MIM Notes # 222 Nov 15, 2000 Letters Ohio prisoner wants responsible youth brigade In your last letter to me, you mentioned the Black Panther Party's Breakfast for School Children programs. This caught my eye. I do have an idea that if put into effect would be very beneficial for children and parents all over the USA -- a year-round children's work program. This could hopefully prevent children from becoming gang-bangers. Children from ages 5-13 could go around picking up paper, cans, sticks, leaves, and planting flowers, trees, vegetables, etc. Children from 14-18 could cut grass, shovel snow, rake leaves, trim trees, lay sidewalks, dig holes for flowers and trees, etc. And this type of program could be done on Saturdays and Sundays all year round. There are plenty of trustees that work for the city that could monitor this and also put together a children's trust fund for every child in a bank account to help pay for their college. -- an Ohio Prisoner, 10 April, 2000 MIM responds: What you describe is something similar in form to Communist China's approach to youth as a resource, and to youth as the builders of society. During the Great Leap Forward period for example, China's communes instituted part- work, part-study middle schools. "Spending half their time in agriculture and related occupations many of these schools became self-supporting -- in food, at least -- which made possible a very much faster expansion of secondary education in the countryside."(John and Elsie Collier, China's Socialist Revolution. (NY: Monthly Review Press, 1973), p. 46. But MIM would not work for such a program to be administered by the u.$. government, because this government would not build a program in the genuine interests of youth or of bettering society. It is important for youth to have something that is both positive and constructive to occupy their time. But in capitalist society ideas about labor are very segmented. In the First World, adults view their time as being sucked away by jobs that are mostly without meaning. Children are barred from many means of contributing to society because they are thought to be too young or inexperienced. Maoism is superior to capitalism because it believes in bringing out all individuals' full potential and creativity. MIM works to build those independent institutions that we are strong enough to support -- like MIM Notes, Serve the People Free Books for Prisoners and Prisoners' Legal Clinic programs, our Internet website and other projects. We urge individuals of all ages to become involved in building institutions of the oppressed that can serve the needs of revolution. Tibet and the Chinese revolution The Tibetans allege that Communist China has taken much of their culture and heritage and subjected them to "thought reform" interrogation that was a torturous and demanding ordeal. They say this was by orders of Chairman Mao, and the [Gang of] Four. What truth is there to these statements? --an Illinois prisoner, 14 February, 2000 MIM responds: The general points to remember about Tibet, China and Maoism are: (1) for 700 years prior to the Chinese Revolution, no country had recognized Tibet as an independent country, this was not a new thing of Maoism to call Tibet a part of China; (2) as Maoists, MIM recognizes the right of the Tibetan people to national self-determination, including the desire to be free of current repression by the current, state- capitalist Beijing regime; (3) prior to Liberation, Tibet was a feudal country with the pious Dalai Lama as chief feudal lord and a slaveowner -- his family alone owned 4,000 humyns. For all of these reasons, it is important to ask which Tibetans are appointed as the spokespeople for the nation in the reports that you read. The Dalai Lama's slaves viewed the Chinese Communists in quite a different light than the Dalai Lama himself. It is indeed true that the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) repressed the "culture" of feudalism in which people were treated "no better than a yak," and that those who had owned people as property were indeed stripped of this property. Naturally the Communist-led Tibetan government sought to eradicate feudal thinking that supported viewing humyns as property and seeing some people as more worthy of being able to eat than others. Similarly, rather than being warehoused in prisons as those who go against the grain of imperialism are today, spies in China were reformed in their thinking and returned to their home countries. See Allyn and Adele Ricketts' book Prisoners of Liberation for the peaceful methods that were used to persuade these two former spies to respect the national sovereignty of China, and to see the lives of Chinese, Koreans and other nationalities as being as important as their own. Note: For more reading on Tibet, see article from MIM Notes 52 "No Country Recognizes Tibet", Movie review "Seven Years in Tibet", and an article from MIM Notes 189 "Bourgeois Press Weakly Debunks Dalai Lama." MIM gets direct about good looks You're cute so why are you so angry and suspicious? Feminism is for homely women. It gives them a voice because no one else will pay them any mind except other ugly women. In your case, you defy the feminist movement by being attractive. So why all the fuss and paranoia? --Internet reader October 17 2000 mim3@mim.org replies: There might be some readers who think MIM is too removed from reality and does not know what this reader is talking about. Quite