Some selected points on humoring the RCP=U$A line before dismissing it April 13 2004 RCP=U$A fan Kasama says the following about the RCP=U$A view of a multinational proletariat within u.$. border: "The working class in the U.S. is a complex, stratified, multinational class. It includes immigrants and non immigrants. And it brings together tens of millions of workers of a hundred different nationalities (because the U.S. has always been multinational, and brings immigrants from all over.) "The u.s. does not have a black working class (over here) and a Mexican working class (over there) and a working class of different Native peoples (in a dozen other different corners.) That's not how this place works." mim3 for the Maoist Internationalist Movement responds: Let's approach this by humoring it and even assuming that it is true. However, let's go all the way into the subject and not hold anything back. Some of you are already saying to me "you gotta be joking," because the only way you can imagine humoring the RCP=U$A line is by doing a lot heavier drugs than you've ever used. All right, not by using drugs, but try to just remove yourself from the real world, float above earth, maybe in one of those Apollo space ships and see that glob of land that includes the united $tates. Are you picturing it? Good. Now imagine on that land a McDonalds, GM etc. and imagine they are huge and employ millions of people of various colors and cultures. Got that? Good. Now you are humoring the RCP=U$A line. Everybody who works for a wage or salary they are going to count as proletariat. (Never mind that Marx said the petty bourgeois journalists and lawyers also have to work. All right, just don't imagine any petty-bourgeoisie breaking up the multinational proletarian unity you see, but do this bit of fantasy without taking any LSD. We do not intend to provoke drug abuse.) "Wow, I'm really tripping now! I see those workers together at the factories and shopping malls. (Woops, was I supposed to imagine sales workers being more numerous than factory workers?) Well, by gosh, they are a multinational proletariat! I see it! I see it! Now I know what RCP=u$A is talking about!" Good. Keep tripping. What do you see now? "Wow, I see Florida sticking out into the oceans! What's that? Woops, I see the Hudson Bay. Was I supposed to see that?" Sure, RCP=U$A has its fans in Kanada too. That's cool. Keep on tripping. "Woah, woah, I see McDonalds, GM, Ford etc. and I see Kanadians working for them too! Those imperialists sure are multinational corporations!" Good, keep tripping. What do you see now? "Woah, I can see how the RCP=U$A concluded there's a multinational proletariat! There it is! I see them up there from the 'Northwest Territories' to Florida. And it's just like Stalin said, a contiguous territory, one unifying language, a common culture and all the communities doing business with each other!" Just a minute. "Yeah, and they're raising a flag expressing their multinational unity! It looks like it has 50 stars on it!" Just a minute. "Wow, and they've got one party with some dude with a French-looking cap on! They're gonna take it all down!!!!!!" Hold on there. "Hold up. There seems to be some turmoil. Some commotion. I see workers talking with workers up close so I can't make out what they are saying. I can't make out what is going on yet." Yes? "Oh shit, it seems that there is some kind of nationalist outbreak among the workers. Not to worry though, the vanguard party is working on it." Yes? "Damn it. Some people in the northern regions are saying they are separate and have their own vanguard party. F***ing nationalists! However, the dude with the French-looking cap has gathered hundreds of proletarians together and he is heading over to the source of the trouble. I'm sure it will be cleared up soon." Yes, yes?! "OK, the dude with the French-looking cap is talking to the f**ing nationalists gesticulating. There is someone talking to him. He is pointing this way and that way. He keeps pointing to these weird offices standing in the middle of no where and a bunch of cop cars and guys carrying binoculars and guns!" And? "Well the face-off has cooled off. There's no scrunched up shoulders among the workers anymore. It's going to end peacefully! The guy with the hat is shaking hands with the nationalists, saying 'you are right!'" Look, are you sure you're still tripping? "Yes, yes, it's all good! Now they are taking ACTION. They've got this pick-up truck dragging a trailer and its dropping white paint. They're starting from those offices in the middle of no where on the East Coast and driving toward the West Coast." Are you sure that's not already reality and you're still tripping? "OK, the nationalists are working on things north of the white paint and the dude with the French cap is taking his followers down south of the white paint. I guess they agreed to have two revolutions." That sure doesn't sound like tripping to me. "It's cool. I'm still tripping. Look! I see the vanguard party of the South moving down into the southwest region. Damn, it's another commotion!" That's OK. We knew the revolution wasn't going to be all smooth. "Oh shit, the workers ain't making no sense! One group is speaking Spanish to the other group speaking English! What the hell? I see Mexican flags and some weird word starting with 'A' on the posters." Keep