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.
Maoist Internationalist Movement

I N T E R N E T ' S  M A O I S T  BI-M O N T H L Y

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = 


     XX XX  XXX  XX XX   X   X  XXX  XXX  XXX  XXX
     X X X   X   X X X   XX  X  X X   X   X    X
     X V X   X   X V X   X X X  X X   X   XX   XXX
     X   X   X   X   X   X  XX  X X   X   X      X
     X   X  XXX  X   X   X   V  XXX   X   XXX  XXX

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = 


         THE MAOIST INTERNATIONALIST MOVEMENT

     MIM Notes 142          JULY 15, 1997



MIM Notes speaks to and from the viewpoint of the 
world's oppressed majority, and against the 
imperialist-patriarchy. Pick it up and wield it in 
the service of the people. support it, struggle 
with it and write for it.


IN THIS ISSUE:
1.  IMPERIALIST PLUNDER: POVERTY CLIMBS FOR WORLD'S
    MAJORITY
2.  HUNDREDS DEMONSTRATE FOR PUERTO RICAN
    INDEPENDENCE
3.  LETTERS
4.  NIKE WORKERS PROTEST IMPERIALIST STOMPING:
    THOUSANDS STRIKE IN INDONESIA AND VIETNAM
5.  BETTY SHABAZZ DIES IN VICTORY FOR WHITE
    SUPREMACY
6.  TOBACCO SETTLEMENT SLAPS CANCER PIMPS ON WRIST
7.  DEATH MERCHANTS OF IMPERIALISM
8.  DWB: DRIVING WHILE BLACK AN OFFENSE IN FLORIDA
9.  INJUSTICE, THE AMERIKAN WAY
10. PIGS KILL CHINESE MAN, FBI PIGS TO INVESTIGATE
11. MERCURY NEWS DEMOTES WEBB
12. AMERIKAN WAR AGAINST OGLALA CONTINUES
13. NATIONALIST PEQUOT ART TARGETED FOR CENSORSHIP
14. U.C. AFFIRMATIVE ACTION BAN MAKES ALLIES FOR
    THE INTERNATIONAL PROLETARIAT
15. 1997 COLLEGE GRADS ON EASY STREET
16. IMPERIALISTS AND THEIR LACKEYS DIVIDE AND THEN
    STARVE THE KOREAN PEOPLE
17. IMPERIALISTS REACT TO THREAT OF AFRICAN UNITY
18. MOVIE REVIEWS: CHILDREN OF THE REVOLUTION AND
    THE LOST WORLD
19. UNDER LOCK AND KEY: NEWS FROM PRISONERS AND
    PRISONS



* * *


WHAT IS MIM?

The Maoist Internationalist Movement (MIM) is a 
revolutionary communist party that upholds 
Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, comprising the collection 
of existing or emerging Maoist internationalist 
parties in the English-speaking imperialist 
countries and their English-speaking internal 
semi-colonies, as well as the existing or emerging 
Spanish-speaking Maoist internationalist parties 
of Aztlan, Puerto Rico and other territories of 
the U.S. Empire. MIM Notes is the newspaper of 
MIM. Notas Rojas is the newspaper of the Spanish-
speaking parties or emerging parties of MIM.

MIM is an internationalist organization that works 
from the vantage point of the Third World 
proletariat; thus, its members are not Amerikans, 
but world citizens.

MIM struggles to end the oppression of all groups 
over other groups: classes, genders, nations.  MIM 
knows this is only possible by building public 
opinion to seize power through armed struggle.

Revolution is a reality for North America as the 
military becomes over-extended in the government's 
attempts to maintain world hegemony.

MIM differs from other communist parties on three 
main questions: (1) MIM holds that after the 
proletariat seizes power in socialist revolution, 
the potential exists for capitalist restoration 
under the leadership of a new bourgeoisie within 
the communist party itself. In the case of the 
USSR, the bourgeoisie seized power after the death 
of Stalin in 1953; in China, it was after Mao's 
death and the overthrow of the "Gang of Four" in 
1976. (2) MIM upholds the Chinese Cultural 
Revolution as the farthest advance of communism in 
human history. (3) MIM believes the North American 
white-working-class is primarily a non-
revolutionary worker-elite at this time; thus, it 
is not the principal vehicle to advance Maoism in 
this country.

MIM accepts people as members who agree on these 
basic principles and accept democratic centralism, 
the system of majority rule, on other questions of 
party line.

"The theory of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin is 
universally applicable. We should regard it not as 
dogma, but as a guide to action. Studying it is 
not merely a matter of learning terms and phrases, 
but of learning Marxism-Leninism as the science of 
revolution."
-- Mao Zedong, Selected Works, Vol. II, p. 208



* * *



IMPERIALIST PLUNDER:
POVERTY CLIMBS FOR WORLD'S MAJORITY

One fourth of the world's population lives in 
conditions of poverty, according to the publication 
Human Development, produced by UNDP (United Nations 
Development Program), released in mid-June. In 
imperialist-labeled developing countries (poor 
countries that are colonies or neo-colonies of 
imperialism), 1.3 billion people survive with less 
than a dollar a day.

The director of the office of the ONU in Spain, 
Isel Rivero, said "The money that is lacking -- 
80,000 million dollars -- is the equivalent of the 
fortune netted by the seven richest people in the 
world, or 10% of the amount spent annually on arms. 
For what it costs to make a Disneyland park, 5,000 
million dollars, it would be possible to end 
poverty in the five most marginalized countries on 
the planet."(1)


STATISTICS UNDER IMPERIALISM


According to the UNDP report, poverty is increasing 
for the world's people. The poorest 20% of the 
world's population, who in 1960 received 2.3% of 
wages worldwide, now only receive 1.1% and this 
continues to drop. There are still one billion 
illiterate people, 160 million malnourished 
children and 110 million children deprived of any 
schooling in this world.

Only two to five per cent of the 500 million 
poorest households worldwide have access to 
institutional credit. Without this, they are unable 
to seize market opportunities or build up savings 
to survive crises.(2) It's important to keep in 
mind that the majority of working people in 
imperialist countries have access to credit and 
take this ability to survive swings in their 
financial situation for granted. In fact, the 
poverty reported on in the UNDP report is largely 
unfelt by residents of the imperialist countries. 
In the United Snakes, the majority of the workers 
enjoy conditions that place them in the wealthiest 
portion of the world's population.

The poverty line varies according to the region, 
but the World Bank generally uses a dollar a day as 
the poverty level in developing countries, two 
dollars a day in Latin America and the Caribbean, 
four dollars a day in Eastern Europe and the former 
Soviet states and 14.40 dollars a day for 
industrial countries -- which is the income poverty 
line in the United Snakes.(3) This raises other 
questions about the measurement of poverty in 
different countries (which MIM addresses more 
thoroughly in issues 1 and 10 of its theory 
journal). Marx pointed out that the cost of living 
will vary in different areas of the world, and we 
have to take this into account when measuring 
poverty.

Within a country, the report pointed out that some 
groups of people suffer more than others. Children, 
wimmin and the aged were singled out as the groups 
most affected by poverty.

This year the UNDP introduced a Human Poverty Index 
(HPI), which measures the percentage of the 
population expected to survive to age 40, the 
percentage of illiterates, and lack of access to 
healthcare, safe water and reasonable nutrition. 
Trinidad and Tobago, Cuba, Chile, Singapore and 
Costa Rica score highest. On the lowest rankings, 
where the UNDP estimates that humyn poverty exceeds 
50%, six out of the bottom seven countries are in 
Africa: Niger, Sierra Leone, Burkina Faso, 
Ethiopia, Mali, Cambodia and Mozambique. This index 
helps demonstrate the swings in development under 
imperialism which lead to different countries and 
regions developing at different rates.

In subsaharan Africa and in the south of Asia there 
is the greatest incidence of poverty which affects 
40% of the inhabitants and this continues to grow. 
Compared to 1970, it is more likely now that poor 
people are African or Latin American instead of 
Asian.

These statistics are underscored by a report 
released May 20 from the Fundacion Salvadorena para 
el Desarrollo Economico y Social (Salvadoran 
Foundation for Social and Economic Development) 
which states that 65% of the rural population of El 
Salvador lives in poverty. Two million people in 
rural areas of the country live in these conditions 
and 400 thousand of these people fall in the group 
of "extreme poverty". The Foundation attempted to 
blame the problems on agricultural failures but the 
real culprit is capitalism.(4)


THE PROBLEMS ARE SYSTEMIC


The UNDP report provides some useful information on 
the causes of poverty. Human Development reports 
that annual losses to developing countries from 
unequal access to trade, labor and finance are 
estimated at US$500 billion, 10 times what these 
countries receive in foreign aid. Debt relief from 
the Group of Seven and Bretton Woods institutions 
by 2000 for the 20 worst-affected countries would 
cost between US$5.5 billion and US$7.7 billion -- 
less than the price of one Stealth bomber.(5)

While the world economy stands at 25 trillion 
dollars, the ratio between the richest and poorest 
people on the planet has gone from 30 to one in 
1960 to 78 to one in 1994, the report said. 
Meanwhile the world's 10 top billionaires account 
for a wealth of 133 billion dollars, or 1.5 times 
the total revenue for the world's least advanced 
countries. Of the world's 100 largest economies, 50 
are mega-corporations. The 350 largest firms 
control 40 per cent of global trade, with a 
turnover that exceeds the gross domestic product of 
many countries.(5)

All these numbers point to one thing:  a systemic 
problem of disparities between wealthy and poor 
that is perpetuated by those in power who hold the 
wealth and guns at the expense of the majority of 
the world's population.


SOLUTIONS


The UN Development Program insists that "it is well 
within our grasp" to reduce severe poverty in the 
first decades of the next century. The UNDP argues 
that recent advances in the world are proof of the 
potential to reduce poverty: "Few people realize 
the great advances already made. In the past 50 
years poverty has fallen more than in the previous 
500." The report cited facts that since 1960, or 
slightly more than one generation, child mortality 
rates have dropped by more than half in developing 
countries while malnutrition has been trimmed by 
almost a third.

It is important that communists make clear that as 
dialectical materialists we understand the advances 
possible under capitalism. But we also understand 
its limitations. We understand the elimination of 
poverty is not going to happen within capitalism 
precisely because it exists off the exploitation of 
labor of the proletariat.

When faced with the question of how to eradicate 
poverty within the imperialist system, the UNDP 
suggests that extreme poverty could be eradicated 
over the next 20 years, as long as countries 
implement policies that are "pro-poor". This would 
entail addressing structural inequalities in the 
distribution of assets, such as land, housing and 
social services; institutional and policy reforms 
to promote better access and greater security of 
tenure for wimmin and greater support for 
agricultural productivity, promoting micro-
enterprises and the informal sector, as well as 
labor-intensive manufacturing.(6)

The report put a price tag on reducing world 
poverty, which it said would cost the planet 80 
billion dollars or less than 0.5 percent of global 
income, or in other terms, less than the combined 
wealth of the world's seven richest people or 10 
percent of world military expenditures for 1995. 
Even recognizing that this is merely "reducing" 
poverty, the very fact that such reduction is well 
within reach but yet is not accomplished should 
alert socially conscious people to the fact that 
imperialists don't want to eliminate poverty.

The institutional reforms the UNDP is proposing 
will not be implemented by imperialist countries 
that benefit from inequalities. Reforming 
imperialism will not eliminate the basis for 
exploitation and oppression.


REAL SOLUTIONS:  CHINA VS. INDIA


The UNDP report attempts to make the comparison 
between China and India to point out some of the 
differences in development in different countries 
over the past several decades. The report points 
out that "almost all Chinese children" go to school 
now, adult illiteracy dropped to 19 per cent from 
50 per cent in 1950 and infant mortality dropped to 
42 per 1,000 live births from 200 per 1,000 in 
1950. "Progress in recent decades (in China) has 
been remarkable" despite setbacks and advances, the 
report said. These advances are all measured since 
the revolution in China which overthrew Japanese 
imperialism in 1949.

While some measurements of wealth continued to 
increase under the state capitalist dictatorship of 
Deng Xioping, others have fallen. The report 
pointed out that China's national poverty line, 
those living on 60 U.S. cents (0.60 dollar) a day, 
fell from 33 per cent in 1978 to 9 per cent in 
1985. But in the late 1980s, the number of rural 
poor increased as a result of a shift in 
development strategy away from agriculture to 
industrial and export sectors.(7) And regardless of 
the changes since the late 1970s, clearly 
tremendous advances for the Chinese people can be 
attributed to the Chinese revolution and the Maoist 
leadership in building socialism for almost 30 
years. (For more information and statistics on the 
advances in China under Mao see MIM Theory #4, A 
Spiral Trajectory:  The failure and success of 
communist development, available for $5 from MIM).

