MIM Notes 211                   June 1, 2000

Letters 

The fight over Puerto Rican land 

I'm a proud Borinqueno (original name for Puerto Rico) and I'm 
ashamed at the thought of my peoples selling their country to the 
imperialist united snakes. The colony of Puerto Rico has been like 
a mistreated prostitute for ages. First raped by the Spaniards to 
then been taken by a stronger pimp (the u.s. won the Spanish 
Amerikan war). It's been 500 years and we still a people without a 
country. The people of Israel who lost their land ages ago never 
stopped fighting to gain their land until the declaration of the 
state of Israel in 1968. I know many disagree with how they 
treated Palestine but the point is, unlike Borinquenos, they 
fought for their land, unlike us Puerto Ricans who are willing to 
turn our only piece of heritage into a state. Israel at least 
fought for their country. Borinquenos are naturally a people of 
peace but will raise arms to the death to protect their home. The 
problem is we been blinded by the glamour of the wealth that 
association with the imperialist amerika has brought and the 
majority of the people are not educated to this facts. I was 
strongly motivated when I saw Borinquenos coming together to put a 
stop to the destruction of La Isla Nena "Vieques" by united snakes 
uranium bombs. The people of Vieques have a greater number of 
cancer patients per capita than any country. Thanks to uncle sam 
the people of Vieques are lab mice. I was further encouraged when 
I saw the u.s. puppet government of Puerto Rico stand firm to the 
president of the united snakes to stop these bombings. For a 
minute I believed the puppet strings were cut. But once again 
money meant more than country and for a few millions (cheap change 
to the imperialistas) Gov. Rosello approoved 3 more years of 
bombings When we finally give our country away to the 
imperialistas there won't be pride of country for there will be no 
country Borinquenos will be lost children with no country or 
pride. Time and generations will tell of borinquenos as a people 
who vanished after selling their country. I take this to heart, I 
may be a prisoner in a concentration camp in Walpole Mass. but I 
woke up from ignorance to self-educated, anti-imperialista. One 
night I formed a discussion group at night in the concentration 
camp P. Block AKA "Lublin" to discuss these political points on 
our land with fellow Boriquas. The SS officer sent me to SEG, they 
claim I was trying to organize an uprising so I was sent to DDU 
aka "Oswiecim" or control unit for a year for trying to educate 
others. I got to applaud MIM's effort for the creation of United 
Struggle from Within for knowledge and education is the power to 
set our self free not only from the bourgeois injustice system but 
oppression as a whole. We sometimes make it easy for the 
colonialists to conquer and control us by being ignorant and 
wasting our time on poison or fighting amongst ourselves. I hardly 
see Chicanos speaking their mind on anti-imperialism. They are a 
raza oppressed just like my own and should begin working towards 
goals of unity. I call all Boricuas to get involved in anti-
imperialism and help save our land and those Boricuas like myself 
whom work up from blindness and ignorance while on the many u.s. 
concentration camps. Join those on the street trying to save our 
land from those blind borinquenos who want to give it away. You 
even can do a lot from the concentration camp, write family and 
friends to give them literature and lights. I cut articles of MIM 
and send to friends. Most of my own family is on point. La lucha 
never stops. -- A prisoner in Massachusetts 15 April 2000. 

MIM responds: This comrade righteously exposes the colonial 
position of Puerto Rico and it's imperialist-lackey Governor 
Rossello. The battle over u.s. naval occupation of Vieques has 
been very important for raising consciousness and activism both in 
Puerto Rico and within u.s. borders. MIM would not go as far as 
this comrade in saying that the people of Puerto Rico are not 
fighting for their land, but it is true that the population of 
Puerto Rico does not, for the most part, want independence from 
the u.s. This contradiction between wanting some autonomy (no 
Naval bombing or occupation of Vieques) but wanting to keep the 
strings to the u.s. is a result of the u.s. giving Puerto Rico 
some economic benefits from it's close ties to imperialism to keep 
the population from rising up in revolutionary struggle. Although 
Puerto Rico is not nearly as wealthy as the u.s., there are some 
significant benefits the u.s. has given this colony that it does 
not give to it's neo-colonies throughout Latin America. (For more 
on this send $1 for the RAIL pamphlet on Puerto Rico.) It is true 
that the people of Israel fought a long battle to gain their land. 
But unlike the struggle of the Puerto Rican people, the Jewish 
people who fought for Israel did so at the expense of the 
Palestinian people. This was not a battle against an imperialist 
occupier. In fact it has resulted in further oppression of Arabs 
throughout the Middle East as the u.s. has thrown it's full weight 
behind the very imperialist-friendly Israel. Although oppressed 
people everywhere can learn from the struggle over Palestine, this 
should not be the battle that the Puerto Rican people aspire to 
fight. 

Cinco de Mayo 

Stupid amerikkkans and the petty bourgeois nationalists in Aztlan 
again seem to have nothing interesting to say about the ridicule 
of Latino culture put on by the amerikkkan invaders: 

http://www.msnbc.com/msn/403827.asp 

While petty bourgeois assimilators look for 'positive' portrayals 
of Latino Nationals in the genocidal spectrum of amerikkkan 
holidays and while decadent white parasites look for Third World 
justification for once again enjoying the debachaury and frolic 
brought on by imperial loot, those who want to make real progress 
cannot let a holiday, here nor there, pass by without the proper 
analysis in the context of national opression under forgeign 
imperialism. 

Don't let the man have his way with Latin culture at the expense 
of the third world and internal colonies here in the united 
snakes. This round of 'cultural enrichment' is nought but insult 
upon injury to the proud people of Aztlan, Mexico and Latin 
America. 

