Inside this issue: Poverty in Latin America, independent institutions for the Black Nation ------------------------------------------------------------------------- RAIL Notes RAIL Notes RAIL Notes RAIL Notes RAIL Notes RAIL Notes ------------------------------------------------------------------------- A publication of the Revolutionary Anti-Imperialist League Summer/Fall 1996  *** *** What is RAIL? ***  The Revolutionary Anti-Imperialist League (RAIL) is a mass organization of anti-imperialists led by the Maoist Internationalist Movement (MIM). RAIL is for anyone who supports self-determination for all peoples including the necessity of armed struggle against imperialism. The only requirement for joining RAIL is the recognition that RAIL will be led by MIM. RAIL members should not attempt to conceal this fact when working amongst the masses. In practice, accepting MIM leadership will mean that RAIL chapters do not accept the leadership of other organizations or worked out lines. RAIL, P.O. Box 3576 Ann Arbor, MI 48106-3576  *** *** AZ Pigs say "lock em up!" ***  Phoenix, Arizona-Sheriff Joe Arpaio, chief pig of Maricopa County, is well known in Arizona and all of Amerika for making a media circus of state terror against oppressed national Black, Latino and First Nations peoples. For this he has won the admiration of the bourgeoisie and the labor aristocracy such that his opponent is so certain of Arpaio's victory that he has withdrawn from the 1996 electoral race. In 1993, Arpaio used the media hysteria over a carjacking at a Scottsdale shopping mall to create a posse of volunteers from the labor aristocracy and the bourgeoisie to assist the official pigs in spreading terror against oppressed nationals. The people arrested by this posse were not violent criminals but primarily third world people committing crimes of survival, including shoplifting, p[rostitution, and carrying a concealed weapon without paying the $50 fee plus the $200 cost of the required training classes. Not satisfied with this media attention, Arpaio proposed creating a fence to surround Maricopa County as a means to stop drug trafficking, but even his bourgeois allies had to laugh that proposal down. Then Arpaio decided that if locking proletarians up in greater numbers was not sufficient terror, he could worsen the conditions under which they were jailed. Chain gangs were created in which inmates at the Maricopa County Jail were required to perform slave labor or face solitary confinement. When overcrowding became a problem, Arpaio promised the public there would never be a "no vacancy" sign on his jail, and so the tent city was formed at the Durango Jail. Male inmates were housed in tents with no air conditioning despite temperatures which reached 121 (degrees) F in the summer of 1995. Cooked meals were replaced with bologna sandwiches. Coffee was no longer served. Drug tests were instituted. Arpaio defended these changes by saying, "If you can't do time, don't do the crime." This belies the fact that 65% of the county jail inmates have not been convicted of any crime except that of being too poor to make bail and are awaiting trial. The bourgeois-democratic standard that the accused are entitled to be treated as innocent until proven guilty is shown not to apply to First Nations, African-Amerikans and Latinos. In the latest move to gain publicity, Arpaio has decided not to discriminate on the basis of sex. Now women are being transferred to the tent city and plans are underway to put women on chain gangs. This is the only kind of sexual equality the bourgeois state apparatus offers oppressed national women. RAIL contends that true sexual equality is only possible under socialism. Although there have been no riots or work stoppages at the Maricopa County Jail thus far, both male and female inmates are continually provoked, and repression breeds resistance.  *** *** Malcolm X in Michigan ***  On Saturday June 8th and Sunday June 9th, Ann Arbor RAIL held an event showing a two part video series called "The True Malcolm X Speaks". Both tapes contain video and audio footage of Malcolm X delivering some of his most famous speeches as well as video footage of related events. RAIL showed these tapes because of the major contributions Malcolm X made to the revolutionary Black nationalist movement in the US. RAIL believes that revolutionary nationalist struggles under the leadership of a Maoist party are the best way to end oppression of Black people in North America. In this collection of speeches, Malcolm X very clearly illustrates the importance of national liberation over integration. Part one on Saturday attracted several people interested in learning more about Malcolm X. Unfortunately, discussion after the film was brief and limited. RAIL was too quick to jump to talking about revolution without first building up more interest in the idea. RAIL also didn't act very quickly in initiating the discussion so many people lost interest almost immediately.  Sunday went much better. Fewer people came, but the discussion that followed was much longer and addressed many different aspects of Black nationalism and the racist U.S. government. Most of the talking was done by the people who attended the event and not the organizers. One important lesson learned from the night before was that it is essential to stimulate discussion among people or we will get nowhere.  