India is a good country to use for comparisons 
between the accomplishments of capitalism and those 
of socialism. In 1949 both India and China were 
poor countries facing many similar problems. China 
then began socialist development while India 
remained capitalist. In India, the report said, 
"the record is mixed and India remains a country 
with stark contrasts and disparities" after decades 
of trying to improve living conditions. The report 
said that currently 53 per cent of children, or 60 
million, are still malnourished despite a four-fold 
boost in grain production from 1991 to 1995;  half 
of the population is still illiterate, with 45 per 
cent of children not reaching grade five. The 
infant mortality rate has been halved to 74 per 
1,000 live births in 1995, but still each year 2.2 
million infant deaths have been reported.(7)

If we want to truly wipe out poverty, oppression 
and suffering in the world we are going to have to 
do more than advocate that countries adopt "pro-
poor" policies. Historically, socialist revolution 
has been the greatest force for wiping out poverty 
and increasing the wealth and well being of the 
world's population. For all those hoping to fight 
for a more just and equal system MIM encourages 
serious study of the history of revolutionary 
struggle compared with the failures of capitalist 
development. And for those already convinced that 
imperialism will never solve the problems of 
poverty that it perpetuates, fight with MIM to 
overthrow this rotten system.


NOTES:
The text of highlights of this report can be found 
at http://www.undp.org/undp/hdro
1. 13 June, 1997: http://www.eurosur.org/rebelion/
2. New Straits Times 16 June 1997, p21.
3. Agence France Presse 12 June 1997.
4. 21 May 1997, San Salvador. Agencia Púlsar found 
at: 
http://www.eurosur.org/rebelion/internacional/salva
dorpobreza.htm
5. New Straits Times 14 June 1997, p.21.
6. Africa News 13 June 1997.
7. Deutsche Presse-Agentur 12 June 1997.



* * *



HUNDREDS DEMONSTRATE FOR PUERTO RICAN INDEPENDENCE

On June 19 and 20 hundreds of people gathered in 
New York to support Puerto Rican independence and 
the release of Puerto Rican prisoners captured and 
imprisoned for their independence activities.

On June 19 the colonial case of Puerto Rico was 
discussed before the United Nations Decolonization 
Committee. This committee has put on the pretense 
of addressing colonialism and since 1972 the case 
of Puerto Rico has been on its agenda. While 
organizers of this demonstration recognize that 
gaining the support of a UN committee will not 
achieve independence for Puerto Rico, they 
understand that the pressure from such an 
organization can help in the anti-imperialist 
struggle.

There was a sense of urgency around this year's 
hearing because the United States Congress is 
currently considering the Young Bill ("The United 
States-Puerto Rico Political Status Act") which 
recently passed a committee in the House of 
Representatives. The result of this bill would be a 
referendum in 1998 in Puerto Rico similar to the 
illegitimate referendum held in Hawaii recently 
where the imperialists put on the pretense of 
allowing the people to decide when in reality they 
are forcing a colonized people to chose between 
forms of colonization.

The National Committee to Free Puerto Rican 
Prisoners of War and Political Prisoners put 
together the following points of unity for the 
vigil in front of the United Nations office:  1. 
Unconditional Amnesty For The Puerto Rican 
Political Prisoners And Prisoners Of War; 2. 
Independence For Puerto Rico; 3. Affirmation Of The 
Right Of The Puerto Rican Diaspora To Participate 
In The Decolonization Process Of Puerto Rico.

An organizing flyer for the demonstration stated:  
"The majority of the Puerto Rican Political 
Prisoners have endured inhuman treatment and 
isolation in U.S. jails for more than seventeen 
years. . . Their crime is their passion for 
freedom, their love and commitment to see their 
nation stand sovereign among the nations of the 
world."

A rally held in the afternoon of the 19th included 
the keynote speaker Lolita Lebro'n, a hero of the 
independence movement for her participation in the 
storming of congress. Many people spoke at the UN 
committee hearings, all stressing the importance of 
independence for Puerto Rico and the need for the 
freedom of the Puerto Rican political prisoners. 
The speakers drew parallels between the occupied 
status of the Puerto Rican nation and the holding 
of people fighting for liberation of their country 
as criminals in the Amerikan injustice system.

MIM interviewed an activist with the National 
Committee who pointed out that the UN 
Decolonization Committee does not consider First 
Nations or Blacks colonies in spite of their 
obviously colonial status within US borders. In 
fact, the UN committee only recognizes a few 
territories as colonies and this reveals one of the 
many limitations of an organization that is part of 
an arm of imperialist power:  the United Nations.

Although the UN committee did not take up any 
resolutions in favor of Puerto Rican independence 
or the freedom of the prisoners, they also did not 
take up a resolution to create a new republic out 
of Puerto Rico and this was considered a victory. 
The activist said such a proposal was brought to 
the committee and it would have only couched 
colonialism in another form.

The United States has been pushing to close down 
the UN Decolonization Committee, saying that it has 
no purpose. Of course, to an imperialist power, an 
organization that focuses on decolonization has no 
purpose. As the Puerto Rican activist noted, this 
"forum can not bring independence but at least it 
puts pressure" on the imperialists.

The U$ wants to remove any avenue that anti-
imperialists find useful as a part of their larger 
struggle. The activist noted that the U$ "doesn't 
want to fully solve the status of Puerto Rico. It 
is a colony that provides the greatest benefit. 
They just want to undo the political problem [of 
Puerto Rico] without acknowledging that they have a 
problem and without admitting any crimes."

To achieve independence the activist stressed that 
all imperialist troops must be removed from Puerto 
Rico. Nominal independence will not bring 
sovereignty and the Puerto Rican people are 
demanding their right to self-determination, 
something that can only be achieved once 
imperialist power has been removed from their 
country. "Once we have sovereignty we want the 
people to decide. And hopefully they will decide 
that we will be a socialist country run by the 
proletariat serving the people of the world" said 
the activist.

The activists hope to pressure other Latin American 
countries to support Puerto Rican independence and 
they believe this is a winnable battle because the 
Latin American countries would lose little from 
taking such a stance. These countries act as good 
neo-colonies of Amerikan imperialism and the 
activist MIM interviewed suggested that it was fear 
over losing free trade status with Amerika that is 
one of the biggest obstacles to these countries 
supporting Puerto Rican independence.

MIM sees the value in targeting institutions like 
the United Nations to pressure the imperialists as 
a part the Puerto Rican liberation struggle, so 
long as we always are clear that this battle will 
not win the war. And we also agree with the 
importance of drawing connections between the 
colonial status of Puerto Rico and the holding of 
revolutionary activists in Amerikan prisons for 
their political crimes. But we take this further 
and also recognize the Puerto Ricans who are held 
in Amerikan prisons for other imperialist-defined 
crimes as political prisoners who were not judged 
by a jury of their peers and who had the entire 
system stacked against them from the cops to the 
courts. When over 90% of prisoners held in control 
units in some states are Latino, the political 
nature of crime, as it is defined and prosecuted in 
this country, is very clear.

We join the National Committee to Free Puerto Rican 
Prisoners of War and Political Prisoners in calling 
for complete sovereignty for Puerto Rico starting 
with a removal of the US military. The liberation 
of Puerto Rico is an important part of the struggle 
against Amerikan imperialist domination around the 
world.


NOTES: The National Committee to Free Puerto Rican 
Prisoners of War and Political Prisoners 




* * *



LETTERS
WHAT TO DO ABOUT THE LUMPEN AND COPS

Dear Comrades, 

I am curious as to what MIM's line is on organizing 
the lumpen proletariat. You accurately 
characterized them ( in MIM Notes 130) as "a 
difficult class to organize," and thus I do not 
believe they can be effectively organize in the 
same manner as the proletariat.

I would also like to know what action MIM thinks 
communities should take in dealing with killer 
cops?

-- An Iowa Prisoner, 20 Mar. 97

MIM RESPONDS:  The reason that Marxists distinguish 
between the lumpen proletariat and the proletariat 
is because they can not be organized in the same 
manner, so MIM agrees with you on this question.

In "The Communist Manifesto" Marx referred to the 
lumpen as "the dangerous class" and remarked that 
as the group on the bottom of society, "thrown off 
by the lowest layers of old society, [it] may, here 
and there, be swept into the movement by a 
proletarian revolution; its conditions of life, 
however, prepare it far more for the part of a 
bribed tool of reactionary intrigue."(p92, Penguin 
edition)

The important point is recognizing the material 
difference between the proletariat and the lumpen 
proletariat. While the proletariat is an organized 
force of workers whose relation to production is 
established through its productive role, the lumpen 
have been forced into a position of non-
productivity where crime is often the only way to 
survive. As a result, in this country we can see 
examples of what Marx discussed in lumpen who are 
willing to sell themselves as snitches to the pigs.

Crucial to materialist analysis is the distinction 
between the bought off working class in imperialist 
countries at this stage of imperialist development, 
and the proletariat. The workers, particularly 
among the white nation, in Amerika have been bought 
off so that they do not have a material interest in 
revolution. So when we contrast the lumpen and the 
proletariat we are not talking about the majority 
of the workers in this country.

As for dealing with killer cops, MIM believes that 
overthrowing imperialism is the best defense 
against killer kops. But in the short term, one way 
to organize against imperialism is educating people 
about the problems with the kops and giving them 
tools to fight these problems by setting up 
community watches where folks watch out for one 
another while at the same time educating and 
organizing about the need to overthrow imperialism.

There is no way we are going to reform this system 
to eliminate killer kops and national oppression so 
it is important that we involve communities in the 
anti-imperialist revolutionary struggle. The Black 
Panther Party attempted to protect the community 
against kops by arming themselves. While this 
confrontation with imperialism ultimately led to 
the state destroying the Party, we can not give up 
on the possibility of organizing communities in 
self-defense. We have to take lessons from the 
experience of the Black Panthers and continue to 
organize.


LAZY CRITIC SAYS MAOISM IS "BAD"


Dear MIM, 

I was a former member of the Students for a 
Democratic Society (Lunar Rosa) at a college in 
Greater Boston. And what a mistake it was. They 
used Maoist propaganda and after all these years, I 
found out how bad it was.

Hey look at the world today. There is no more 
soviet Union or Soviet Blocks. North Korea is 
starving as is Cuba. So what is left, China? They 
are getting more capitalist every day. They may 
fall too.

Now I have read several issues of your MIM Notes 
and have come to the conclusion that you people are 
nothing but a bunch of fucking assholes that need 
to be reamed out. Wake up shit heads communism is 
dead. Why don't you morons die too.

Thank you.

--a critic in the east

P.S. My friend agrees too. And by the way, a pig 
saved my friend's life and he is Black too.


MIM RESPONDS:  This is a good example of someone 
who wants politics spoon fed to them because they 
are too lazy to study for themselves. If an 
organization you are involved in is claiming 
Maoism, you have a responsibility to find out what 
that means. How could it take years to find out 
that Maoism is bad unless you are too lazy to do a 
little investigation? Of course branches of SDS or 
any other organizations claiming Maoism have a 
responsibility to be clear about why it supports 
Maoism but even if this critic's SDS branch failed 
to do this, that does not excuse the laziness of 
the critic.

MIM does look at the world today, and clearly we 
look at it more carefully than this critic. We have 
always been clear that the Soviet Union was state 
capitalist from the time Kruschev took power, and 
since Mao died the same is true for China. MIM is, 
in fact, one of the few anti-imperialist 
organizations in this country that has never 
claimed that Cuba is socialist. If this critic 
reads MIM Notes so slopily that s/he missed these 
very important points (several of which are listed 
in the What is MIM? Box on page 2 of every issue), 
it is no wonder it took him/her years of membership 
in an organization claiming Maoism before s/he 
decided Maoism was bad.

It is no surprise that this lazy critic feels the 
need to resort to identity politics arguments and 
examples of one person's experience: if the 
agreement of one friend is enough to support the 
argument that Maoism is bad, the imperialists have 
already won. Fortunately, MIM knows that not all 
readers of MIM Notes are so lazy and uninterested 
in serious political study and struggle.



* * *



NIKE WORKERS PROTEST IMPERIALIST STOMPING;
THOUSANDS STRIKE IN INDONESIA AND VIETNAM

by a RAIL comrade

Recent strikes in sneaker factories have brought 
attention to the Nike Corporation's ongoing labor 
exploitation. Two recent strikes involved 10,000 
workers in Indonesia and 1,300 in Vietnam.(1) 
Stories of Nike's use of super-exploited labor in 
sweat shops have painted a grim picture of the 
functioning of imperialism. Despite the oppressive 
conditions, the workers have risked their well-
being to protest low pay, forced overtime, poor 
working conditions, and abusive management.