tripping. "Oh, it's OK, they got themselves some translators and they're trying to be more orderly. But now I see a womyn and some dude walking up to the leader with the French cap. The dude is carrying a Mexican flag and the womyn is saying something to the vanguard party." Yes, yes? "The dude with the French cap is still arguing. She's pointing to the funny looking offices in the middle of no where in the North and all the white paint on the ground. He's saying, 'but you do work for McDonald's don't you?' She's nodding." So what happens next? "Oh, there it is. The dude with the French cap said: 'You're wrong.' She's still pointing to the McDonalds franchises in the northern regions, talking in Spanish. He keeps saying 'you're wrong.'" What's it all about? "Oh look, there's a reporter on the scene covering the conflict. The reporter says, 'Comrade, why do you say the dude with the Mexican flag and the womyn talking about some country starting with 'A' are wrong?' French cap dude says, 'because they all work for our Kinkos, McDonalds, Burger King and our GM, Ford and Peabody Coal.' The reporter asks, 'but don't they also do that in Canada and you said that those were right, so what's the difference?'" It definitely sounds like you're not tripping. Don't be cheating now. "The French-capped dude is saying, 'those Canadians are right because they are not multinational, mainly just white.' Woops, scratch that. I wasn't tripping. He was really saying, 'those Canadians have a nation, because they don't have a conflict with the First Nations like in the southwestern United States.' Woops, scratch that. I wasn't tripping. The French-capped dude said, 'We recognize Canada separately because they speak a different dialect of English and Spanish doesn't justify a separate nationality.' Woops, scratch that. I wasn't tripping. The French-capped dude said, 'You can't have a nation unless your population is a majority exploiters. We want to keep those super-exploited immigrant workers for our own country.' Woops, scratch that. It was too realistic." All right, enough already. You tripped out as far as you could go and ended up going so far, you came back to reality. ********************************************* QED said for the RCP=U$A: "One chilling statistic: The poorest ten percent (economically) in the U.S. makes more than twice the top ten percent in Nigeria. Now standard of living is not just a matter of income (Peasants who grow their own crops often have no money but eat ok.) But still that is a stark example of inequality on the world scale." (Source: http://www.geocities.com/rosaharris76/subject.htm ) mim3 for MIM responds: This fact supports MIM line, not RCP=U$A's. Income is indicative, because people with assets also have income. If the top 10% in Nigeria can not pull down the bucks that the bottom 10% of the u$A does, it says something about the two groups' respective access to the means of production, globally in the case of the u$a. It's RCP=U$A saying a combination of contradictory nonsense. For all the people who cannot follow this discussion, what with references to Marx and statistics and math, at least try to understand this and stick with it, because if you do, you will figure out a lot of connected things: where is this huge Third World exploiter class that RCP=U$A is talking about? Where do they provide any facts justifying their line that 10% of each country is enemy? They're virtually telling you above that they made their line up out of thin air and you need to ask yourself, why? Taking them at face-value, they HAVE to tell such nonsense stories, because they seek to represent the Amerikan exploiters in particular. If the Third World exploiters were not so big and powerful, the RCP=U$A would have to explain where all the surplus-value went, if not to the Third World rulers. If the Third World rulers are not absorbing tons of surplus-value, we have to conclude it went somewhere else. In other places, the RCP=U$A will admit that the rate of exploitation is HIGHER in the Third World than in the u$A. So humor that. Where does it lead? The surplus-value extracted in the Third World: a) Got taken away on a space ship to Mars. b) Made the Third World bourgeoisie fatter than the imperialist country bourgeoisie. c) Slipped into the imperialist countries as surplus-value where it took commodity form but which RCP=U$A attributes to the productiveness of bankers, lawyers, salespeople, guards etc. They are also in other places adopting the MIM line that most of the world is under u.$. domination complete with comprador lackeys. What are those lackeys there for if not to ease the way of surplus-value into the imperialist countries? What is it RCP=U$A? There are comprador lackeys in the Third World or there is a bourgeois enemy in the Third World proportionately as large as the u.$. enemy, which you say is 10%? Which of your own lines are you going to choose? Lackeys paving the way for imperialism or mechanically equal enemies in both imperialist countries and the Third World? Workers even more exploited in the Third World and generating a surplus that makes their bourgeoisie bigger and grow faster than the Western imperialists or surplus-value is going to the imperialist countries? Go ahead RCP=U$A. Show us the gigantic Third World exploiter class to explain your line. Come with facts instead of assertions for once.