We talked about integrationist strategies versus nationalist strategies and quickly concluded as a group that integrationist strategies have yet to really change anything. We went on to talk about the outrageous growth in the prison population and the disproportionate number of Black prisoners. This led to a brief discussion of Amerikan history, in which everyone agreed that Amerika was never a free country. We also discussed the similarities between the situations Black people in Amerika were faced with in the 1960s and 1990s. After discussing the prison issue, the bombing of MOVE in Philadelphia, the burning of Black churches all over the south, Mumia Abu Jamal, poverty, welfare, and police brutality we decided as a group that if there had been any change in the lives of Black people in Amerika, that change was for the worse. We did not win anyone over to Maoism, but no one should expect to make that much progress in the space of one discussion. The important thing was that we did encourage people to begin to address these issues from a revolutionary perspective. Some people already had and it was useful to have a chance to show those people where RAIL stands on questions of national liberation. Best of all, we learned from our errors on Saturday and corrected ourselves on Sunday, proving that failure can often be a springboard to success.  *** *** Environmental conservation requires national liberation ***  Boston, MA - MIM and RAIL showed two films and hosted a speaker for our event Capitalism and the Environment. The first film No Grapes documented Latino farmworkers struggle against poisonous working conditions harvesting grapes in California. The film exposed Amerikkkan agriculture as based on the toxic colonialism of oppressed nations. Amerikkkan agriculture is colonialism because it subjugates entire nations - Third World nations, Blacks, Latinos and First Nations (American Indians and other indigenous peoples) - to feed the white nations of the First World. It is toxic because the pesticides and poisons make oppressed national workers and their families sick or kill them. The film documented some of the independent organizing efforts of the Latino farmworkers and their struggle to build public opinion against the grape growers. The second film, Deadly Deception, exposed General Motors' role in developing nuclear weapons and how, in order to make money building bombs, GM exposed factory workers to deadly radiation and lied about the risks. The film was good insofar as it showed the need for regulating big corporations and doing away with nuclear production, but bad because it focused entirely on the white workers involved in production. MIM and RAIL's speaker, a local RAIL comrade, called Deadly Deception "a whitewash" because it ignored the plight of oppressed nation communities entirely. For instance, the movie talked about a Department of Energy nuclear weapons plant in Hanford, Washington, and the bad conditions workers faced there. However, it did not mention that the plant is on stolen Yakima Nation land. The Chernobyl-style plant - which closed in 1987 - caused far more damage to the First Nation Yakima people than to the plant workers themselves. In July 1990 the US government admitted dumping nuclear waste illegally near the plant . In April 1991, the government admitted dumping 444 billion gallons of water laced with plutonium, strontium, tritium and cesium into the neighboring river - just 30 miles upstream from the Yakima reservation. The First Nation community's food and water supply is now irreversibly poisoned. The speaker said s/he did not point this out to minimize the plight of the plant workers, but to point out that mainstream and even Leftist environmental activists ignore oppressed national communities in favor of white society. The speaker pointed to mining in North America as a good example of toxic colonialism. One third of all US low sulfur coal mining, 20% of all known US oil and natural gas extraction, and over half of US uranium mining is done on First Nation reservations. Nearly 100% of federal uranium production is done on reservations. In the Southern Arizona copper belt, two thirds of US copper comes from the Papago Nation reservation which has been gradually taken away by Congressional decrees beginning in 1920. In 1952 a mineral extraction agreement was set up between the Navajo Tribal Council and Kerr-McGee Corporation on Dine Nation or Navajo land (UT, AZ, NM, CO). Throughout the 1950s ventilation was not operating properly and wages for 100 nonunion Dine employees was $1.60, only two thirds of the off-reservation rate. Low wages, a guaranteed labor force, almost no severance tax and no safety regulations made this operation extremely profitable for Kerr-McGee. The uranium ran out in 1979 and Kerr-McGee closed their Shiprock facility in 1980. After Kerr-McGee's abrupt departure, 71 acres of radioactive tailings with 85% of their original radioactivity were left 60 ft from the San Juan River - the only