I N T E R N E T ' S M A O I S T BI-M O N T H L Y = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = XX XX XXX XX XX X X XXX XXX XXX XXX X X X X X X X XX X X X X X X X V X X X V X X X X X X X XX XXX X X X X X X XX X X X X X X X XXX X X X V XXX X XXX XXX = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = THE MAOIST INTERNATIONALIST MOVEMENT MIM Notes 122 SEPTEMBER 15, 1996 MIM Notes speaks to and from the viewpoint of the world's oppressed majority, and against the imperialist-patriarchy. Pick it up and wield it in the service of the people. support it, struggle with it and write for it. * * * WHAT IS MIM? The Maoist Internationalist Movement (MIM) is a revolutionary communist party that upholds Marxism- Leninism-Maoism, comprising the collection of existing or emerging Maoist internationalist parties in the English-speaking imperialist countries and their English-speaking internal semi- colonies, as well as the existing or emerging Spanish-speaking Maoist internationalist parties of Aztlan, Puerto Rico and other territories of the U.S. Empire. MIM Notes is the newspaper of MIM. Notas Rojas is the newspaper of the Spanish- speaking parties or emerging parties of MIM. MIM is an internationalist organization that works from the vantage point of the Third World proletariat; thus, its members are not Amerikans, but world citizens. MIM struggles to end the oppression of all groups over other groups: classes, genders, nations. MIM knows this is only possible by building public opinion to seize power through armed struggle. Revolution is a reality for North America as the military becomes over-extended in the government's attempts to maintain world hegemony. MIM differs from other communist parties on three main questions: (1) MIM holds that after the proletariat seizes power in socialist revolution, the potential exists for capitalist restoration under the leadership of a new bourgeoisie within the communist party itself. In the case of the USSR, the bourgeoisie seized power after the death of Stalin in 1953; in China, it was after Mao's death and the overthrow of the "Gang of Four" in 1976. (2) MIM upholds the Chinese Cultural Revolution as the farthest advance of communism in human history. (3) MIM believes the North American white-working-class is primarily a non- revolutionary worker-elite at this time; thus, it is not the principal vehicle to advance Maoism in this country. MIM accepts people as members who agree on these basic principles and accept democratic centralism, the system of majority rule, on other questions of party line. "The theory of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin is universally applicable. We should regard it not as dogma, but as a guide to action. Studying it is not merely a matter of learning terms and phrases, but of learning Marxism-Leninism as the science of revolution." -- Mao Zedong, Selected Works, Vol. II, p. 208 * * * IN THIS ISSUE: 1. KOREAN STUDENTS TAKE ON IMPERIALIST PAPER TIGERS 2. KKKLINTON PROSPERS FROM CHILD ABUSE 3. ISRAEL INCREASES EXPLOITATION OF IMMIGRANT WORKERS 4. LETTERS 5. RCP-USA: ABDICATION AT HOME, HEGEMONISM ABROAD 6. ALBANY MASSES EXPOSE BRUTALITY 7. MOVE VICTORY PARTIALLY OVERTURNED 8. FRENCH PIGS ARREST IMMIGRANTS 9. FBI'S POWER GROWS AROUND THE WORLD 10. IMPERIALISTS BUY COLOMBIAN ARMED FORCES TO WAGE WAR ON THE OPPRESSED 11. CAPITALISM IS ABOUT PROFIT, NOT DISARMAMENT 12. CUT OFF THE PENIS AND THROW THE MAN IN PRISON 13. BAD RIVER CHIPPEWA STOP TOXIC TRAINLOAD 14. AMERIKAN KULTURE: SUCK IT, FEEL SELF-PITY AND PERPETUATE PATRIARCHY 15. CPP STATEMENT: IN SUPPORT OF THE INDONESIAN PEOPLE AND IN CONDEMNATION OF THE SUHARTO REGIME 16. UNDER LOCK & KEY: NEWS FROM PRISONERS AND PRISONS * * * KOREAN STUDENTS TAKE ON IMPERIALIST PAPER TIGERS August was a month of anti-imperialist protests and clashes with the government by students in southern Korea calling for the withdrawal of US troops from southern Korea, unification with the north, and repeal of the National Security Law which bans contact with the north. On August 20th a police raid of Yonsei University, the location of the biggest protest this month, ended in the arrest of thousands of students, but the demonstrations and activism by these anti-imperialist students are far from over. The month of August is typically marked by pro- unification demonstrations in southern Korea, and activism is strongest among the university students. These students are led by the outlawed radical Federation of Student Councils or Hanchongnyon. The leaders of the student councils are the most radical of the campus activists. As MIM Notes reported in July of last year, leaders we spoke to all professed their support for socialism and Marx. The elections of these student councils is a democratic process that expresses the support by the study body for these activists in positions of leadership. TAKEOVER OF YONSEI UNIVERSITY The protests this August started as a peaceful three day festival at Yonsei University calling for unification with northern Korea and the withdrawal of the 37,000 U.S. troops stationed in the south. This festival was outlawed and after police troops tried to break up the gathering of thousands of students, the students took shelter in a University building. On August 15th over 6,000 students gathered at Yonsei to mark the 51st anniversary of the end of World War II that liberated Korea from Japanese colonial rule but led to the colonization of southern Korea by Amerika imperialism. Police again stormed the University and this led to a five day standoff between riot troops and students which ultimately ended in the arrest of close to 6000 students over the course of the seven days of protests.(1) At press time 462 student activists were formally charged as leaders in the protests, most for violence, interference in police duties and unlawful intrusion. Thirty-six members of the Federation of Student Councils (an outlawed organization) received added charges of violating the National Security Law which bans contacts with northern Korea.(1) PRESIDENT KIM LICKS AMERIKAN BOOTS Southern Korean President Kim Young-Sam attacked the student protesters saying "I will not tolerate pro-North Korean and violent student groups advocating communism." Kim, elected in 1993, is a former dissident himself who participated in the protests against the previous dictators of southern Korea but he makes a distinction between the "pro- democracy" protests of the past and the pro- unification protests of today which he now calls "pro-communism". While Kim may be among those lackeys of Amerikan imperialism who had an interest in overthrowing the previous rulers so that they could get some of the Amerikan privileges for themselves, the Federation of Student Councils has always led a strong radical student movement in favor of unification and against Amerikan imperialism. Kim said "Their line is identical with North Korea's, their action is not considered pure campus activism but must be condemned as a violent revolutionary pro-North Korean guerrilla operation. Such pro-North Korean violence will be sternly punished."(2) It is no surprise to hear a former protester of the repressive policies of southern Korea become a repressive dictator himself once he has been offered the privilege and benefits of working for Amerikan imperialism. The perseverance and continued strength of the student protests speak to the true sentiment among many southern Koreans opposing imperialism and supporting unification. Kim tried blaming the country's educational system for the protests and ideology of these radical students. He called on educators to correct the thinking of students who sympathize with northern Korea saying "those students follow north Korea ideology blindly..." ''Frankly speaking, some universities have virtually given up student guidance programs over the years.'' He said educators should revise anti-communist education that is no longer effective, although he did not elaborate on how this should be done.(3) Kim is not saying that southern Korea needs to give more information to its students so that they can make informed decisions, he is saying that they need to step up their efforts to brainwash their students into believing that imperialism is great and communism is evil. But MIM has found that southern Korean students are very well educated, no thanks to the courses offered in the universities. They spend many hours studying communist theory and history and many of them agree with MIM that north Korea is not communist but that unification of the north and the south and the ending of Amerikan imperialist rule over the south is an important battle to fight. Southern Korea underwent something of a democracy facelift after the overthrow of the U.S. backed dictator Roh Tae-woo and his military leader Chun Doo-hwan, most famous for their crackdown on a pro- democracy protest in 1980 remembered as the Kwangju Massacre. Kim, the new imperialist-backed leader, was supported as a more democratic President. Both Chun and Roh are awaiting the verdict of a trial for corruption and treason.(4) [They were convicted -ed] But this facelift clearly has not led to any substantive changes and the student protesters understand this and their demands correctly reflect what will be necessary to begin fundamental change: the expulsion of Amerikan imperialism and the reunification of the north and the south. The leaders of this movement will go even further and are clear about the need for revolutionary struggle to achieve the final overthrow of imperialism in the struggle for communism. STUDENTS ON THE SIDE OF THE OPPRESSED Two southern Korean students sent by Hanchongryon to Pyongyang began an indefinite hunger strike August 21st in the truce village in the demilitarized zone in north Korea. Before fasting Ryu Se-Hong and To Jong-Hwa issued a statement denouncing the Seoul government for "ruthlessly violating human rights." They said "(Kim's administration) should stop walking away and detaining the largest number of people ever in history and immediately release the students who fought a righteous fight."(2) The large student protests and the strong repression by the southern Korean government speak to the lack of democracy and free speech for the people of southern Korea. In spite of Amerika's claims, southern Korea remains a dictatorship: a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. This dictatorship is run by lackeys of Amerikan imperialism and the 37,000 Amerikan troops stationed in southern Korea are a constant reminder of the continued occupation of this supposedly free country. MIM supports the radical students in southern Korea who are on the front lines of the struggles against imperialism. Alongside the proletariat they represent a formidable force that is a strong ally of the oppressed of the world. NOTES: 1. Agence France Presse, 8/22/96. 2. Agence France Presse, 8/21/96. 3. United Press International 8/21/96. 