This is an archive of the former website of the Maoist Internationalist Movement, which was run by the now defunct Maoist Internationalist Party - Amerika. The MIM now consists of many independent cells, many of which have their own indendendent organs both online and off. MIM(Prisons) serves these documents as a service to and reference for the anti-imperialist movement worldwide.
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THE MAOIST INTERNATIONALIST MOVEMENT
MIM Notes 174 November 15, 1998
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. AMERIKA DEMANDS CHRISTIAN FREEDOM INTERNATIONALLY,
DENIES FREEDOMS AT HOME
2. A CALL FOR ACTION TO THE CONSCIOUS PEOPLE
3. LETTERS
4. REACTIONARY FANATICS KILL MEDICAL DOCTOR, GAY STUDENT
5. WORLD RAINFOREST WEEK
6. RAIL A HIT AT CRITICAL RESISTANCE
7. PROTESTERS DENOUNCE BRUTALITY IN CALIFORNIA PRISONS
8. MIM LEGAL NOTES
9. SUPPORT THE REVOLUTION IN THE PHILIPPINES
10. WHITE MAN GETS A VOTE ON INDIAN CASINOS
11. LENINGRAD CONGRESS SUPPORTS LENIN AND STALIN
12. MICHIGAN PRISONS OVER THE EDGE: FACILITY CENSORS VIBE
13. RAIL INITIATES RADIO PROGRAM ON PRISONS
14. GREEN POLITICS
15. AFGHAN LIBERATION ORGANIZATION CELEBRATES MARTYR'S DAY
16. CULTURE PAGE
17. SOLDIER
18. FBI'S WAR ON BLACK AMERICA
19. RUSH HOUR
20. BLADE
21. UNDER LOCK & KEY: NEWS FROM PRISONS AND PRISONERS
* * *
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
* * *
MIM Notes 174
November 15, 1998
AMERIKA DEMANDS CHRISTIAN FREEDOM INTERNATIONALLY,
DENIES FREEDOMS AT HOME
In a cynical move to give Amerika more excuses to
attack Third World countries and their economies, the
U.$. congress has passed a bill allowing the President
to take a variety of economic actions against
countries that do not uphold u.$.-style freedom of
religion. The Senate unanimously approved the bill,
which gives the President clearance to limit or
withdraw aid and bank loans, and cancel business
contracts with "offender" states.(1)
"The bill's sponsors say most of the abuses are
occurring within militant Islamic countries and the
few remaining Communist nations. They have cited
Sudan, China, Iran, Egypt, Pakistan, Vietnam, Algeria
and Vietnam as some of the worst offenders of
religious freedom."(2) To MIM and the peoples of the
world this bill means that Amerika is finding more
reasons to exert its economic hegemony. In this case,
anyone who does not uphold Judeo-Christianity can come
under attack.
Enacting a law that allows Amerika to increase its
imperialist repression of Third World peoples for the
purpose of protecting religious freedom is the height
of hypocrisy as the Amerikan prisons within U.$.
borders continue and increase their repression of
religious organizations under lock and key. The
international and domestic policies are two sides of
the same record: they both amount to repression of any
nation whose religion does not include bowing to u.$.
imperialism.
The principal contradiction in the world today is that
between imperialism and the oppressed nations. This
makes the first task of Communists the struggle
against national oppression - to support the struggles
of colonized peoples for national liberation.
Liberation from imperialist domination is the only
thing that will make it possible for the oppressed to
freely choose their national destinies. When Black
Muslim groups talk about whites as being the devil,
they are describing in mystical terms the same thing
that MIM describes through science. No nation has done
as much to suppress the will of oppressed peoples
internationally as the white nation in Amerika.
Arguing for the passage of this new bill, Sen. Joseph
Lieberman(D-CT) said: "[somewhere] right now, a man or
woman languishes in prison, some on death row, because
he or she did nothing more than choose faith in God It
is a reminder to the executive branch of the American
government, both now and in the future, that as it
encourages human rights all over the world, it must
consider freedom of religion."(1) It should be no
surprise that the Senator did not include an explicit
indictment of Amerikan policy towards prisoner
religious groups.
Amerika continues to imprison more people per capita
than any other country on the planet. MIM points the
finger back at the United Snakes and says that a
country as prison-happy as this one has no business
telling other countries what they can imprison people
for. In terms of religious imprisonment, prisoners all
over the United Snakes are languishing in segregation
cells because they "chose faith in god" yet the u.$.
government does not see this as religious persecution
because it sees only that these individuals chose a
religion that includes speaking out against
oppression.
STG Policies: the "war on gangs" charade
In the past few years, prisons systems in many of the
united Snakes have enacted Security Threat Group (STG)
policies. The policies are used to attack prisoner
religious and political organizations, but they are
designed to trap nearly all oppressed nation prisoners
under the STG label. STG policies let the prisons take
extra administrative and disciplinary actions against
individuals who are tagged as members of organizations
that "pose a threat to staff or other prisoners or to
the custody and security of the facility."(3)
The majority of prisoners are oppressed nationals;
they know that any religion or political ideology,
support of national liberation and self-determination,
celebration of non-whitebread cultures, or opposition
to the disproportionate imprisonment of Blacks,
Latinos and First Nations is considered a "threat to
the security of the facility." This is necessarily
true because the prisons' security relies on the
premise that the white nation has legitimate authority
over all other nations that occupy this continent.
Currently the 5% Nation of Gods and Earth, an Islamic
sect of which many Black prisoners are members, is
fighting the gang label in several states. In a letter
petitioning New Jersey state officials to drop gang
charges against five percenters in the state's
prisons, the organization wrote:
"The Department of Corrections (DOC) has built a gang
unit intended to segregate inmates they have
classified as gang members on a near 24 hour a day
lock-down.
"Since its opening on March 4th, 1998, over one
hundred inmates classified as five percenters have
been placed in the gang unit. None of which received
any disciplinary charges. These alleged inmates were
all placed in the Security Threat Group Management
Unit (STGMU) based on the prison staffs identification
of them as advocates of the five percenters teachings.
Once placed in the gang unit the only opportunity one
has to be released is to denounce the five percenter
teachings.
"There has been no organized plans within the five
percenter teachings to interfere with the security of
any prison, so they should not be labeled as a
security threat group. ... "The placement of five
percenters in gang units has resulted in many inmates
being unable to: * receive contact visits from family
members * has hindered legal access to the courts *
removed individuals from prison programs. *
discriminatory treatment of inmates of five percenters
* confiscation of all personal pictures, literature,
letters, clothing, books, and any material associated
with five percenters."(4)
Outside of these conditions in New Jersey, the Five
Percenter web site reports that the New York DOC has
been censoring the Five Percenter, the organizational
newspaper.(5) Yet MIM understands from a NY
corrections officers' website that the 5% has won the
right not to be called a gang from the courts.(6)
MIM Notes Under Lock & Key has published articles in
the past about the true nature of the STG policies.
The policies are an extension of the prisons' goal of
keeping the oppressed nations from organizing. They
accomplish this first by putting huge numbers of the
oppressed in prisons, separating prisoners from their
communities. When prisoners succeed in organizing from
behind the walls, the state makes laws to separate
prisoners from each other. If you know of specific
organizations or individuals targeted by STG policies,
write to MIM Notes. We will continue to publicize and
expose this pro-national oppression, anti-people
tactic.
Notes:
1. Associated Press 14 Oct., 1998.
2. Jewish Telegraphic Agency 14 Oct., 1998.
3. "Identification and Management of Security Threat
Groups and Members" Michigan DOC Policy Directive no.
04.04.113, 16 December, 1996, p. 1.
4. http://sunsite.unc.edu/nge/injustice/justiceallah.txt
5. http://sunsite.unc.edu/nge/injust/
6. http://www.geocities.com/MotorCity/Downs/3548/gang.html
* * *
A CALL FOR ACTION TO THE CONSCIOUS PEOPLE
by a South Carolina prisoner
Preceding this prisoner's statement, s/he wrote the
following: I received your missive and it was truly
welcome as always. However, most important is the
progress being made on your end in professionalizing
support for prisoners. We do send our salute!
Please overstand that I am operating from a supermax
control unity, a unit where we are in a cage 23 hours
a day, where I/We plan to raise awareness of the
violation existing on this unit in hopes of obtaining
national attention. I/We are hoping the mass
organization can get off the ground and become a
resistance movement in building to call for an end to
human rights abuses, and the use of control units and
(General Administrative Segregation units) as tools of
racism and political repression....
The enforcers of this war realize that they must
develop the tightest control possible in order to
prevent the inevitable insurgency of revolutionary
self-determination moving to challenge their corrupt,
illegitimate power. We all are isolated because of who
we are and the beliefs that we share and our over all
opposition to oppressive, racist prison violent
conditions. So we will do our best to focus on
programs indicative of this oppression....
I, X, do accept respectfully the challenge to
contribute and put forth my best efforts and/or
potential in unifying and rallying those conscious
individuals, as well as revolutionary prisoner forces,
into a collective effective unit of liberational
thinkers, from all progressive groups, organizations,
and oppressed people, for the benefit of the masses of
oppressed people in the United Snakes of Amerikkka.
I also make the plea and challenge to you, my 'action
speaks louder than words' revolutionize, intellectual
brothers and sisters, to unite in this struggle
against [our] historical common oppressors whom
promote capitalism, division, classism and racist
control of the masses of our people. Yes, less talk,
more action. Let us formulate and construct a
comprehensive informational action oriented network
that will bring forth viable, pragmatic solutions to
the imprisoned masses. We must combine our forces to
crush and drain the resources of our common enemy.
[We] are be[ing] subjugated to new forms of
manipulation and genocidal slavery, going into the
21st century. We must change and revolutionize with
the times and expand our collective struggles or be
forever subservient to our oppressors.
Each one of you must bring forth this message to your
respective affiliates now! I make a call out to all:
Kings and Queens, Netas, Bloods, Cripps, Vicelords,
Disciples, Islamic revolutionary forces, political
prisoners, Young Boys Inc., Ponydown, Propagandists,
Anarchists, African liberation forces, anti-
imperialists, artists, strategists, tacticians, come
forth Walk the walk that we have been individually
talking for generations. Erase the artificial lines
and racist capitalistic boundaries that allow the
historical oppressors to keep their exploitative foot
up [our] _____ and chains on our minds. I mentalities,
to the rear!
Alright, we know this thing is simple as A-B-C. So,
let's raze the walls of security and turn the tide
against the common oppressors and those that support
them. Our people, children, sisters and brothers have
been waiting and wanting for too damn long!
Via a show of revolutionary voices, let's get it on
and build this think tank of the incarcerated masses.
Here's your chance to do the unthinkable and undoable.
Take this article, use the enemy's duplication
processes to your advantage and pass this around to
your respective brother and sister-hoods. We await you
the masses reply!
* * *
LETTERS
United front
Dear MIM,
You asked me to be more specific about what I liked in
the MIM Notes united front articles. My reference was
to "Join the proletarian led United Front" and "Anti-
imperialists, Join RAIL! Maoists, Join MIM!" These
articles were simple and clear in explaining
proletarian independence and initiative in the united
front and made good use of practical, concrete
examples to show how this comes down in practice.
These concrete examples, along with the concise
guidelines for building the United Front, seemed to me
to make the articles very effective teaching tools for
lessons about the united front, as well as reliance on
the masses, the liquidationist nature of revisionism,
and the limits of reformism.
--A comrade in the south September, 1998
Who's the vermin?
Dear MIM,
How dare you? Where do you people get off, unjustly
maligning and defacing this great nation the way you
do. Your twisted views of the world and the way you
think it should be are both sad and tragic. Why do you
hate the "united snakes" so? Don't you realize that
you are in the greatest place you can possibly be? No
place in the world is a better place to live than the
united states. Deep down inside you know this is true,
or else you wouldn't still be here.
Do you even realize what true anarchy would mean? A
true anarchy situation would be so evil and brutal
that a small time outfit like yourselves wouldn't even
survive the first 6 months. Don't kid yourselves, you
don't have the kind of power it takes to survive
anarchy.