The most integral part of Nike's exploitation of 
labor is the low wages -- which allow for higher 
profits to be extracted benefiting imperialism. The 
figures blatantly illustrate this strategy -- such 
as when a worker is paid $5 for labor on shoes that 
are then sold for $150. In Indonesia, the minimum 
wage is $2.46 per day, which affords only 90% of 
one person's necessities. Vietnamese workers can 
not even afford three meals a day with the wage of 
$1.60 per day.(1)

The stories of oppression and abuse further reveal 
the nature of the imperialist system. Force against 
workers is necessary for imperialists to maintain 
control and to continue sucking profits. People 
interviewed at shops which supply Nike with its 
products reported that physical abuse is common. In 
one instance, fifty-six wimmin, twelve of whom 
passed-out, were forced to run, until exhaustion, 
around the factory for not wearing the proper 
footwear.(2) Many wimmin reported being struck on 
the head for scuffing the product. Talkative 
workers have had their mouths taped shut. One 
worker said, "The only rest you can get is after 
you collapse at your machine."(3)

Through terror tactics, management keeps workers in 
line. In March 1995, when twelve workers expressed 
their grievances about their conditions, the 
company responded by locking the workers in an 
unused room for a week guarded by the local 
military. They have since been suspended from work 
without pay.(3)

In 1992, Nike enacted a Code of Conduct in response 
to complaints of such human rights abuses.(4) They 
claim to enforce this code by ending business with 
any contracted manufacturers which break the rules. 
But recent reports clearly show Nike is only 
concerned with profits, not human rights.

Some argue that Nike doesn't own the factories and 
it can't control the policies and customs of the 
local nations. Such an argument aims to blame the 
barbarities of imperialist operation on the 
policies of Third World nations which are military, 
politically and economically controlled by the 
imperialists in the first place. The case with Nike 
is not merely a situation where a large corporation 
has "turned a blind eye." This is what Nike and the 
thousands of other imperialist corporations depend 
on to increase profits. The U$ government gladly 
steps up to ensure that lackey governments have the 
weapons and power necessary to help control the 
masses and aid in the siphoning of profit flow to 
the imperialist nations.

Some groups have set out to boycott Nike to protest 
oppressive tactics. But this will not end 
imperialist oppression. The idea that "Where Nike 
goes other manufacturers follow" is ludicrous. 
Imperialism depends on oppressed workers to 
perpetuate the accumulation of capital. Nike will 
continue to put up a front of humanitarianism to 
quiet complaints.

Nike made a recent attempt to improve its 
popularity among Amerikan consumers by joining the 
Leave No Trace organization to prevent the 
degradation of parks and the natural environment 
from athletic activity. Nike made a $125,000 annual 
grant to the education campaign.(5) First, the idea 
that we can save the natural environment by 
promoting better athletic practice is ridiculous. 
Recreational environmental degradation is the least 
of our worries when big industry is destroying the 
earth at an unsustainable rate by itself. So it 
seems odd that Nike is willing to give all that 
money to this program, when it is not willing to 
pay its workers a livable wage under humane 
conditions. This program is merely another 
promotional opportunity. Meanwhile, it is not in 
the interest of profits to raise wages.

Nike is making a profit off of the oppressed 
through low wages and threatening conditions, while 
trying to maintain its image back home. But more 
importantly this is merely one example that 
illustrates the economic system of imperialism. 
Therefore it is important to publicize examples 
such is these in that context. Then it becomes 
evident that it is not one problem that can be 
changed with a new law or code of conduct. But it 
is a systematic problem that must be stopped by 
changing the system.


Notes:
1. The San Francisco Examiner 9 June 1997.
2. The Cincinnati Inquirer 7 June 1997.
3. 
http://www.essential.org/monitor/hyper/mm0695.html/
#nike
4. Jakarta Post6 June 1997.
5. E-wire 11 June 1997.



* * *



BETTY SHABAZZ DIES IN VICTORY FOR WHITE SUPREMACY

26 June 1997 -- When Betty Shabazz died from burns 
suffered in a fire allegedly set by her 12-year-old 
grandson Malcolm, her death marked another victory 
for white supremacy, and another call to arms for 
those who seek an end to the Black nation's 
oppression at the hands of Amerika. Shabazz was the 
widow of the late Black leader Malcolm X, who was a 
target of the FBI's COINTELPRO and was assassinated 
in 1965.

Betty Shabazz raised their four daughters and 
eventually went back to school, earning a doctorate 
in education. She became a professor and 
administrator at Medgar Evers College and hosted a 
talk show there.(1) She also made public 
appearances including at the Million Man March in 
Washington where she was honored by Black 
supporters as part of the legacy of Black struggle 
and white repression in this century. She also 
contributed directly to ongoing reformist civil 
rights struggles.

"Malcolm's agenda was human rights and self-
determination," Betty Shabazz said in 1992. "Free 
people have a right to self-determination, self-
defense. Now, a lot of people say, 'Self- defense? 
Oh, my God, that's violence.' If people think by 
any means necessary' means violence, what that says 
is that that individual is violent and hostile. But 
not my husband."(7) She was correct that Malcolm X 
was not violent, but he certainly intended "by any 
means necessary" to include violence if necessary. 
Shabazz was correct to the extent that Malcolm's 
point was that the oppressed do not wish for 
violence or initiate it, but are the victims of 
violence in the first place. From this quote it 
sounds as if we may disagree with her that violence 
is in fact necessary for national liberation. As 
the line from the Public Enemy song goes: "I got a 
right to be hostile / my people been persecuted."

President Clinton contributed to the violent 
seizure of Black history in his four-sentence 
statement of condolence, which didn't even mention 
Black people or political struggle or Malcolm X. 
"She devoted a long career to education and to 
uplifting women and children," he said, attempting 
to complete her conversion from radical Black 
nationalism.(8)


HISTORY OF REPRESSION


When Malcolm X was young, his family came under 
attack from "social service" agents of the state -- 
the soft side of the state's national oppression 
that breaks up families.(3) Where once white slave 
traders sold family members to different 
plantations, now the supposedly benevolent agents 
use selective laws and bogus psychology to break up 
Black families. Now Malcolm's grandson, son of his 
daughter Qubilah, has once again been removed from 
his family, this time for a juvenile detention 
center, where he is charged with juvenile 
delinquency and possibly murder.(6)

Malcolm has faced many hardships as a result of his 
grandfather's murder and his mother Qubilah's 
subsequent problems which include state harassment 
culminating in an FBI plot to entrap her in a 
murder plot against NOI leader Louis Farrakhan. 
After the FBI plot was revealed, the state did not 
fully prosecute Qubilah, but instead settled for 
psychiatric punishment and seizing little Malcolm. 
The disruption and psychological torture brought 
upon Malcolm are blamed for his actions in New 
York. The state claimed he started the fire in his 
grandmother's house there in a protest against 
living there.(1) MIM does not have anything more 
than state/media sponsored gossip about Malcolm, 
but family spokespeople have not publicly denied 
that he started the fire. MIM is perfectly willing 
to blame the state and white supremacists for 
Malcolm's oppressive childhood and subsequent 
problems based on the information that we do have.

The state is now delighted to prosecute and 
incarcerate the young Malcolm, just to rub their 
temporary victories in the face of the Shabazz 
family and the supporters of national liberation.

Malcom X's house was firebombed when he was a 
child, in a racist attack aimed at the family 
because his father was a Black nationalist 
activist.(3) The Shabazz home was firebombed in 
1965, shortly before the assassination, and the 
family barely escaped alive. "I won't burn to 
death," Malcolm X said after the fire. "I'll 
probably be shot to death on the street one day. Or 
maybe while I'm speaking."(4) Malcolm was shot a 
week later. Malcolm had tried to make arrangements 
for Betty and their children to live in Africa if 
he was killed.(5) She did not move to Africa, but 
Betty lived much longer, and was not as lucky in 
her death:  she lived for three weeks after 
suffering terrible burns over most of her body.(1)

MIM takes the moment of Betty Shabazz's death to 
draw several conclusions.

First, from slavery and KKK white supremacist fire-
bombing, to state repression, FBI movement 
infiltration, "social service" repression, 
psychological torture, traitorous plots, and 
historical revisionism, Betty Shabazz, Malcolm X 
and their family -- and the Black nation as a whole 
-- have suffered millions of unjust deaths. Her 
death is one more brutal reminder of this legacy.

Second, Betty Shabazz in some ways continued her 
husband's work, but along with the other symbolic 
civil rights leaders, her work in later years was 
partial and mostly reformist. We say this not as a 
personal criticism, but to make the point that it 
is movements, organizations, and political parties 
that make revolutions, not individuals and those 
they leave behind to carry on their memories. The 
individuals left behind when leaders are killed may 
or may not be great leaders themselves. We cannot 
expect them to be, and we cannot put all our eggs 
in the baskets of any few leaders, however 
important we know they are; we need to be making 
new leaders all the time. And although we remember 
the fallen, we must never substitute the inspiring 
memory for the current revolutionary struggle.

Finally, MIM and all revolutionaries are inspired 
by and learn from victory and defeat alike. We who 
oppose all oppression, organize and fight on in the 
memories of all those who labored and died in 
oppression -- the famous and the anonymous alike.


NOTES:
1. Washington Post 24 June 1997, p. A1.
2. NAACP information from http://www.naacp.org.
3. The Autobiography of Malcolm X, as told to Alex 
Haley. Ballantine Books, 1964.
4. Peter Goldman, The Death and Life of Malcolm X. 
University of Illinois Press, 1979. p. 263. 5. 
Ibid., p. 256.
6. Reuter, 24 June 1997, "Death of Betty Shabazz 
Ruled a Homicide."
7. The New York Times, 24 June 1997, p. A1.
8. Although the media reported that Clinton "said" 
these kind words, in fact they were delivered to 
the media in writing, unsigned. See 
http://www.whitehouse.gov, press statements for 23 
June 1997.



* * *



TOBACCO INDUSTRY SETTLEMENT SLAPS CANCER PIMPS ON 
WRIST

On June 20, forty state attorneys general reached 
an agreement with the biggest tobacco companies 
which would require the tobacco industry to pay 
more than $368.5 billion over the next 25 years in 
compensatory and punitive damages for its promotion 
of smoking. The proposed deal also drastically 
restricts the tobacco companies' domestic 
advertising, and forces them to help fund anti-
tobacco advertising. Smoking causes more than 1,000 
deaths in the u.s. every day.(1)

Mississippi attorney general Michael Moore calls 
this deal "the most historic public health 
achievement of this century."(2) But even many 
bourgeois analysts admit that this agreement will 
do little to curb the tobacco industry or come 
close to the elimination of smoking-related deaths. 
For starters, the agreement has to be ratified by 
congress, and this is by no means guaranteed. There 
are also major concessions to the tobacco industry 
in the deal intended to preserve the industry's 
profitability. And the deal says nothing about the 
export of tobacco, which the u.s. government 
encourages. 

The Amerikan tobacco industry has knowingly 
profited off of an addictive and life-threatening 
product and will continue to do so in the future, 
despite this agreement. The u.$. government remains 
concerned about the profitability of the tobacco 
companies even while censuring them for dealing in 
death. This is another example of Marx's teaching 
that, "The purpose of capital is not to satisfy 
needs, but to produce profit."(3) Only socialism -- 
which organizes production for need, not for profit 
-- can stop the needless deaths associated with 
smoking.


SMOKING KILLS 


Epidemiological studies linked smoking to lung 
cancer and heart disease more than thirty years 
ago, and recently clinical studies found the 
biological mechanism behind the smoking/lung cancer 
connection. According to the Center for Disease 
Control (CDC), 400,000 people die each year from 
smoking-related causes in the u.$. alone.(1) 
Despite the clear evidence that smoking causes 
cancer and increases the risk of heart disease, the 
tobacco industry consistently denied the link 
between smoking and these diseases. Many bourgeois 
analysts see the agreement between the industry and 
the attorneys general as a tacit admission that 
cigarettes kill and that the industry is guilty of 
"moral wrongdoing."(1)

Earlier this year, one of the smallest tobacco 
companies, the Liggett Group, admitted that smoking 
was addictive and that cigarette companies' 
advertising targeted youth and children.(1) The CDC 
estimates that 3,000 teens become regular smokers 
every day -- meaning they have smoked at least one 
cigarette per day for a month.(1)

Much of the $368.5 billion settlement will go to 
the states, in order to help them recover Medicaid 
expenses incurred by smokers. The remainder of the 
money will ostensibly pay for youth anti-smoking 
campaigns, health research programs, and federal 
oversight of the tobacco industry. In return, the 
tobacco industry will be immune from all other 
class action suits (including many currently 
pending). Individuals can still sue, but no 
individual has ever won a lawsuit against the $50-
billion-a-year tobacco industry. 

