interna en la
información que recibimos de coberturas
parciales de medios de comunicación,
opiniones de nuestros amigos y
preguntas de nuestros profesores. Bush
basa sus opiniones en datos secretos de
inteligencia obtenidos a través de
múltiples fuentes, estimaciones
nacionales de altos funcionarios de
servicios de inteligencia y consejos de
expertos. Si ni siquiera él tiene la
información completa, nuestro
entendimiento de la situación equivale a
una pieza insignificante del
rompecabezas". Resulta que a alguien
le entraron ganas de tomarle el pelo a la
administración Bush mediante una
falsificación de documentos sobre los
programas de armas nucleares de Irak;
éstos fueron utilizados por Bush con el
fin de promover su plan bélico contra
Irak diseñado antes del año 2000.
Resulta, por lo tanto, que la posesión
de inteligencia secreta fue un
impedimento más que una ventaja. La
mera posesión de la información
"completa" no garantiza el uso correcto
de la misma.
Los luchadores por la justicia que
llevan las de perder deberían tener en
cuenta que un acceso a todas las fuentes
de información no garantiza el uso de
las mismas por parte de los que los que
están en el poder. De hecho, el
capitalismo corrompe toda la producción
del conocimiento, desde el conocimiento
de medicinas cuyas ventas se someten a
fines lucrativos hasta los análisis de la
eficacia de sistemas de armas adquiridas
por el Pentágono. Como ya hemos
mencionado en la sección sobre la
seguridad en nuestra página web: "El
imperialismo estadounidense de ninguna
manera se puede permitir el lujo de filtrar
la información correcta y separarla de
la falsa." En este sentido, el MIM ha
señalado que la acumulación de
información proveniente de una fuente
no garantiza que el propósito de dicha
fuente so sea el de desviar información.
Los imperialistas buscan un
conocimiento que les otorgue ganancias
individuales. Como consecuencia, los
imperialistas jamás podrán alcanzar la
capacidad que tiene el proletariado para
encontrar la verdad. Aunque los gastos
monetarios de los imperialistas en
servicios de inteligencia sobrepasen los
del proletariado, los imperialistas son
incapaces de usar la información
obtenida, y si la llegan a usar, entran en
conflicto con otros imperialistas cuyos
intereses de propiedad y agendas
políticas son distintos. Por esta razón,
cualquier tipo de lucha que dificulte el
espionaje de los oprimidos y explotados
por parte de los imperialistas es siempre
justificado. Como ya hemos
mencionado en nuestra reseña del sitio
marxists.org, "Hay múltiples razones para
no someterse: 1) Existe la posibilidad de
aumentar el costo del enemigo ya que
cualquier forma de espionaje correcto
cuesta. 2) Una vez que se obtenga
información, el enemigo tiene que
separar la información correcta de la
falsa. 3) Puede que el enemigo no haga
nada. "
Fuentes consultadas:
1. http://www.prisoncensorship.info/archive/etext/
links/marxistsorg.html
2.http://abcnews.go.com/sections/
wnt/World/iraq030616_uranium.html;
también véase http://
politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/
0,12956,972651,00.html
3. Véase por ejemplo http://
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/
articles/A43615-2003Jun11.html
4. Para leer el testimonio de un
exoficial de la CIA véase: http://
w w w . f o x n e w s . c o m / s t o r y /
0,2933,89923,00.html; véase también
http://www.foxnews.com/story/
0,2933,89649,00.html
5. http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/
story/0,12956,970035,00.html
El Tío Sam no siempre sabe
El lío en torno a las armas de destrucción masiva en Irak:
una revelación para luchadores que llevan las de perder.