4. The Guardian, 8/21/96, p.1 * * * KKKLINTON PROSPERS FROM CHILD ABUSE by a RAIL comrade August 23 -- Bill KKKlinton signed a federal law modeled after 'Megan's law' to keep records of all pig identified sex offenders paroled and the locations of those individuals. This law exposes the fact that the Amerikan injustice system incarcerates prisoners but makes no pretense about attacking the root cause of child abuse. Within six months, all police departments in Amerika will have a registry program tracking all prisoners convicted of sex crimes in every state they go. States will be required to inform each community when a person previously convicted in Amerika's kkkourts of a sex offense moves to their neighborhood. By mid-1999, the FBI will add the fingerprints and DNA of all "convicts" to this registry. Klinton supports the law "so that parents and police have the warning they need to protect our children"(1). Rather than attack the root cause, Amerikan solutions are aimed at individuals. Furthermore, it isn't *all* sex offenders who go to prison, only those who benefit the system least -- oppressed minorities. This political farse ignores that child abuse happens within the family more often than in any other situation. The patriarchal system that eroticizes submissiveness and helplessness remains intact. The belief in domination and ownership of youth stays intact. Both perpetuate child molestation. The patriarchal family is the sacred institution of a patriarchal society. Within the overall power structure, the patriarchal family is supposed to mimic in small scale the ideology of the whole. Parents own their children like pieces of property and treat them like an investment. If you give the little heirs a good bourgeois education and instill the correct values, those values and the family name will carry on. Instilling bourgeois values ensures that the status of the Amerikan family will continue to rise within the ladder of Amerikan settler privileges stolen from the Third World. Inherent to this ownership is the dehumanization of the children and the complete power dominance by the parents. Kids can't economically support themselves, have no organized mechanisms for self- sufficiency and have to obey all that is passed down from their parents who have the entire system to back them up. In these ways what goes on in the family is no longer up for debate, it is a mirror of the entire system. When parents force their children to have sex with them they are teaching children a real lesson about patriarchal society and the way that people are defined by their sexuality. Even while the majority of sexual abuse of children happens in the family, this patriarchal institution is being cherished and supported in society. No one out there is going to admit that just because children are powerless it is OK to molest them, but by the pure fact that the environment that the abuse takes place in, the patriarchal family, is cherished and supported in this society, then the acts within it are never even questioned. Amerikans do not question gender oppression. It never comes to KKKlinton's or Amerikkka's arguments that our society eroticizes youth, submissiveness and powerlessness. Neither ever wants to answer to the contradiction between advocating that the patriarchal family is at one instant a furtherance of Amerikkka's good values while at the next exempt from its oppressive practices -this law is not aimed at parental abuse of children it is aimed at the mythological child molester lurking in the playground. KKKlinton's advocacy of such a law is purely a ploy to get more votes from Amerikkkans. It instills the fear in people that anyone around the corner could be the one to get your kid. But does Amerikkka really care? Children aren't even considered human beings and are of absolutely no use to the system as youth. By supporting such a reactionary bill, KKKlinton and the rest of Amerikkka manages to expose itself one more time as oppressors of society. They support the physical, psychological and emotional torture that abused children endure. In the end the "get-me-re-elected" patriarchal Christian values talk that KKKlinton is spitting out is only going to give slack to all Amerikkkan parents who want to re-establish a "safe family environment" and imprison more poor men. Rather than look to the real culprits (mothers, fathers, uncles, friends) and the overall oppressive system that allows for such unmentionables to happen, white Amerikkka is going to applaud pseudo- "protection" of our children. If you really want to stop sexual violence and the overall oppression of groups, including youth, the system needs to be overthrown, not just a few more poor people thrown in jail. The youth of today have the ability to join with the oppressed masses because they can see what kind of future Amerikkkan decadence is creating for them. Youth rise up! Reject assimilation into decadent, rotting imperialist patriarchy! NOTE: Boston Sunday Globe, 8/25/96. * * * ISRAEL INCREASES EXPLOITATION OF IMMIGRANT WORKERS by MC12 In 1989 there were about 180,000 non-Israeli Palestinians with permits to work in Israel. But as part of Israel's increased oppression of the Palestinian nation, under the cover of the bogus "peace process," Palestinians are increasingly prevented from working within Israel's illegitimate borders. There are now only about 32,000 non- Israeli Palestinians with Israeli work permits.(1) But in a rich country like Israel, there are many low-paid jobs to be done, and few Israelis to do them -- like an Amerikan suburb. This shows Israel's parasitic settler character, like Amerika and South Africa, among others. So they increasingly rely on immigrants from outside of Palestine. The country issues about 100,000 legal work permits for immigrants per year, and there may be at least that many working on expired tourist visas. There are now up to 60,000 foreign laborers living in Tel Aviv alone. There are at least 74,000 foreign construction workers in the country. Altogether, non-citizens make up almost 5% of the population.(2) The greatest numbers of immigrant workers come from Asia and Africa, as well as Arab countries. Others are from Eastern Europe and Turkey, and South America. The immigrants have been brought into employment niches: Filipinos work in elder care and other domestic work, Rumanians work in construction, Thais work in agriculture, and so on. In the Ghanaian community, families pool money to set up daycare so that the Ghanaian wimmin have time to take care of the children in Israeli families.(2) The companies that hire these immigrants frequently take their passports, and then when they don't want them anymore turn them in to be deported, without paying their last paychecks, and with no punishment to the companies. Many workers also pay a deposit or fee for their jobs, but are legal hostages because if they leave the job - or are fired - they lose their legal status. Changing jobs also leads to the loss of legal status. The majority live in poor conditions without many basic services, in their attempts to make money to send home or save to bring their families. Some Jews who want a more theocratic state and religiously-defined nation object to this trend, and opportunistically use the bad conditions and pay to beef up their reactionary case. What really bothers them is that the new immigrants sometimes bring their families, they have children, and, to quote the dramatic words of one magazine, "The Jerusalem Report has learned that groups of legal and illegal workers are forming to demand full social benefits -- including health coverage, and schooling for their children."(2) One member of parliament was quoted as complaining: "We established a Jewish state, not a refuge for Africans and Asians" (apparently Eastern Europeans are not so bad, from his perspective).(2) The Jerusalem Report (whose story appeared the week before the New York Times ran a story with the same facts and angle), described the immigrants as "phantoms," adding, "The phantom Israel will be non-Jewish. It's children may lack even basic inoculations. And it could, eventually, become very angry about its status." These "phantoms" and their "phantom children," the article says, have many Israelis and the government "spooked."(2) Children of non-citizen immigrants born in Israel are not citizens. Non-Jewish immigrants are "acting less like sort- term guests -- and more like people who have moved in." The Israeli public was happy to see them come -- because Palestinians are feared and reviled -- but now they are upset that the religious basis for the nation will unravel. "I don't go out after eight at night anymore and I don't let my children out," one womyn is quoted as saying. "These people have to be removed."(2) The case of immigrants in Israel shows the relationship between nation and class in settler societies, as nationalities work in separate jobs and sectors of the economy. The result is a labor aristocracy in the settler society -- separated from the proletariat by their privileges, pay and non-productive work -- and a proletarian class made up of oppressed nationalities. The government has made a public show of dealing with the "panic," promising to cut down the number of legal work permits. But non-Israelis will continue to be the backbone of the real workforce as long as Israel remains a parasitic settler nation. The imperialists will attempt to pacify the labor aristocracy with get-tough language on illegal immigrants -- whether in Israel or North America -- but they know they need these low-paid workers in the current economic structure. Their continued presence is thus guaranteed, and the only question is how much they will be made to suffer in the "host" countries.(2) National borders used to enforce economic inequality are immoral, and as communists, all Maoists seek open borders as a step toward equality. In this case, we oppose the ejection of Palestinians from their jobs -- which increases economic deprivation in the Palestinian nation in the absence of their national self-determination -- as well as the exploitation of poor immigrants from other countries. In both cases Israel uses its power as an imperialist proxy to increase its wealth at the expense of the international proletariat. NOTES: 1. The New York Times, Aug. 19, 1996. p. A7. Many details in this story are lifted without attribution from the Jerusalem Report article. We're glad to see that competition among the capitalist press leads to such innovation! 