It is proper to uphold National struggles (like the Battle of 5 de 
Mayo in Puebla) not as a token to educating the white invader, nor 
merely to educate Chicano children about Mexico (Chicanos would 
get enough history of Mexico in their own Chicano-run schools 
rather than in some hokey pokey cup-cake and jamaica party) --
instead the righteous bourgeois anti-colonial struggle for 
national autonomy in Mexico at the time should be emphasized and 
it should be placed in the historical context of the development 
of the Mexico from a land of First Nation empires, to a colony of 
spain, to bourgeois democracy and finally third world despotism 
under the guidance of amerikkkan and european finance capital.... 

This is the proper context in which to understand the battle of 5 
de Mayo and what is more, this last understanding of the place of 
Mexico in the age of imperialism will help Chicanos and Latino 
Sojourners in the united snakes to see that 'cultural awareness' 
and 'enrichment' fall away to nothing but decadence and parasitism 
in light of imperial National, and therefore cultural, opression 
of our people (proletariat, bourgeois, peasant) and domination of 
our land. 

Fuck imperialism in all its forms. 

-- A reader in Berkeley, CA, 5 May 2000. 

More on mysticism & religion 

Dear MIM: 

Yes, I received "What is MIM?" and no, it did not answer my 
question on religion. You imply that communism and religion are 
not the same thing! Come on comrade, as much as you read, you mean 
to tell me you can't see that by extension EVERY organization 
(business, political or social) is religious in it's makeup. So 
when you say religion is the opium of the masses, what you are 
saying is organization is the opium of the masses! But yet you 
want to organize! Organize what? Organize thought which is 
belief...but I won't go there yet. First let me discuss your 
"stages." First stage: Seize state power. Second stage: Socialist 
period = teach unity, justice and materialism (the antithesis of 
unity) Now let me say on unity. You and I both know unity is not 
the ends but only a means to an end, which is POWER. You espouse 
unity as some utopia goal which is synounomous with peace in the 
minds of the masses, so while you appease and placate them with 
utopia, you achieve of the concrete ascending out OF the masses 
but OVER the masses. Now this mass, you ask to denounce their 
religion, their ethnicity, their culture, in effects identity for 
some colorless, odorless, "mass like gas" of people. But what can 
they achieve by denouncing his identity, his wholeness bo tbecome 
a part of another whole, another mass, another label, another 
religion, which communism is. And ironically, this mass goes 
against the third stage, dictatorship of proletariat. No, it is 
the dictatorship of the PARTY over the proletariat over the 
bourgeoisie. You and I both know communism is NOT democracy. 
Democracy isn't even democracy because people don't have the power 
but only the power to relinquish power. In communism, the 
religion, the party is god, and you better obey god! Like you 
yourself, you're only a pawn in the hands of the party. Men and 
women in which you don't know. You don't know their true 
intentions because many people have infiltrated organization and 
took over the reigns when in fact they were hypocrites who only 
used that organizations to further their own agenda. Now people 
like you , who may truly believe in this religion, are being 
duped, "opiated", and manipulated. You are a part of a mindless 
mass, devoid of an identity besides the one the party (your god) 
gives you! 

And Marx said, "let us make man in our own image" 

I know you, you the person, the individual human being will not 
answer this. Instead you'll probably send me more scripture, more 
dogma, more rhetoric that your god says MIM is like you yourself 
can't explain, can't conceptualize in a concrete manner. So in the 
closing, let the record revlect, islam is the only way. This is 
not the words of a zealot of fanatic, but the words of your worst 
enemy in a debate, anytime, but your greatest sympathizer 
individuallywake up, yo 

A RAIL comrade responds: Before I respond to what you wrote in 
your letter, I want to ask if you have anything to say about ITAL 
What is MIM? END that is not related to religion. There is a lot 
of information in the pamphlet, but you haven't really commented 
on any of it specifically. Communism and religion are not the 
same, as you say, because religion is based on mysticism and 
communism is based on materialism. Religion conflicts with and 
refuses to recognize scientific evidence as well as social 
progress. For example, religion refuses to recognize the fact of 
evolution and it (in most cases) condemns homosexuality. MIM and 
RAIL are not organizing thought, they are organizing people. They 
are not saying that people should "believe" something and then 
they'll be saved. They are saying to ACT on what is correct and to 
make a better world, not dream about one. I don't think that most 
people would think that MIM is espousing unity as its primary 
goal, at least not within u.s. borders. In fact, MIM does 
something of the opposite here in Amerika because MIM speaks the 
truth which most people in this country don't want to hear. And 
MIM never claims that socialism is utopia either. Religion can 
always have a better plan for utopia because it's only a dream and 
not reality. Socialism on the other hand, actually strives to 
achieve a real peace and justice for the majority of the world's 
people. As you say, dictatorship of the proletariat is not 
democracy. It is a dictatorship of the majority over the minority. 
The party is not God, as you say, and communism is not a religion 
because: 1. The party is made up of mere mortals who are 
accountable to the masses. 2. The party is not a static entity. It 
is one that progresses with the stages of revolution, with science 
and with the material conditions of the particular time. 3. The 
party uses materialism to determine its line and subsequently its 
actions. Please let us know if you have any other comments on MIM 
line. You don't explain in your most recent letter why Islam is 
the only answer, you only criticize MIM. If you think Islam is a 
better answer, why haven't you told us why? It is easy to 
criticize other people's ideas and work without providing an 
alternative. But MIM sees that as idealism that will lead the us 
nowhere.