the contary, MIM does know, and has developed an analysis of the perquisites of good looks. When a womyn is very attractive, yes MIM is aware what kind of privileges she may obtain. Men volunteer to take out her garbage, paint her house, pay for dinner, theater etc. etc. Men will do many, many things we would ordinarily expect from a slave and would never expect from the most determined employment recruiter. The typical pseudo-feminist will say this attention is only sexual harassment and rape. This is not MIM's view. The reason imperialist country wimmin don't rise up in revolution against patriarchy is that the patriarchy doles them some privileges, something like "pay them any mind." We believe this letter-writer is responding to a previous email message pointing to our discussion of Catharine MacKinnon on the web. http://www.angelfire.com/ma/mim3/ Maybe the reader likes the photo of MacKinnon on that page or maybe the reader is speculating on my looks. Nonetheless, we will point out two things. One is that the motivations for saying something and the truth of it are two different things. It could be true that feminism is adopted by ugly wimmin; however it could also be true that feminism is still true. If one in four wimmin in the United $tates are raped and the cause of that is consumption of pornography as MacKinnon says, then it doesn't matter much whether an ugly persyn says it or a cute one does. Such feminism would still be true. To be scientists of revolution, we have to devote 95% of our energy to seeing truth in substance and spend less energy examining motivations of speakers instead of what they are saying. So-called "post-modernists" including pseudo-feminists are trying to drag the world into a scientific ditch by always focussing on who is saying what as if there is no scientific truth. Secondly, the message from our reader nicely sums up a point MIM has about gender privilege. It is in fact true that attractive wimmin receive privileges from the patriarchy. Amerikan wimmin are oppressors, even in gender issues for where they stand on the beauty totem-pole, among other reasons. Attractive wimmin often receive the power to rule leisure- time, the sphere of time outside of work. They can translate that power into money as well, whether as pop stars, actresses or prostitutes. Modeling and prostitution are areas where wimmin make more money than men in the United $tates according to MacKinnon. Even the richest and WASPiest man cannot buy his way into the privileges that come with good feminine looks and with all the elite degrees he can buy he will never teach himself the skills necessary to be a high-priced hooker, who is a member of the gender aristocracy. The only thing close to equivalent in biological men is the attention and money lavished on pro-athletes. MIM believes we must reject this leisure-time centered privilege -- the privileges that excellent athletes attract to themselves and the privileges that attractive wimmin have. We call these privileges gender privilege. As we explain in our article defining gender (1), we believe there is some root of this in humyn developmental biology. Others we call reductionists or post-modernists might say that gender privilege is strictly cultural. If pernicious gender privilege is rooted in biology, it is possible that medicine will progress so that some day every persyn is able to choose his or her looks and athletic ability, with greater ease than choosing a hair dye. Currently, in the most leisured societies, in the imperialist societies, very old wimmin do not receive much gender privilege; although they may have accumulated material privileges from a youth of gender privilege. As wimmin get older in imperialist society, they develop more of a stake in the system economically, but they lose some gender privilege. Older wimmin who reject imperialism and their own pasts may make a disproportionate share of good feminists. Hence, it is not surprising that revolutionary movements will have to do battle with gender privilege, especially in imperialist countries. Historically, youth staff the revolution, and men play a disproportionate role. One of the key reasons especially in modern history, is that young biological females have gender privilege. While oppressed young men go to war and prison, young wimmin stay out of the direct clutches of the state so that they are accessible to men. Young wimmin's rejection of politics under imperialism is to embrace their leisure-time roles and privileges. For this reason, it will be important for revolutionary men not to leave gender issues only to wimmin in the imperialist countries. For there to be wimmin in the revolutionary movement, there will have to be battle with pseudo-feminism as fierce as the battle against revisionism. The privileges and powers of fathers are the root idea behind "patriarchy" -- control of children and wimmin. Biological wimmin who also have control of children and power over other wimmin should be considered patriarchs too, but the really difficult point is MIM's point about the gender aristocracy, who in this case can be young, attractive wimmin: they are sometimes the most ardent defenders of patriarchy, the way the labor aristocracy can sometimes be the most ardent defender of capitalism. People with a little privilege may be most gung-ho to defend it. Defeating the Cosmopolitans and Mademoiselles is a large chunk of what MIM has to do in the imperialist countries.