significant water source in Shiprock. Lung cancer, leukemia, cleft-palate, and other birth defects are now prevalent at Shiprock and all the other Native communities downstream. All together there are 42 uranium mines, 7 mills, 4 coal strip operations, 5 coal power plants on the Navajo reservation exploiting and poisoning the Navajos for the benefit of white Amerikans who get cheap electricity and big corporations who reap huge superprofits. On the Lakota or Sioux Nation territories there are over 5000 uranium claims and a lot of coal mining in the Black Hills "National Forest" (which is stolen Lakota land). On June 11, 1962, 200 tons of radioactive tailings (the contaminated waste from nuclear mines) washed into the Cheyenne river near Pine Ridge Reservation. When the reservation requested clean drinking water, the Bureau of Indian Affairs consented but provided the condition that the water would not be used for the Native people's consumption but only for cattle. Not surprisingly, increases in lung cancer and birth defects followed. In 1972, the US National Academy of Sciences as well as the Trilateral Commission submitted reports to the Nixon administration designating Indian Country - the Four Corners area (UT, AZ, NM, CO) and the Dakotas, Wyoming and Montana - a "National Sacrifice area" meaning that it should be rendered uninhabitable in order to supply white Amerikkka's water and energy needs. The proposal - fittingly dubbed Project Independence - shows that Amerika's energy independence comes at the expense of oppressed nations. The speaker pointed out that designating Indian lands as National Sacrifice Zones and exploiting other nations' resources for Amerikan energy independence is not just a part of the Republican agenda and not just a Nixon administration plot. The plan is bi-partisan and its widespread support in Washington DC exposes the futility of relying on the democrats or any other politicians to prevent the genocide of indigenous peoples. The speaker also pointed out that all US nuclear tests have taken place on indigenous land. Over 600 tests alone have been perpetrated on Shoshone Nation land in so-called Nevada. The speaker said that the analysis of toxic colonialism applies equally well to Blacks, Latinos and the First Nations. Black children are 2-3 times more likely than whites to suffer from lead poisoning at all income levels. Three-fifths of all Blacks and Latinos, 15 million Blacks and 8 million Latinos, live in communities with uncontrolled toxic waste sites. Half of all Asians, Pacific Islanders, and First Nations live in communities with uncontrolled toxic waste sites. According to the Commission for Racial Justice of the United Church of Christ, race is the single most significant variable in the placement of commercial hazardous waste. According to the National Law Journal in 1992, 'white' hazardous waste sites get cleaned up faster and more comprehensively and the polluters are punished significantly more severely. The speaker said that once you accept toxic colonialism as the best concept for explaining environmental destruction you are committed to ending the unequal power between groups that results in dependency, exploitation and repression. You are committed to building independent institutions to struggle for the decolonization and liberation of all oppressed nations. This is why it is important to engage in genuinely revolutionary movements that support Blacks, Latinos and First Nations as well as Third World and Indigenous peoples around the world. Groups like Greenpeace and Earth First! are good insofar as they build public opinion for environmental struggles or oppose US militarism, but they don't even attempt to end US domination over the continent and the world. Ultimately, this latter task is what we need to do if we want to defend the earth and the peoples of the earth. The speaker briefly touched on the need to replace capitalism with socialism and central planning - though s/he explicitly did not support a single socialist government in North America, but advocated establishing many sovereign and independent states corresponding to the many different nations inhabiting the continent. The point was that without some kind of joint industrial/national planning and major restraints on corporations and profiteering, there is no way to end the waste and deliberate pollution of the environment. During the discussion which followed, we had a chance to explore this topic in more depth. One participant said that we should support "good companies" that don't pollute the environment and treat their workers well. Another person said that we should buy organic produce "even if it means going without" other things we might like. The MIM and RAIL comrades pointed out that buying from "good companies" or "organic" food products is already a sign of relative affluence not available to the majority of the world. "Good companies" exist because of the abundance stolen by Amerika from the oppressed nations. Revolutionaries do not revel in their excess consumption but seek to eliminate it. Secondly, "good companies" - because of the rules of the market - do not operate as efficiently as polluters. Because