2. Jerusalem Report, Aug. 22, 1996, p. 20. * * * LETTERS TO MIM PRISONER URGES ANALYSIS OF STATUTORY RAPE Dear Comrades, I just wrote a few days ago to let you know I received MIM Notes and to let you know of my new address (I was transferred out of the Supermax control unit). I am prompted to write again after reading your rape/sex analysis in the May Day issue in which you equate all sex with rape and do an interesting demonstration which shows just how blurry the lines can be between which people think they know about. I just wish you would have included an age-based analysis as well. For example, while many people would consider an 18 year old boy and a 17 year old girl a "normal" boyfriend/girlfriend relationship, if they had sex the boy could be charged with statutory rape. If the girl did not want to testify against her boyfriend, the state could then move in with all its oppressive power and threaten to jail her for contempt of court, as has happened many times, or she succumbs to the pressure and the boy goes to jail for 5, 10, or 20 years. And it doesn't even matter if the boy is 18, he could be a minor himself, as you know from the current case in Calif. of the 6-year-old boy being jailed on attempted murder charges. He does not even have to be older than the girl, as I recall a case of a 7 year old charged with attempted rape of a 12 year old. With 18 as the age of consent in most jurisdictions but average age at first intercourse in Amerikkka being 15 (meaning that many start at 12, 13, 14, etc.), we are defining our average citizens as rapists and giving the oppressive state apparatus the means by which to go after just about whomever they arbitrarily choose. If you do happen to be in a state where the age of consent is 16 (or even 14 in a couple) and have sex with someone that age and take a picture of it, then the feds will come and get you for producing "kiddie porn" and you'll still go to prison for 10 years. I know these law are applied in a racist way but I am a white man who was brought up as part of the middle class. I came of age in the 60's ever since I have considered myself a revolutionary. What many, especially white, people do not understand is that this can be used as a wedge to go after white people who understand and fight state repression. I have seen the need for revolution in this country for many years.... --A confused prisoner in CT June, 1996 MIM REPLIES: Revolutionary greetings! It is fitting that we received your letter at this time, as we recently completed a congress in which we addressed the very issue of statutory rape. Age is indeed an important factor to include in a comprehensive analysis of rape, especially as Dole and others are rallying for renewed enforcement of the reactionary statutory rape laws to feed the fire of repression of the oppressed. MIM opposes all rape and we are fighting for a society in which equality in relationships is possible and people are truly capable of giving consent. While doing this we recognize that under capitalism the rape laws are used to lock up the oppressed while ignoring one of the most common forms of rape (even by bourgeois standards) that happen in the home between parents and children. Under capitalism we concluded that supporting lowering the age of consent to 13 for statutory rape laws is a good way for MIM to expose these contradictions while fighting a potentially winnable battle that would reduce the number of people being locked up by the criminal injustice system. We do not recognize a consistent difference between 16 year olds, 15, 14 and 13 year olds that should contribute to one age serving as the dividing line for inability to ever consent to sex with an "adult". A high age of consent serves the reactionary purposes of the state in several ways. It gives the imperialists one more justification for locking away even more people. And it encourages a paternalist view of teenagers by suggesting that maturity is impossible. A large proportion of youth, 13 and even younger, are already sexually active. MIM does not think that one or two power differentials should be given special consideration for these youth who are capable of thinking and acting as adults. We do not think that teenagers are qualitatively less capable of making decisions for themselves than adults with regard to sex, at least when the sex partner is not a parent or caregiver. We also reject the fantasy notion that young people's first time having sex should be perfect, which the paternalists say the state must protect them for. Though MIM maintains that in an unequal society, real consent is impossible, we work to reform the notions of bourgeois consent to decrease imprisonment and illuminate gender contradictions more clearly. MIM has pushed for an analysis of the problems of gender under imperialist patriarchy. Look to MT2/3- -Gender and Revolution for a start. MT9--Psychology and Imperialism goes further into how age is related to gender. Use them and MIM Notes as tools to write your own articles dealing with gender, and help us chart new ground. SUPPORT BOOKS FOR PRISONERS Dear Comrades, I would like to join your Book Club. I don't have a million dollars so here's one book. "Solidad Brother" for the brothers under lock and key. I challenge the other MIM supporters to send 999.99 more! Power to the people, --A reader in the southwest. MIM REPLIES: Thanks for the contribution! For MIM readers who are unaware, our Book of the Month has two options: you send us a book a month which we will send to one of Amerika's prisoners, or, alternatively, you send us a million dollars and we'll send a book to a million of the prisoners in Amerika's gulags. Choose from a wide variety of Maoist, Black nation, First Nation, Latino classics. Join today! SUPPORT MIM TRANSLATION WORK! Revolutionary Greetings, First of all, I would like to thank MIM for answering my letter and sending me the latest issue of MIM Notes. I commend your effort in establishing a media that reveals the truth about the constant enslavement of third world countries at the hand of the imperialist pigs. I recently wrote a letter to MIM regarding my interest in actively participating in your organization. I am a twenty year old college student with lots of opportunities to reach a young audience. Furthermore, I live in one of the countries largest Latino population. Being an immigrant myself, I am aware as to how the political slime in the disguise of republicans and democrats, ignore our needs and only show their lying, disgusting faces during election time. I am very fluent in Spanish, being my native language and would love to help with Notas Rojas. Please let me know if there is anything that I can help you with. In particular, I am interested in aiding in the translating of documents. I am not aware if you engage in any letter writing campaigns but if so, I would be interested in helping out. Once again, thank you for your time and I look forward to hearing from you. -- A comrade in the east MIM REPLIES: Thanks for the letter. We're happy to hear you want to get more involved in working with MIM. Here's some ways that you can get involved: Your Spanish skills can be put to good use helping with Notas Rojas. If you see things going on in your community that should be reported, or anything in the media that you think should be reported on, please write stories for Notas Rojas. We need help covering more news, especially in places we are not yet covering. If you don't want to write stories, you can help out by translating any current stories in MIM Notes or Maoist Sojourner. Enclosed are copies of the latest issues. You can pick which stories you want to translate and just let us know which you are doing (anything but Under Lock and Key, poetry and letters is OK). If you are willing to take on bigger translation projects, MIM Theory, the theoretical journal of the Maoist Internationalist Movement, really needs help. We could assign you a whole journal (usually 100 pages) and you could work at your own pace. Just pick which of the above interests you and dive right in. We'd also like your help getting MIM's publications out to the people in [your state]. If we could send you a box of MIM Notes, Notas Rojas and Maoist Sojourners to distribute that would be great. You can leave these for people to pick up on local campuses, in stores (if they will let you), in laundry places, in the projects, in cafes and wherever else people will pick them up. You can also hand them out on the streets, or, if you want, you can sell them on the streets. If you can help us by covering the cost of producing the papers, we do ask for $20 for a bundle of 200. If you can't help we'll still send the papers if you will distribute them. Just tell us how many we can send and we will start mailing them out. Another way to get involved is to start working with the Revolutionary Anti-Imperialist League (RAIL). This is an organization formed by MIM for anti-imperialists. People get experience doing organizing work and learning revolutionary theory while being organized on a continental scale through RAIL. People in this organization agree to RAIL's line and actions being led by MIM and agree with the need for revolutionary armed struggle. If this interests you, you are welcome to join RAIL and get involved. Among other things, RAIL now has it's own newspaper that is currently printed inside MIM Notes every other month (a copy of this is included). RAIL carries out campaigns that include petitioning and holding educational events and protests. One big project that many RAIL branches have taken on is the prisons campaign. This has involved campaigning against repressive conditions in prisons, trying to win small reforms while also educating people about why we think prison repression will not end until capitalism is overthrown. We have petitions and posters that we could send you so you could start doing this agitation in your city. We also encourage you to subscribe to MIM Notes and MIM Theory. MN is $20 for a year (published twice a month) and MT is $5 per issue or $18 per year (4 issues a year). These are great educational materials and MIM needs the financial support to continue the work we do. Let us know which of the above things you want to get involved with or if you have other ideas, share those with us too. We look forward to hearing from you soon. * * * RCP-USA: ABDICATION AT HOME, HEGEMONISM ABROAD ABDICATION AT HOME As regular readers of MIM publications know, MIM and others have been working to unmask a police operation aimed at disrupting the work of the Communist Party of Peru (PCP, "Sendero Luminoso" in the bourgeois press), its supporters, and its potential supporters.(1) This operation has operated under many names. The most widely used have been "MPP-USA (Peru People's Movement, USA)," "The New Flag/La Nueva Bandera," "Luis Quispe" and "Marcelina Ccorimanya." Having noticed the silence of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA (RCP-USA)'s newspaper, the Revolutionary Worker, on the question of this Queens, New York-based police plot, a MIM supporter recently asked an active RCP supporter, "Do you guys have a position on the so-called 'MPP-USA'?" The RCP supporter replied, "No."(2) It is perhaps in the RCP-USA's interest to take this "non-position" position. Police provocateur Agent Quispe's entity serves as a second line of defense for the RCP-USA-led Committee of the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement (Co-RIM). The position of the RCP-USA and Co-RIM serves U.S. imperialism and U.S.-backed Peruvian fascism by treating capitulationists as though they were still part of Peru's vanguard party after they issued their call for capitulation. Agent Quispe sometimes wears a mask which criticizes the RCP-USA and the Co-RIM. But Agent Quispe's actual practice is to defend the Co-RIM by refusing to break with it organizationally, and by denouncing those who do break with it as glory-seekers, police agents, smelly, long-haired drug-users, and of course, splitters. MIM joins with others in support of the March 1996 Call for a World Mobilization Commission to defend the Peruvian revolution, which reads in part, "The opportunist leadership of Co-RIM, is the main cause of immobilism in the international movement in support for the People's War in Peru. Since October 1993 their nefarious activities have been geared to paralysing any show of support for the People's War and to cast doubts upon the revolutionary condition of [PCP] Chairman Gonzalo. Both bureaucratic organisms, the Co-RIM and the IEC [the Co-RIM- affiliated International Emergency Committee to Defend the Life of Abimael Guzma'n (Chairperson Gonzalo's birth name)], are not in any way politically and morally capable to call upon the masses and political organisations to the defense of the Peruvian revolution."