The Minnesota attorney general considers the 
settlement money chump change, and estimates that 
the industry could afford over $800 billion, 
"without putting a dent in overseas profits, stock 
dividends, or executive perks."(1) And other 
bourgeois experts say that the money is not the 
heart of the deal. After all, most of the money 
goes to reimburse the states for medical costs 
already incurred. The real effectiveness of the 
deal, say these experts, lies in the power it gives 
the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to regulate 
the industry.(1) Assuming that is true, then the 
deal will be pretty ineffective. Public-health 
advocates argue that the agreement sets conditions 
on FDA authority which would effectively allow the 
tobacco industry to fend off regulation.(4)

The proposed agreement also restricts the use of 
human forms and cartoons in advertising, and 
forbids billboard advertising and T-shirt give-
aways. Many of these restrictions and the proposed 
anti-smoking advertisements will be aimed at youth. 
But John Garrison, the head of the American Lung 
Association, believes the industry will find a way 
around these regulations. He says, "The ability of 
the tobacco industry to reinvent itself and 
circumvent such restrictions is remarkable."(1) 
Another bourgeois expert candidly admits that 
"teenage smoking will not go away -- the industry's 
survival depends on it."(1)

Finally, even if this settlement is a "tacit 
admission of guilt," the tobacco industry still has 
not explicitly admitted that it knows cigarettes 
cause cancer and are addictive. Part of the 
settlement allows the industry to keep secret many 
internal documents which could be damaging to them 
in court. And even though the agreement mandates 
the closure of pro-tobacco lobbies like the Tobacco 
Institute and the Council for Tobacco Research USA 
(industry-funded organizations which made their 
living "proving" that cigarettes were harmless or 
that nicotine was not addictive), this closure may 
only exist on paper. According to Tobacco Institute 
vice-president Walker Merryman, "All we're going to 
do is change the name on the door. We're going to 
continue to do what we have always done."(5)

Ultimately, any strategy which seeks to raise the 
health standard of the people of the world (see 
sidebar) by reforming the existing system without 
overthrowing capitalism and imperialism is doomed. 
As long as there are immense profits to be made 
producing and selling a product which makes 
millions of people ill and causes many to die, some 
capitalist will make that product. And providing 
expensive but necessary health care to the broad 
masses of people will never be a profitable 
business. Again, only socialism, a system which 
organizes production to serve people's needs 
unhindered by the profit motive, can raise the 
health standard of the broad masses of the world.


NOTES:
1. Time 30 June 97, pp. 24-32.
2. Time 30 June 97, pp. 25. Moore is being more 
than a little chauvinist, narrow-minded, and self-
aggrandizing here. Even if this deal does what it 
purports to do--which it won't--it would not 
compare to the major public health successes which 
liberation and the development of socialism in 
China brought. Expected lifespans doubled from 
liberation to the end of socialism in China in 
1976.
3. The Fundamentals of Political Economy, p. 63.
4. Reuters 25 June 97.
5. Los Angeles Times 24 June 97.



* * *



DEATH MERCHANTS OF IMPERIALISM

The lack of any restrictions on the export of 
cigarettes in the agreement between the state 
attorneys general and the tobacco industry clearly 
exposes the capitalist rationale behind the deal 
and shows how imperialist monopoly capitalists 
respond to crises by stepping up exploitation and 
oppression of the masses in the colonies and neo-
colonies.

The proposed deal may force domestic cigarette 
prices up 50%, which could cause a 15% drop in 
domestic sales. This will force cigarette 
manufacturers to expand their marketing abroad. 
Already half of the revenues of some Amerikan 
cigarette manufacturers come from overseas, and 
Amerikan cigarette sales abroad are rising 3% to 5% 
per year.(1)

In order to ensure the industry's profitability, 
the u.$. government supports the tobacco companies' 
infiltration of overseas markets through subsidies 
and political lobbying. For example, a pack of 
Amerikan cigarettes can cost as little as US$ 0.50 
in the Philippines. And Amerikan embassies have 
dissuaded other governments from enacting 
legislation similar to the deal proposed by the 
attorneys general. Indeed, as even National Public 
Radio's senior news toady, Daniel Shore, pointed 
out, Amerika already has the dubious distinction of 
being the number one arms merchant in the world. 
Now it will be the number one cancer merchant as 
well.(2)


NOTES:
1. Time, 30 June 97, pp. 24-32.
2. National Public Radio Weekend Edition, 22 June 
97.



PAPER TIGERS

***All reactionaries are paper tigers. In 
appearance, the reactionaries are terrifying, but 
in reality they are not so powerful. From a long-
term point of view, it is not the reactionaries but 
the people who are really powerful.***

--Mao Tsetung


DRIVING WHILE BLACK (DWB) IS AN OFFENSE IN FLORIDA

Sheriff Kevin Beary's Crime Patrol Unit -- a drug 
squad that sets up stopping points on Orlando 
turnpikes -- is six and a half times more likely to 
search Black motorists than white drivers according 
to the findings of the Orlando Sentinel. In 
reviewing records of 3,800 plus stops and almost 
500 searches, the Sentinel found that although only 
16.3% of the drivers stopped are Black, they 
account for 70% of the dog searches and more than 
half of all searches. Traffic stop records from 
January 1996 through April 1997 indicate that Black 
drivers were searched 39.6% of the time, 17.9% of 
Latinos, Asians and other nationality motorists 
were searched, while only 6.2% of white drivers 
were searched. Sheriff Beary oinked in denial "We 
are not out there targeting any specific race."

On the contrary, MIM points out that the criminal 
Amerikan injustice system disproportionately 
targets members of oppressed nations.

NOTE: Reuters 9 June, 1997.


INJUSTICE, THE AMERIKAN WAY

6 June, 1997 Torrance, CA-- In separate trials, 
Deputy DA Todd Rubenstein successfully prosecuted 
two different men for firing the one bullet that 
killed Willie Yen, a supposed drug dealer, in 
October 1995. John Patrick Winkelman and Stephen 
Edmond Davis were both convicted for the same fatal 
shot by two separate juries.  Yen was killed by a 
single bullet in the upper back. Both Davis and 
Winkelman were allegedly involved in the incident. 
Ballistics tests were inconclusive. In his closing 
remarks, DA Rubenstein stated to the Winkelman jury 
that "it's unrefuted that John Winkelman is the 
actual killer;" the next day arguing to the Davis 
jury that it was "quite clear" that Davis was the 
killer. The presiding judge ruled that Rubenstein's 
parallel arguments were not grounds for a mistrial. 
Lawyers for both defendants are appealing. Law 
expert Robert Pugsley says that legally nothing 
prevents a prosecutor from arguing different facts 
to different juries in the same case. The results 
may be messy, but Pugsley affirms "I'm not sure 
it's unjust."

MIM sees this as further proof that the Amerikan 
legal system doesn't care about justice. People who 
demand real justice should work with MIM, PIRAO and 
RAIL and struggle against Amerikan injustice.

NOTE: The Los Angeles Times 7 June, 1997, p. B1, 
B8.


PIGS KILL CHINESE MAN, FBI PIGS TO INVESTIGATE

Rohnert Park, CA--Alleging threat in a "martial 
arts fashion," officer Jack Shields shot and killed 
Kuanchung Kao at point blank range in his own 
driveway at 2 a.m. on 29 June 1997. The two 
officers present prevented his wife, a registered 
nurse, from administering first aid on threat of 
arrest, claiming standard procedure (because she 
might attack the officers with a hidden weapon in 
derangement). Instead, the pigs "administered" 
first aid; they turned the still-breathing Kao 
over, handcuffed him, and waited for the ambulance. 
Kao died and his body remained in the driveway 
until noon. His five-year-old daughter witnessed 
the disturbance from her bedroom window.

Kao, an engineer, had gone drinking with friends to 
celebrate a promotion. Two Rohnert Park pigs 
responded to complaints of a drunken man waving a 
broomstick in this small, mostly white city. 
According to pig spokesman Bob Williams, Kao didn't 
respond to their commands to drop the stick and 
wielded it "in a threatening martial arts fashion . 
. . as people have seen on TV"; therefore Shields 
was justified in shooting Kao in the chest from 
less than ten feet away (and in preventing his wife 
from giving him medical assistance).

Local Chinese groups are outraged at "police 
insensitivity" to Asians. They demanded a federal 
investigation and have gathered more than 1,000 
signatures. Assistant u.s. Attorney Albert Glenn 
said that only the possibility of undue force will 
be investigated; "race is irrelevant to that 
constitutional right." San Francisco supervisor 
Mabel Teng disagrees, stating "this killing seems 
(to say) that somehow an Asian American [sic] life 
is worth less."

MIM says that this tragic death is another 
indication that the Amerikan police state is set up 
to perpetuate national oppression. Because of its 
function "to protect and serve" the white 
supremacist bourgeoisie, police brutality in 
oppressed nation communities is commonplace. The 
anger of the Asian community is justified, but FBI 
probes will do little to effect change. An FBI 
probe would just scapegoat particular individuals 
to appease the community while ignoring the 
fundamental systemic problems. No, MIM recognizes 
that more is needed. We call on everyone to join us 
in organizing against the criminal Amerikan 
injustice system.

NOTE: San Francisco Examiner 21 May 1997.


MERCURY NEWS DEMOTES WEBB

Gary Webb, author of the San Jose Mercury News 
stories which exposed the CIA/crack connection, has 
been demoted to a suburban office and have taken 
him off the story.

After the editor in chief attacked the stories, the 
editors have refused to run follow up stories which 
Webb points out offer even more proof. They are now 
hoping to bury the story entirely by forcing Webb 
to quit so that the paper can go back to claiming 
objective reporting by printing state department 
press releases as if they were fact.

MIM is not surprised that the SJMN turned on Webb 
and his stories exposing Amerikan government 
treachery. What was really surprising was that 
these stories ran in a mainstream paper at all. In 
spite of claims of free speech, the media is very 
tightly controlled by multinational advertising 
interests and government news sources. When a paper 
breaks ranks and runs facts damaging to 
imperialism, it is attacked by both the government 
and other media.

This underscores the importance of independent 
media. MIM offers to publish Gary Webb's follow-up 
stories in MIM Notes:  a newspaper that is 
independently produced and funded and that exists 
only in the interest of serving the international 
proletariat. We admit that we are biased:  we are 
biased in the interests of the oppressed people of 
the world, and this newspaper helps us expose 
oppression and injustice while organizing against 
the imperialist system behind these problems.

MIM encourages all bourgeois reporters and other 
folks working for bourgeois media to take a lesson 
from Gary Webb's experience and realize that the 
truth about imperialism will not be exposed by the 
mainstream media. You need to put your skills, time 
and money into independent revolutionary media.

NOTE: Boston Globe June12, 1997, p.A14.



* * *



AMERIKAN WAR AGAINST OGLALA CONTINUES

by RC35

The New York Times reports that the Oglala First 
Nation tribe of Pine Ridge South Dakota is the 
"Poorest Indians." Though the article correctly 
notes the conditions of colonialism within the 
illegitimate borders of the U$, the article's 
omission of the historical truth of genocide is a 
perfect example of the pitfalls of bourgeois 
journalism. The historical settler land grabbing, 
massacre, FBI attacks, assassinations of leaders 
and more against the Oglala-Lakota are the 
foundations for the current conditions. The high 
rate of poverty and unemployment are the legacy of 
Amerika's war against the Oglala.

Pine Ridge, with about1.3 million people, has an 
unemployment rate of 49% -- though another 
statistic says that only 1 in 4 adults has a job. 
The only source of income for many families comes 
from federal aid, which is drastically being cut 
for settler nation greed. The so-called housing is 
nothing more than shacks, and youth are contracting 
diabetes from being fed soda rather than milk 
during infancy because of prices and the fact that 
most mothers only receive $78 a month in income.

The New York Times article claims the problems are 
partially because the government is cutting aid. 
The white settler nation attempts to erase the 
memory of plundered resources from the Oglala and 
keep more of Amerika's wealth for itself. So though 
relying on the oppressor for sustenance is not a 
sustainable practice, it's a way to win partial 
legal reparations for hundreds of years of murder. 
The denial of aid with the effect of poverty is 
nothing more than the continuation of war. 
Imperialism dangles aid in front of the oppressed 
in order to quell rising resistance and denies the 
aid when needed to make Amerikans fatter.

The New York Times also blames the lack of 
resources for the poverty. The fact that all First 
Nations were systematically uprooted from fertile, 
bountiful and self-sustaining land and dumped into 
overcrowded desert-like badlands conveniently gets 
omitted by the media. Reducing poverty to "terrain 
[yielding] no oil or gas, coal or gold, crops or 
lumber" makes it very easy to blame social 
inequality on "natural" conditions. There is 
nothing "natural" about mass murder and 
dislocation.