One ironic point is that, this good country is so
great and fair that it actually protects maladjusted
kids like yourself so you can spread your hate and
deceit as you choose. Why are you so angry? Didn't
your mother touch you enough when you were a baby? You
are very fortunate that I am not President. I would
have you tried under the Sedition Act.
You have no right to live in the United States. You
are a cancer on society and you need to be eradicated,
like so many vermin.
I would appreciated it if in the future, you could
print something of substance in your newsletter. Why
not print your plan of how the new system would work
or whatever. Half you ingrates probably had your
educations paid for by the U.S. government. Why do you
continue to live here and reap the rewards you don't
deserve? Go start your utopia somewhere else. If it
works, give me a call, I'll come visit. You aren't'
citizens of the united States - you are traitors and
should at least by deported.
Authority exists everywhere in the world. You will
never change that. Do you even bother trying to
understand the American government? It is the fairest
in the world. It also has the oldest constitution
still in practice. You know why? Because no one else
has figured out a better way yet. And your hate and
anger trip sure isn't going to cut it.
I look forward to reviewing more of your lies.
--a capitalist supporter in Michigan.
MIM responds:
This letter will strike most readers of MIM Notes as
clearly reactionary. But in fact, many of the
positions taken by this letter writer are very similar
to positions of people who consider themselves
radical. For this reason we are printing it with a
response.
Many people who oppose injustice within u.s. borders
still call the u.s. the greatest country on earth and
stress how free it is and how much better it is than
other countries. MIM does not deny that we enjoy a
considerable amount of freedom within u.s. borders
relative to other countries. But first we'd point out
that these freedoms are far more available to white
people and particularly older white people.
Secondly we ask people to think about where these
freedoms come from. Why is it that the many countries
around the world which the united snakes controls
economically, militarily and politically do not offer
their populations the same freedoms. The u.s. has the
power to manipulate many governments to get policies
enacted that favor u.s. corporations and the u.s.
military so why not policies that favor the people of
those countries?
The fact is, the u.s. benefits from the repressive
laws in other countries which make it easier for u.s.
corporations to exploit the people and steal the
resources. And they make it easier to control those
populations so strongly opposed to u.s. imperialism.
It is no accident that the people in countries which
are u.s. colonies have much less freedom than those of
us in the u.s. This government offers its people these
concessions because they can afford to. People in the
Third World are constantly rebelling against
oppressive working conditions, the tyranny of
corporate landlords and government repression. In the
u.s. the people may complain about not being able to
afford a second car or they may be concerned about
financing their children's education through college
but these concerns are not enough to bring them to the
streets in protest. The relatively high standard of
living enjoyed by the vast majority of people within
u.s. borders keeps them passive.
One further point about this "great" country. In
reality it is not only this letter writer who would
throw us in prison for sedition. There are hundreds of
activists held in u.s. prisons specifically for their
political activism. The government spends a lot of
money and time building FBI programs to spy on,
infiltrate, and set up activist organizations and
individuals.
Given that we are already living here in the belly of
the imperialist beast, activists working in MIM
believe that this is the best place we can be. Behind
enemy lines, supporting our comrades waging
revolutionary struggles around the world while
building a revolutionary movement of our own. We don't
expect to convince people like this letter writer but
we do hope that others who might proclaim the
greatness of this country will think twice next time.
* * *
REACTIONARY FANATICS KILL MEDICAL DOCTOR, GAY STUDENT
The extralegal right-wing continued its armed struggle
by shooting an abortion doctor to death on October
23rd, Dr. Barnett Slepian who lived near Buffalo, New
York. Police believe the same sniper may have been the
one to shoot three other doctors since 1994 (all of
which survived). Two of the other doctors live in
Canada.(1)
The shooting of the medical doctor came only 11 days
after the death of Matthew Sheppard, a student at the
University of Wyoming, Laramie. Bigots beat Sheppard
to death in a world-renowned case that has resulted in
widespread demonstrations.
The National Organization for Women (NOW) called for a
candlelight vigil in memory of the deceased physician
to be held October 24th. However, the NOW press
release stressed a strictly through-the-channels and
from-the-grasstips approach to beating back this
recent attack. The NOW press release read as follows:
"NOW Executive Vice President Kim Gandy called on the
Justice Department to take immediate action to stop
anti-abortion violence. 'It's long past time for the
Justice Department to file criminal conspiracy charges
against the nationwide ring of anti-abortion
terrorists, as NOW did in civil court,' Gandy said
referring to the NOW v. Scheidler case. 'They need to
put the same resources into investigating this kind of
domestic terrorism as they put into terrorism at the
World Trade Center and the Atlanta Olympics,' Gandy
said.
"'These terrorists have friends in high places. Their
right-wing sympathizers in state legislatures and
Congress give credence to their tactics by creating
legislation to restrict or outright ban abortion.
These measures will ultimately be as deadly for women
as bombs or bullets,' Ireland concluded."(2) Patricia
Ireland is the president of NOW.
>From MIM's point of view the parallels to the Weimar
Republic that gave birth to Nazism though not complete
are nonetheless present. In particular, with the
mainstream organizations such as NOW calling for legal
action while the reactionaries fight in the streets,
we cannot help but remember how the Nazis and
Mussolini-style fascists won it in the streets.
It seems to MIM that every time the pseudo-feminists
have a problem in the U$A, they run to the Justice
Department for help. They do not expose the Justice
Department with the intention of increasing anti-
patriarchal consciousness. Instead, the pseudo-
feminists sincerely seek patriarchal state help and
the sad part is that they do not seem to notice that
passing laws and changing prosecutors' attitudes does
not stop rape, battering or the murder of reproductive
health workers. There could hardly be a better way to
fail to challenge the system of class and national
oppression while making weak noises about gender
oppression.
The abysmal failure of Amerikan feminism even to
resolve gender oppression can be traced back to the
decision of many white pseudo-feminists in the 1960s
to split from the more radical anti-war and anti-
imperialist movements. At the time, the female
activists claimed that the radical men were treating
them poorly and that was their reason for forming a
feminist movement that we call pseudo-feminist.
Today, we continue to see the fruit of the decision of
white feminism to go mainstream. Candlelight vigils
are not enough in this kind of climate where
reactionaries are murdering people for being gay or
giving abortions. The pro-life movement's willingness
to treat John Salvi as a hero for killing reproductive
health workers in Brookline, Massachusetts and the
pattern of attacks killing gays and abortion doctors
proves that there will be those who require to be
fought through armed struggle for the slightest of
social changes. Just as it may be hard for feminists
to imagine that some fought to defend slavery,
feminists must also realize that the patriarchy
resists real change with force.
Notes:
1. CNN Web site www.cnn.com
2. NOW web site www.now.org
* * *
WORLD RAINFOREST WEEK
by MC5
Home Depot--a hardware and lumber chain of giant
stores--was the target of Rainforest Action Network
(RAN) protests during World Rainforest Week that ended
October 25th. The activists attempted to stop Home
Depot from selling "old growth" lumber, by which they
mean wood from trees up to 2,000 years old.
RAN reported that Home Depot joined an organization
(Forest Stewardship Council (FSC)) designed for
corporate image cleanup, but most Home Depot stores
don't sell any of the FSC products involved.
Back in June, RAN declared partial victory when a
logger in British Columbia moved toward
environmentalist certification of its logging
practices. On the other hand, RAN noted that there was
still no complete stoppage of old growth logging and
other companies were continuing the practice targeting
"old growth" forests.(1)
Meanwhile, the Greens' website put forward an explicit
justification for its piecemeal approach titled,
"Distinctions among Greens, Socialists, and Liberals"
by Michael Christopher. According to Christopher, "The
socialist response is to 'socialize' the waste-costs,
i.e. to create a government program to clean up the
wastes or regulate their disposal and then pass the
costs on to the society as a whole with no regard for
who benefited or was hurt by the unpaid waste-costs."
"The solution proposed by ecological economists is
quite different. They argue that waste-costs (and
unpaid or undervalued resource-costs, such as
resources taken from forests, lakes, oceans, and the
atmosphere) should be 'internalized' rather than
'socialized.' This means that unpaid waste-costs and
resource-costs should not be picked up by the
community as a whole (which do not all benefit in the
same proportion) but rather these costs should be
internalized into the market prices of commodities, so
that only those who purchase a commodity or profit
from its sale pay the costs associated with it. The
result is that cleaner and less socially disruptive
forms of production end up being cheaper rather than
more expensive (their current status) than polluting
and socially disruptive forms of production. In other
words, things like fossil fuel generated power could
not compete with solar generated power. The goal of
cleaning up the environment is therefore accomplished
without government clean up programs that treat all
tax payers as if they benefit equally from the
programs. In this sense, internalization produces an
emphasis on personal responsibility rather than the
tendency to blame 'society.' The goal is a gradual
transformation of society rather than the call for a
revolution of society."(2)
In practice, MIM would have to agree that the above
paragraph by Michael Christopher is accurate about the
Greens. The extensive emphasis on boycotts and
lifestyle is the proof. Supposedly consumers will stop
buying old growth wood products and then the loggers
will be forced to stop their ways according to the
Greens.
The largest timber company in Canada is supposedly an
example: "MacMillan Bloedel's president, Tom Stephens,
told the company's annual meeting in April that many
customers 'don't want wood from old growth clearcuts.'
His comments attest to the changing attitudes and
heightened awareness of the wood-buying public, and
the extent to which Rainforest Action Network's
campaign against old growth wood has penetrated the
marketplace.
"Rainforest Action Network has run an aggressive
advertising campaign stigmatizing old growth logging
with the line: 'The oldest living things on Earth, or
tomorrow's lawn furniture.'"(1)
The Greens are our friends because they organize the
petty-bourgeoisie and bourgeoisie toward proletarian
goals. The only difficulty is that their failures will
frustrate the masses and clear the way to fascism. We
must point out that they are uncomfortable with
communism because of the prevalence of the deep-rooted
labor aristocracy in this country, but there is no
other way to be really Green than to be really Red.
The petty-bourgeoisie being the middle-class tends to
believe there is no real class structure, just people
who try harder or less hard. That is why that class is
inclined to lifestyle approaches avoiding the
existence or analysis of a powerful class that runs
production for profit at the expense of the
environment.
The real communists are greener than the Greens,
because there is no way to individualize the
environment--as if we could box up the air and water
and put it on department store shelves. The Greens
talk about tolerating polluting lifestyles without use
of force or without "socializing" the costs of
pollution clean-up. This latter part about
"internalizing costs" is demagogy of the capitalist
sort accepted even by George Bush. In practice, it
does not happen and Green politics are a scientific-
sounding excuse for continued environmental
degradation.
"Internalizing the costs" to make consumers pay for
their polluting lifestyles is not possible unless
someone puts a price on the right to pollution. To do
that requires a scientific argument. At the very least
it requires planning out how much it costs to clean
something up or restore something to its
environmentally sustainable state. So if a persyn uses
a car that causes so much pollution, then that persyn
should also pay for the clean-up of that pollution by
Green reasoning. But to know how much that clean-up
will cost and then include it in the price of the car
is an act of socialist planning.
Production guided by scientific planning for political
goals and not for profit is socialism. Hence,
production guided by scientific planning for the goal
of ending clear-cutting of certain forests is a
political goal and hence socialist. Similarly, setting
the prices of fossil-fuels to include the price of
cleaning up their pollution is socialist.
Either the Greens are academically quibbling with the
socialists here out of imperialist country fear of
socialism or they are leaving open that some or all
consumers have the right to place no value on the
environment and that costs will not be "internalized"
in practice. We communists are not afraid of the word
"ban" applied in production. We also see no individual
right to pollute. In fact, if the Green position is
capitalist it results in no inherent environmental
progress, because if a corporation were wildly
profitable and could afford to bid higher for the
right to pollute than anyone else, it could go on
polluting. Moreover the wealthy consumers--perhaps
making their money by polluting--may by themselves be
able to degrade the environment with the full approval
of naive Greens focusing on individual lifestyles.