(1) So with Agent Quispe acting as a second line of defense for the crypto-Trotskyist RCP-USA and its circles, it is perhaps understandable that the RCP- USA would refuse to denounce Agent Quispe's police plot. It is not excusable, however. The RCP-USA's abdication is at best the worst imaginable display of sectarianism, placing the RCP-USA's narrow interests above that of the masses. The RCP-USA, for instance, has expressed its support for Julian Salazar Calero, a Peruvian citizen now living in the U.S. who is threatened with deportation to the hands of the fascist Peruvian government which accuses Calero of being a "terrorist."(3) Calero, however, was apparently arrested as a direct result of snitch work by Agent Quispe. On May 10, only twenty days before Calero was threatened with deportation, Agent Quispe boastfully announced on the Internet's Marxism-list that one of his phony "MPP-USA"'s supposed members was wanted by the Peruvian authorities, and described the details of this supposed "MPP-USA" member's case: the crime he was charged with and the location in Peru from which he came.(4) When Calero was thereafter arrested and the facts of his case became publicly known, it turned out that the facts of his case matched precisely those details previously announced by Agent Quispe. Currently, Agent Quispe is fairly pathetically trying to cover his tracks by exploiting the fact that he didn't name a name when he fingered Calero. Agent Quispe's defense is essentially that it wasn't Calero he was fingering; he was fingering someone else! In related news, Agent Quispe's friend Dan Axtell recently admitted that he had contact with Calero before Calero's arrest.(4) What this illustrates is that those like the RCP-USA who give Agent Quispe's operation continued life through their silence are doing great harm to the masses. The longer the RCP-USA goes without condemning Agent Quispe's police operation and without making self-criticism for tolerating it, the more the RCP-USA will earn suspicion that its positions have a material basis more sinister than extreme sectarianism. HEGEMONISM ABROAD Worse still, while the RCP-USA takes the abdicationist position of "no position" on Agent Quispe, it continues to follow its hegemonist logic (a logic contrary to Mao's theory and practice) abroad to new depths. As the Call for a World Mobilization states, "Since October 1993 their [the leadership of Co-RIM's] nefarious activities have been geared to paralysing any show of support for the People's War and to cast doubts upon the revolutionary condition of Chairman Gonzalo."(1) When this statement was written in March 1996, the Co-RIM's doubt-casting was veiled. But now it is out in the open. For no good reason, the RCP-USA and the Co-RIM now issue a poisonous weed. The RCP- USA version of the weed reads: "With the regime controlling all access, it is still impossible to confirm with certainty that Chairman Gonzalo is in fact supporting the Peace Accord line, but this possibility has increased and revolutionaries have to face up to it -- in order to really strengthen the correct political position of opposing this right opportunist line of ending the War. "There have been developments since the Peace Accord proposal was first announced that cannot be easily explained by the analysis that Chairman Gonzalo's role in this is a "hoax". This "hoax" explanation was the initial sense of many revolutionaries, and this was a position announced in a document released by the Central Committee of the PCP shortly after the Peace Accord proposal was first made public by the regime.... "But while the final word is *not* in, the possibility is growing that Chairman Gonzalo has taken a wrong turn, away from the revolutionary direction he charted for the PCP before his capture.... "...We would be overjoyed if it turns out that, in fact, he is not supporting this Peace Accord line. Or, if he is supporting this line, we would welcome a change in his views. But we first and foremost have to deal with this line, and, as part of that, we have to be prepared for the possibility that Chairman Gonzalo is its main proponent."(5) The Co-RIM version of the weed is essentially the same, except that it presents the supposed evidence that "the possibility is growing" that Gonzalo has capitulated. MIM does not have reliable information about most of the details of concrete conditions in Peru. As Maoists, we oppose hegemonism, and therefore do not claim to know better than the PCP about concrete conditions in Peru. (Conversely, activists in the imperialist countries should not wait for permission from Peru before breaking with the imperialist-country-based Co-RIM or Agent Quispe. The PCP cannot be expected to know the details of what is done in its names by police agents and opportunists in the imperialist countries.) Agent Quispe has been spreading the idea that MIM seeks to "traffic" in the revolution in Peru. Since this doubt spread by Agent Quispe has not been contradicted by the Central Committee which leads the PCP while Chairperson Gonzalo is in prison, MIM respects the possibility that the PCP might oppose independent reporting by MIM on conditions in Peru. Therefore, we do no such reporting, except in cases where universal questions of Maoism are principal over questions having to do with national conditions, such as our condemnation of the Canto Grande capitulationists who purged themselves from the PCP. Our policy of not taking a stand on concrete conditions in Peru applies to conditions which the Co-RIM cite as their reason for spreading doubts about Chairperson Gonzalo. We will not take a stand on these questions without authorization from the Central Committee of the PCP, but we are perfectly willing to take a stand on the Co-RIM's presentation of the supposed facts. THIS IS THE STORY AS THE CO-RIM TELLS IT: In March 1995, "Margie Clavo was arrested in Peru along with a number of others accused of being leaders or members of the Communist Party of Peru. She was accused of being 'Comrade Nancy,' a leading member of the PCP Central Committee. "Shortly after her arrest, Clavo was presented to the press. At that time she called on the party and the masses to 'Persist, Persist, Persist' in the People's War.... "It is thus a most unpleasant duty to inform comrades and friends that it appears that Margie Clavo has abandoned her previously correct position and has been won to support the call for a peace accord.... "An article appeared in the Peruvian press which quotes at length from her interview. Of particular note is Clavo's claim to have spoken on several occasions with Chairman Gonzalo whom she 'credits' with winning her to support the peace accords. "In the aftermath of the Clavo interview, supporters of the right opportunist line in [sic] the PCP of seeking a peace accord have circulated a leaflet claiming that Chairman Gonzalo has issued another 'instruction' to supporters abroad commenting on the Clavo interview and including a paragraph quoting Clavo which did not appear in the press accounts in which she makes a 'self criticism' for allegedly 'deceiving the RIM' about the nature of the peace accords...." "It is hardly necessary to point to the seriousness of this situation. First of all, the fact that a major leader of the Central Committee has changed her position and is now supporting the right opportunist line is itself a significant blow to the Party leadership. Moreover, her claim to have met with Chairman Gonzalo further strengthens suppositions that Chairman Gonzalo is indeed proposing the line of seeking a peace accord." But are we sure that Clavo is a member of the PCP's Central Committee(CC)? And if a CC member (or "major leader") openly breaks with the CC on the major issue of "peace accords", can that person really still be referred to as a CC member? The Co- RIM article fails to address these important questions. This is the surface problem with the Co- RIM article. The supposed evidence as presented by the Co-RIM could be questioned as a possible psychological warfare operation. But while the Co- RIM does not consider this possibility, they do consider that "the possibility has increased" that Gonzalo is a capitulationist. As the Call for a World Mobilization Commission says, "Revisionists and opportunists, together with those agents directly linked to the Peruvian police's Secret Services, share the same objectives:...[including] 3. To depict Chairman Gonzalo as a vulgar capitulationist who, from inside his cell, is leading the 'peace agreement' plot...."(1) Objectively, the Co-RIM is spreading psychological warfare propaganda. Subjectively, at best, the hegemonist line of the RCP-USA has led it to a new low. The line of the RCP-USA is that its Co-RIM is "the embryonic political centre of the RIM," while the RIM is the "emerging world centre" of the international communist movement. This notion is not consistent with Maoism. Mao Zedong spoke out against hegemonism in general, and in particular against the Comintern's hegemonism. It is not for no reason that he did not work to reconstitute the Comintern after it was dissolved in the 1940s. It is Trotskyism, not Maoism, which seeks to constitute a new International body with democratic-centralism. The RCP-USA should make self-criticism for its history of crypto-Trotskyism, including its hegemonist deviation from Maoism. CONCLUSION The RCP-USA's willingness to speculate about events in Peru about which they should not speculate -- and about which they admit they are only speculating -- makes its unwillingness to denounce the already-exposed police plot of Agent Quispe all the more galling. Likewise, the RCP-USA's willingness to abdicate on the question of Agent Quispe makes its willingness to speculate about events in Peru all the more galling. The RCP-USA needs to speak out against the New York-based police plot, shut up about concrete conditions in Peru, and make self-criticism for opportunism, liberalism, abdication, crypto-Trotskyism and hegemonism. NOTES: 1. See the June 1996 Maoist Sojourner and/or the June 15, 1996 MIM Notes, especially the former. Send $2 for either. 2. Los Angeles, Aug. 23, 1996. 3. RCP-USA's Revolutionary Worker, Aug. 11, 1996, p. 11. 4. via world wide web: do a search for "Marxism List". via gopher: go to jefferson.village.virginia.edu under public discussions lists under "spoons." 