The large Lakota territory covering the Amerikan 
states of Idaho, Montana, Wyoming and the Dakotas 
before the 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty was rich in 
oil, coal, uranium, gold and silver and other 
minerals, forests and fertile agricultural land. 
The Lakota Nation led by Red Cloud and later 
Tesunke Witko (Crazy House) won significant 
struggles and defeated the land grubbing settlers -
- retaining the control over the Lakota territory. 
It was only through lying that the settlers were 
able to assassinate the leaders (as the defeated 
settlers pretended to meet for a peace treaty) and 
take more control over the territory including the 
mineral-rich Black Hills.

The settlers continued to steel land, massacring 
hundreds at Wounded Knee in 1890 in order to secure 
control over the natural resource rich territory 
and forced the resistance of the entire Lakota 
nation to organize covertly.

As activism rose in the late 1960s (after much of 
the resources has been depleted and toxic sites 
placed close to living areas) the Oglala's along 
with leaders and activists from the American Indian 
Movement attempted to regain the territory. Through 
protests, demonstrations and legally proving that 
the Amerikans had lied and connived, they built 
support for a rising movement for self-
determination. In the 20 point platform of the 
"Trail of Broken Treaties," AIM leaders and 
activists and community members and elders demands 
to recover Lakota jurisdiction and subordinate FBI-
backed GOONs which were repressing and killing the 
masses.

Then again, not only were the Oglala denied access 
to their land and natural resources, the FBI 
operation against self-determination held Oglala 
and other First Nation members hostage at Wounded 
Knee, hauled in 17 tanks, helicopters, Phantom 
jets, used millons of rounds of ammunition and 
again killed and wounded the people rightfully 
belonging on the land. The FBI operations and those 
of the GOONs backed by the FBI against the Oglala 
served to reinforce the broken treaties, deny the 
Oglala access to natural resources and relegate the 
people to lives under repression and poverty.

Now, the only "exploitable" resource the Oglala 
have is grasslands for grazing cattle sold to keep 
amerikan's literally fat and the best fed people in 
the world...all while the U$ internal colonies 
literally starve.

The New York Times article also tried to blame the 
Oglala'a for their own problems. Historical 
materialism escapes the bourgeois media once again. 
Bringing up issues of alcoholism and poor 
technological planning made the argument rather 
thin considering the fact that the white settlers 
would be dead if it weren't for the advanced native 
farming techniques (oh, yeah, and LAND!!) they 
stole. However alcoholism is a problem for the 
oppressed because of desperation, and decadent and 
patriarchal ideologies from the white social 
structure. Drug use is something all oppressed 
nations have to combat via structuring 
revolutionary activity around creating an 
alternative to the desperate conditions.

The Oglala's tried to follow the lead of the Pequot 
tribe in Connecticut, but have no savings to put up 
as collateral to build a casino. Though MIM 
realizes that casinos are capitalist enterprises, 
we uphold First Nation's right to take back as much 
wealth as possible from bought off white settlers 
through whatever means are available and decided by 
the peoples of First Nations.

Bourgeois journalist will go down in history for 
basically ignoring it, but the article exposes well 
the true conditions of Amerika's internal colonies 
and shuts up those borderline fascist forces who 
uphold the Ct. Pequot's as the majority and not the 
minority that they are.

We urge all interested in changing the conditions 
of oppressed people all over the world to work for 
real change through exposure of bourgeois society 
and by building up independent institutions of the 
oppressed to ensure real material change. A good 
source for the history of repression, murder, set-
ups and imprisonment of Oglala fighting for self-
determination is Agents of Repression by Ward 
Churchill and Jim Vander Wall which MIM regularly 
uses for study and distributions. ($25)



* * *



NATIONALIST PEQUOT ART TARGETED FOR CENSORSHIP

by two First Nation friends

Hartford, CT -- Peter Sutton, incoming director of 
the Wadsworth Atheneum plans to remove an 
historical exhibit from the museum's lawn. Sutton's 
position is that the exhibit is too controversial 
to be displayed in such a prominent location. The 
exhibit is a result of six years of research and 
planning by Hachivi Edgar Heap of Birds, professor 
of art at the University of Oklahoma. The piece, 
entitled Dunging the Ground, is a tribute to the 
hundreds of Pequots who died in the massacre of 
1637 at Mystic Fort, and includes the following 
quote from the diary of John Mason; "Thus was God 
crushing his proud enemies, burning them up in 
fire, dunging the ground with their flesh. It is 
marvelous in our eyes!"

Mason's massacre of the Pequots at Mystic Fort is a 
tragic, but essential part of Connecticut's 
history, as well as that of America at large. With 
the prevalent political environment in America, it 
becomes essential that we not let the people forget 
that America was built on the blood and bones of 
its first inhabitants. If this work is viewed as 
controversial, it is because the history of early 
America is controversial. To deny the validity of 
Dunging the Ground as art, is to deny the emotions 
of a people who are beaten, but not defeated.

Must art be relegated to the realm of fantasy? Has 
the expression "art imitating life" lost its 
validity? Dunging the Ground is an emotional piece 
representing the emotions of a real event in 
history. To refuse to consider its artistic merit 
is to deny its historical significance; to deny the 
tragedy of the event. Isn't the Holocaust Museum an 
art gallery representing sorrow and tragedy? Isn't 
the sorrow and tragedy the basis for the 
expressions of same as art? There is no real 
difference except perhaps in size.

Dunging the Ground is gut level emotion, expressed 
in the context of one of Connecticut's darkest 
moments. The work must remain accessible to the 
people as an educational experience. All people who 
believe in revealing the truths that have not been 
taught to us through our jaded educational system 
should set Mr. Sutton straight, and urge him to 
keep the exhibit in place. Write to Peter Sutton at 
the Wadsworth Atheneum, 600 Main St., Hartford, CT 
06103. Carbon copy Andrea Miller-Keller, Curator of 
Contemporary Art; she supports Heap of Birds 
exhibit, and can use public support to fuel her 
struggle.


MIM ADDS:  The 1634-1637 Pequot War was a key 
milestone in the settler domination of this 
hemisphere because it destroyed the leading 
economic power in the region. Pequot's controlled 
the currency through wampum, and this fact was 
recognized by the English. In order to gain an 
advantage against the Dutch and French, the English 
almost completely destroyed the Pequot Nation as a 
way of stealing their trading position.

"In late May 1637, three regiments from Windsor, 
Hartford and Wethersfield under the leadership of 
Captain John mason, set out for Mystic, 
Connecticut, along with forces sent by the 
Massachusetts Bay Colony. Their singular goal was 
the extermination of the Pequot tribe. Captain 
Mason vowed to cut off the Remembrance of them from 
the Earth." In their attack on the Pequot fort atop 
a prominent palisade in Mystic, the entire village 
was burned to the ground. Almost all of the nearly 
700 inhabitants were incinerated. John Mason 
himself proudly took full credit for igniting the 
fire from inside the fort. Those Pequots who sought 
to exit from the confines of the conflagration were 
immediately killed or apprehended by a double 
circle of adversaries that strategically surrounded 
the perimeter of the fort. Those few Pequots who 
escaped with their lives were enslaved by colonists 
and rival Indian tribes, including the Mohegans and 
Narragansetts, who had actively supported the 
English in their efforts to vanquish the Pequots. 
So complete was the devastation, the Pequot nation 
was officially dissolved by the 1638 Treaty of 
Hartford, which the remaining Pequots were forced 
to sign."(1)

The Pequot Nation still exists, and as a result of 
its new casino was able to build a museum for its 
history, where some of the information for Heap of 
Birds art installation came from. The reactionaries 
make their art, such as a statue of John Mason, 
recently moved from the site of the massacre to 
Windsor, CT. The people must also have their art, 
which defends them and advances the people's 
struggle.

Revolutionaries and progressives must do all they 
can to help develop art for the people. When by 
chance the people's art gets displayed prominently 
on the front lawn of a bourgeois museum where 
thousands see it a day, we should fight to retain 
it in that place of high exposure.


NOTE: Pamphlet from Atheneum for Heap of Birds Art 
work.



* * *



UC AFFIRMATIVE ACTION BAN MAKES ALLIES FOR THE 
INTERNATIONAL PROLETARIAT

by a RAIL comrade

Law school acceptance has dropped from up to 81% 
for Blacks and up to 32% for Latinos to the law 
schools in the University of California system 
since the UC Regents banned Affirmative Action 
programs. The new "colorblind" policy forbids the 
use of "race", ethnicity and/or gender as criteria 
in admissions. The affirmative action ban applied 
only to graduate admissions this year, but will be 
effective for undergraduate admissions beginning 
next year.

UCLA's School of Law accepted only 21 blacks and 73 
Latinos, down from last year's 104 and 108 
respectively. UC Berkeley's Boalt Hall Law School 
offered admission to only 14 Blacks (75 in 1996) 
and 39 Latinos (78 in 1996).(1) The actual 
enrollment was expected to be half the number 
offered admission since many had multiple offers, 
but the final figures are even more devastating. 
Not one of the 14 Black applicants admitted to 
Boalt (UCB) accepted; there will only be one 
incoming Black student this fall semester who had 
deferred enrollment last year. The two First Nation 
applicants also declined and only 18 of 48 Latinos 
have accepted compared to last years figures of 4 
and 28 respectively.

At UCLA's law school, only 10 Blacks and 41 Latinos 
have accepted, although the possibility that they 
may change their minds still exists.(2) UC Regent 
Richard Russell -- one of three Blacks out of 26 on 
the Regent board and who was appointed after the 
ban was approved -- stated " it's obvious that the 
re-segregation of higher education has begun."(2)

A continent-wide study published in the New York 
University Law Review showed that many Blacks would 
have been excluded from law school if LSAT test 
scores and grade point averages had been the only 
criterion.(1) However, Black students demonstrated 
no difference in graduating or passing the bar 
exams than other students. The author of the study 
concludes that eliminating affirmative action and 
basing acceptance offers solely on so-called 
objective factors would "deny a legal education to 
many minority applicants who were fully capable of 
the rigors of a legal education and of entering the 
legal profession."(1)

UC Regent and resident Uncle Tom Ward Connerly -- a 
major proponent of the affirmative action ban -- 
applauded the drop in Latino and Black admissions 
as an exposure of an "artificially engineered 
system of preferences that has been propping up 
diversity . . . We are too politically correct to 
reach the conclusion:  They are not as competitive 
to be lawyers and doctors."(1)  Similar drops in 
admissions are expected for the 600 other UC 
graduate programs, including the five medical 
programs.

Clearly, working within the system has done very 
little to advance equality for the oppressed 
nations within the u.s. Reformism has proved itself 
a failure time and time again. Even, affirmative 
action, the pacifying token reform from the civil 
rights era, is being dismantled. So now, the few 
oppressed nationals who benefited from it are being 
denied even that. By eliminating affirmative 
action, the imperialists have pushed the 
vacillating oppressed national petit bourgeoisie in 
the direction of revolutionary nationalist and 
proletarian movements.

Self-determination and self-reliance are the only 
true means for the oppressed to liberate themselves 
from subjugation. It is time to choose the proven 
strategy for ending oppression and gaining 
liberation, and work with MIM, the PIRAO, and RAIL. 
MIM calls upon those few oppressed national 
intellectuals and professionals to devote their 
bourgeois skills to the service of the people.


Notes:
1. The Los Angeles Times 15 May 1997, p.A1.
2. The Los Angeles Times 27 June1997. p.A1, A22.
See also MT7, "Supreme court makes allies of the 
international proletariat.



* * *



1997 COLLEGE GRADS ON EASY STREET

by a MIM comrade

As a record number of recruiters have hit the 
campuses this year, 1997 college graduates are 
landing jobs easily.(1) Students have had their 
pick of job offers and many had jobs by mid-senior 
year.

Although Black and white college grads both face 
good employment prospects, Blacks are both denied 
that education, and even with equivalent education, 
get paid less than whites. In 1996, 30.6% of whites 
age 25-34 had at least a bachelor degrees, compared 
to 13.7% of Blacks in the same age group. Of those 
with bachelor's degrees, the median income for 
whites is $35,559, compared to $29,105 for Blacks 
in 1996.(2)

While white unemployment is at almost its lowest in 
twenty-five years, Black unemployment is still at 
least twice as high as white unemployment. Since 
1994, there has been a steady decline in white 
unemployment, while Black unemployment has 
increased or remained steady.(3) But, in 1996, the 
unemployment rate for college graduates (no longer 
in school) under 25 years old was the same for 
whites and Blacks:  5.3 percent.(4) What this means 
is that even though college educated Blacks are 
doing fine in the job market, the children of the 
labor aristocracy -- college educated or not -- are 
still doing much better.