The proof is in these boycotts the Greens run. Some
loggers move out of the "old growth forest" business,
but others may move in to make higher profits than
ever. The only real solution is political and hence
socialist.
Notes:
1. http://www.ran.org/ran/info_center/press_release/index
.html
2. www.greens.org
* * *
RAIL A HIT AT CRITICAL RESISTANCE
BERKELEY, CA - The Revolutionary Anti-Imperialist
League (RAIL) received a warm response from many of
the three thousand people who attended the "Critical
Resistance" conference at the University of California
- Berkeley in September. The conference focused on
what organizers called the "Prison-Industrial
Complex." As MIM investigated at length in MIM Theory
11, Amerikan prisons are part and parcel of national
oppression in Amerika and are increasingly becoming a
big business.
Talks ranged from the musty corners of academia, to
human rights reformism, to more revolutionary speakers
who made the connection between imperialism, national
oppression, and Amerikan prisons. Some speakers drew
the important connection between white privilege and
prisons, either by pointing out how rural communities
profit directly from the prison-building craze or by
explaining how imperialism benefits the entire white
nation.
The Free Books for Prisoners program drew special
notice at RAIL's table, and in the weeks following the
conference RAIL has received several donations from
conference participants.
* * *
PROTESTERS DENOUNCE BRUTALITY IN CALIFORNIA PRISONS
CORCORAN, CA - Over 400 protesters gathered in front
of Corcoran State Prison on October 17th in order to
protest the brutal treatment prisoners receive in
California prisons, as well as the continued unjust
expansion of prisons in California. The protesters
shouted their defiance to the prison's warden and the
local cops and guards who blockaded the road to the
prison. Some of the marchers' placards denounced CA's
"three strikes" law - one had a photo of a man and his
daughter with the words "Larry Olin - Sentenced 25
years to life for two pairs of Levis." Others exposed
the cruel and callous conditions in CA prisons, such
as the poster which simply said "Alice Quihos was
murdered by medical neglect."
Between 1988 and 1996 guards at Cocoran staged daily
fights between prisoners, sometimes even betting on
the outcome and reviewing the videotapes for their
sick entertainment. Many prisoners were injured by the
37mm wooden bullets used to break up the fights, and
seven were killed by guards. Public pressure forced
the FBI and the state Attorney General to launch
investigations of Corcoran, but - although the
gladiator fights have stopped - little has changed at
Corcoran, let alone the 32 other state prisons.
Speakers at the rally included anti-prisons activists
and family members of prisoners. Bill Tate, the father
of one of the prisoners executed by guards during the
spate of "gladiator fights" at Corcoran, reminded the
rallyists that his son's case has received exceptional
attention, but there are many more prisoners tortured
and killed in CA's prisons who do not receive media or
bourgeois political attention. Indeed, a recent report
by the LA Times reported that CA remains the only
state to officially condone the use of deadly force to
break up alleged prisoner fights, despite outrage over
the incidents at Corcoran. Dozens of prisoners have
been killed as a result.
A speaker from the HIV/AIDS in Prison Project
explained that Corcoran - one of CA's three control
units, and referred to by prisoners as "the hole" -
was recently designated as CA's AIDS treatment center.
Supposedly all HIV+ prisoners were transferred there.
However, the conditions of all of these 230 prisoners
now allegedly receiving "special medical care" have
worsened, and dozens of HIV+ prisoners in CA still
receive no treatment at all. The protest was a mix of
electoral reformists, human rights groups, and people
who, like MIM and RAIL, view prisons as a part of a
larger system of national oppression and genocide. The
majority of protesters and speakers did not have
illusions about either of the two mainstream
candidates for governor reforming CA prisons or the
criminal "justice" system. Republican Dan Lundgren is
a big supporter of the get-tough status quo, and, as
one speaker pointed out, his Democratic opponent Gray
Davis wants to lower the age at which a person can be
sentenced to death by the criminal injustice system to
14.
Prisons are on the front lines of Amerika's war
against its internal colonies, where men and wimmin
are confined against their will - more and more often
for "crimes" which their white counterparts get away
with. Only by solving the broader problems of national
oppression can the problem of brutality in Amerikan
prisons be solved.
The protest was initiated by the California Prisons
Focus, a single issue organization which grew out the
movement against California's first modern control
unit at Pelican Bay. California RAIL chapters
organized a contingent to participate as part of their
ongoing campaign to expose the evils of California
prisons and in order to build support for Serve the
People programs like the Free Books for Prisoners
program. For more information about anti-prisons work
RAIL and MIM are doing in CA, write to the Los Angeles
address on page 2 or e-mail larail@mim.org.
Note: LA Times, 18 Oct 98.
* * *
MIM LEGAL NOTES
MIM Legal Notes is a publication of the Serve the
People Prisoners' Legal Clinic. Contact MIM for
information on getting involved with this program.
MIM Legal Notes is researched and written by our
comrades behind the walls. We publish these articles
and briefs because we believe that the legal research
and arguments will be useful to other prisoners. But
comrades should be aware that differences in laws
between states, changes in laws and legal precedents
over time, and different case circumstances all mean
that even something that was successful for one person
might not work for others. We print the best legal
writing available to us with the understanding that
this program will only grow stronger with increased
exposure and participation. We encourage all prisoners
and non-prisoners to contribute to this program with
research, writing, and funding.
There may be other legal arguments or cases or
statutes which would better serve your purposes; what
you find here should be useful as a starting point. If
you can do your own legal work, you may choose to rely
on a purely bourgeois legal argument, or also use
political arguments to make your legal case.
Double Jeopardy in Michigan: Double Standards
submitted by a Michigan prisoner, member of the
Political Prisoners of War Coalition
The 1963 Michigan Constitution Art. I, 15 double
jeopardy provision provides that: "No person shall be
subject for the same offense to be twice put in
jeopardy."
Similarly, the United States Constitution Amendment V
double jeopardy clause states "nor shall any person be
subject for the same offense to be twice put in
jeopardy of life or limb."
Supposedly, the Michigan Constitution double jeopardy
provision provides greater protection from double
punishment for the same offense than the federal
constitution double jeopardy clause does,(1) however,
where Michigan prisoners are concerned, the state and
federal proscriptions against double jeopardy
punishment are illusionary and amount to nothing more
than meaningless prose; the worst kind of free-vers
doggerel imaginable. The Michigan Supreme Court and
Michigan Court of Appeals have all but admitted that
prison disciplinary hearings are kangaroo courts. Of
course they don't come right out and say so, but
anyone with a fourth grade reading level can see
through the hyperbole in their unjust decisions and
arrive at the proper conclusion.
In People v. Powers, 272 Mich.303,307 (1935), the
Michigan Supreme Court stated: "A person is in
jeopardy when he is put upon trial in a court of
justice charged with a violation of law." (emphasis
supplied.) Twelve years later in the case of People v.
Tillard, 318 Mich 619,623 (1947) the Court quoted the
'court of justice' language from Powers, supra.
Needless to say, such lewd language does not bode well
for the convict. The Court determined that a prisoner
is not subjected to double jeopardy when his good time
credits are forfeited after a criminal prosecution for
escape in In re Evans, 352 Mich 185 (1953). It is
interesting to note that the Evans opinion does not
reveal whether the Court relied on the Michigan double
jeopardy provision or the federal double jeopardy
clause in reaching its holding. Evidently, the Court
just took for granted that a convict is not entitled
to state and/or federal constitutional protections
when he is twice punished for the same offenses:
something it should not have done. The Court had long
held that litigants could not make a mere statement of
position without an argument or citation of authority
to support the issue. (See Neilands v. Wright, 134
Mich 77 (1903)).(2) A holding they should have applied
to themselves.
In People v. Wilson, 6 Mich App 474 (1967), the
Michigan Court of Appeals held that a prisoner who
escaped from the State Prison of Southern Michigan and
had his good time forfeited, who was then charged with
the criminal offense of escape was not subjected to
double jeopardy. The Court held that under either the
1963 Constitutional Article I, 15 or the Fifth
Amendment there are two elements in the prohibition
against double jeopardy: (1) There must be successive
subjection to 'jeopardy,' and (2) in each instance the
offense must be the same. Id. at 476. The Court deemed
escape as constituting a violation of prison rules
evoking the relevant good-time statute forfeiture
provisions in addition to being a punishable felony
offense. "The Michigan Supreme Court has consistently
held that 'jeopardy' requires criminal prosecution in
a court of justice." Id. at 477 (citing Powers and
Tillard, supra). The Court ruled that there was no
successive subjection to jeopardy because "the
defendant's good time was forfeited [as] the statute
requires, in an administrative proceeding and not in a
criminal proceeding in a court of justice." Id.
In People V. Shastal, 26 Mich App347 (1970), a
prisoner who was prosecuted for escaping from the
Michigan Reformatory contended that he had been
subjected to double jeopardy because his good-time was
forfeited as a result of his escape and he was later
convicted at a jury trial of the "same offense." Id.
at 349. The Court of Appeals relied upon its holding
in Wilson at 477 and found the defendant's jeopardy
assertion meritless. Id. at 350.
The Court of Appeals held in yet another prison escape
case, People v. Alexander, 39 Mich App 607 (1972) that
it was in complete accord with the Wilson, supra
decision, i.e., good-time forfeiture and subsequent
prosecution for the same offense do not constitute
double jeopardy. Id. at 609. However, the Court also
held that if the defendant was in fact illegally
incarcerated due to an improper method of time
computation at the time he escaped, then he should not
have been prosecuted under People v. Hamaker, 92 Mich
11 (1892) (holding that one cannot be convicted of
escape if the incarceration is illegal,) and remanded
the matter back to the trial court for further fact-
finding with respect to the "legality of defendant's
incarceration." Id. at 610-611.
Once again, the People v. Browns, 39 Mich App 424
(1972), the Court of Appeals relied upon In re Evans;
Wilson; and Shastal, supra, in determining that
defendant's contention that forfeiture of his earned
good-time by Michigan Department of Corrections prior
to his felony conviction for the same offense of
escape amounted to double jeopardy was without merit.
Id. at 425.
Being convicted at a bench trial for carrying a
concealed weapon, to wit: a homemade knife at Jackson
Prison subjected him to double jeopardy because his
accumulated good-time was confiscated for the same
crime at an administrative hearing was the contention
in People v. Lewis, 42 Mich App 121 (1972). The Court
of Appeals found that nothing in the record disclosed
that the defendant had in fact had his good-time
confiscated, or if it was actually confiscated,
whether it was for possessing the knife. Nonetheless,
the Court relied on Wilson and Shastal and stated that
"the forfeiture of 'good-time' in an administrative
proceeding does not amount to double jeopardy. In
order to violate the constitutional prohibition
against double jeopardy the double sentencing must
occur in a criminal prosecution in a court of justice
and not an administrative proceeding." Id. at 124.
(See also People v. Bachman, 60 Mich App 682 (1973),
Iv.den. 392 Mich 776 (1974) (same).
All of the foul decisions cited supra were decided
prior to the landmark United States Supreme Court
decision in Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539, 556-59;
94 S. Ct. 2963 (1974), which held that prisoners are
entitled to safeguards of due process in disciplinary
proceedings. The Court ruled that procedural due
process affords prisoners facing forfeiture of
statutory good-time to minimal precaution and
identified five basic requirements prisoners are
entitled to before they can be punished for violating
prison rules. Id. at 563-71. (See e.g. Manville,
Prisoners' Self-Help Litigation Manual (3rd ed 1995)
(3) Ch. IV, D, pp.260-76; Columbia Human Rights Law
Review, A Jailhouse Lawyer's Manual (4th ed 1995) (4)
Ch. 27, C, pp. 829-32. However, the Wolff decision did
not change the scope of the double jeopardy
application, nor did a series of Michigan cases which
hold that state prisoners receive far greater
procedural protections than those mandated by Wolff.