they spend more money in order to be eco-friendly, they don't compete as well and may lose money. The point is not to foster a few small eco-friendly companies but instead to replace the entire industrial-capitalist order with self-reliant ecological socialism. One participant - who had also argued for buying organic foods - said that it didn't matter that Amerika was bent on the genocide of the First Nations because there were non-Native people who kept their "ideas alive". She made a number of offensive comments that exposed the insidious side of New Age spiritualism. While constantly referring to American Indians in the past tense - as if First Nations only existed in history books and in old Westerns - she pretended that there was only one indigenous culture instead of thousands of distinct national cultures; and that white New Age spiritualists had successfully absorbed the sum total of Indigenous knowledge, thus eliminating the need for Indigenous peoples at all. Finally, she said, you don't have to fight imperialism at all, just drop out and live a morally pure existence on the margins of Amerikan society. MIM and RAIL were not convinced. The First Nations, along with oppressed nations from every place on Earth, are fighting the good fight against imperialism. The answer is not to drop out and keep one's hands clean, but rather to get down and dirty and defend real live people instead of ideas. In fact, moral purity is an impossibility when you are living under apartheid. Kibbutzim in occupied Palestine and communes in South Africa or North America are no escape. The only solution is revolution. The only way to save the Earth and the peoples of the Earth is smashing imperialism. Taking that road means building independent institutions of the oppressed as well as public opinion in support of real change. This article and the RAILer's presentation were based on Ward Churchill's excellent book Struggle for the Land: Indigenous Resistance to Genocide, Ecocide and Expropriation in Contemporary North America (Common Courage Press, 1993) and M. Annette Jaimes' equally exceptional anthology The State of Native America: Genocide, Colonization and Resistance (South End Press, 1992).  *** *** Anti-student censorship and paternalism at the University of Massachusetts ***  June 23, Amherst, MA-Student activists from an organization sympathetic to RAIL are battling two parallel censorship problems at the University of Massachusetts. In the Campus Center, which is one of the few high-traffic areas in the summer, activists have been prevented from setting up an information table, although large corporations and the police have been allowed. Outside of the building, the New Students Program "Advisors" (student chaperons) keep on harassing literature distributors, and have called the police on activists. According to Esther Salas, the vending coordinator for the Campus Center/Student Union Commission (CCSUC), there is no tabling in the summer because it is too much work to oversee. The CCSUC is a student organization that sets the policy for the two buildings. However, a number of corporations including Baybank, Fleet bank and Peter Pan buslines have been granted exceptions. Salas distributed a letter to Campus Center administrators asking them to prevent student organizations from tabling. She listed 4 "reasons". The first 3 were about options for students to set up tables at other parts of the year. The last was mention of a closet the New Students Program has for literature from student organizations. Further attempting to define the scope and direction of student-led organizing, she wrote "We ask that the various student organizations take advantage of the above to publicize their organization and functions to their main target-the students." In conversation, Salas further explained that the reason that the corporations come is because of the New Students Program. The banks need a parent's permission to open bank accounts, and the bus line gives parents schedules so the parents will know that their children can get home. The police table-which isn't on Salas's exception list-serves to tell parents how safe the campus is. What this all translates into is the fact that the corporations and pigs put forward an image that the University find complimentary. Student organizations, particularly the ones with revolutionary politics and who prioritize mass work, are much more difficult to control. The activists responded by writing a flyer: "Free speech" isn't free-unless you own a bank "UMass censors student groups" The activists explained what happened and finished: "Restricting the freedom of ideas should be counter to UMass's mission as a public university. This case clearly exposes that UMass's loyalty is to corporations, not the students. While "free speech" is obviously limited within capitalism, it is a necessity for fight for every little "right" we can. "What you can do: "1. Call CCSUC Vending Coordinator Esther Salas at [413] 545-0198 and complain about CCSUC censorship of students and their pro-corporate stance. "2. Sign our petition against UMass censorship. "3. Work with us to spread revolutionary ideas as widely into the campus community as possible. The petition read: "We believe that restricting students from tabling in a student-funded building is not only unjust but a violation of the First Amendment." Much to the chagrin of University bureaucrats, we expanded our mass work beyond incoming and current students to include parents touring the campus. We gave out hundreds of flyers and got over 100 signatures on the petition on our first day of the campaign.  