Letters

Anarchist supports MIM prison work, opposes MIM

Dear MIM,

I recently had the opportunity to read two issues of MIM Notes 
which my cellmate in the disciplinary segregation unit received. 
Having stopped my own subscription several years ago because I do 
not agree with your party on several points, I have always been 
supportive of prisoners' struggles and was pleased to note that 
Under Lock and Key still plays a prominent role in your 
publication.  Prison issues are severely neglected by most leftist 
groups, although the struggles we prisoners endure represent the 
epitome of the problems of this capitalistic society.

I make no secret of my anarchist beliefs, which is why I 
originally chose not to read MIM anymore.  While I salute MIM and 
my imprisoned brothers  and sisters in the struggle for seeking to 
break the bonds of oppression, I cannot support the idea of 
replacing one form of governments with another.  No matter how 
well-intentioned, whenever a group of people have power over 
another, corruption and oppression will exist.  Our present 
government once claimed to be accountable to the masses, and I 
have a very hard time believing that it would be any different 
under any other party.

I fully expect my belief in anarchism to be attacked by MIM, as 
I've seen  other dissenting views attacked.  However, I've seen 
the difference that  anarchists have made in the world, from 
housing and garden collectives in St. Louis and Detroit, to free 
school classes in Chicago, or feeding the homeless in a myriad of 
cities, or defying the FCC with broadcasting    pirate radio.  And 
let's not forget the events of last November in Seattle, where the 
WTO was effectively shut down on November 30th by thousands of 
demonstrators, many of them anarchists.  Or the Anarchist Black 
Cross, which works to aid political prisoners world-wide. 
Anarchism today is much more than theory or rhetoric -- it is 
working.  

I thank you for your continued struggles to help prisoners and 
look forward to any comments you may have on this letter.

An Illinois Prisoner 21 June, 2000

MIM responds: We've never denied that many anarchists are very 
active. We question the effectiveness of their actions to bring 
about fundamental social change.

Most of the examples you cite are of anarchists setting up small 
charity programs within the constraints of capitalism. MIM 
considers this a form of "sub-reformism." Where reformists at 
least are thinking about making changes on a societal scale, sub-
reformists place moral purity ahead of making broad real-world 
changes. As a result, they often end up simply putting a happy 
face on oppression.

Of course, many of the anarchists you mention place these charity 
programs in the context of a strategy for social revolution. 
Problem is, people have tried this strategy for over 100 years now 
and they have never come anywhere near the kinds of gains made by 
communists.

Spain was maybe the closest the anarchists came to winning a 
revolution, but even there they blew it because of their obsession 
with moral purity. Emma Goldman bragged that the Spanish 
anarchists would rather fail than use authoritarian means! To 
paraphrase Engels: Has Ms. Goldman ever seen a revolution? It's 
the most authoritarian act there is! In a revolution one group of 
people imposes its will on another by force. See MIM Theory 8 "The 
Anarchist Ideal and Communist Revolution" for a discussion of the 
Spanish Revolution and other anarchist movements.

On the other hand, the gains of the communist movement have been 
tremendous. Lifespans in China doubled under Mao. In 1949, the 
year the Communists established the People's Republic of China, 
the infant mortality rate in Shanghai was six times that of New 
York City's. By 1972, the rate in Shanghai was lower than that in 
New York. These things were possible because the Chinese 
Communists used armed force to kick out the imperialists and their 
lackeys, because the Chinese Communists used state power to 
repress those who would profit from starvation and oppression. Mao 
admitted that the Communists used authoritarian measures -- but 
they used them to free the majority from the oppression of 
imperialism, feudalism, and capitalism.

As for the WTO protestors -- again, we don't deny that they were 
out there, or that some of the anarchists had a more radical 
critique than many of the marchers. But we evaluate their actions 
in the light of the strategy they put forward for social change. 
In particular, many (but not all) anarchists lent their weight to 
the overwhelmingly Amerikan-chauvinist tenor of the 
demonstrations. See our study pack "Imperialism: The highest stage 
of global capitalism" for a discussion of the Seattle protests and 
the "anti-globalization," anti-NAFTA, anti-GATT, etc. movements 
(available for $5, make checks out to "MIM Distributors).

All that said, there is a place in mass organizations like the 
Revolutionary Anti-Imperialist League and United Struggle from 
Within for anarchists or others who have fundamental disagreements 
with MIM but are willing to work under MIM's leadership. Perhaps 
they see MIM's practice as unique and important; perhaps they are 
not convinced line is decisive. There are many who disagree with 
us now, but can make important contributions and may yet from 
practice why MIM's cardinal principles are correct.