See e.g., 1963 Mich Const Art. VI, 28 (requiring
judicial review of admin. Agency decisions); MCL
791.251 et seq.; MSA 28.2320 (51) te seq (statue for
review of MDOC prison disciplinary hearings); Meadows
v. Marquette Prison Warden, 117 Mich App 794 (1982);
Campbell v. Marquette Prison Warden, 119 Mich Ap 377
(1982); Tocco v. Marquette Prison Warden, 123 Mich App
395 (1983) (standard of review requires "competent,
material and substantial evidence on the whole record"
to uphold prison disciplinary conviction), cf.with
Superintendent v. Hill, 472 U.S. 445, 457; 105 S. Ct.
2768 (1985). Federal due process clause standard of
review only requires "some evidence" to uphold prison
disciplinary conviction. As far as prisoners are
concerned, based solely on Michigan jurisprudence,
laissez faire is the standard the courts really apply
when upholding prison officials' violations of
prisoners' rights, as evinced by post-Wolff double
jeopardy cases, infra.
In PFefferle v. Corrections Commission, 86 Mich App
366 (1976), plaintiff sought a writ of mandamus(5) to
compel the Commission to restore two years worth of
accumulated good-time credits which had been
confiscated after his escape from Jackson Prison. Nine
months after the Warden entered an order forfeiting
Pfefferle's good-time, Pfefferle initiated grievance
proceedings and was granted a hearing. The Court of
Appeals granted issuance of the writ on the basis that
the procedures employed by the Warden to seize
Pfefferle's good-time failed to comport with the due
process requirements erected by the United States
Supreme Court in Wolff 418 U.S. at 563-70 and ordered
defendants to conduct a hearing which conforms to
Wolff. Id. at 371-72. The Court also noted that
"because the issue may arise again, we note that
plaintiff's double jeopardy and/or equal protection
arguments concerning loss of good-time have been
previously rejected" and cited to Bachman, supra, and
cases cited therein. Id. at 373.
Likewise, in People v. Bellafont, 105 Mich App 788
(1981), the Court of Appeals depended on Pfefferle and
Bachman, supra, in finding that defendant's bench
trial conviction for assaulting a prison guard after
having already been required to relinquish earned
good-time as a result of the very same offense did not
constitute double jeopardy. Id. at 790.
Prisoners George C. Couch and Ronald L. Jordan at the
Marquette Branch Prison brought a tort action against
prison guard Timothy P. Schultz, asserting that he
defamed them when he filed a major misconduct report
charging them with sodomy. See Couch c. Schultz, 193
Mich App 292 (1992). The sole issue on appeal was one
of first impression in Michigan; whether a
disciplinary proceeding is a 'judicial proceeding' in
which witnesses are afforded an absolute privilege
from liability for defamation? Id. at 293. As would be
expected, the Court of Appeals easily answered the
question in the defendant's favor, holding that: "a
prison disciplinary hearing is a 'judicial proceeding'
and statements made in relation to such hearings are
absolutely privileged." Id. at 294. The Court cited to
a leading treatise, Prosser & Keeton, Torts (5th ed
1984) 114 Defamation and footnotes cited therein at
pp.816-21, as authority for the proposition that "
'judicial proceedings' may include any hearing before
a tribunal or administrative board that performs a
judicial function." Id.
Further, the Court observed that the United States
Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in Shelly v.
Johnson, 849 F. 2d 288, 230 (6th Cir. 1988) held that
in Michigan "prison hearing officers are in fact
professional hearing officers in the nature of
administrative law judges" and entitled to absolute
judicial immunity. The Shelly decision was primarily
based on five factors:
(1)the statutory requirements that hearing officers be
licensed attorneys under MCL 791.251(5);
MSA28.2320(51)(5);
(2)the hearing officer's duties and roles are
explained in detail in MCL 791.252; MSA28.2320(52);
(3)at the request of a prisoner upon a showing of bias
or for legitimate reasons the hearing officer is
required to recuse (disqualify) himself pursuant to
MCL 791.252(i); MSA28.2320(52)(i);
(4)a hearing officer's decision must be in writing and
include findings of fact in accordance with MCL
791.252(k); MSA28.2320(52)(k); and,
MCL 791.255; MSA28.2320(55) mandates that a prisoner
is entitled to judicial review of a hearing officer's
decision (as noted, this last determinant is required
under the Michigan constitution.)
After reviewing MCL 791.251 et seq,; MSA28.2320(51) et
seq., the statutory scheme concerning Michigan prison
disciplinary hearings, the Court found it supported
the proposal that a prison disciplinary hearing is a
judicial proceeding.(6) Id. at 296.
If a prison disciplinary hearing is a "judicial
proceeding" for liability purposes in the civil
context, then why is it not "a court of justice" for
double jeopardy purposes in the quasi-criminal
context? Inquiring convicts want to know! The answer
begs the question.
Like its federal counterpart, the Michigan
Constitution is not and never has been a static
document.(7) Further, Michigan - like the other 49
states - is free to reject the method used by the U.S.
Supreme Court and inferior federal tribunals in
preference of a differentiated assay of its analogous
constitutional guarantees, or to read its own
constitutional provisions more expansively than the
federal constitution is read by the U.S. Supreme
Court.(8) Currently the Michigan courts make no
pretense of being engaged in warfare on prisoners'
rights as their vile published opinions indicate. One
might justifiably assume the state tribunals are
attempting to outperform the federal courts (who have
long held there is no double jeopardy for disciplinary
and criminal punishment for the same offense)(9) in
divesting prisoners of their diminished constitutional
rights.
Perhaps one day an outstanding jailhouse lawyer will
be able to convince the Michigan Supreme Court to
expand the Couch decision to encompass disciplinary
hearings in prison to be "a court of justice" for
double jeopardy purposes. After all, "justice must
satisfy the appearance of justice." In re Murchison,
349 U.S. 133.136; 75 S. Ct. 623, 625 (1955). In the
meantime - don't hold your breathe!!(10)
Notes:
1. See People v. Carter, 415 Mich 588,582, n. 26
(1982) "Michigan unlike some other states, has its own
specific constitutional protection against double
jeopardy. Const 1963, art.1, 15. Although the language
of the state provision is nearly the same as that of
the federal constitution, there are certain important
differences between the state and federal tests used
to establish a constitutional violation.
Significantly, the Michigan rules offer broader double
jeopardy protection than do the federal standards.
Compared to federal interpretations, Michigan is more
protective of defendants' double jeopardy rights with
respect to multiple prosecution as well as multiple
punishment. See People v. White, 390 Mich 245; 212
NW2d 222 (1973)."
2. See also Dolby v. State Highway Commission, 283
Mich 609 (1938); Arrand v. Graham, 297 Mich 559
(1941); Mitchell v. City of Detroit, 355 Mich 182
(1959); Goolsby v. Detroit, 419 Mich 651, 655, n.1
(1984); Kuzinski v. Boretti, 182 Mich App 177, 180
(1989); Alpena FOC v. Durecki, 195 Mich App 635, 639
(1992). On this point the list is endless.
3. The Prisoners' Self-Help Litigation Manual (3rd ed
1995) costs $29.95 and is available from Oceana
Publications Inc. 75 Main Street Dobbs Ferry, NY 10522
USA (914) 693-8100.
4. A Jailhouse Lawyer's Manual (4th ed 1995) costs $13
and is available from Columbia Human Rights Law
Review, Box B-25, Columbia University School of Law,
435 Wast 116th Street, New York, NY USA 10027.
5. See Michigan Court Rule (MCR) 3.305 and MCL600.4401
et seq.; MSA 27.4401 et seq. for court rule and statue
on mandamus. As a general rule, mandamus will issue
only to compel the performance of a ministerial act to
which the plaintiff has a clear legal right and the
defendant has a clear legal duty to perform. See e.g.
Pillon v. Attorney General, 345 Mich 536 (1956);
Lundberg v. Corrections Commission, 57 Mich App 327
(1975); Schweitzer v. Polygraph Examiners, 77 Mich App
749, 752-53 (1977) (collecting cases). See also Khan
v. Warden, Jackson Prison, 128 Mich App 224 (1983)
(good discussion on difference between mandamus and
habeas corpus.
6. It should be noted that Michigan courts are not
bound by a federal court's decision construing a
Michigan statute. See Continental Motors Corp. v.
Muskegon Twp., 365 Mich 191 (1961); Hardy v.
Maxheimer, 429 Mich 422, 432 (1987). Michigan courts
are not bound by U.S. Supreme Courts decisions. The
Michigan Supreme Court is the final arbitrator in
purely state questions. See Paley v. Coca Cola Co., 39
Mich App 379, 384 (1972). When there is no conflict,
state courts are bound by the holdings of federal
courts on federal questions; when an issue has divided
the federal circuits, the state courts are free to
choose the most appropriate view. See Schueler v.
Weintrob, 360 Mich 621, 634 (1960); Kocsis v. Pierce,
192 Mich App 92, 98 (1991); Abdur-Ra'oof v. Dept. of
Corrections, 221 Mich App 585, 589, (1997).
7. See Scholle v. Secretary of State, 360 Mich 1, 107
(1960) Black. J., dissenting).
8)See People v. Thompson, 424 Mich 118, 125 (1985);
City of Mesquite v. Alladin's Castle, Inc., 455 U.S.
283,293; 102 S. Ct. 74, 81; 100 S. Ct. 2035 (1980).
cf. With People v. Nash, 418 Mich 196 (1983); People
v. Collins, 438 Mich 8 (1991); People v. Bullock, 440
Mich 15,30(1992); People v. Pickens, 446 Mich 298,
308-27 (1994); Sitz v. State Police (On Rem), 193 Mich
App 690, 696 (1992).
9)See Manville, The Prisoners' Self-Help Litigation
Manual (3rd ed 1995) Ch. IV, D, 1(s) pp.311-12
(collecting cases.)
10. See Couch, supra. I say this because there can be
no doubt that a misconduct/disciplinary hearing which
has been termed a "judicial proceeding" is not "a
court of justice." See e.g. Trimble v. Morrish, 152
Mich 624, 627 (1908) where the Michigan Supreme Court
stated "[a] communication absolutely privileged - as,
for instance words spoken by a judge in his judicial
capacity in a court of justice - is not actionable,
even though spoken maliciously." (emphasis supplied)
* * *
SUPPORT THE REVOLUTION IN THE PHILIPPINES
The u.$. supported the overthrow of its former puppet
in the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos, when it became
clear that the dictator was isolated and an
embarrassment. Despite all the praise the u.$. media
heaped on Marcos' successor, Corey Aquino, for being a
"true democrat," the fundamental nature of the
Philippine government did not change under Aquino. It
remained a puppet government of the u.$., beholden to
foreign monopoly capitalists and local reactionaries.
Human rights abuses even increased under Aquino,
thanks to her declaration of "total war" in the
countryside against the New People's Army led by the
Communist Party of the Philippines.
The following two articles show that even the facade
of change is crumbling away, as former Marcos cronies
openly retake positions of power in the government and
the economy. But while the government in Manila is
exposing itself as reactionary-infested, the Communist
Party of the Philippines is leading a revolutionary
movement to set up a state which truly serves the
people, and brings them true justice. - MIM
The return of the Marcoses to Power
Reprinted from "Ang Bayan," the newspaper of the
Central Committee of the Communist Party of the
Philippines, April-June 1998.
Accompanying Joseph Estrada to Malcanang [the
Philippine presidential palace] as the new reactionary
president is a flock of minions and cronies of the
former dictator Marcos.
Leading the pack are his son Bongbong and daughter
Imce who won as governor and congressional
representative, respectively, of Ilocos Norte.
Aside from them, Estrada plans to appoint prominent
Marcos men to his cabinet. Estrada himself and Edgardo
Angara who ran as vice president under Estrada's
party, are other former Marcos minions. One of the top
bankrollers and supporters of Estrada's candidacy is
Eduardo 'Danding' Cojuangco, Marcos' number one crony.
The return to power of Marcos' minions paves the way
for their recovery of wealth sequestered by the
government in 1986. First in line are Cojuangco's
shares of stock in San Miguel corporation (SMC), the
recovery of which would give him majority control over
SMC.