New students insulted  The New Student Advisors (chaperons) have been on the front lines of trying to keep revolutionary ideas away from open-minded young people. They have been telling students not to talk to RAIL (both in front of activists and before the students ever see the activists). It's obvious that these advisors are acting on orders from above, because each year they are more aggressive against revolutionary activists. One advisor, Jeff, was particularly hostile, but he was also useful because he exposed the paternalist line of the New Students Program. He saw us petitioning against Campus Center censorship outside the building and tried to convince us that the ban on tabling applied outside too. Failing there, he tried to win us over by explaining that there were new students around, and that they "weren't ready for this yet." The activist requested that Jeff say this in writing, as the activist had been having some difficulty convincing other people that the Advisors were actually saying this garbage. Unfortunately, the activist was a little too bold in making this request, and things got a little ugly. Jeff then asked a whole serious of pig questions, which the activist refused to answer. Jeff then retaliated by calling the police. Luckily the police didn't have a problem with free literature distribution and signature gathering. Later, the same advisor announced to a group of several hundred new students-as if the students couldn't decide for themselves-that they didn't have to sign the petition. Just the previous evening, the activists had watched "Battle of Algiers" while working on a mailing. In this movie, 3 and 4 year- olds, under the leadership of the National Liberation Movement, clear the Casbah of drunks, and a 7 or 8 year-old steals a microphone from the French police to denounce them and stir up the scared adults against the French colonialists. If this young child can decide to risk death for national liberation, MIM thinks that 17 and 18 year-old students can decide whether or not they like the politics being presented by campus activists or the censorship by the campus administration in an attempt to "protect" them from an open mind.  *** *** Mail from our comrades... ***  Build independent institutions for the Black Nation  Dear RAIL, (1) Had a good showing of A Rustling of Leaves. Good discussion. Following up on getting more people to do Philippines work. (2) We're having a debate on electoral politics on the 23rd of this month. We know it's going to be well-attended. On that subject, some analysis, and a couple of practical questions. Basically, we're saying that Blacks gained more during the "Black Panther period", i.e. the period of revolutionary upsurge in Amerika, early 60s to roughly 1976, than during the following rollback period. Blacks gained because of the GLOBAL revolutionary upsurge. The US tried to by them off with reforms/bribes to distract them from the revolutionary road. In the following period, a huge increase in Blacks elected to office accompanied by no gains/setbacks economically and politically for the Black nations. Lots of Blacks in office and nothing to show for it. Can you help us out on statistics. We have all the prison statistics we need. But, can you provide for us or direct us to sources for: (a) numbers of police murders of oppressed nation people per year and ESPECIALLY (b) statistics on the number of Blacks elected to office since the mid-70s. General observation: reformist electoralism is RAMPANT in the Black Nat ion. I've been reading a lot of rap/hip-hop magazines. The best one i've found so far is Rap Pages (June 96). Really good article on prisons, and the privatization of prisons. Lots of facts and statistics like has been printed on the pages of MIM Notes and RAIL Notes for some time now. Good article on the Zapatistas. They emphasize that this is an oppressed nation struggle (although not in those words). They identify the enemy as "corporate capitalism", (which is better than the Zaps, who see "neo-liberalism"). But, they point out the spontaneous nature of the Zaps -headline quote: "In fact our only aspiration is to change the world: the rest we've just been improvising." (Marcos) - without any analysis or criticism of it. Having said all that, the most encouraging thing about this issue is Blacks looking to themselves and another oppressed nation struggle (the Zapatistas) for solutions, and "revolution" is seen as a positive solution. BUT: "Hate the system? Change the system. Vote...casting your ballot in local, state and national elecons does make a difference...To not vote is an act of cowardice. Register today!..." I could cull a lot of other quotes like that from this issue. And i haven't mentioned the very interesting article about