The graduates with engineering and computer degrees 
are able to pick and choose jobs more than liberal 
arts graduates. Overall unemployment is now below 
five percent, and the job market is booming.(1) 
Many market analysts believe that the current surge 
in hiring is in part due to the massive layoffs of 
the late 1980s -- companies found that with the 
growth of the economy new employees were needed to 
fill positions that had been downsized. MIM 
believes, however, this explanation rings hollow. 
Unemployment has fluctuated some over the past 
twenty years, but the vast majority of college 
graduates have been able to get well-paying jobs.

New graduates with degrees in chemical, electrical 
and mechanical engineering can expect starting 
salaries at over $39,000, an increase of at least 
four percent over last year.(5) Starting salaries 
are up 4.5 percent for computer science graduates, 
beginning at almost $37,000. Job market analysts 
say that not only are new college graduates able to 
pick and choose jobs based on salary, but they are 
also able to secure generous benefits packages, 
including stock options.(5)

MIM understands that this is further evidence of 
the fact that capitalism is working for the labor 
aristocracy. With more and better opportunities in 
the job market, the college educated white nation 
is happy to hold on to their degrees and look 
forward to a bright future of milking the benefits 
of imperialism.


NOTES:
1. New York Times 19 May 1997, p. A1.
2. The Black Population in the United States: March 
1996 (Update), U.S. Census Bureau (P20-498), 
avaible at 
.
3. Current Population Surveys, Bureau of Labor 
Statistics.
4. Current Population Survey, 1996, Bureau of Labor 
Statistics.
5. St. Louis Post-Dispatch 29 April 1997, p. 6C.




* * *



IMPERIALISTS AND THEIR LACKEYS DIVIDE AND THEN 
STARVE THE KOREAN PEOPLE

by MC45

North Korea recently made an international request 
for flood and famine relief, following two years of 
serious flooding in 1995 and 1996, and an extended 
effort to deal with the famine independently. The 
Public [food] Distribution System (PDS) in north 
Korea has kept the famine from hurting too many 
Koreans until recently.(1) The west criticized 
north Korea for not calling for aid sooner -- 
Amerika understands north Korea's reticence on this 
point as secrecy and reluctance to admit 
weaknesses, a characteristic imperialism says is 
typical of socialist countries.

But north Korea was able to manage its food 
production and distribution effectively over the 
past two years by applying Kim Il Sung's strong 
notion of the self-reliance of peoples -- Juche. 
Now that north Korea has asked other countries for 
help easing its current famine (as it gave aid to 
south Korea after floods 13 years ago)(2) we can 
see the necessity of Juche. Amerika has made 
political differences a consideration in giving 
food aid at the same time as the united snakes 
claims that north Korea is making politics a 
barrier to aid. This conditional aid-giving by 
Amerika proves the necessity of self-reliance in 
the face of the option of asking imperialist 
countries for help.

While the united snakes demonizes north Korea as a 
Communist country, MIM does not uphold north Korea 
as socialist or communist. We do support the right 
of the Korean people to self-determination and 
liberation from u.s. imperialism, and their right 
to food and basic needs. We also do not criticize 
the north Korean government for its refusal to 
prostrate itself to Amerikan demands. Amerika has 
no business deciding who should live or die on the 
Korean peninsula.(3) Amerika makes big claims about 
communist countries killing their people through 
poor planning and food distribution. But the U.$. 
is guilty of helping to cause the famine in the 
first place by splitting the nation, occupying half 
of Korea and making it impossible for the Korean 
people to build a total independent economy. Now, 
the U$ is making the famine worse by stalling on 
aid.


AMERIKAN INTERVENTION AND MANIPULATION


Thanks to successful spin doctoring by the 
imperialist- driven press, north Korea's so-called 
unwillingness to accept help in easing the famine 
its people are suffering has received more 
attention than the famine itself. The accusation 
that north Korea will not accept aid from 
supposedly willing donors such as the United Snakes 
of Imperialism has even obscured the reasons for 
that famine.

So what if Amerika tries to impose its political 
and economic will on the Korean peninsula through 
economic blockades? So what if the politically 
repressive (albeit Western-style democratic) south 
Korean regime aggressively supports Amerikan 
propaganda while squashing any indigenous support 
for reunification it can identify? The government 
in the north somehow becomes the one politicizing 
the famine by refusing to surrender its autonomy in 
exchange for food aid.

According to an Amerikan mass organization lobbying 
for more u.s. food aid to north Korea, it would 
cost $95.5 million to feed the currently at-risk 
population there. The United Snakes has been giving 
fractions of this amount, while it continues to 
spend $3 billion annually to keep an occupying 
force of 37,000 Amerikan troops stationed in south 
Korea. In addition to keeping its own troops in 
south Korea, Amerika spends hundreds of millions of 
dollars in military aid to south Korea -- giving 
$233 million in 1985 alone.(6)

The underlying cause of famine in north Korea is an 
economy crippled by the U.$. military-enforced 
division between north and south Korea. MIM does 
not recognize two distinct nations on the Korean 
peninsula -- south Korea was carved out by Amerikan 
occupiers immediately following World War Two. 
Amerikan occupiers keep the south and north 
separate. Division between north and south, 
together with a consistent imperialist threat from 
Amerika and Amerikan-backed forces has kept north 
Korea with its smaller population and poorer farm 
land in a weak economic state.

U.$. lackey state south Korea has followed Amerikan 
instruction well, making it illegal for south 
Koreans to give private donations directly to the 
north Korean people.(5) This ban is both a means of 
enforcing the division among the Korean people and 
a way for the government in the south to exercise 
greater political control through food aid. Clearly 
the division among the Korean people is artificial 
if the southern government has to make it illegal 
to give food across the so-called border. The 
Korean people want reunification and have no desire 
for continued Amerikan occupation. The Amerikan 
occupiers present the principal obstacle to 
reunification and self-reliance at this time.


CONDITIONAL AID


The U.$. Secretary of Defense, making food aid 
explicitly conditional on north Korea's 
friendliness to Amerika, has "sternly warned the 
North Koreans to stop military provocations and to 
show a willingness to negotiate if it hoped to 
received more food aid."(7)

Even pacifist humanitarian aid givers who would 
oppose communism generally agree with MIM on this 
point: "It is inhuman to reach out with a loaf of 
bread to a starving person and make the gesture 
conditional on a political agenda."(4) Everyone but 
the imperialists and their lackeys can see that 
one's opinion of the north Korean government are 
not the principal question when the north Korean 
people are starving.

MIM must point out in this discussion that we do 
not advocate Amerikan food aid generally, because 
it never comes without political compromise. So 
while we would not criticize people who are 
starving by Amerika's hand in the Third World for 
taking food from the United Snakes, we do not 
advocate such aid as the solution to Third World 
hunger. Amerikans should recognize that if food aid 
from Amerika to north Korea is to be genuinely 
unconditional, the U.$. must end its occupation of 
Korea.


NOTES:
1. 
http://shrine.cyber.ad.jp/mrosin/flood/970610/wfp97
0603- 1.html
2. http://shrine.cyber.ad.jp/mrosin/flood/news.html
3. For more of MIM's line on the Democratic 
People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), see the essays 
on MIM's website at 
http://www.prisoncensorship.info/archive/etext/MIM.essays/korea/ 
4. 
http://shrine.cyber.ad.jp/mrosin/flood/noteveryone.
html
5. 
http://shrine.cyber.ad.jp/mrosin/flood/noteveryone.
html
6. "North Korea Famine Factsheet," Campaign to Stop 
Famine in North Korea.
7. New York Times 16 April, 1997, p. A7.



* * *



IMPERIALISTS REACT TO THREAT OF AFRICAN UNITY

by a RAIL comrade

The past few months have marked major power 
struggles in Africa, including the overthrow of the 
controlling governments in Sierra Leon and the 
newly formed Democratic Republic of Congo. Both of 
these movements opened opportunities for true 
revolutionary change to occur.

Neighboring African nations look on optimistically 
in hopes of movement towards a free, democratic and 
self-sufficient Africa. A comrade from the CPL-
Zaire praised the movement led by Laurent Kabila in 
the Democratic Republic of Congo. The comrade 
stressed the need for national democratic 
revolution to break from dependence on imperialism, 
to promote land reform, and for the liberation of 
local production from imperialism.(1)

Museveni, president of neighboring Uganda, has 
suggested the formation of a united government of 
democratic forces in Africa, to be guided by 
Kabila.(2) This possibilities of unity and 
relinquishing Africa from the chains of imperialism 
caused Clinton to take recent steps to prevent such 
actions. While it is not yet clear where Kabila's 
alliance lies, imperialists are taking action to 
try to influence him to join their ranks. Clinton 
announced his great plan to provide 'relief' to the 
highly indebted countries of central Africa on June 
17.(3)

He brought attention to this issue just before the 
"Summit of Eight" where he plans to ask the help of 
the seven other richest nations in the world to 
participate in the U.S.-led actions. Any anti-
imperialist should shudder at the thought of the 
world's leading imperialist nations joining in an 
"effort to bolster capitalism and democracy across 
the neglected region" of colonialized Africa.(3)

Clinton's proposal includes a call for U.S. tariff 
reductions on some 1,800 exports, allowing the 
nations involved to export nearly 50 percent more 
to the United States without duty.(3) This increase 
in exports only allows for more multinational 
corporations to increase business and further the 
exploitation of labor in these countries. The 
people of these nations will not see an increase in 
living conditions because these companies are 
exporting more. They don't need exports ala mono-
exports which deplete the possibility of self-
sufficiency. They need industry through which they 
can provide for themselves and create self-
sufficiency.

Clinton also promised to bulk up Amerikan 
investment in African nations by setting up an $150 
million fund at the Overseas Private Investment 
Corporation.(3) This also provides more 
opportunities for Amerikan corporations to go in 
and exploit these nations. Amerikan investment in a 
country does not translate into prosperity but 
rather exploitation of the workers and 
environmental degradation.

The president called for a $500 million fund to 
finance African infrastructure such as 
telecommunications and power plants as well.(3) 
Developing these areas technologically allows big 
business to operate more efficiently, but most 
likely, the average African will not see any 
benefits of this construction. This development 
will go to help power and link communications in 
imperialist corporations;  not to improving the 
lives of the oppressed.

MIM supports the self-determination of African 
nations and unity developed by oppressed nations 
that will force out imperialism. We urge the people 
of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sierra Leon, 
and all of Africa to seize the time and take this 
movement to the next level; socialist revolution. 
For through socialism the people can guarantee 
their freedom from imperialism.


NOTES:
1. MIM Notes 140. p.6.
2. MIM Notes 140. p.3.
3.Times Union 18 June 1997. p.A-2.



* * *



MOVIE REVIEWS:

CHILDREN OF THE REVOLUTION LACKS HISTORICAL 
ANALYSIS

The Australian film Children of the Revolution 
creates the bizarre story of an Australian labor 
leader who sleeps with Stalin just before he dies 
and later raises his son. The movie relies on 
biological determinism and individual personality 
traits to create bourgeois criticisms of Stalin as 
an evil tyrant and leader of a personality cult.

In the 1950's Joan, the womyn, led the Australian 
communist party. She supposedly put the cause of 
the people above all else but the film makers 
portrayed it as a weird personality trait. Stalin, 
in this movie, is portrayed to be a crazy, dumb, 
but sly dictator who uses this womyn's admiration 
for his leadership of the Soviet revolution to get 
her into his bed, thereby incorrectly reducing all 
liberation movements down to struggles for 
individual and patriarchal power.

The whole picture of the Soviet Union is a spoof on 
history, but clearly is meant to reflect what the 
bourgeoisie sees as reality. The extreme images of 
Stalin as a lunatic, the dopey yes-men and the 
Australian spy, who is also a KGB agent working for 
Stalin, are all opportunistic insults to the 
communist state. It benefits those trying to stop 
all progressive revolutionary movements by 
discrediting the leaders as no more than 
personality cults and ignoring the true facts 
behind mass participation in peoples liberation.

Stalin died after having sex with Joan in the 
movie. As she was leaving the country she asked the 
KGB/Australian agent why Kruschev and the other 
yes-men were so happy when millions of people of 
the country had filed past Stalin's dead body 
crying. Just as Joan's conviction to communist 
ideals and the importance of devoting her life to 
changing the world is portrayed as a weird fluke, 
this reaction of the Soviet people is also 
dismissed.