There is also the looming possibility that the Marcos
family will be able to recover its ill-gotten wealth.
Plans are already afoot to withdraw cases filed
against Imelda Marcos in court. Once the Marcos family
recovers this wealth compensation for victims of
fascist abuse during the dictatorship will certainly
be jeopardized.
Despite fierce resistance from different sectors,
Estrada insists on giving the fascist dictator a
hero's burial. Not only does he want to bury in
oblivion the fascist dictator's unprecedented crimes
against the people and the thousands of direct victims
of fascist abuse who have yet to obtain justice. He is
also using the issue of the burial to revive and
mobilize Marcos loyalists within and outside the
military and civilian bureaucracy. - AB
Arrest the dictator's minions!
Reprinted from "Ang Bayan," the newspaper of the
Central Committee of the Communist Party of the
Philippines, April-June 1998.
The Communist Party of the Philippines and the New
People's Army condemn the incoming Estrada regime for
honoring, through an official burial, the despised
dictator Marcos. This is a grave insult to the people
who were oppressed by and suffered tremendously under,
the fascist Marcos dictatorship, especially the
thousands of victims of human rights abuses, who have
long been crying for justice but continue to be denied
it.
The reactionary government in Manila has long
abandoned the quest for justice of the hated Marcos
fascist dictatorship. But it is now evident that the
incoming Estrada regime even intends to surpass the
criminal negligence of the two previous
administrations. Not only does it want to bury in
oblivion the crimes and savagery of the fascist
dictatorship without rectification. It also plans to
place in the centers of power and privilege the
relatives and minions of the fascist dictator who
remain unrepentant and unwilling to accept
responsibility for their crimes against the people.
Accordingly, the Party's Central Committee directs the
New People's Army to form special units to undertake
operations to arrest the relatives of Marcos,
especially Imelda Marcos and Ferdinand Marcos Jr.,
along with the other minions of the late dictator and
oblige them to face the people's justice and answer
for their major crimes against the people. - AB
* * *
WHITE MAN GETS A VOTE ON INDIAN CASINOS
by MC5
In California, November elections include a vote on
Proposition 5, whether or not to allow expansion of
First Nation casinos. The governor is currently tied
up in court trying to stop the First Nations from
running gambling enterprises in what the white man
calls "California."
As we go to press, some Indians are pandering to white
stereotypes in order to win the vote. Ads for Indian
casinos say that casinos will lift Indians out of the
U.$. welfare system.
While it is true that casinos have the effect of
lifting First Nation people out of the U.$. welfare
system, we believe that what the First Nations do is
their own business. The United $tates would not dare
to stop Canada or Germany from having casinos.
The fact that white people will be the majority of
voters on Proposition 5 shows what is wrong with
imperialist so-called democracy. Democracy is
majority-rule, but it ends up meaning a majority of
white people decide what happens in all Third World
and indigenous nations.
Surely the world vote would have gone against the
Vietnam War, but the white democracy in the United
$tates sent half a million troops to Vietnam. Hence,
the current imperialist democracy doesn't really count
all the people that should be counted under majority-
rule.
Moreover, there is no way that a majority of any
people should have a say over what happens within the
First Nations. This is the second flaw of imperialist
democracy as it is today. Not only are the broad
masses of Third World people in the world not counted
when the United $tates decides to tell other countries
what to do, but also certain questions should not be
decided by majority-rule in the first place.
As soon as we think of white voters in the United
$tates and the rights of small nations, it becomes
clear why status quo democracy is an unstable system
bound to lead to militarism and deathly strife. The
system is logically incoherent. Deciding when
majority-rule should apply and when "minority" or
small nation rights should apply is an inherent
conflict within a system of democracy.
Traditionally, political science has spilled tons of
ink on the questions of "rights" versus
"responsibilities." Large nations and small nations
both have rights and responsibilities toward each
other: that is all that political science and the
concepts of bourgeois democracy can tell us. For us
communists, this is beating around the bush. What
there needs to be is a system of cooperation, a stable
one. That system as it was for hundreds of thousands
of years when everyone lived in tribes is communism.
It's the only system capable of uniting all the people
in peace.
In the short-run, we believe the First Nations should
decide for themselves whether to have casinos on their
territory. Moreover, under the socialist dictatorship
transition to communism, we will see that the Amerikan
people pay just reparations to the First Nations for
the genocide against them carried out with majority-
white-rule.
The fact that this California vote is a choice between
joblessness and welfare on the one hand and the evils
of gambling on the other hand is a telling statement
about U.$. capitalism. Under the rational system of
socialism, everyone will have a job and we won't need
gambling to provide for the people.
Note: USA Today "California voters hold the cards on
gaming initiative" 28Oct1998, p. 17a.
* * *
LENINGRAD CONGRESS SUPPORTS LENIN AND STALIN
MIM sent this message to a meeting of youth in
Leningrad who uphold Lenin and Stalin.
Greetings comrades of the RYCL(b) on this occasion of
your Congress, October 25th, 1998.
Across the world, the communists look forward to the
re-constitution of a genuine communist movement in the
ex-Soviet Union. Already there are many stirrings in
that direction. Many have shaken off the influence of
Khruschevite revisionism and the old nomenklatura.
This gladdens the hearts of communists everywhere.
For this reason, any Congress of followers of Marx,
Lenin and Stalin takes on exceptional importance. We
bid you to hasten the ideological struggle.
The battle against revisionism will not reach its next
stage until the comrades there establish a party on
the basis of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism.
In this regard, many see through Khruschev revisionism
and few are fooled by Gorbachev or Yeltsin anymore.
What remains to be done is reach a theoretical
conclusion about the restoration of capitalism in the
Soviet Union.
Crucial to re-orientation on a proletarian basis is to
distinguish nationalism from communism. A recent
speech by Victor Anpilov is an example. He correctly
admits that revisionism is the key to understanding
the debacle in the Soviet Union. He also gives Mao
credit for being the first to try to stop Khruschev
from going down the capitalist road and above all he
admits that there were internal enemies of socialism
in the Soviet Union.
However, this is not enough. Victor Anpilov harkens
back to 1977 in the Soviet Union. He gives credit to
the revisionists in the GDR and Syria who opposed
Gorbachev--as if opposition to Gorbachev were enough
to establish one's credentials as a genuine communist!
There were many in the world who opposed Gorbachev for
their own geopolitical reasons having nothing to do
with communism. Some of these non-proletarian allies
of Soviet nationalism even pretended to be communist--
both inside and outside the former Soviet Union.
Yet, if we look into the matter closely we can always
tell apart the proletarian leaders from mere
nationalist friends of the Soviet Union. The
proletarian leaders aim their fire not just at U.$.
imperialism but also at the internal class enemy. It
is not just that Khruschev, Brezhnev, Gorbachev and
Yeltsin sold out to imperialism: they also implemented
capitalism.
Comrades, please check into this! There is still some
confusion on this question internationally and if you
disagree with us, you should enter into public
polemics with us at once! We ask you to check: which
of these, the Syrian "Communist Party", the GDR
"Communist Party", Kim in Korea and the Workers World
Party in the U$A, which of these admitted there was a
bourgeoisie in the party? Quite the contrary, they all
had a role in tolerating the world's Gorbachevs,
Yeltsins, Alias etc.
Comrades, we must understand that Mao and the "Gang of
Four" were called "ultraleft" for talking about how
capitalist restoration could come about and how it had
to be fought. It is only Marxism-Leninism-Maoism that
talks about the bourgeoisie in the party. The reason
for that is that only Mao and the "Gang of Four" came
up with an understanding of the appropriation of labor
under socialism, an understanding of the Law of Value
under socialism and what it meant for political
struggle. These other variants of revisionism are a
tad "left" of Gorbachev, but they are the variety that
would have tolerated Gorbachev and Yeltsin in the
party. They are the variety of revisionism that
opposed launching Cultural Revolution as Mao
instructed.
At this time, we must not allow a re-grouping of
revisionism. The decaying corpse of revisionism still
fouls the air! To clear the air, we must look at this
corpse internationally and take up Marxism-Leninism-
Maoism as the solution.
This is no time to be hiding our differences in the
international communist movement. We are still in the
stage of explaining to the proletariat the huge
betrayals that have happened. We must do this in the
open, so we urge you to take up the question of
summing up the history of the international communist
movement on the question of internal enemies,
specifically a bourgeoisie in the party. It is not
possible to have capitalism without a bourgeoisie!
International Ministry
Maoist Internationalist Movement
* * *
MICHIGAN PRISONS OVER THE EDGE: FACILITY CENSORS VIBE
Prisoners, pro-prisoners advocates and critics of
prison Security Threat Group policies have argued that
these policies are nothing more than a thinly
disguised attack on oppressed people. The STG policies
vaguely describe aspects of Black and Latino nations'
body and spoken language, and describe these basic
building blocks of national identity as proof of gang
membership. Now the Michigan prisons have come out and
said that a Black prisoner cannot receive his
subscription to VIBE magazine, which is devoted to
"the hip hop, rap and R&B communities, not gangs."(1)
In the most recent example offered by the Michigan
prisons, a prison's mailroom staff found that the
October, 1998 issue of VIBE "contained gang signs" and
that this made the magazine "a threat to the
institution." The prisoner's quite constructive
response to this ridiculous charge was to suggest that
any pages seen as a threat could be removed by the
mailroom staff before the magazine was delivered to
him. This not being good enough for the prison hearing
officer, the officer decided that the prisoner could
send his copy of VIBE home at his own expense if he
wanted to save it from being thrown away.(2)
The prison's decision on VIBE just goes to show
exactly how rational the prisons will be when it comes
to applying their STG policies: not at all. Before the
October issue of VIBE ever showed up, the same
prisoner's Fall, 1998 issue of Blaze was held up and
censored for containing "gang signs, which are
prohibited from entering the institution." On this
earlier occasion, the prisoner attempted to enlighten
the ignorant mailroom staff, and to dissuade them of
the misconception that every pose a Black persyn takes
is a gang sign. He answered the mail rejection notice
quite simply: "these are not gang signs." But this
wasn't good enough for the hearing officer who on this
earlier occasion also told the prisoner he could send
the magazine home at his own expense or have it thrown
away.(3)
This case goes down on MIM's list as proof positive
that the Security Threat Group Policy is nothing more
than an attack on the majority Black population of
Michigan prisons, as well as on the Latinos and all
prisoners who dare to become active against the
system. Culture is a fundamental aspect of national
identity, alongside territory, language, history and
economy. That the Michigan prisons are openly
attacking Black culture shows that they recognize
Blacks as a nation that is oppressed by and will rise
against the prisons system.
If you are a prisoner who has had your literature
censored under a Security Threat Group policy, write
to MIM Notes and we'll publish your article about this
censorship. Censorship is the oppressor's last resort
-- a means of keeping people from organizing through
physical restraint, and therefore a fundamental part
of the prisons system. MIM works to expose censorship
in prisons as we work to increase the flow of
literature to and extend our work with prisoners.
Notes:
1. A Michigan prisoner 19 October, 1998.
2. Administrative Hearing Report 22 September, 1998.
3. Administrative Hearing Report 4 September, 1998.
* * *
RAIL INITIATES RADIO PROGRAM ON PRISONS
With the help of allies, RAIL has created a weekly
radio program on prisons to be aired on one college
radio station on the East Coast. We would like to
distribute this program to stations across North
America.
If you can get this program on the air in your
community, contact RAIL at the address on page 2. It
will cost at least $5 to produce and mail a tape with
4 shows on it. Checks should be made out to MIM.
The program consists of 15 minutes of news, commentary
and prisoner letters. Contributions of money and
equipment (tape decks, microphones, computer
equipment) are needed to expand the program and make
it self-sufficient.