Sanyika Shakur. But before i write a full-fledged article... This magazine is published in Beverly Hills, CA. I'm guessing that people in CALRAIL are hip to it and wondering what they (or anybody else) has to say about it.? (3) Please send 100 copies of the RAIL prisons pamphlet. (4) Looking forward to hearing more about the Red Flag Art and Literature publication. Not as much interested in your reply to my blether as in what you are doing. Thanks. In struggle, MORAIL   Someone suggests: I think the proper answer (in combination with what was already put forward about Black reformism) is that the reformists have their tactics, and we revolutionaries have ours. We prove we are not dilettantes by "doing what needs to be done": building independent institutions of and for the oppressed, and building public opinion for North American national liberation struggles and socialist revolution. The point is to outwork the reformists, and thereby shift the center of the debate over tactics.  RAIL Comrade adds: Its important to stress building independent institutions of the oppressed. Any reforms that are dependent on the US government's "dispensation" get pulled away from the oppressed when the new administration changes. However, if you have a privately run Black school system, self-defense committee, food cooperative, bookstore and library, medical unit,etc, the Black community is insulated from the changes the white power structure chooses to make. As far as Black candidates go, you have to be clear who they are going to be accountable to, who is gonna have the real power, and whether the reforms they make will be dependent on government dispensation or able to function independently. Until Black communities have independent power, their candidates will have to bow down - for money to run for election, for money from the governor and state legislature in terms of mayors, for positions on committees in the House and Senate, etc. - to the representatives of the very people oppressing the Black community. Its always the white corporations, the white state legislatures, and the majority white congress that has the real power. Even more importantly, the only reforms that count are ones that can't be taken away by white folks, That means independent institutions - not something government officials are generally in a position to build. This - the need for independent institutions - is a point oppressed national reformists generally concede and is one reason Black revolutionary nationalists can support Farrakhan even if Farrakhan himself is not revolutionary. If we can push reformist allies out of the electoral trap and into building independent institutions and independent power for their communities we will advance the struggle.  ...more mail  To the folks at MIM Notes: I just finished readin the May 15, 1996 edition of MIM Notes and I really enjoyed it. It is always stimulating to read news that the corporate press does not print, particularly in regards to Third World struggles. I attended a RAIL event this past weekend (a presentation of "A Rustling in the Leaves," a documentary about the anti-imperialist struggle in the Philippines) and it was very eye-opening. Before this event, I had accepted the State/corporate press line that the U.S. bases in the Philippines were closed. Thanks to your special update on the Philippines, I am better informed. I have a few criticisms, and I hope you accept them with open minds (I know that you will feel free to return criticism).  First, I do not think that it is tactful to use the word "pig" in reference to law enforcement officers. Certainly, many of them have been brutal, and their role may include defending State and capital interests, but not all of them are brutes and this is not their only role. While I don't wish to completely lapse into a Nuremberg defense, most cops are just doing their jobs. I have had the opportunity to see what police are like in different contexts; cops in my rural hometown were harmless, but the ones in St. Louis clearly give priority to the wealthy over the poor. I think this indicates that it is more the environment than individual personality that influences an officer's behavior, and I think you would agree that it is more important that we change the structure about them than call them names. Secondly, I do not understand the logic of this claim: "Because women never consented to being born in a world where they have unequal power with men, all sex involves coercion, therefore all sex is rape." I truly hope that I am not raping my wife every time we have sex! Despite some lingering social prejudice about our respective roles as husband and wife, I think the power dynamic between us is relatively egalitarian. Either your line is missing some premises or just needs rewording, or I have false consciousness of my gender relations. Finally, I do not understand why white collar-workers cannot be considered proletariat. To exclude them is to falsely judge them on the basis of their current form of employment rather than with their potential consciousness. Even socialist-minded workers must find a way to survive in a capitalist economy. Please recall that there were French nobles who renounced the wealth and privileges of their titles when the revolutionary context made such action practical. I hope that my criticisms have not overshadowed my appreciation for this publication. I haven't fully defined my ideological niche, but I am somewhere on the Left. Enclosed is $22 for one year subscription and "a complete list of progressive books and pamphlets." Keep up the good work. -a friend in the midwest  Dear Comrade: Thanks for your letter. We definitely do try to keep an open mind when engaged in political struggle. Its great that you wrote us and great that you bought a subscription to the paper. 