5. Revolutionary Worker, Aug. 4, 1996, pp. 7-10. * * * ALBANY MASSES EXPOSE BRUTALITY by MC12 Residents of Albany, NY reported seeing police pick up Jhamel Clark and slam his head against the ground, causing him to lose consciousness. The attack occurred on North Swan Street in Albany on Sunday, August 18. Police reported that a crowd of some 100 residents jeered them and threw rocks and bottles at the pigs carrying out their assault. One womyn who independently called the Albany Times Union to report on the beating said "they took this boy, beat him on the head, slammed him on the ground." Clark, 19, came to when revived by medical technicians. The pigs later accused Clark of faking his injury to draw attention, and said that residents exaggerated the story to play up police brutality. MIM is not interested in comparing the pigs' version of this story to the masses'. The important question is not whether or not anyone is playing up police brutality, but why there is police brutality in the first place. The Black Panther Party pointed out that the police occupy oppressed communities within U.S. borders "as a foreign troop occupies territory." The pigs do not exist to protect and serve the oppressed, but to hamper and restrain national minorities from realizing national self- determination. If the pigs' had only beat Clark and not knocked him unconscious, this incident would still be a product of the imperialist relationship between pigs and the oppressed nations, a relationship which is necessarily brutal. Clark had been on probation for a drug charge, and was being arrested for possession of crack when the beating took place. So even though the so-called crimes Clark was accused of were nonviolent, his punishment is being beaten up by police, plus more jail time for "resisting arrest" and "disorderly conduct." While some drug dealers (including those who sell drugs that are currently legal) may need to be harshly punished, people who have drug problems need help. The oppressed have to deal with drugs in addition to poverty, inferior medical care and housing, inadequate employment and other mechanisms of imperialism. A people's government which recognizes the coincidence of all these problems will be the only authority fit to solve these problems. The imperialists look in one direction to profit from running drugs, and then turn the other way to imprison oppressed people who use drugs. Imperialism has no interest in stopping harmful drug use, only in increasing state and capitalist power. MIM looks forward to the day when the Albany police force will receive its justice at the hands of a proletarian government. We work to expose the crimes and illegitimate authority of the state, and to organize for a revolution against the "order" of oppression. NOTE: The Times Union (Albany, N.Y.) August 19, 1996, p. B1. * * * MOVE VICTORY PARTIALLY OVERTURNED August 27 -- a federal judge overturned part of the victory members of the MOVE organization won in a legal battle against the government. In the legal battle MOVE sued for damages from the 1985 fire bombing of their Philadelphia home which killed 11 people and destroyed their house along with 60 other homes. This fire bombing was not provoked by an armed standoff, contrary to the report in the New York Times and those carried in many other reactionary bourgeois media sources. The MOVE members were unarmed and after the fire, no guns were found. The attack on MOVE was purely political: this anti-imperialist organization of revolutionary nationalists fought against police brutality and other imperialist evils, threatening the state in a way that a few guns in a house could not have done. The new ruling says that Philadelphia's former police and fire commissioners will not have to pay damages to MOVE bombing survivors or relatives. The June 24th federal jury verdict had ordered Philadelphia to pay $1.5 million to Ramona Africa, the only adult survivor of the bombing, and relatives of two dead MOVE members. In addition the jury ordered the former Fire Commissioner and former Police Commissioner (who were in charge and who ordered the bombing) to pay Ramona Africa token damages of $1 a week for 11 years.(See MIM Notes 118, July 15, 1996). The judge overturned the latter part of the ruling, freeing the men in charge of paying even token damages for their murderous actions. As Ramona Africa said, this verdict "literally, let them get away with murder." The judge who overturned the jury ruling said that the fire and police commissioners were legally protected from punishment as public servants unless "official misconduct" was found. This misconduct he defined as actions that were knowingly improper and he said they did not act maliciously or in violation of orders from superiors. MIM's not surprised by this interpretation of the law. After all, the fire and police commissioners were acting on orders from their imperialist bosses who put them in power in order to maintain order over all who fight against imperialism. And the actions of the fire and police commissioner were not "knowingly improper" because it is proper in this country to murder the enemies of imperialism as was seen historically in the destruction of the Black Panther Party, the American Indian Movement, and currently in the continued repression against members of revolutionary organizations. In fact, the nationality alone of the MOVE members was enough to merit this bombing by Amerikan standards which say that attacking and even killing oppressed nations is justified as a means of maintaining the great Amerikan way. In spite of this set back, the publicity gained by this whole trial and the $1.5 million the City has to pay remain as victories for the MOVE organization and for the oppressed. NOTES: The New York Times, 8/29/96, p A21 * * * FRENCH PIGS ARREST IMMIGRANTS by MC53 French immigration pigs suited in riot gear rounded up 210 African immigrants and locked them in a military detention center August 23rd.(1) The oppressed nationals from French neo-colonies in Africa had stayed at the St. Bernard's Church, which pigs raided in the middle of mass, since the end of June. Ten have been on a hunger strike since July 4 and continue to demand that the French government grant residence permits to 300 African immigrants. After the raid, the hunger strikers were forcibly taken to a military hospital.(1) The oppressed nationals, including 68 children, were released within a couple days because the pigs did not have proper warrants for the raid.(2) The pigs did not have permission of the parish or the Archbishop of Paris to enter the church and capture the immigrants.(1) The raid came one day after Prime Minister Alain Juppe's announcement that the government would continue to crack down on immigration and ignore the demands of the protesters.(3) Following this announcement, the protesters reaffirmed their dedication to continue the struggle. The protesters continued their fight against deportation even after the hunger strikers were taken away by the pigs because of their protest earlier. Their struggle against deportation illuminates the contradictory interests of imperialism. Previously, French imperialism had welcomed immigration from its neo-colonies in northern Africa. On the one side, emigration from the colonies helped to disguise the unemployment and poverty caused by French exploitation. On the other side, immigration to Paris provided the French with the necessary cheap labor to maintain its status of wealth. The government's crackdown on immigration in recent years has resulted from higher unemployment within France and pressure from the French labor aristocracy. Just like the Amerikan labor aristocracy's general support for attacks on immigrants, this reactionary sentiment is fueled by national chauvinism. The parasitic French masses support the immigration crackdown because they want to ensure maximization of their share of super- profits from the African neo-colonies. Following the arrests, immigration pigs flew four men from the group back to Mali along with 52 other Africans rounded up by immigration.(2) In the first half of 1996, over 7,000 Africans had been forcibly deported from France.(1) The French imperialists make no claim to take responsibility for creating the conditions which economically forced the Africans to emigrate in the first place, but will continue to deport a sufficient number until the labor aristocracy is happy and the number of immigrants balances out with the number needed for dirt cheap jobs. The heightening of this struggle between the immigrants and the French government points the path to revolution and the death of imperialism. Imperialists cannot continue to mooch off of Third World labor indefinitely and cannot cover their parasitism through temporary liberal immigration policies. Deportation will further the contradiction between imperialist France and its neo-colonies in northern Africa leading the way to revolution. Just as with the borders of the united states, the borders of the French territory will be opened following revolution so that those who have built up the wealth of France will then have access to what has been stolen from them. NOTES: 1. The New York Times, Aug. 24, 1996, p. A4. 2. The New York Times, Aug. 27, 1996, p. A4. 3. The New York Times, Aug. 23, 1996, p. A4. * * * FBI'S POWER GROWS AROUND THE WORLD by MC12 The FBI's relentless quest for greater power in the service of Amerikan imperialism goes on. The agency now plans to increase the number of special agents abroad from 70 to 129 -- in 46 cities, double the current 23. Under the plan support personnel would increase from 54 to 79. That's all in addition to Drug Enforcement Agency, CIA, and various other organizations running around the world in the service of empire. The FBI says their work in the new cities will all be in support of U.S.-based law-enforcement investigations into terrorism or drugs. But we know that terrorism and drugs are also stand-ins for political persecution, whether within U.S. borders or not. In particular, the new offices will work with investigations into political ("extremist," "terrorist," etc.) groups that are connected to overseas organizations. The first four offices are scheduled to go into Beijing, Tel Aviv, Islamabad and Cairo. Other cities to be added include: Seoul, Singapore, Lima, Brasilia, Buenos Aires, Ankara, Copenhagen, Tallinn, Prague, Warsaw, Kiev, Bucharest, Tblisi, Lagos, Pretoria, Riyadh, Almaty, Tashkent and New Delhi. They already have offices in: Hong Kong, Manila, Bangkok, Tokyo, Canberra, Mexico City, Ottawa, Panama City, Bogota, Caracas, Bridgetown (Barbados), Santiago, Montevideo, London, Brussels, Bonn, Madrid, Rome, Athens, Moscow, Paris, Bern and Vienna. The agency wants $80 million for the expansion plan, and Congress has been receptive. President Clinton also supports it, as part of the effort against "forces of destruction that know no national boundaries." He should know. And despite some inter-agency squabbling over turf, the CIA and FBI appear ready to create a virtual merger in such operations, further consolidating the powers and reach of the repressive state. Maoists and all revolutionaries oppose expansion of the police state and its militarist expansions around the world. NOTE: Washington Post, 8/20/96, p. A1. * * * IMPERIALISTS BUY COLOMBIAN ARMED FORCES TO WAGE WAR ON THE OPPRESSED Oil companies in Colombia are buying the Colombian army -- literally -- to protect their investments from guerrilla attacks by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia and the National Liberation Army. Until a recent upsurge in guerrilla attacks, the oil industry was the target of an attack on the pipelines once every 8 days.(1) MIM is not familiar with the armed movement in Colombia, although we can see why the oil companies make an obvious target. Petroleum products are the largest industrial export in Colombia.(2) Imperialists monopolize the ownership soaking up the resources of Colombia to export the profits back home. In addition to making the First World wealthier, the Colombian lackey government is paid out of the profits to bolster its military and repressive powers. Colombia is the fifth largest oil producing nation in Latin America, but it is by far the fastest percentage growth. Last year's oil production was 589,000 barrels a day, or 30% more than in 1994. With installations spread throughout the mountains and pipelines running for a total of about one thousand miles from Ca-o Lim-n and Yopal to the Gulf of Mexico, the oil companies are an appropriate target economically as well as politically for struggle against imperialist and comprador domination of the people.