* * *
GREEN POLITICS
Fall 1998
PO Box 1134
Lawrence MA 01842
www.greens.org
reviewed by MC5
A newspaper called "Green Politics" came out in a
Fall, 1998 issue. Naturally the paper totes its 120
candidates in 22 states running in elections in
November, 1998. We salute this periodical as
progressive, especially because it does not claim to
be Marxist. The same paper if it claimed to be Marxist
would be too watery and reformist and would anger MIM
considerably because it would mislead the people about
the true nature of Marxism.
The Green Party correctly identifies many central
problems of our time and seeks to fix them with legal
reform and investor social responsibility campaigns.
As such, the Green Party has a good sense of goals but
a poor sense of political reality. It is
unquestionably bourgeois.
Unlike some watery Greens, this publication makes the
connection between militarism and the environment. It
calls for a $198 billion cut in "defense" spending in
the U$A in order to spend money to fix the environment
The Greens point out that the U$ government spends
$268 billion a year on the military while the next
closest country is Japan with $39 billion. (p. 5)
According to the Greens, "public investments of $75
billion a year for 10 years in ecological technologies
would enable the U.S. to phase out almost all toxics
in 10 years. Public investments of $25 billion a year
over 20 years would enable the U.S. to replace fossil
fuels with solar-based renewables in 20 years." (p. 3)
The Greens do not advocate any reparations to the
Third World with the $198 billion cut in "defense,"
but there is no doubt that the Third World would
benefit most from a reduced Yankee military presence.
For this reason, MIM considers the Greens our
politically foggy friends.
This issue of the paper correctly attacks the School
of the Americas for its training of militarists and
torturers and pointed to a Green resolution on the
subject in July, 1998. 25 people received six month
sentences protesting the School of the Americas, which
has finally gained mainstream attention because Joe
Kennedy in Congress sponsored a bill to close it. (p.
3)
On the legal front, the Greens seek to make it
impossible to patent new forms of life. Biotech
companies have taken up genetic engineering. Without
patents they would not be able to make profits from
owning various forms of life. A conference in St.
Louis's Fontbonne College in July discussed this
matter.
Companies seeking to produce alcohol have had the
usual dialectically unintended consequence of mass
producing a Klebsiella Planticola bacteria that kills
all plants. (p. 7) Dr. Elaine Ingham is a soil
ecologist who says that such bacteria can escape into
the real world and destroy plants.
MIM believes that most environmentalists fail to draw
political conclusions from their own work. Here we see
small private interests attempting to make a profit
producing alcohol. Yet the result is something that
can adversely affect the whole public. That is why
production for profit should be illegal.
However, the Green program called "Ten Key Values" (p.
12) mentions "decentralization" as one of the ten.
Even if a community has made production for profit
illegal, it might still undertake production harmful
to neighboring communities: that is why
"decentralization" is a recipe for conflict and
environmental destruction. If it is true that the
Klebsiella Planticola means of making alcohol is
harmful it should be banned internationally, not just
in one community. Whether through production for
profit or production for barter, it would still be
wrong. That is what the Titoites in Yugoslavia and the
Spanish anarchists and other anarchists never
understood - that the humyn species is truly
connected, not just on occasion when activists make
grandiose speeches for unity.
What one community does affects others, as a matter of
cause and effect and not some kind of spiritualist
hokum. Acid rain is perhaps the best known proof of
the environmental connectedness of the species.
Recently, there has been much attention to how
cigarettes are produced and marketed with global
effects. There are many other aspects of production's
organization that contribute to cancer. There are
countless other examples that are a matter of
environmental and production science.
All the capabilities of modern science and production
bring forward ever more conflicts that involve the
connectedness of the humyn species. Even production
under old technologies also had global effects, that
were only more or less consciously understood. In
fact, many of the older technologies revered through
centuries are even more environmentally destructive
than some of the more recent production technologies.
In this day and age, there is no doubt about the need
for the application of science to issues of biotech
and the environment. Key production decisions should
not be left in the hands of marketing executives. They
should be the subject of socialist planning--openly
politically determined production.
This is an area where the growth of the productive
forces--as Marx called the advance of the technology
and economy--is placing the Greens at the center of a
dynamic political sector. How to produce alcohol
should be a subject discussed amongst scientists hired
for the public good. We are much closer to the Greens
politically than the economic Liberals--people still
advocating laissez-faire for dogmatic reasons
completely unconnected to the real world. We believe
the laissez-faire people being individualists should
live without government regulation and take
unregulated drugs, drink privately polluted water and
eat unregulated food. Within a year, they would all be
dead and we would have socialism.
The Greens have conceded to the Liberals with their
"decentralization" plank. The Green plank for
"personal and global responsibility" is also a dead
give-away that the Greens still avoid the socialist
implications of their work. The plank is for "personal
lifestyles based on sufficiency and living lightly."
The middle-class often has the illusion that there is
no class system--no proletariat and no capitalist
class. In the environmentalist context it means
avoiding the implications that some profit from
pollution and that production for profit should be
banned, just as slavery had to be banned. The next
unpleasant implication is that just as some people
fought to keep slavery, there will be retrograde
elements that fight to keep their right to make profit
higher than the right of others to unpolluted air or
food. Just as dictatorship had to be exercised over
the slaveowning planters in the South in the U$A,
there will have to be organized force used to keep
people from trying to go back to their ideas of how to
make private profit. The School of the Americas which
the Greens are aware of is proof that there is in fact
an international center of retrograde politics--the
U$A. Hence, the Green plank for non-violence is also
hokum equivalent to wishing slavery to go away with
spiritual means.
Instead, Greens like all petty-bourgeois activists
talking about lifestyle believe change is a matter of
individual choices. In essence, lifestyle movements by
the Greens are a further concession to the laissez-
faire crowd. The Greens will persuade some people to
give up environmentally damaging consumption, but
other people will be allowed to go on as before and
ever more new and dangerous lifestyles will arise with
the progress of the productive forces.
In contrast, MIM does not believe in any hallowed
right of the individual to introduce cancer-causing
agents into other people's environments. Under
proletarian dictatorship, such production will be
minimized where irreplaceable and banned otherwise
without regard to profit.
In fact, the notion of investor responsibility
unconnected to the exercise of political power is a
typically fatuous idea of the petty-bourgeoisie. It
shows an inadequate consciousness of how the economic
world works. Under capitalism, if one investor pulls
out of an area of production out of Green scruples,
that just raises the profit rate for others to invest
in that sector. Because the species is truly
connected, only dictatorship of the proletariat is the
answer for environmental protection.
* * *
AFGHAN LIBERATION ORGANIZATION CELEBRATES MARTYR'S DAY
MIM sent this note to the Afghan Liberation
Organization in connection to Martyr's Day, November
12th, 1998. The Islamic Party shot the founding leader
of the A-L-O 12 years ago.
Comrades of the A-L-O!
For this November 12th of 1998, we remember your party
and especially the blood sacrifices of your founding
leadership twelve years ago.
In twelve years it has already become apparent that
the struggle against Soviet revisionism will emerge
victorious and relatively soon. Comrade Dr Faiz Ahmad
did not live to see the collapse of Soviet social-
imperialism, but we followers of Lenin, Stalin and Mao
all rest confidently that imperialism and social-
imperialism will die one way or another. All of us
communists die knowing that this is so and that the
work will be carried on by the next generation.
Even in the reactionary center of U.$. imperialism,
this is true. The invasion of Afghanistan by the
social-imperialists in 1979 created a pretext for
President Jimmy Carter to re-institute the draft
registration as a step toward conscription. Yet, such
action had the dialectical consequence of politicizing
the youth of the U$A. Thus the formation of our own
organization and its predecessors owes very much to
the invasion of Afghanistan. Not only did resistance
arise in Afghanistan. The reverberations were global.
At the time when the Islamic Party killed your
founding leadership, the chokehold of revisionism was
very much in force in the U$A. When we criticized the
militarist actions of Soviet social-imperialism in
Afghanistan and Eritrea, we were told that these cases
were exceptions or we met with stonewalling and
ignorance.
The Trotskyists who never had anything good to say
about the Soviet Union when it was socialist even
said, "Hail the Red Army in Afghanistan!" We told them
no Red Army invades another country, rapes its wimmin
and imposes military-feudalism.
Since that time, some have admitted at least being
partly wrong about Soviet social-imperialism. However,
what is more important is that we can be sure that the
judgment of the next generation of communists will be
harsh. While the older people still under partial sway
of revisionism may not break completely from the past,
especially in the imperialist countries where the
majority of people is labor aristocracy, the newer
comrades will see clearly the nature of the
bourgeoisie in the party--the Khruschevs, Brezhnevs,
Gorbachevs and Yeltsins, along with Alia in Albania,
Castro in Cuba and Kim in Korea--none of which
provided the necessary ideological and scientific aid
to unmask revisionism when it needed unmasking.
Equally certain is the destiny of Chinese revisionism.
After the death of Mao in 1976, Hua Guofeng betrayed
the international proletariat, ceased the campaign
against Deng Xiaoping and eventually handed power over
to Deng Xiaoping without a fight. Veteran Chinese
comrades said they would like to ask Deng Xiaoping
what he did that Chiang Kai-shek wouldn't have done.
The blood of Chinese martyrs was not spilled to make
China another capitalist country.
In the huge vacuum left by Mao Zedong's death, the
torch passed to the so-called Gang of Four, who were
four leaders of the Cultural Revolution. Before we
communists call for armed struggle, the proletarian
leaders worldwide must sum this up as well as the
collapse of the Soviet Union. Only in this way can we
prevent mistakes and successful infiltration of the
party by the new bourgeoisie, in the likes of Hua,
Gorbachev or Yeltsin.
Here in the U$A, the pro-Deng Xiaoping revisionists
did raise their voices against the invasion of
Afghanistan. However, by the late 1980s they were
dovetailing with Soviet revisionism and the main pro-
Deng organization dissolved in 1990. Thus, while there
is a mountain of propaganda that communism is dead,
there has never been a better chance to defeat
revisionism since MIM formed.
Always our revisionist critics told us the choice in
Afghanistan was between Islamic reaction and social-
imperialist reaction and always we told our critics
that there were Maoists in Afghanistan and surely
there is a proletariat which can provide the basis for
emerging from all kinds of reaction.
Today some of those who criticized us in the past on
this question work with us. As Mao Zedong taught us,
if the ideological line is correct, then success will
eventually be ours.
The blood sacrifices of the leaders and the people
demand that we communists constantly renew our
determination to hone the science of Marxism-Leninism-
Maoism. It is by utilizing the science of revolution
that the day of communism is brought nearer and the
bloody sacrifice of the proletariat and oppressed
people is reduced.
Were the process of reaching communism a peaceful
road, we could afford to be indifferent to the
experiences of the international communist movement.
However, reality in these years of the death throes of
imperialism is violent. Martyr's Day, November 12,
1998 beckons us to hasten the end of imperialism and
reaction.
International Ministry
Maoist Internationalist Movement
* * *
CULTURE PAGE
review by MC5
MIM attended the Hollywood movie "Soldier" at its
debut in theaters in October. The premise of the movie
is the high-tech future of militarism in which
soldiers run amok killing defenseless wimmin and
children throughout the galaxy as part of "training."
The premise of such an unmitigated evil allows the
movie producers to come up with many excuses for gory
action scenes. One retired soldier takes on 23 of the
latest in high-tech soldiers and officers and wins
thus saving the lives of refugee children on a planet
used as a galactic dumping ground.
In the movie we learn that the future equivalent of
the Pentagon has untrammeled power including the right
to kill or abduct anyone on the spot. We do not learn
any of the motivations for the creation of ever more
scientifically perfect fighting machines and soldiers
in the future.
Although such movies will be relatively clear even to
the decadent thinking of imperialist country parasites
because of the stark opposition of good and bad, the
violence of the movie will not contribute in a
straight-forward way toward the militarist climate in
the United $tates. While the U.$. public is able to
identify with the "rebels" against the "empire" in
movies such as Star Wars, often the effect of violent
movies is to justify violence in the minds of viewers.