By turning all eyes to an individual, the masses 
are discredited and all personal responsibility is 
absolved from the international community. In the 
same way that it makes Stalin out to be nothing 
more than a virulent dictator, it discredits the 
entire Soviet revolution as a truly progressive 
historical movement that can be used as a lesson 
for today.

The movie also suggests that Stalin's portrayed 
evil was genetic and therefore his son was doomed 
to be a BAD man too. The biological determinist 
ideas of evil were shown with (little) Joe's 
inclination for prison games as a child, his 
reluctance in protesting with his mother and his 
eventual leadership in the Union of Prison Workers 
and Police. Though this correctly puts the 
injustice system on the side of the bad guy, it 
doesn't recognize the material conditions that 
create group alliances. Joe's position gave him so 
much power that it became a near takeover of the 
country from behind the scenes, again alluding to 
Stalin's alleged cult of personality as being the 
only reason why he became head of the Soviet Union 
-- ignoring Stalin's election based on his correct 
line on Soviet liberation.

The movie also plays into the favorite anti-Stalin 
complaint that Stalin was responsible for all the 
evils that happened all around the world to this 
day. The man that Joan married when she learned she 
was pregnant joined the communist party to be near 
her. He was never interested in politics, just the 
womyn. When Joe became so powerful and evil that he 
was having his political enemies killed, his mother 
decided she had to tell everyone that he was 
Stalin's son to stop the evil that he was doing. 
Her husband left her saying that Stalin had 
destroyed his life.

Overall there is little progressive in this movie. 
The strong conviction of Joan to the cause of the 
people and her correct assessment that Gorbachev 
was not a communist were high points. Joan's 
failure to assess the nature of the working class 
in Australia in the 1990's and the reasons behind 
its lack of interest in revolution was one reason 
for the demise of the communist movement, as 
opposed to the film maker's direction of the blame 
at Stalin. Her son Joe laughs at her for believing 
the people will get up off the beaches, shake the 
sand out of their shoes and overthrow the 
government. It is likely that this criticism is 
correct since white Australians are settlers living 
off of stolen indigenous land and third world 
super-profits.

The movie was another bourgeois attack on Stalin 
offering nothing more then patriarchally-grounded 
criticisms and a complete ignorance of historical 
materialism. We urge those with doubts about 
Stalin's leadership to ask the question, what else 
could have been done given the time in history and 
social knowledge? With study of the context it is 
easily found that Stalin DID do all he could for 
the Soviet People and kept it on the socialist 
road.

We offer MIM Theory 6, "The Stalin Issue" as a good 
alternative to this bourgeois trash. If you are 
interested in seriously taking up study of the 
history of socialism in the Soviet Union, don't 
settle for pithy spoofs on history which just 
repeat all the bourgeois lies and one liners, 
history is complicated and we have a responsibility 
to study it thoroughly.



* * *



PSUEDO-ENVIRONMENTALISM HOLLYWOOD STYLE IN SEQUEL

THE LOST WORLD

by MC17

The Lost World, sequel to Jurassic Park, tried to 
make it as a big movie on reputation and a few 
special effects, and it seems to have worked. 
Little plot, lousy characters, and fewer dinosaurs 
than Jurassic Park have led lots of people to walk 
out of the theater but still has created a box 
office hit. The main political message in the movie 
is a pseudo-environmentalist, preserve nature 
theme. One of the main characters is an Earth 
First! activist, who was under cover as a 
photographer on the trip to the island of dinosaurs 
just in case the bad guys showed up. Of course, the 
bad guys did show up, but the Earth First! activist 
did little more than cut a few locks with a wire 
cutter he brought along for the occasion and stuff 
some blanks into a shot gun so that one of the bad 
guys could not shoot a T-Rex.

The environmentalist message is confusing because 
the island of dinosaurs was created by humyns but 
is being defended by its creator as a natural haven 
that needs to be preserved and left alone by 
humyns. There were the obvious questions about an 
island with Pterodactyls which seem like they might 
be able to reach humyn inhabited land. But this 
movie also raises the question of what should be 
considered a natural resource. There was little 
justification given for the importance of 
preserving the dinosaur island and MIM does not 
agree with this mystical approach to 
environmentalism. MIM does not wish to eliminate 
humyn influence on the environment because we know 
that all animals on this planet (including humyns) 
will have an influence on the environment. Instead 
we recognize that humyns are going to have to live 
with the environment and it is in our interests to 
preserve it. We advocate preserving natural 
resources because of the value this has for all 
life on this planet. Along these lines, humyn-made 
resources may also be worth preserving because of 
the value it has for furthering life on this 
planet. But similarly, if it was clear that this 
island of dinosaurs was going to lead to death and 
destruction of humyns, MIM is not afraid to make 
decisions about containing or eliminating such 
dangers.

The real Earth First! organization generally does 
more politically progressive actions with more than 
just mystical justifications although, as their 
name implies, the organization does believe that 
the earth is more important than humyns.

True environmentalists recognize the 
interconnectedness of humyn and environmental life 
and strive to create a beneficial balance between 
the two. This can only be done by recognizing the 
systematic destruction that imperialism brings to 
the earth and struggling to liberate all people 
from its system of exploitation and oppression.



* * *



UNDER LOCK AND KEY: NEWS FROM PRISONERS AND PRISONS

PRISON BRIEFS

NO TIME FOR APATHY

Revolutionary Greetings, Be advised, even a 
superficial look at history reveals that no social 
advance rolls in on the wheels of inevitability. 
Every step toward the goal of justice requires 
sacrifice, suffering and struggle; tireless 
exertions and passionate concern of dedicated 
individuals. This is no time for apathy or 
complacency. This is a time for vigorous and 
positive action. All Power To De People!!!

-- A South Carolina Prisoner, 15 January 1997


500 TRANSFERRED TO PRIVATE PRISONS IN TEXAS

i was caught up in a "shuffle" by the kkkolorado 
department of kkkoruptions that resulted in the 
placement of 500 prisoners of war into "private 
prisons" in tekkkas. After a month of being "in 
transit", i remain behind enemy lines in kkkolorado 
and am now being "permanently housed" at a new (to 
me) facility.

The plans to begin a revolutionary study group at 
my "old" facility, must now be revised. The search 
for conscious comrades here is proving tedious and 
in all likelihood I will have to educate and 
recruit first. Nonetheless, it's ever-forward, 
never back!

 -- A Colorado Prisoner, 27 March 1997


INSUFFICIENT FOOD SERVICES

Got an interesting story for you about FCI Bastrop. 
About 2 months ago they decided to remodel the 
floor in food service because the tile wasn't the 
right color. Now we have to eat off paper plates 
and cold food for the last two months. Now they 
have a make-shift kitchen that can't feed the whole 
institution and are dumping the cleaning water for 
the dishes into storm drains and are polluting 
Bastrop lake with refuse and garbage. Hopefully 
someone will give them up here to OSHA or EPA or 
Greenpeace. Perfect for Earth Day, but I'm still 
hanging on by a thread.

-- A Texas Prisoner, 21 April 1997


CENSORSHIP DOESN'T STOP STUDY GROUP

MIM Comrades, Revolutionary Greetings! I am writing 
to you from the Gulags here in Pennsylvania, to 
bring you up to date on the latest form of 
oppression. The literature you sent to me has been 
denied, claiming that it advocates violence and is 
a clear and present danger to the orderly running 
of this institution. The literature that was sent 
to me was MIM Theory #7, #8, #9, #10, #11, #12. All 
were denied.

I am currently appealing this decision, so I will 
keep you posted on the situation. We have started a 
study group here, with about eleven fellow comrades 
with the number growing every day. It is hard to 
educate without enough literature, and these people 
denying MIM Theory only makes it harder. But what 
these PIGS fail to realize is that all of us have 
dealt with such treatment and oppression all our 
lives. We've struggled this far through life and 
we'll continue to strive and over come! The 
Prisoncrats have not tried to censor MIM Notes yet, 
and hopefully they won't.

We understand the Struggle will be a hard and long 
fight, and we are prepared to go the distance!!! I 
will include the names of those responsible for 
censoring MIM Theory, so letters of protest can be 
sent. Maybe once they see that we have outside 
support, they will stop this censorship.

--A Pennsylvania Prisoner, 21 March 1997

Letters of Protest can be sent to: Acting 
Superintendent, Ben Varner, SCI Greene, 1040 E. Roy 
Furman Hwy, Waynesburg, PA 15370-8090 and John J. 
D'Eletto, Chairperson, Publications Review 
Committee, SCI Greene, 1040 E. Roy Furman Hwy, 
Waynesburg, PA 15370-8090


MORE CENSORSHIP IN PENNSYLVANIA

Dear MIM, 

I previously sent you a letter concerning the 
censorship of MIM Notes by Prisoncrats in 
Pennsylvania. My efforts to resolve this matter 
with prisoncrats has been largely unavailing. 
Therefore I intend to initiate legal action against 
them. As you well know, prisoncrats cannot censor a 
publication because it contains views unfavorable 
to the penal system or because they disagree with 
the philosophy of the organization that publishes 
it.

You may send letters of protest to the following 
individuals.

Commissioner, Martin F. Horn, Pennsylvania 
Department of Corrections, PO Box 598, Camp Hill, 
PA 17001-0598
Superintendent, Kenneth D. Kyler, SCI Camp Hill, PO 
Box 200, Camp Hill, PA 17001-0200
I will keep you abreast as things develop.

-- A Pennsylvania Prisoner, 14 April 1997


EDUCATION IS A SECURITY THREAT IN AMERIKAN GULAGS

IN NEW YORK

Receiving MIM Notes is an absolute honor for me. I 
in turn encourage other prisoners within these 
boundaries (hole) while sharing the informative 
pages of your paper.

However, these pigs are very sure to render some 
kind of burning bridge that would urge a divide and 
conquer maneuver for the action of stopping 
educational books, newspapers, pamphlets, etc, that 
will expose the filth embedded in this colonial 
system. They disapprove entirely of one as myself 
who's action is illustrated from a solid mind-frame 
-- but they are most certain to shake in their 
pants when a selected few inmates get together and 
bring the light (true knowledge) amongst the 
masses.

-- A New York Prisoner, 4 April 1997


IN SOUTH CAROLINA

For according to the mentality of SCDC [South 
Carolina Department of Corrections] workers they 
will never promote such education [i.e. MIM Notes] 
to prisoners. My experience with America's Prison 
Institutions have shown me that the clowns who run 
them from high positions along with their pawns who 
enforce their will, do not want prisoners to 
educate themselves. They prefer to keep [prisoners] 
illiterate, angry and doing all the wrong things 
(such as dealing in homosexual activities and 
telling on fellow prisoners). This causes disunity, 
one never knows who to trust.

Also I'm considered a threat because they claim 
that because I'm one with an extensive amount of 
knowledge (According to how much literature I had 
in my possession). I pose a security threat to 
their operations, even thought I never committed 
any violation of their rules and regulations I have 
been pre-judged only because of what I study!!! 
Thus I've been on lock-up until I max out unless 
their judicial system follows its guidelines 
pertaining to discrimination and due process. As 
far as study groups on lock-up it is pretty much 
impossible. Being that inmates are kept apart with 
the exceptions of one hour of recreation. But even 
then we are not allowed to bring anything out of 
our cells.

-- A South Carolina Prisoner, 23 April 1997

MIM ADDS: Though prisoncrats may encourage 
prisoners to focus on sexual activities in order to 
divert people from political activism. It is our 
assertion that homosexual activities are not wrong. 
It is patriarchal dominance that is wrong and it is 
the bourgeois, patriarchal power structure which 
perpetuates the ideology that only white settler, 
heterosexist interests must be served.


FLORIDA KENNEL CONDITIONS

After reading Under Lock and Key, I'm here to 
comment on the writings of a prisoner in New York 
who speaks of the new dog kennels they have [MIM 
Notes, 1 Feb 1997, #131, Under Lock and Key 
article, "New York Continues Repressive 
Conditions"]. I'm at the Washington Correctional 
Institution and have been a guest of the new 
kennels they have here since Sept. 10, 1996. We 
however only get 2 hours of recreation time a week 
and spend the rest of our time in the cell. This is 
called CM, Close Management, and lasts up to 36 
months, this is due to change to a minimum of 36 
months and up to 60 max in the near future.

They have CM in almost every prison in the state 
now and have just opened New River which is nothing 
but CM and will house about 1,000. If you treat bad 
people good, then some will turn good themselves, 
treat bad people bad and all will get worse. I just 
don't see the point. Prisoners everywhere, beware 
this is the prison of the future!

-- A Florida Prisoner, 6 March 1997


FLORIDA OPPRESSION CONTINUES

I just finished reading MIM Notes for February 1, 
1997. I read "New York Continues Repressive 
Conditions Part 2". Well, I'm almost in the same 
predicament as the brother from New York only I'm 
in the prison system in Florida. They are making 
most of the prisons in Florida, "lock-down" 24 
hours a day.