1. Pigs: Huey Newton, leader of the Black Panthers - the US Maoist vanguard in the 1960s - has a great little discussion of why we call cops "pigs" in Foner's book Black Panthers Speak [distributed by MIM]. Basically, calling cops pigs is an easy way to give mental power to the people. The cops are in oppressed nation communities - Black, Latino and First Nations - in North America, representing white settler Amerika. In cities, the cops are there explicitly to create a border between el barrio/ the ghetto and the good middle class/ white uptown/suburbs. As Huey said: the pigs are an occupying army in the ghetto. And since the pigs have the guns, the status, and the friendly TV shows like CHIPS and NYPD Blues, oppressed nations need to defend themselves mentally as well as physically. That means forming new political organizations as well as new political terms. And while we can agree that there are some "good" men and women who are cops - i.e. people who sincerely want to help and not hinder the development of oppressed communities - we have to say firmly that they are on the wrong side. The cops are the military arm of the settler/imperialist US government. People who want to help by carrying guns and night sticks, should be carrying them for the Black, Latino, and First Nations - not for Uncle Sam. 2. All sex is rape: The first point to understand is that attaining someone's "consent" for something is not as easy as people often think. For instance, when Uncle Sam held a plebiscite in Puerto Rico to see whether the P.R. nation wanted to be a state or a territory, they thought they were getting P.R.'s real opinion i.e. consent. Unfortunately, Puerto Rico - as a dependent imperialized colony was not in a position to say what it really wanted. So too in Palestine, the Palestinians are not able to "consent" to an agreement with the Israeli occupying government for the simple reason that they are in a position of relative powerlessness. The Puerto Ricans and Palestinians would have to get it together and build their independent power to give consent as equals. The situation is the same between people. Women as a group have less power than men as a group. We live in a society where sex is caught up in the eroticization of dominance and submission - i.e. unequal power relations are part of what "turns people on" in our society. That's one reason why pornography and what we normally call rape are sexy to so many people - patriarchal society eroticizes - makes sexy - people fucking and getting fucked. This situation -patriarchy - is based on unequal power between men as a group and women as a group, it is not a personal thing. Individuals cannot escape the hegemonic rape culture - the fact that lesbian relationships replicate several patterns of abuse and gender roles in heterosexual relationships is a proof MIM often gives of this latter point. Anyway, without talking about anybody's particular circumstances, rape is nonconsensual sex and no women consented to having sex in a rape culture where fucking someone (in the sense of fucking someone over ) is considered sexy. You can't live in a society where women are raped and battered every few minutes and be immune from that. The best you can do is (1) build an organization that will overthrow patriarchy and (2) engage in least coercive relation possible, i.e lifetime monogamy or asexuality. MIM Theory 2/3 ($6) is our most comprehensive item on the topic. And Catharine MacKinnon's book Feminism Unmodified is very good as well. 3. A white proletariat? Its important to distinguish between revolutionary individuals and revolutionary groups. As you rightly point out some people are revolutionary -like certain French nobles were - even though their group as a whole (the French nobility) are not revolutionary. Groups as a whole follow their group material interests. Individuals sometimes go against their group's best interests for moral reasons. That is righteous and we call it committing "class suicide" because you -in effect - renounce your group interest for a "higher calling" ( to borrow some religious propaganda). Whites in North America are a privileged group - they benefit from imperialism of oppressed nations in North America and around the world. Whites are not in favor of giving back the First Nations the land the whites stole from them. Whites - white-collar and blue-collar alike - are generally not interested in letting the Guatemalans grow corn to feed themselves instead of growing coffee and bananas for Amerika. Whites would rather have toxic waste dumped on First Nation reservations or in the Third World then having it in the suburbs. That is white people's perceived group interest. Some whites - even white-collar or rich ones - care more about justice than white people's group interests. The really consistent ones become revolutionaries and side with the oppressed nations against Amerika -"class suicide". These revolutionaries can keep their white-collar jobs as long as they donate some of their stolen loot to the Party in order to overthrow imperialism.  