Certainly in "Soldier" the main character is justified
in his violence, but by seeing so many movies where
violence is justified in so many contexts, the U.$.
public is bound to ad-lib its own justifications for
violence and see them as equally righteous as what
happened in the movies. Since Amerikan movies in
particular glorify the individual hero against the
rest of society, Hollywood ends up contributing to the
climate of serial killers and militarism.
The dialectical benefit of "Soldier" is that the only
persyn capable of stopping the ultimate evil of the
soldiers unleashed by the militarists was another
soldier, in this case, an ex-soldier. "Soldiers
deserve other soldiers" is one of the few things that
the killing machine turned hero says.
After decades of brain-washing and after his
retirement, a soldier ends up fighting for his own
life against the militarist machine that he himself
belonged to that is running amok in the galaxy. This
conflict within the soldier's life is a redeeming
benefit to a movie otherwise typical in a country
where action-violence movies are so popular.
* * *
FBI'S WAR ON BLACK AMERICA
LOS ANGELES, CA - Students from Occidental College
invited the Revolutionary Anti-Imperialist League
(RAIL) to show the video "The FBI's War on Black
America" and give a brief presentation on the Black
Panther Party. The film showing was a success,
introducing students to the history of the Black
Panther Party and the FBI's campaign of violence
against Black nationalists. The students also learned
more about RAIL, its political agitation, and its
Serve the People programs.
During the lengthy and active discussion which
followed the film, several students earnestly debated
the merits of multi-culturalism as a strategy for
change. Multi-culturalism is the latest variant of a
theory which says that bad ideas (e.g. racism) are
responsible for oppression. So to end oppression,
people need to throw away their bad ideas, use
politically correct language, etc.
But oppression is a fact of material reality. For
example, the oppression of Black people in the u.$. is
the legacy of 400 years of slavery and the colonial
conditions which persist in the Black nation to this
day. Respecting Black culture [and which culture is
that? Frederick Douglass or Booker T. Washington?]
will not, by itself, change the material conditions of
Black oppression. As the Black Panthers said, "A slave
in a daishiki is still a slave."
One student commented, "But if that's true, then
everything we're doing here [at a university heavily
influenced by multi-culturalism] is a waste of time!"
Indeed, that's why political agitation and study are
so important - history has shown that some strategies
are better than others, and some strategies are
complete failures. Choosing the correct strategy is a
matter of life and death: To repeat past mistakes is a
waste of precious time.
"The FBI's War on Black America" is one of many films
which RAIL and the Maoist Internationalist Movement
(MIM) show regularly in order to build public opinion
against u.$. imperialism. If you are interested in
hosting a similar event in your area, please contact
your local RAIL or MIM representatives, or write to
the addresses on page 2.
* * *
RUSH HOUR
reviewed by MC17
Rush Hour was a reactionary movie about the virtues of
Amerikan police officers with some good anti-British
propaganda thrown in. The movie starts off with a
scene in a conference room and the caption on the
screen "Hong Kong prior to the end of British rule."
This is a statement of fact but in the united snakes
and throughout Europe we'd be more likely to see "Hong
Kong prior to the beginning of Chinese rule" as if
Hong Kong was a totally free country being taken over
by China.
But this promising beginning was quickly drowned out
in the reactionary plot which pitted the FBI
(portrayed as a bunch of bumbling idiots with fancy
gadgets) and the LAPD (the only defense between the
people and the criminals) against the bad guys.
In another positive point to the movie, one high
ranking British imperialist turned out to be the
leader of the biggest illegal gang in Hong Kong. The
imperialists are the leaders of the biggest legal
gangs in the world. And their power far surpasses that
of the the illegal gangs. The imperialist gangs have
the power to steal, rape, plunder, exploit and murder
with legal impunity.
To capture the illegal gang leaders and foil their
kidnapping plot the LAPD hero teamed up with the Hong
Kong police hero. Although the pigs win in this movie,
we look forward to the day when the masses will defeat
the imperialist gangs and make the world a place safe
for humanity to develop a peaceful and just society.
* * *
BLADE
reviewed by MC5
"Blade" has received some acclaim, because "we have
our first universally popular African-American cartoon
character 'Hero'." The notion is that there are no
Black superheroes, especially none with martial arts
skills. Along comes Wesley Snipes to play a physically
buff superhero. Reviewer Dana Chandler also finds
N'Bush Wright a convincingly sexy Black female in true
Hollywood, superhero movie style. For MIM, however,
tokenism is not enough of a reason to acclaim this
movie, so we delve deeper.
The movie has some science fiction special effects
that make it no "B" grade movie. However, despite the
redeeming factor of having a Black superhero, the
movie sticks to its vampires are evil premise to have
an excuse for violence aimed at audience popularity.
By establishing unquestionably evil vampires as
enemies, the producer or director created excuses for
gory scene after gory scene. Blade is named for how he
kills the vampires preying on the humyn species.
The movie does not make full use of its potential for
political impact though. There is a pseudo-political
struggle between the Black man and the Black womyn in
the movie in which Blade must explain to the newcomer
that the real world is ruled by vampire violence that
requires a violent response.
Police are portrayed as pawns of the vampires. When
they barge in on a struggle with the bad guys, they
shoot the wrong side. Later a white male cop is seen
running errands for the vampires and the Black womyn
is caught showing sympathy for the white cop, which
causes a struggle that Blade eventually wins.
Of course, what Blade must say to win the struggle is
initially deemed as far-fetched, and in this
communists see a glimmer of materialist self-
recognition. What we communists say should be grounded
in materialist reality, but sometimes the more
grounded in material reality, the more far-fetched
something sounds to the masses. Blade teaches us that
it is important to continue with the struggle if we
are scientifically correct but unpopular. Certainly
Blade is scientifically correct in the movie and the
masses are living in a dream-world or political stupor
in which the vampires are feeding on them and
murdering them.
In fact, Blade also raises for us Maoists the question
of People's War. Blade and his one old laboratory
friend who makes vampire-killing weapons essentially
fight the vampires alone. They have sealed themselves
off from the masses, because the masses live in such a
stupor. The vampires are so prevalent and powerful
that trusting anyone simply leads to a chance for the
vampires to kill Blade and his engineer ally. When
Blade decides to trust the Black female character in
the movie, he chides himself and his ally chides him
for showing mercy to the enemy-presumably out of
humanist concern for the injured female or highly
repressed sexual drive. It turns out that the supposed
mistake of trusting and struggling with the Black
female hero was a good idea in the end, and so there
should be some lesson in relying on the people.
In Maoism, there is usually more of an emphasis on
preparing public opinion for People's War, not the war
of heroes. The war of heroes idea is more prevalent in
the works of Che Guevara and Regis Debray, focoist
military strategists who promote a losing strategy.
In the context of the movie, Blade almost always has
tactical military superiority over any combination of
his enemies that he might come across. For this reason
it is tempting to ignore the role of the masses and
simply slaughter the vampire enemy. On the other hand,
Blade and his friends both realize that the struggle
would be lost if they were to die for some reason.
Indeed, the engineer has cancer and Blade himself is
getting older and is struggling with his own vampire
side. Plus, there is always the chance that a vampire
trick could result in the deaths of two or three
fighters. Meanwhile, the vampire population is
international and reproduces. Hence, ultimately, even
in the fantasy situation where Blade has general
tactical military superiority, he should have waged
more of a People's War.
If cultural work should be subtle, then this movie may
be counted as a success because vampires seem to be
far removed from the real world and thus the potential
political expression in the movie is muted.
The vampires control real estate and the city
government, so the vampires can be taken as a metaphor
for the bourgeoisie. The only problem is that all of
this occurs at such a subliminal and fantasy-oriented
level, that it becomes questionable whether it will
offset its negative features in once again portraying
"aliens"--this time vampires--as worthy of militarist
hatred.
There is a strong argument for this movie. The main
counterargument concerns whether we believe that
political cultural work should be directly and
blatantly understood by the masses. The fact that the
public views Archie Bunker as a hero and not as the
object of satire in "All in the Family" should be a
warning to cultural workers. What matters is not how
Hollywood producers and intellectuals appreciate a
movie but how the whole public viewing audience
appreciates it.
We are afraid the public will see in "Blade" another
excuse for individual heroes who come up with their
own reasons for violence. While Blade has good
reasoning for violence, many viewers will come up with
their own justifications for serial killing. "Blade"
is not as bad as a Black "Rambo" would be, but it
walks on a fine line. Certainly wherever we communists
manage to reach the people in connection to this
movie, we can turn it into a good thing by discussing
the issues in this review.
Note: The Boston People's Voice 4Sept1998, p. 12.
* * *
UNDER LOCK AND KEY: NEWS FROM PRISONS AND PRISONERS
Mail withheld
The prison administration is withholding my mail.
Letters I send out often never reach their
destinations and my incoming mail is often withheld
without my knowledge. They're trying to isolate me
from the outside world. They're trying to cut me off
from my sources of emotion support and inspiration in
order to demoralize me.
-- An Arizona Prisoner, 7 July 1998
Brutal coercion
On July 9, 1998 at the Texas Department of Criminal
Justice, Inst. Div., Estelle High Security Unit, two
lieutenants and at least nine other officers conspired
to spray tear gas on me while I was in my cell. They
brutalized me because I refused to go to the Brasoria
County District Court to voluntarily indict myself. I
told them prior to being brutalized that if the court
don't like my non-appearance they could issue a writ
of attachment to my body and re-subpoena me. If I
still refuse to appear they could sanction me. I told
them to look in the law library for the subpoena
doctrine or call the attorney general for advice on
what I tell them.
I told them I have law that shows I shouldn't be
brutalized even if I was refusing to transfer to
another unit. I told them I was not going to court
until my ineffective assistance of counsel filed
motion for a special appearance to determine no
indictment has been served on me. They forced me to go
to the Darrington Unit. The Darrington Unit's
lieutenant and eight officers coerced me to get on the
van to go to court. Under same [above] circumstances
except I was not brutalized, just threatened to do so.
I was later taken off the van and placed on a special
van to be immediately returned to my permanent unit of
assignment.
United We Stand, Divided We Fall,
-- A Texas Prisoner, 20 July 1998
Denied medication, slandered, tossed in the hole
I have been in the "hole" since June 30, 1998. I just
got the hook-up yesterday from the brother next door
to me. They took all my property and put it in
storage. Everything! They claim I threatened to kill
this guy that I know outweighs me by at least 100
pounds!
It all started around April 7 or 8. I can't say
exactly what happened but I heard that a brother from
LA sliced a guard's face up. They say he tore his ass
up! On the same day, I heard another brother beat down
a guard. So they locked the whole place down. Even the
other 4 or 5 yards that nothing happened on. They
stopped everything for ten or more days. Visiting
included. Then they came and tore everybody's cells
up. I noticed that they stayed at least 15 to 20 extra
minutes in black convict cells. After they finished
searching all 7 buildings, (about two weeks later)
they said everyone is off lockdown but the blacks.
While on lockdown I was given the yearly "TB" test. I
tested positive and an appointment was made for me to
see the doctor. May 8 came around and two guards
escorted me to the clinic. I was stripped first, then
shackled. So the doctor made me sign a consent form
saying that I was going to take "TB" meds Monday and
Thursday for six months starting on May 11, 1998. When
the 11th came around, nobody brought the medication,
so I asked a guard to call the clinic. He said he
would. Nothing came of that. So the 14th came along
and I went through the same thing as I did Monday.
Nothing came of that. A few days after that I decided
to write up a "602." That's what the "grievance" form
is called. I filed it May 18, 1998.
Around the 1st of June, the head guard gave an order
to let all "non-affiliated" blacks off lockdown. In
other words, keep all the "Bloods" and "Crips"
lockdown! An M.A.C. (means "Mens Advisory Council,"
but they never do shit for no one but themselves. Some
are o.k., but the rest of them ain't about shit!) came
to my door and read a memo that the head guard wanted
read to all black convicts. I don't remember exactly
what he said, but basically it was saying that the
reason all the so-called affiliated blacks are on
lockdown is because they're all conspiring to stab the
guards. Even if a guy was not affiliated but was in
the cell with a guy that was affiliated, he was also
on lockdown. The LAPD made sure it was known that I
was in a gang on every document in my file.
