["RCP" "Steel" on September 22, 2002 at www.2changetheworld.info 
"Re: MIM's Line vs. the RCP: Real World Implications"]

The MIM's main problem is that they confuse the 
situation here in North America with colonized 
Africa. 

The situation in South Africa, Namibia and 
Zimbabwe resembles more of MIM false description 
of this society. There the social polarisation is 
much worse and IS heavily differentiated among 
different ethnic groups particularly Blacks and 
Whites. However, what did Black Nationalism do to 
improve the situation? 

However much the MIM seeks to deny it their line 
would only lead to the most virulent nationalism 
NOT socialism. So how did the ANC and ZANU-PF fair 
in post-apartheid South Africa and Zimbabwe?

The results isn't hard to see. Not much have 
changed for the common people in both South Africa 
and Zimbabwe. In Zimbabwe the white agri-
businessmen might have been evicted from their 
former lands, but who replaced them? The masses? 
Or is it more of the same rotten politics as usual 
with only a ethnic facade to cover-up the ugly 
truth? 

I don't think anyone except the most cynical 
revisionist could claim that Mugabe is a Marxist 
pursuing socialist policies rather than just 
looking after himself and his cronies by using the 
land issue as a convenient excuse. 

Perhaps a MIM want a more militant type of 
nationalism. Take the example of the Tamil Tigers 
then. Are they socialist and progressive? Well, is 
it progressive to kill people (this include 
unarmed, neutral civilians by the way) based 
primarily on their ethnicity? No? Well, lets 
follow MIM's line to its logical conclusion. The 
Tamils are no doubt an oppressed minority within 
the Bourgeois Sinhalese dominated state. Sections 
of the Sinhalese population perhaps even a 
significant majority has more material and 
employment privileges than the Tamils which makes 
the Sinhalese workers as a class a labor 
aristocracy and reactionary. 

Remember using MIM's "class analysis" isolated 
individuals don't count towards constituting a 
class so even though there may be pockets of poor 
exploited Sinhalese workers who have no interests 
in supporting the continuing repression of the 
state they are at best neutral and at worse 
irrelevant. Now in generalizing that most of the 
Sinhalese population including the "privileged" 
workers are nothing but reactionary in outlook and 
have a common shared interest in the continuing 
repression of the Tamil minority then it makes it 
perfectly logical sense to kill Sinhalese 
civilians armed or unarmed. The workers are 
privileged labor aristocrats and through their 
labor they are indirectly supporting the war 
machine against the oppressed Tamil nation so why 
not massacre them? 

Which group also have a similar "class analysis" 
and follows this line to its logical nationalist 
conclusion (hint. it makes no difference to them 
whether its American soldiers or American 
civilians they kill).


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mim3@mim.org replies for MIM:
The above is one of the more desperate reaches by the "RCP"
on the "split in the working class" question we have seen yet,
and it was unrebutted by anyone on the "RCP" web space as of
October 7th, 2002.

The "RCP" is putting forward a lot of the complaints/whining
from its own members, youth brigade and newbies that complain they don't
see any practical difference whether the united $tates is mostly exploited
people or not. The reason for that is that the "RCP" does not train
people in basic methods, questions and tools and from time-to-time, the
"RCP" finds it necessary to preoccupy their circles with trivia as a 
substitute for a Marxist understanding. That's why they try to break down
the question this way above.

It's horribly inaccurate. First of all the ANC in "South Africa" follows the "RCP-USA"
line on a multinational proletariat lumping together Blacks and whites in "South Africa." The
ANC does NOT have the MIM line at all, and never did.

Second of all, MIM never supported the political movements or leaders mentioned above. Steel is
merely fantasizing that oppressor nation people are equivalent to super-exploited Tamils or
Zimbabweans. We do not intend to indulge that fantasy and analogy.

In short, "Steel" seeks to blur the line between friends and enemies by the use of analogy. Yet it
only goes to show that the "RCP-USA" cannot distinguish oppressor nations from oppressed
nations and exploiters from exploited or if it does distinguish them, it does so only so as to
intentionally smuggle the enemy into the proletarian camp.