(1) A special war tax funneled $250 million last year from the oil industry into the coffers of the comprador government. On top of paying the war tax, the oil companies also negotiate individual agreements with the Colombian military for protection. British Petroleum (BP), which discovered Colombia's largest oil reserves estimated at 3 billion barrels, "has just signed a three-year agreement with the Defense Ministry valued at $54 million to $60 million to create a battalion of 150 officers and 500 soldiers to protect expansion and construction of sprawling production sites."(1) "Oxy Colombia, a subsidiary of Occidental Petroleum of Bakersfield, Calif., is creating two platoons totaling 80 soldiers to bolster security.... The company expects its bill for military and police protection will increase to $7 million next year from $3.9 million this year."(1) Last year BP spent $8 million on "development" projects along its pipeline to attempt to buy off the local populace and "stave off attacks by leftist guerrillas".(1) MIM does not know the specifics of these projects although we suspect that they are similar to other projects used by repressive comprador governments to disguise their true strategies from the people. Florida political science professor Eduardo Gamarra summed the situation up well: "It's the privatization of the Colombian Army."(1) Other oil companies which already pay for "housing, medical, food and logistical support for the military assigned to protect them" are complaining that the British Petroleum deal will not only siphon off the best trained soldiers from the portions of the Colombian army that serve the other foreign oil companies, but will inflate the prices charged to these companies for protection.(1) MIM suspects that this and not the unconstitutional nature of the agreement with BP, is the real reason that this article made it into the New York Times and earned the front page. The New York Times noted that while the specifics of the BP agreement are secret, it would appear to violate a January ruling of the Colombian Constitutional Court, which declared the private hiring of police and military to be unconstitutional: "It is intolerable for the legislature to establish categories of people who benefit from the essential services of the police to a special degree, according to their capacity to pay for a service that by its nature must be free." This is an interesting ruling because the purpose of the police and the military under capitalism is to defend the status quo, and therefore the haves against the have-nots. The military do not defend the interests of the Colombian peasants against exploitation by landlords or defend workers from exploitation by foreign multinational corporations. The military and police instead work to defend foreign companies and the Colombian government itself from the wrath of the people. The Colombian Constitutional Court is not attacking the bourgeois system, rather it is advocating a more equitable relationship among the bourgeoisie. According to the Court, it's not fair that really big capitalists can out-bid the slightly smaller multinationals when it comes to purchasing the government. According to the New York Times, rumors of a possible military coup have given greater leeway to the military to negotiate it's own practices, as the government fears provoking that coup. While this greater infusion of cash into Colombia's general anti-guerrilla effort will no doubt aid it in the short run, such tactics taken by imperialists can only have a short term effect. Professor Gamarra exposed this well: "I think a lot of people are going to be upset when you have BP's army killing guerrillas, killing Colombians. Take this to its extreme form, and you can say: 'These soldiers are BP's mercenaries. Who do they owe allegiance to -- BP or the Colombian state?'"(1) As Lenin argued in *Imperialism: The highest stage of capitalism* as capitalism develops in the imperialist countries, capitalist enterprises merge with the state to form state monopoly capitalism. Ever more firmly united, the bourgeoisie and their executive committee (the state) can most efficiently carry out the exploitation of the working people. In the oppressed countries, the governments are controlled by compradors -- big bourgeoisie who control businesses who depend on the imperialists, or those who simply subsist from coordinating the imperialist exploitation of their people. In the oppressed countries, national liberation when it is not led by communists leads to neo- colonialism. Colombia won it's independence from Spain in 1819, but it is not free of imperialism. The fight for national liberation and ultimately communism is the only way the Colombian people, and the rest of the oppressed of the world, will liberate themselves from monopoly capitalism. NOTES: 1. The New York Times 8/22/96, p. A1, A16. 2. World Almanac and Book of Facts 1993, Pharos Books, New York, p. 744. * * * CAPITALISM IS ABOUT PROFIT, NOT DISARMAMENT The United States Enrichment Corporation(USEC) is an Amerikan government owned corporation set up to buy nuclear material from Russian nuclear weapons and then resell it to nuclear power plants as fuel. The idea is to try and take as much nuclear material off of the market as possible, to keep it out of the hands of "terrorists" and "rogue states" (read: Third World countries not directly under the Amerikan thumb). The problem is that the USEC -- which is about to be privatized -- "turned down repeated requests this year to buy material from Russia sufficient to build 400 Hiroshima-size bombs." The cause is that Russian nuclear material from dismantled weapons isn't as profitable to sell as fuel the USEC makes from Amerikan uranium. While pressure from Senator Pete V. Domenici (NM-R) forced the USEC to buy all the Russian uranium offered, the incident shows the connections between individual members of the bourgeoisie, and way in which the relationship subsidizes the bourgeois to the detriment of its stated goal. Instead of working to advance nuclear disarmament, the USEC is working to expand it's profit margin. The more profitable the company, the more money that can be made from it's initial public stock offering, and the wealth and power USEC executives will have from controlling the newly privatized corporation. A safer world without weapons of mass destruction will only come about when the laboring masses control their own futures. In the later stages of socialism and in communism, people will have no need to have weapons designed to obliterate millions of people from a different sector of the globe. Until then, the capitalists will preserve and expand these weapons -- while symbolically dismantling mostly inferior models -- as they continue World War III against the world's majority. NOTE: The New York Times, 8/28/96 p. A1, D3. * * * CUT OFF THE PENIS AND THROW THE MAN IN PRISON by MC53 California Governor Pete Wilson and the California State Legislature are in the final stages of passing a law which will require forced injections of Depo-Provera into male prisoners convicted twice in the white man's courts of child molestation. These injections are considered "chemical castration" because they are supposed to reduce a man's sex drive. This law also applies to prisoners convicted of child molestation for the first time if the court decides that the crime is "sufficiently egregious." So if the court sees that a public lynching is called for in a given case, it will require injections for first-time convictions. Governor Wilson has built up a picture of deviant horny bastards "who stalk our young" and must be stopped. Stopping molestation includes chemically controlling or castrating, and locking up men convicted of molestation. (Prisoners can "voluntarily submit to surgical castration.") The settler masses are thus assure that their governor is protecting their children's virginity and safety on the streets. But this law only amounts to covering one contradiction in patriarchal society with another, and in the process creating more extensive powers to control prisoners. Violence against children in Amerika is a product of unequal power in this patriarchal capitalist society. Children do not have political or economic power and are subject to adults' interests. Oppression of children is pervasive; incidents of violence and physical abuse are only the most obvious expressions of this power differential. Bourgeois standards of abuse sanction many forms of children's oppression. The Amerikan bourgeoisie endorses the sale of young Filipinas as house slaves and sexual objects for Amerikan men. Is this violence simply acceptable against Third World children? The United Snakes military set up brothels during the imperialist conquests of Vietnam and the Philippines to satisfy Amerikan soldiers. Is the rape not repulsive if an Amerikan soldier is buying his victim? The most overt form of child abuse is pornography. Is this not repulsive abuse because the corporations are making enough money and the youth are in fashionable jeans? Drawing attention to molestation by strangers masks the overwhelming majority of child sexual abuse which happens within the family. While the majority of child abuse happens in the home, the pigs gloss over the patriarchal roots of this problem and champion the family as a sacred institution. Castrating men convicted of molesting children is not principally a means of ending sexual abuse of children, but of exerting social control over the oppressed. Social workers and pigs patrol oppressed nation territories, making them much more likely to uncover criminals among the oppressed than in the white nation. As MIM reported in MIM Theory 2/3, "Gender and Revolutionary Feminism," the white nation also exhibits gross bias in reporting crimes -- making oppressed nationals much more likely to be accused, convicted and castrated for molestation. MIM supports any reforms in the bourgeois legal sphere which lower the age of consent to 13, as this will mean less people being put in prison. In considering chemical injections, lowering the age of consent would mean fewer prisoners being subjected to the experiment in California. It would at least mean that the bourgeoisie will have to face the masses and explain why a 15 year old is not capable of consent and in the same circumstances an 18 year old would be. MIM opposes all abuse of children, but we also know that patriarchy causes child abuse and so we work to destroy patriarchy rather than punish individuals who are convicted of abuse. Ultimately MIM works to create a society much like revolutionary China, in which violence will be punished in a way that attacks the root source of the violence. Individuals will be engaged in productive activities which teach them their importance in society as well the value of other humans. People will learn these lessons through productive and social activities and struggle against reactionary ideas like the eroticization of power. Because we are building revolution within the belly of the beast, we expose the fact that the bourgeoisie has no interest in ending the cause of oppression and we oppose any means that the bourgeoisie uses to further oppress the masses. NOTE: The New York Times, 8/27/96, p. A1 and A8. For a more extensive analysis of oppression of children under patriarchy, check out MIM Theory 9 "Psychology and Imperialism" for $5 from the address on page two. For a detailed account of Maoist prisons, check out *Prisoners of Liberation* by Allyn and Adele Rickett. * * * BAD RIVER CHIPPEWA STOP TOXIC TRAINLOAD by MCB52 For two weeks, a group of Bad River Chippewa called Anishinabe Ogitchida (Protectors of the People) have blocked the tracks of a train loaded with sulfuric acid headed for a waste sight near Lake Superior.