On April 9th and 10th the guards came around gaffled
brothers up left and right, claiming they were
conspiring to stab guards. I know of 20 personally who
got gaffled and as I'm writing you now, 5 of them are
within earshot! They have let a few go back to the
main line but, the majority of them are waiting to be
transferred or are waiting to go to the "S.H.U." (the
hole of all holes!). I'm liable to be going to the
S.H.U. too! It is so many brothers in this hole. It's
a shame! They let us off around the 16th of June. But
3 days later they locked the building down where I was
housed at. They say this big ole guard's (he's over
6'5'' and a good 270 pounds) life was threatened. They
took ten more guys to the hole. Six brothers, two
Samoans and two northern hispanics. They let most of
them go, but some of them are still in here.
They let my building off lockdown officially about
8:30 a.m. June 25. Since I couldn't get my TB meds in
the morning, I asked the sergeant guard to go get them
for me. He went and got them and gave them to me. I
was just about to take them but when I flipped them
over, I found out that they had expired August 1997.
So I gave them to this other guard and told him to
exchange them up at the clinic. He came back and told
me that whoever was in the clinic said that since I
wasn't going to take the pills they were gonna write
down that I refused treatment. So they did that.
Five days later on June 30, 1998 I went down to the
clinic and all hell broke loose. Basically, they
started belittling me and when I responded verbally,
they threw me out. Four hours later I was in the hole
with nothing but state-issue clothing (1 set), 2
sheets, 1 blanket, 2 pieces of paper, a tow-up
penfiller, 2 state envelops, 1 toothbrush sawed in
half, 1 cup, a palm brush (which I can't even use
because my hair is too long!), a bar of soap, a towel,
a pair of "karate" shoes and a roll of toilet paper. I
feel I'm in the hole because of the "anti-black"
atmosphere in here right now. The brother next door
shot me some literature that you all sent him.
Everything you all sent me is in my property and I
can't get it until I get out of the hole.
Keep up the struggle!
-- A Prisoner, 14 July 1998
State involved in petty theft
The new law of deducting 22% from inmates pay numbers
and trust deposits should be banned. For one, it is a
burden for an inmate to make payments from his prison
pay number when the average pay number is no more than
$19.00 per month. Two, it is also a burden for an
inmate's family to send extra money to make up for the
theft of the state. Third, the sender of the money,
whether on a fixed income or steady income pays taxes
to the government from the start when the sender
receives his/her income, and for the state government
from the start when the sender receives his/her income
and for the state government to tax the senders money
a second time when it is in fact a gift to help
support the inmate is unconstitutional. Another issue
to focus on is the capitalism of the special purchase
vendors that are owned by correctional officers and
has developed into a monopoly of marked up prices and
the only approved vendors that an inmate may order
from.
-- A California Prisoner, 22 August 98
Asian immigrants sentenced to life in prison for not
having green card
There is an issue that I really need help on and I'm
kind of at a dead end. I'm an immigrant from Vietnam,
and a lot of my Asian brothers who are locked up in
Texas prisons are also in this situation. They had
issued a detain for all those that don't have an
American citizenship. Once we get released we have to
go to one of them detaining facilities. A lot of my
fellow Asian brothers wrote to me and said that the
government will not let them go and they won't send us
back to our country because our country won't accept
us. So we have to stay there until our country change
their mind or the law change. We are in a no win
situation. I would like to know if you can help us or
know something that we can do. Because it's hard for
me and my people to just sit here and let these people
do us any kind of way they want to. I really
appreciate you taking your time to read this letter.
-- A Texas Prisoner, July 98
MIM responds: The united snakes locks up many
immigrants for the "crime" of not having Amerikan
citizenship. Detaining facilities often have
conditions even worse that prisons. While some legal
battles can be won by immigrants in prison and
detaining facilities, it is an even more difficult
battle because they are not citizens. The illegitimate
borders of the united snakes supposedly justify
labeling immigrants as illegal. But this country was
built on the backs of Third World peoples. The borders
only serve to keep the white nation wealthy and the
oppressed nations poor.
One important way to fight this injustice is by
exposing it. In addition we encourage our immigrant
comrades to fight through the legal system and work
with MIM's Prisoner Legal Clinic to share any legal
information you have. We will also work with our
immigrant comrades behind bars to engage the struggle
from the outside.
Ad-Seg hypocrisy
Allow me to extend my revolutionary greetings and
salutations. I would like to bring to you some news
from deep within the belly of the rotten beast. I am
in prison inside of prison, better known as ad.seg.,
and have been confined here for over six (6) years
even though I am not an overtly violent person, gang
related or on protective custody. My only problem is
being outspoken and standing up for my rights--as any
self respecting man should. Even though I am a
prisoner, I refuse to lower my standards and morals as
a man, much less a human being. This malicious
treatment that I'm being subjected to is the most
cruel and unusual that any man can endure because it
not only affects me spiritually and physically, it is
designed to destroy me mentally. All this talk about
is a joke because recidivism means job security.
[Without recidivism job security] becomes unstable for
the hundreds of thousands racists peons who are
willing to be pimped like whores by the state.
How is it possible for a man like myself to get
released from prison and keep from returning? I have
no resources, I have no job skills, I have no college
education, all I have is a bunch of pent up anger,
hatred and frustration at the system for this
oppressive treatment.
I recently went to state classification on July 9,
1998. Even though I have not had any type of staff or
inmates assaults in over twenty-three (23) months and
I am not displaying the same behavior that got me
placed in seg. July 4, 1992, I am being forced to
remain in ad.seg. doing absolutely nothing. I was told
by the classification officer to give him "2 years
without a disciplinary case and he would then consider
my release." I discharge my entire 10 year sentence in
29 months. TDCJ-ID policy states that ad.seg. is not
to be used for punitive measures. If I am not being
punished, then what do you call it? Giving me a
vacation from working in the fields? At each and every
classification hearing that I attend, my "past
history" is brought up. Why am I steadily being
punished for my past transgressions? I was punished
when I went to disciplinary court.
When you put a man in a position such as mine, he has
no choice but to act out of desperation. For what
other alternatives do I have? All that I have in the
way of rehabilitation is seven and a half years of
pent up hatred towards the system, its
flunkies/subordinates and the government that controls
it.
The truth is that I don't want to return to prison.
But what are my chances if I am kept confined to
ad.seg. until my release? As a young black man the
odds have been stacked against me since birth and are
now being stacked higher. To prevent myself from self-
destructing, I'm requesting you help.
A Comrade in struggle
-- A Texas prisoner, Summer 98
Drugs detract from revolution
First, I want to attack all drug dealers and users
that are incarcerated in prisons through the world.
Drugs play no role in a revolution, period! Drugs are
a pure detraction of what a revolution soldier should
be concentrated towards. When a soldier is using or
involved with drugs, you have just compromised your
immediate purpose of the cause; and you have placed
yourself to be a potential provocateur agent!
Regardless of what illusion or scenario you may
conclude, you are a weak-link to the chain. Also, if
you were in China you would be executed by the people.
-- A Prisoner, 3 August 1998
MIM Responds:
Actually, the policy in Mao's China was to remove the
social roots of drug use and the drug trade in order
to "cure the disease and save the patient." Of course,
there were strong penalties for those who were
obstinate and continued to try to sell drugs and
profit off of misery.
Hungry for knowledge, hungry for change
As you well know, education here in Texas prisons is
non-existent and I'd like to address that for a
moment. I'm confined in segregation and unlike most
others around here I would like to receive, if
possible some political material on the Maoist
Movement or on socialism to gain a better
understanding. Like it or not from the first day we
had the cuffs placed about our wrists and/or ankles we
were thrust into the political arena of which our
incarceration is a continuing issue.
I'm 22 and I'm a college dropout. Although I've kept
up with major political issues for years, I've only
been really politically conscious for the past 3
years. Of course it is impossible for me to obtain the
literature I'm seeking by any other means and I have
not read any comprehensive books on Maoism or even
socialism; needless to say to sympathize with a
certain political party or style of democracy is not
the same as advocating the implementation of its
doctrines. I really can't grasp the totality of those
doctrines without having the vehicles that will lead
me to the enlightenment which I seek.
I'm part black, part Native American so of course I'm
aware of our oppression. The reform, i.e.,
annihilation of capitalism must be completely
understood as would its replacement and to be honest I
don't have a clear understanding of everything this
would entail. But I'm not ashamed to admit my
ignorance and ask for clarification where it is
needed.
Whatever you can send will be used , not wasted, and
passed only to those who crave that knowledge. I owe
it to myself as well as my race and nationalities to
discover the imperatives at work behind various ruling
forms of government. I want the best for the world,
all races, all nationalities, by any means necessary.
I'm outta here. Keep up the fight and remember that
some of us are behind serious reform. Give us the
education to put those reforms into action and
ultimately make change a reality. Peace.
In Struggle,
-- A Texas Prisoner, 6 August 1998
Exposing the Segregation Circuit
I am housed in the brand newly built Supermax Control
Unit Prison called TAMMS, in southern IL. I was
brought here from another Control Unit Prison in
Trenton, NJ where I spent my last four years. Before
that I was on the "Segregation Circuit" in Illinois
prisons for three years. (The "circuit" is a system
where prisoners of consciousness are forced to live in
segregation units in all of the prisons in the state
of Illinois for more than 45 days at a time. Being
transferred from prison to prison, but going straight
to isolation segregation.) Before that I was housed
was housed in all of the maximum security prisons in
Illinois at one time or another.
-- An Illinois Prisoner, 19 July 1998
The oppressed are not represented here
There are over a million people locked up, and at
every one's sentence there were three lawyers present,
the judge, the district attorney, and the defendants
lawyer. If you have a trial there are more lawyers
involved, more judges, assistant attorney generals,
and court appointed attorneys.
The politician lawyers are the driving force behind
all these changes. Most of these politician lawyers
are former prosecutors and they are the ones who sit
on the judiciary committees that make the
recommendation, and actually write the law that is
submitted to the rest of the legislative body. Who
benefits? Why are there only a sprinkle of complaints
by lawyer groups when these laws are being proposed
and drawn up? What is the payoff for lawyers in
general if hash laws are passed, if vague laws are
passed, if rights are eroded? Who makes the money off
the changes? Who are the ones who can interpret the
laws? This is an area that the people need to look at.
All the changes are lawyer driven. Governors are
lawyers, the federal and state legislatures are full
of lawyers. What is the payoff for a lawyer to run for
a low level state office? What are the rewards? A
judgeship, a governor. Look at all the lawyers in
cabinet positions. What expertise does a lawyer have
to be a transportation secretary? All the changes in
the country are now lawyer driven. The treaty
agreements with repressive regimes are made by
lawyers. This is a mentality that is being passed onto
their own citizens.
I say they are using the unfortunate, the
disenfranchised, the poor, the mentally ill, the
illiterate, to feather their own beds. People are
being sacrificed for the few.
-- A Colorado Prisoner, 4 August, 1998
MIM Responds: You are asking some important questions.
Who in this country benefits and who suffers? You are
correct in that lawyers are reaping the benefits from
criminal injustice system. But keep in mind that it is
the system of imperialism who is the main enemy. The
lawyers are just tools of the larger system.
We as revolutionaries must work to build independent
institutions of the oppressed. We need to educate and
organize ourselves for revolution. Exposing the system
of oppression is an important part of this process.
Dear MIM Notes:
The letter entitled "Gang Label Used to Oppress
Prisoners" clearly shows the inward frustration that I
feel ...
The brother-man is right. We must set aside the small
battles, for the bigger one. If we continue to fall
prey to that century-old trick of Divide & Conquer,
oppression will get deeper, and deeper, and deeper. So
deep that they will no longer even attempt to mask it.
...
Truly, it's time to unite and come together as one in
this revolution. To that Comrade in Connecticut, and
those everywhere, "I Feel Ya."
--A Michigan Prisoner, 10/12/98
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