Correction A comrade correctly criticized MIM Notes 215 for running certain statements by a BAYAN-International member unrebutted. In his speech to a conference in southern California, Cesar Taguba said, "The privatization of state assets in energy, transportation/ communication, banks, hospitals, schools, etc., deregulation of the banking and financial system, liberalization of trade and investments, place the entire country under the mercy of foreign corporations." This fails to clarify that the Philippines would be oppressed by foreign capital even without the privatization of state assets -- as indeed has been the case throughout the most of the last 100 years. Focussing on the privatization of state assets lets the bureaucrat capitalists off the hook and opens the door for neo-colonialism. (Bureaucrat capitalists are those who amass capital through their government positions). Taguba also said, "We have to actively combat attempts at pitting the workers in the advanced capitalists countries against those in the 3rd world." This reads like a call to oppose oppressor-nation chauvinism, but by referring to "workers in the advanced capitalist countries" without qualification, it covers up the material root of chauvinism and undermines the struggle against imperialism. The majority of the populations in the imperialist countries are not workers. Many are members of the traditional petty-bourgeoisie -- in 1995, for example, over 58% of employed Amerikan civilians were in "white collar" occupations. Most of the rest are in the labor aristocracy; they enjoy high wages -- compare the 1995 average hourly manufacturing wage of $12.50 to the $0.50 an hour Chinese workers get -- and a petty-bourgeois mode of life.(1) Only on the margins of the Amerikan economy, where minimum wage laws are not enforced, can we speak of an exploited working class. The privileges shared by the majority of Amerikans come from imperialism. The imperialists use a portion of the superprofits they extract from the oppressed nations to bribe the oppressor nations. Thus, appealing for unity between workers in the oppressed nations and the petty-bourgeoisie in the oppressor- nations ITAL on the basis of alleged common class interests END obscures the class nature of imperialism and encourages chauvinism in the name of a false internationalism. (For more on this topic, see MIM Congress resolution and quotes from Lenin and Mao on page 4.) Distinguishing between the international proletariat and the labor aristocracy is essential to Marxism-Leninism-Maoism in imperialist countries. By printing this article by BAYAN-International without comment -- which is a legal mass organization in an oppressed country and does not claim to uphold Maoism -- MIM Notes abdicated its leadership responsibilities in the English-speaking imperialist countries and internal semi-colonies.