What do you think? Write back and we'll continue the discussion. Also RAIL Notes - RAIL's 4 page newsletter that comes out every other month - has a copy deadline on June 21 for its next issue. Could you write a story or submit some artwork?  In revolutionary struggle, RAIL  *** *** Poverty worsening in Latin America ***  A new study by the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean concluded that the so-called economic reforms of the 1980s have done absolutely nothing to improve the lives of the majority of the population in Latin America. Even the short quotes and bourgeois analysis in the Washington Post paint a picture of a widening gap between rich elites and the poor majority; economic policies in the way of stabilizing prices and decreasing social welfare expenditures that make Latin America profitable for imperialists but unlivable for the people; and compradore governments afraid of imminent revolution in many countries. The study indicated that "the poverty rate in Latin America is now higher than it was in 1970." Per capita income was $1,820 for Latin America and the Caribbean in 1993, the last year for which statistics are available. These numbers -which can never adequately represent the desperate poverty and misery imposed on the Third World by the murderous imperialists and their Third World stooges - show that no matter how good capitalism looks in rich First World countries and a tiny minority of hand-picked developing nations (like Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the south Korea), it can only mean poverty for the majority of people in the world. The study recommends "reforming the way pensions are managed to increase savings...using tax breaks to increase business investment... making credit accessible to small and medium businesses." These reforms only benefit the tiny middle class and wealthy elite of Latin America and do absolutely nothing for the vast peasant majority who need sweeping land reform. Land reform can never be accomplished under the present imperialist dictatorship because it would mean expropriating the "property" of the very people calling the shots now. In truth, the United Nations and the imperialists who fund it, have no interest in solving poverty and only want to stall revolution so they can keep repatriating their superprofits. Along that line, the study concluded that "the principal reason the region has not fared better is its modest growth rate, which is around 3 percent annually." Gert Rosenthal, the secretary general of the commission, "said that the region must achieve a sustained growth rate of 6 percent - roughly what Chile, the region's role model, has attained." Chile - which has been a haven for imperialist exploitation since the U.S. assassinated and overthrew Salvadore Allende's progressive, democratically elected government in 1973 and installed the Pinochet dictatorship - has expanded its middle class and enriched its military-neo-colonial elite, at the expense of its impoverished majority, particularly the indigenous peoples of the area. Large houses - staffed by servants captured as children from indigenous groups, renamed and educated to clean or cook - sit in close proximity to shanty towns. Poor children - who attend inadequate government schools - watch as their wealthier peers walk to British schools in their freshly pressed school uniforms. Not only would doubling the growth rate in Latin America do nothing for the vast majority, but neither the U.N. or any of the countries in the region are in a position to administer the kind of sweeping environmental regulations and industrial reorganizations that are necessary to increase production without destroying the already damaged ecology. Increasing the number of cars for the middle class there - by planting more cash crops or mining more raw materials for export to the First World - makes life for all but the bottled-water drinking minority an impossibility. Only because the imperialists own stock in water bottling facilities is the idea thinkable at all. Looming large in the minds of the UN, imperialists and compradore elites is the threat of revolution. According to the study, "this [poverty and rich-poor gap] presents a not too healthy social panorama with latent problems that could make it difficult to sustain the process of development." The Washington Post writer asserts that "frustration over the economic model is now one of the principle causes of civic unrest in the region." The frustration is not merely intellectual in origin however, the immiseration is physical, overwhelming, and insoluble without revolution.   Notes: Washington Post. April 13, 1996. p. A25.  END -=- RAIL Notes -=- Summer/Fall 1996