Voting rights denied to politically invisible felons

It was not until the 1965 Voting Rights Act that literacy tests 
were suspended and Blacks got the "privilege" of voting with 
federal protection. Amerikkka has a tainted history of innovating 
means and methods of limiting the minority's electorate power. 
Another example is the Three-Fifths Compromise that was drafted by 
Roger Sherman and Oliver Ellsworth in 1787, that proposed that one 
slave would be counted as three-fifths of a free person, purely 
for electoral districting.

As it stands now, there are 46 states that suspend a felon's right 
to vote while they are incarcerated in state prisons, 29 states 
bar voting while people are on parole, and in 14 states felons are 
banned for life from voting. This is a most alarming circumstance, 
when you consider that Blacks constitute half of the inmate 
population nationally. In other words, this will preclude a 
substantial number of Black males including myself from meeting 
the ballot indefinitely.

This comes as an interesting paradox, when you have most state 
legislators and prison commissioners purporting to taxpayers that 
their objective is to rehabilitate criminals, so that they can be 
re-integrated as functionally productive members of society.

What I'm hearing in the duplicitous language of prison 
commissioners is an ostensible attempt to placate the public's 
fear of hardened criminals returning back to society, while at the 
same time state legislators are taking the initiative to 
disenfranchise ex-offenders -- of which the largest majority are 
non-violent -- by stripping them of their right to vote on issues 
that affect them civilly.

Let's not forget that ex-cons pay state, city, school, and 
property taxes as any other citizen. But we are incessantly being 
denied the right to cast our formal opinions or vote in areas of 
activity that affect us as tax paying citizens. At what level does 
successful integration back into society take place, when society 
congenially relegates ex-offenders to the margin of society?

Synopsis: once you've been incarcerated, you are disenfranchised 
and thereby stripped of your rights as a citizen. But at the same 
time, you are still held accountable to the obligations incumbent 
upon all other non-felonious citizens, such as paying taxes. You 
no longer have any power with the direction of your life, the 
district, city or state in which you live. You cannot be a part of 
or contribute in this case to the African-America force that's 
vying for political ground. In all actuality, we as prisoners and 
ex-offenders have been victimized and made to be outcast of our 
communities through political bigotry.

By being deprived of the one constitutional right that makes a 
difference in a democracy - our vote - In this case, Black, ex-
cons are then ostracized by African-American politicians as well 
because without a vote, they are no longer an asset, but a 
liability. This unfortunate plight of Black prisoners and ex-
offenders further reinforces the apathetic ambience held toward 
the rights of felons by those agencies and organizations that are 
in a position to challenge such unfair legislation.

Ex-offenders are placed in a peculiar situation in Amerikkka 
whereas they are invisible except in cases when they become repeat 
offenders. Then, these incorrigible parolees become the poster 
boys for all of us reformed prisoners and those parolees that have 
made a successful and functional transition back into society. The 
question I would like to ask, is when does a non-violent 
rehabilitated ex-offender stop paying their debt to society?

A Texas prisoner

MIM replys: The writer illustrates one of the hypocrisies of 
Amerikan democracy which largely affects the internal semi-
colonies -- not only Blacks, but also First Nations, Latinos, 
undocumented immigrants, etc. These groups do not enjoy even the 
legal formalism of bourgeois democracy, like the vote.

The writer also illustrates why bourgeois politicians, even those 
from oppressed nations, take up positions against prisoners and 
other oppressed groups. What say do they have in a bourgeois 
politicians career?

MIM disagrees, though, that the vote "is the one constitutional 
right that makes a difference." We start by asking, "Difference 
for whom?" There are billions of people worldwide who are impacted 
by Amerikan military and economic policy also do not have a vote. 
Is the presidential election in any way a referendum on the 
imperialist system? No. And if it were, the people most affected 
don't get to vote. We stand with Marx and Engels, who said that 
voting amounts to the oppressed choosing their oppressor -- but in 
the case of Amerika, it's more like the oppressors choosing who 
will lead the oppression while the oppressed look on.

Voting can not change the status quo of imperialism because any 
viable candidate has to bow to the interests of the capitalists. 
It is not possible to get elected in this country without vowing 
to uphold the imperialist system which brings in the wealth for 
corporations and the workers. The majority of Amerikans either 
support the republocrats or don't care about the elections because 
they are happy enough with the status quo. Amerikan imperialism 
buys off its workers with superprofits stolen from the Third 
World. The relative wealth in this country keeps the majority 
happy and quiet.

Rather than fight for the vote for the oppressed nations who are 
being pushed out of the system, MIM fights for an end to the 
system. Having a say in which imperialist will lead the 
exploitation and oppression of the world's workers is not 
something worth fighting for. Ending U.$. imperialist rule is well 
worth fighting for. Rather than fighting for the vote or 
organizing voters to support supposedly alternative candidates who 
don't stand a chance of winning, MIM calls on activists to work 
with us to overthrow imperialism.