(1) The Chippewa rely on the waters for their sustenance, fish, and therefore are refusing the highly corrosive acid's passage across their land to Ontonogan, Michigan. The Ogitchida have tried legal strategies to stop the toxic trainload. According to one leader, Lawrence "Butch" Stone, "Through the 'paper war' between the tribe and the EPA [the Environmental Protection Agency], they haven't gotten anywhere so far, and it was time to take some action. Therefore, we're here."(1) Dozens of First Nation people have gathered in a camp and are holding ceremonies on the train tracks, preventing the train from passing. Remarkably, the Wisconsin masses are largely supportive of the blockade.(1) Less than three per cent of the Wisconsin population is employed in fishing, agriculture, and forestry combined, and for Michigan less than 2% are.(2) Still those small communities mobilize strongly against the fishing rights of First Nations. But unlike the Chippewa demands for fishing rights, where Amerikans in Wisconsin and Michigan compete with First Nations, they all stand to lose if Lake Superior is contaminated. However, the fact that the Ogitchida are the ones taking action illustrates their greater stake in the waters and fish. According to Stone, "A lot of people are good at talking the talk. However, they've got nowhere. We have environmental organizations talking against mining, against these chemicals, against the destruction to out water, the air, the animal nations, the plants, but they don't take no action. We are a sovereign people. We have the inherent right to protect and preserve all that our Creator has given to us to protect and preserve. We are carrying out our duties as Ogitchidas."(1) While MIM does not use this notion of "animal nations," or the concept of a "Creator" we agree with this sentiment as a whole. We look forward to local control over the environment on the part of the oppressed. NOTES: 1. News from Indian Country, Aug 12-19, 1996, pp. A1 and A6. 2. US Bureau of the Census, 1990 Census of Population and Housing Summary CD-ROM, May 1993. * * * AMERIKAN KULTURE SUCK IT, FEEL SELF-PITY AND PERPETUATE PATRIARCHY Review by a RAIL comrade ani difranco *DILATE* Righteous Babe Records The first thing to notice about Difranco's new album is the I'm-a-weak-womyn crouching on the front cover. Was this supposed to be a symbol of the position wimmin are unwillingly born into in society? Or is this what Difranco herself is advocating? After listening to the album, the latter is unfortunately the case. In "Done Wrong" she takes the old love theme and metaphorically compares mending a broken heart to rain falling. "i guess that makes me the jerk with the heartache/ here to sing to you about how i been done wrong/i am sitting, watching/ out the window of the coffee shop/ and i'm waiting, waiting/ waiting for it to let up." Her creativity ends with the metaphor as she just rehashes the grief stricken womyn syndrome. Wimmin don't have to be waiting around pondering the trials and tribulations of sex and romance, wimmin are quite capable of leading successful revolutionary movements. Revolution is not made by individuals indulging in self-pity, but by the oppressed using scientific analysis of history and present material conditions, and by taking that analysis and developing a revolutionary practice strong enough to topple the capitalist patriarchal system. Difranco only perpetuates the myth that wimmin are incapable of fighting for revolution. In doing so, she carries on the tradition of gender aristocrats whining about the status quo but doing nothing because in the end, the gender aristocracy benefits from patriarchal relations. SEEKING THE PERFECT FUCK In "Untouchable Face" she sings about a one night stand with an already coupled person. She says "I see you and i'm so perplexed/ what was i thinking/ what will i think of next/ where can i hide". And in essence blaming herself for the pointless endeavor. The person supposedly won't recognize her if they meet again, and Difranco says "who am i/ that i should be vying for your touch". She is doing exactly what the patriarchy advocates for wimmin. She continues to look for perfect relationships that don't exist in a coercive system. She proceeds to blame herself, thereby individualizing the scenario and ignoring the systematic treatment of wimmin as sexual objects and the systematic passive reaction to objectification. When it comes time to face the problem what does she say? Simply, "so fuck you/ and your untouchable face/ and fuck you/ for existing in the first place". That solves absolutely nothing. Making herself feel better about the one night stand, she says nothing of changing her compliance with patriarchal norms. She is ultimately saying that the power differences that show their faces in society are beyond the power of change that wimmin hold, so she concedes to patriarchy. When it comes time for actual action on her part, individual men become the blame for the power differences, not the overall capitalist patriarchal system. In "Going Down", talking about oral sex with men, she sings "you can't get through it/ you can't get over it/ you can't get around/ just like in a dream/ you'll open your mouth wide to scream/ and you won't make a sound/.../you can't believe you're here/ and you're not gonna get through it/ so you are going down". So just keep doing it until it really reaches the point when she's "just about done/ with the oh-woe-is-me shit". She is saying that she hasn't gotten everything she wants out of this servile relationship yet, so she'll stick around for a little while longer. She tries to preserve the sex that is benefiting her for the time being, then when it isn't she says "and i want everything back/ that's mine". That doesn't sound much like rocking the patriarchal boat to really gain power. Instead she is rowing right along with it. In "Outta me, onto you" she says "some people wear their heart/ up on their sleeve/ i wear mine underneath/ my right pant leg/ strapped to my boot/ don't think 'cuz i'm easy, i'm naive/ don't think i won't pull it out/ don't think i won't shoot". This shows the contradiction in her own line. At one instant she advocates looking and waiting for the perfect mate while also being prepared at any instant to shoot if they "push too hard" or "go too far." This reactionary and limited line is representative of the power that the patriarchy creates for wimmin. The system says wimmin have no choice or alternatives to complacency or individual reaction. There is another option though, the option to cease power through proletarian revolution where the entire system would be smashed and the oppression along with it. HOW TO REALLY FIGHT PATRIARCHY? Patriarchy and all of it manifestations will not be abolished unless wimmin organize for complete revolution. By what Difranco is saying, she doesn't seem to mind. Like most white wimmin privileged enough to make up the gender aristocracy in the First World, as long as she gets the revenge she is seeking on all the men who haven't given her the sex that was beneficial to her, she'll live just fine with the concession given to her on the backs of Third World wimmin. With this reactionary position, she comes to conclusions like that of the song "Napoleon" where she says "i knew you would always want more/ i know you would never be done/ 'cuz everyone is a fucking napoleon/ yeah everyone is a fucking napoleon" implying that all the oppression of the world is rooted in the natural human inclination toward greed. Relying on such reactionary theories will obviously not end oppression and will for that matter only support it. If it is just human instinct to oppress other humans, why bother reforming your own practice and try to create change? The human nature approach protects her own anarchistic line. Difranco's politics only lead young wimmin's eyes away from overthrowing the entire system with the power all wimmin do possess. In "Shameless", she proposes that the answer to unequal relationships is same sex relationships. Though her analysis is correct saying "they're gonna wanna know/ how we plan to get out" and "they're gonna be mad at us/and all the things/ we wanna do" and "i gotta cover my butt 'cuz i covet/ another man's wife", focusing on the patriarchy seeing a threat in homosexuality, she still fails to realize that power differentials exist in all relationships. Engaging in homosexual relationships is not wrong, but the belief that they escape the coerciveness in society is incorrect. If totally equal relationships is what Difranco is seeking, she is going to have to work for communism which would abolish the oppression of groups over groups. If she really wanted to take a blow at patriarchy, she should advocate asexuality. The next best choice being forever monogamy which reduces the threat of someone leaving for a "better" sex. But to advocate either of these, Difranco herself would have to give up the fun in the power games she plays and can benefit off of. Instead of accepting the power that the patriarchy concedes to wimmin, wimmin should fight for real power. By siding with the proletarian masses who don't have the choices like birth control and economic self-sufficiency that First World wimmin do, wimmin can throw out imperialism and the gender differences that go along with it. Revolutionary feminism, real feminism, gains power that includes real determination over one's sexuality through the overthrow of the voyeuristic coercive society. * * * IN SUPPORT OF THE INDONESIAN PEOPLE AND IN CONDEMNATION OF THE SUHARTO REGIME The Communist Party of the Philippines, the New People's Army, the National Democratic Front and the broad masses of the Filipino people, condemn the brutal actions carried out by the Suharto regime against the people in Indonesia in recent weeks, on July 27 and 28 and subsequently. The current barbarities expose to the entire people of the world the rottenness of a long running regime built on the corpses of more than a million Indonesians massacred in 1965 and on the unceasing flow of blood and sweat of the broad masses of the Indonesian people who are subjected to intolerable oppression and exploitation. The Indonesian people are seething with just anger at the unbridled reign of greed and terror of a military and bureaucratic clique that has a big comprador-landlord class character and that is subservient to US, Japanese and European monopoly capitalists. The "New Order" of Suharto is a regime of military fascists within the framework of neocolonialism. The brutal suppression of democratic rights in Indonesia has allowed the Suharto ruling clique and its imperialist masters to plunder the oil and other natural resources of Indonesia and exploit