Any inmates that don't agree with this system are 
placed on the Close Management for 37 months. There 
was a time when only very few inmates were placed 
in this type of housing, but now if you even 
receive a minor write-up, they are putting us on 
this "Max Lock-Up" and there is nothing that can be 
done. They are building so many prisons with this 
in mind, that they are in need of clients. Any 
movement is done in restraints, legs as well as 
hands. Showers are 3 a week in still restraints. 
Visits are the same, cuffs and leg irons.

-- A Florida Prisoner in the injustice system, 5 
March 1997


FEDERAL GANG UNIT

MIM, First and foremost, I'd like to commend you 
all at MIM for the relentless struggle you all have 
maintained in the direction of socialism and 
proletariat revolution. My most sincerest hopes are 
that one day we shall all share in the fruits of 
the fight!

I am one of fifty prisoners, segregated on one of 
the many concentration camps here in corporate 
ameriKKKa - namely, the USP at Leavenworth, 
infamous building #63. I am writing you in the 
highest of hopes of some assistance in the 
unveiling of some of the health threatening, and 
repressive practices under which we reside.

On February 15, 1996, I along with about 45-50 
other Mexican inmates were rounded up and placed in 
administrative segregation under the motive of an 
investigation, and guise of gang activity. We were 
placed in building #63 here at leavenworth, a 
building over one hundred years old, and long ago 
condemned to closure along with the holdover unit 
at El Reno in Oklahoma in 1993 by Attorney Janet 
Reno. Since then building #63 has been utilized for 
assumed emergency reasons on an on again, off again 
basis. However, never has anybody or any group, at 
one time resided in health hazard condemned 
building #63 for such a long period of time as we 
have for 'over one whole year now!'

The reason the Attorney General shut down this 
building, along with the holdover unit at El Reno 
in Oklahoma, was due to the fact that said 
buildings are infested with Toxic Agents, namely 
Asbestos; "this is our prime concern here among 
us'. Also the plumbing in this building is so 
deteriorated that pipes are constantly bursting, 
some individual go months without adequate plumbing 
when such happens. The sewer lines are also always 
backed up and the foulest of odors has kept the air 
in a constant state of pollution. To top things 
off, there is no adequate system of ventilation - 
remember this building is over one hundred years 
old! In the summer time, we are left to deal with 
the heat in the best way we possibly can, for there 
is no sort of air conditioning what so ever. We are 
left to sweat like dogs in cages at a K9. 

Inmates have been injured by flying pieces of the 
ceiling falling upon us, and inmates have been 
infected by spider and various insect bites one too 
many times. This building is clearly a health 
hazard and must be condemned and further demolished 
once and for all.

When we were first placed in segregation building 
#63 and under investigation status, we were denied 
all privileges and warrant conditions forthcoming 
us: proper medical attention, adequate recreational 
facilities, laundry and clothing exchange, 
visitation, full commissary ability, phone usage, 
and we are still not able to participate in 
education programs or programs of such, otherwise 
available to the general population. Over a year 
behind us now, one hunger strike, two brief 
uprisings, exhaustion of all institutional 
remedies, various letters to our respective state 
representatives, and the request for assistance in 
an effective transfer to our regional director - 
and we are still here under the same ongoing 
investigation, and under the same health 
threatening conditions!

Sure enough - yet needless to say - we have gained 
some concession amenities, such as:  extended 
recreational periods, an expanded commissary 
ability, and other peace meals as such. But we are 
all aware that these are merely psychological 
straight jackets, constraints to keep us repressed. 
We are asking that an end be given to this 
exhausted investigation, and that inference be made 
based on the collected information. If the 
conclusion is determined that we are to remain 
under segregation status, then make arrangements 
for effective transfer for appropriate 
segregational facility, so that we can be given 
every detailed condition we got forthcoming to us. 
Due Conditions that are here at Leavenworth 
Building #63 will never become feasible! 

Power to the Peoples! Always a Comrade In Struggle!

 -- A Federal Prisoner, 16 March 1997


PSYCHOLOGICAL PROFILE TEST OR TRICK

There is a new trend that's sweeping through these 
corruption mechanized slave kamps. This genocidal 
tactic is under the disguise called a 
"psychological profile test". However, this tactic 
is directed toward the militant brothers who have 
been singled out by the prison keepers and placed 
in control units and long term ad-seg. for their 
political, cultural and religious understandings.

Here in the Slave Delta of South KKKarolina, myself 
along with a number of other brothers have been in 
these units for 2, 3, 4 and some for 10 years with 
no institutional infractions. And since April 27, 
we have been placed on ML5 status, meaning 
permanent isolation until otherwise deemed by the 
prison keepers to replace us back into general 
population. But in order to be eligible to be 
placed back into population we must undergo this 
psychological profile test. Keep in mind comrades, 
that this test is being administered by the same 
prison keepers that initially placed us on these 
units to begin with. And agreeing to this test, 
once you're deemed psychologically unfit (in which 
we will be), then these corrupt prison keepers 
advance into a position to further restrict us from 
the general population as well as placing us on 
"mind altering drugs" that decreases the mental 
powers. 

This is a tactic that's being carried out under the 
banner of protecting the greater imperialist 
capitalist society. And to eradicate the prison 
masses of political cultural and religious 
conscious that would enhance resistance. So, in 
actuality, this psychological profile test is being 
implemented as a behavior modification tactic 
that's designed to mentacide and genocide a whole 
breed of militant resisters who are within those 
deprivation kamps.

Those who have been deemed psychologically unfit by 
a so called psychologist, would be placed in long 
term isolation unit until otherwise cleared or 
cured.

Also comrades we must remember that our enemies 
will use every method available to discredit and 
eliminate the opposition that opposes their 
oppressive capitalist rule. The history of 
COINTELPRO proves this. "A final goal should be to 
prevent the long range growth of militant Black 
nationalist organizations, especially among the 
youth. Specific tactics to prevent those groups 
from converting young people must be developed." 
(COINTELPRO sub-sec. No. 51)

From closely observing this, it's clear that this 
psychological profile test is only a tactic to 
eradicate militants through mentacidal and 
genocidal tactics. So remain steadfast in the 
struggle to free the land, through stiff 
resistance.

-- A South Carolina Prisoner, 20 February 1997


IN PRISON PSYCHOLOGY = TORTURE

Things are pressured in on all sides. Yet, I'm not 
crushed in my struggle to keep my head above the 
waters of sanity. I stand firm and tall in what I 
represent as truth and justice. As expected in a 
Texas Prison, that's a major no no. Due to my 
strong remission against bowing down to injustice, 
the unit warden referred me to a psych Doctor, who 
sent me to Rusk, Texas, TDC, Psych Treatment 
Center, where I've been for nine months.

They had me tagged as being in a structure program 
that would shape my mind, where I could comply with 
the prison regulations. They us the tactics of 
drugs and severe mental anguish in order to break a 
person's spirit to maintain control in part of the 
program. Yet I withstood it and came out gracefully 
without a scratch. I refused to bow down and didn't 
swallow their poison. I will never bow down. I am a 
true soldier 'til my death.

Meanwhile so many women are dying in the Texas 
Prison system - mostly from lack of medical 
attention and horrid treatment and housing. At this 
time on Murray Unit they have over 600 women locked 
in a big warehouse like building with the windows 
nailed down, no air conditioning. More than 6% of 
us are sick.

Unfortunately, Texas women usually are very weak, 
simple minded with no backbone, two faced, scary, 
ass hoes. Who spend more time breaking each other 
down and jealousy. They can't seen when their 
looking.

--A Texas Prisoner, 17 February 1997

MIM RESPONDS: We agree that psychology is another 
word for torture in prison. Remember that the 
prisoncrats are your principle enemy, not your 
fellow prisoners. The pigs are the ones torturing 
people by denying medical care and breaking 
people's spirits.

Others around you may not be as strong as you, that 
is why you must lead by example. Calling names and 
making broad generalizations about your fellow 
prisoners does not help the struggle for 
revolution. It only helps to divide you, which is 
exactly what the pigs want. Instead try to educate 
and lead. Remember you are not alone. There are 
many serious revolutionary prisoners out there 
facing similar problems. Do not give up hope in 
your fellow prisoners, help them change for the 
better. Work with MIM to educate and organize for 
revolution.


NOT ALONE IN THE STRUGGLE

...I was surprised to acknowledge in [MIM] Notes 
134 that other prisoners have responded to my 
article in [MIM] Notes 126 titled, "Unity in 
Michigan Prisons Questioned". I was especially 
pleased to know that my voice did not fall upon 
deaf ears and has been heard as far as Wisconsin.

I thank all the comrades that have responded to my 
article and letting me know that I am not alone in 
my struggle. Being encouraged by you brothers is a 
good thing and helps serve to uplift my spirits. 
But the reality of my environment - the unity of a 
forward, intelligent and rational struggle is still 
in question.

I know that there are brothers who are real with 
this struggle such as I am. (even some at my 
location) But these such brotha's are kept 
separated and divided from a brotha as myself, for 
the fear that we my come together and unify our 
minds, movements, methods and "intelligent" tactics 
to move our struggle forward, progressively for 
positive change. And so, they keep the serious 
revolutionaries separated in an attempt to deviate 
and dismantle change. 

The plot is to discourage and weaken us by 
separating us as one of their transparent tactics 
to break our spirits, so that we will begin to feel 
(psychologically) that we are in this struggle 
alone. With these feelings the mind and heart begin 
to program itself into giving up hope and struggle 
for change. Thus allowing himself to become broken, 
passive and submissive. Because it is known that 
often when one begins to feel the effects of 
aloneness in his/her struggle, one begins to give 
up hope and starts thinking that the possibility 
for change is impossible. And with this thought the 
spirit is broken, the mind is broken, the struggle 
is broken. Once this circle of spirit, mind and 
struggle is broken, then the programming of the 
beast has claimed you to think, act, walk and do as 
a man-made robot would do - modified, dictated and 
controlled by the beast that created you. With only 
one single thought -- If you can't beat 'em join 
em'. Now the circle is broken and the beast has 
successfully completed his goal.

But this my brotha's, irregardless of how alone, 
separated and divided from real brotha's like you, 
will never become me. I could and will never become 
broken and programmed into submitting, downing 
down, giving in and giving up the struggle to be 
free. My struggle for justice and to live in human 
dignity. The beast agenda for psychological , 
social and institutional programming will not 
affect me to change backward in a self-destruction 
direction. No matter how alone I may feel in this 
struggle I will still keep it real! Thank you 
whole-heartedly for your distant support.

 -- A Michigan Prisoner, 15 April 1997


* * *


MIM ON PRISONS AND PRISONERS

MIM seeks to build public opinion against 
Amerika's criminal injustice system, and to 
eventually replace the bourgeois injustice system 
with proletarian justice. The bourgeois 
injustice system imprisons and executes a 
disproportionately large and growing number of 
oppressed people while letting the biggest mass 
murderers - the imperialists and their 
lackeys - roam free. Imperialism is not opposed to 
murder or theft, it only insists that these crimes 
be committed in the interests of the bourgeoisie.

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.

***WHAT NON-PRISONERS CAN DO TO SUPPORT 
PRISONERS***

*1. Struggle with, work with, finance and join 
MIM. 
The best way to support prisoners is to overthrow 
the system under which capitalists profit from the 
exploitation of prisoners. History shows that the 
best way to do this is to build a Marxist-
Leninist-
Maoist party. The oppressors will not give up 
their 
power without a fight.
*2. Finance MIM's prison work. Our biggest bill 
each month is postage. Most of the prison comrades 
who read MIM Notes have no way of paying for it. 
So 
if you have money, send what you can afford. Every 
cent helps, and stamps are as good as cash to us.
*3. Distribute MIM Notes and Notas Rojas. Bring 
the 
voices of prisoners and their supporters to as 
large and wide an audience of people as possible. 
Contact MIM for bulk rates and distribution tips.
*4. Start or join a prison support group. MIM can 
provide advice and resources to help you build 
public opinion for prisoners and their struggles.
*5. Fight censorship, beatings, torture and other 
fascist outrages. Under Lock and Key often 
features 
the addresses of prisoners' friends and enemies. 
Work with the friends and let the enemies know 
you're watching. (Don't expect to win the fascists 
to the side of humanity, however. See #1 in this 
list).
*6. Stay in touch. Keep us informed of pro-
prisoner 
work you do. Our readers might find it educational 
or inspirational.

 [About]  [Contact]  [Home]  [Art]  [Movies]  [Black Panthers]  [News]  [RAIL]