Indonesian cheap labor in mineral extraction, plantations and export-oriented sweatshops (where the wage rate is US$ 2-3 per day). We support all the Indonesian democratic forces and people for waging resistance against the Suharto regime. We congratulate them for the upsurge of their militant mass actions. We are deeply pleased with the increasing militancy of the toiling masses of workers and peasants. We admire the youth for striving to realize their revolutionary potential in the service of the people and under the leadership of the working class. A broad legal democratic mass movement is necessary in order to arouse, organize and mobilize the broadest range of forces against the narrowest target, the fascist enemy. The broad masses of the people must shatter more than three decades of fascist terror. At the same time, the proletarian revolutionary party must grow in strength in the underground to serve as the core of the revolutionary mass movement. True to its military fascist character, the Suharto regime employs the most barbaric and deceptive means to criminalize and suppress the legal democratic movement or to weaken it from within as in the case of the Indonesian Democratic Party headed by Megawati Sukarnoputri. The enemy himself reminds the entire Indonesian people that the way to national liberation and democracy is to wage revolutionary armed struggle and overthrow the Indonesian military fascists. As in the case of the Marcos fascist regime in the Philippines, the Suharto ruling clique can be overthrown when there is a convergence of a grave social crisis, the advance of the revolutionary mass movement, severe contradictions among the reactionaries within the bureaucracy and the military and the decision of the imperialists to change puppets. The launching of a protracted people's war in several islands in Indonesia is possible and necessary not only to induce a change of ruling clique within the social system but also to effect the change of social system ultimately. The revolutionary forces in the Philippines have demonstrated that they can keep up a protracted people's war in an archipelago with a smaller geographic scale. Indonesia has much larger islands than the Philippines and therefore has a much larger scale for people's war. And the Suharto military fascist regime has already made the conditions favorable for this by having excessively exploited the Indonesian people and overused anticommunist hysteria to rationalize state terrorism, corruption and puppetry. The time for the Indonesian people to render final judgment on the Suharto regime and on dual-function military fascism is long overdue. The multitudes of victims of the 1965 massacre and more than three decades of extreme oppression and exploitation cry out for revolutionary justice. The Indonesian people can achieve the new democratic revolution only through a protracted people's war and a broad united front of democratic forces under the leadership of the working class through the Communist Party of Indonesia. Guided by proletarian internationalism, the proletariat and the people under the leadership of the Communist Party of the Philippines have a common interest with the Indonesian proletariat and people under the leadership of the Communist Party of Indonesia in the advance of both the Indonesian and Philippine revolutions. We are confident that the Indonesian people and revolutionary forces will continue to push further the upsurge of the revolutionary movement as a result of the rapidly worsening crisis of the domestic ruling system, that of the world capitalist system and the new world disorder. We look forward to the day when the Indonesian proletariat and people win victory in their new- democratic revolution and reclaim their prominent role in the global revolutionary movement against imperialism and for socialism. Unite to isolate and destroy the power of the military fascists! Carry forward the broad democratic mass movement Down with the Suharto military fascist regime! Long live the Indonesian revolution! Long live the Communist Party of Indonesia! --CENTRAL COMMITTEE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE PHILIPPINES, AUGUST 5, 1996 * * * UNDER LOCK & KEY: NEWS FROM PRISONERS AND PRISONS SOUTH CAROLINA STEPS UP ITS REPRESSION OF PRISONERS **Below are four letters from 3 different prisons in South Carolina. (The 3rd and 4th letters are from the same prison.) Each describes how new policies have increased the torture of our brothers in struggle. This does not mention the repression and torture that may be going on in KCI, in which prison officials have severed contact between MIM and prisoners there.** SOUTH CAROLINA INCREASES REPRESSIVE TACTICS Greetings Comrades I'm an Afrikan confined in the belly of the beast at Evans Corruption Institutional, in the home states of one of the founding fathers of white supremacy, South Carolikkka! I would like to pass on to the people some information, concerning the situation in these gulags in South Carolikkka. In January of last year the grand dragon of this state's governors, KKK David Beasley hired a New Director named Michael Moore, KKK from another great white supremacy, blood sucking state, Texas! Some of our comrades in the gulags of texas are familiar with his tactics while he was employed there. On arriving his first mission was to stamp out all conscious New Afrikan's who he felt would be in opposition to his programs, of oppression and intimidation. [He did this] by labeling us under the (STG) label or with non-compliance to his new grooming policy which says all hair must be cut short at all times. These two policies were aimed strictly at the Rastafarians and the 5% Movement, who are at the forefront in the Afrikan Liberation Struggle in these gulags. Using these tactics the prisoncrats has moved to negate all opposite to his plan, by placing everyone in administrative segregation lockdown, no leadership, no opposition. Most of the New Afrikans were later shipped to a new isolation Kamp. These prisoncrats-gangsters have now implemented: (1) Control movement throughout the system, (2) No work release programs for violent offenders, (3) Mandatory work for everyone at slave wages. If you resist, [you get] 23 hour lock down. We New Afrikans who are still in administrative segregation lockdown and continue to resist have now been charged with "substantiated security risk". This designation means that all "necessary and appropriate" restraints will be placed upon us whenever we are allowed out of our dungeon, which is only for shower and rec. Plus we have been subject to a food embargo for the last seven days. It is called a new too-low diet. They don't understand this has only built solidarity among the New Afrikans and the resistance will be continuous. As Fanon said, we must ask ourselves three questions: Who am I? Am I really who I am, and Am I all I ought to be? These are questions of culture and history. I hope we as New Afrikans have now answer them for ourselves. Forward with the revolution with the Spirit of George Jackson, Harriet Tubman, Nat Turner, Sojourner Truth, My Comrades.... --A South Carolina Prisoner, June 18, 1996. PRISONERS REBEL AGAINST NEW SOUTH CAROLINA COMMISSIONER I am currently being held hostage in a South Carolina prison. One of the most racial states in the U.S. The prison system in South Carolina is undergoing major changes due to a new commissioner (Michael Moore). Mr. Moore was once over in the Texas prison system, but he was run out of Texas. With him and South Carolina governor David Beasley the prison system here is nothing but a state with slave camps. Mr. Moore is very racist and thrives on control. Upon coming here to head the prison system, he ordered all people a part of the Nation of Islam (5%) to be placed in lock-up. They have remained on lock up since May of 1995 for no apparent reason except their beliefs. I am a white prisoner, but when I see brothers being oppressed for what they believe in, it makes me sick. Do or don't you have freedom of religion in this country? Apparently not in South Carolina. Mr. Moore has already put his slaves to work, by bringing the chain gang back to the prison system. I'm not saying South Carolina has the worst prison system, because compared to some we have it good. One of the worst things Michael Moore has done is take away college education programs. He feels South Carolina doesn't need smart criminals, or strong ones. That is why weights were taken away also. He does not realize weight release pressures inmates have. Nor does he realize without education ex-prisoners turn back to crime. But maybe he wants more people to control. [MIM believes prisoncrats do realize what they are doing. They want to control and break prisoners because it is profitable-ed.] When Mr. Moore first started here a riot broke out at Max. Prison. Some guards were assaulted and some were taken hostage. Mr. Moore stated he was not concerned with his officers safety, he wanted the inmates taken down. After the inmates surrendered and released the hostages unharmed the inmates were taken down. Three of the inmates have been to court an will be in prison the rest of their lives. For what? Standing up for their rights that were being violated. [Who is the real criminal?--MIM] I hope to get MIM circulated through the whole South Carolina Prison system so that when it is time the oppressed will no longer be oppressed by the oppressor. --A South Carolina Prisoner, June 20, 1996. NEW PROGRAM OF TORTURE IN SOUTH CAROLINA Peace, to everyone at MIM and I hope that you all have been maintaining in the struggle. Since my letter in March, I also sent along...a description of the New Segregation Program that has been implemented by the Director of the South Carolina Department of Corrections. This program is designed to physically torture those of us who are long term "ASU" Prisoners. I stipulated this in my last letter to you however it is very necessary that I explain in more detail the punishment we have endured in this ASU lock- up. Well to begin with this program has purposely trampled the rights that are protected by the Nelson Degree (Substantive Human Rights) which protects the prisoner from arbitrary force, wrongful treatment and humane prison environment/living conditions. This program has by the enforcement of the officials caused many [prisoners] to become emotionally unstable. One has actually taken his life. Also there have been other attempts of prisoners trying to take their lives. This program and its Draconian rules were specifically enforced to break the prisoners' will as we are being locked down all day and night with only two to three to hours of recreation a week, which is in violation of the Degree herein mentioned. The monitor's of the decree are not helping at all. They try to answer every question with their dry words but never change the immediate situation. To be honest, I think they really don't care, as they cast off this impression as though they are really trying to help. It has been nearly three months since this program has been in effect. One person has killed himself and many have attempted to [kill themselves]. There still has not been any change in the situation. The CO's try to cause even more stress by the mistreating and disregard for prisoners' requests. We have to request paper, envelopes and pens nearly a week in advance before we are allowed any ... sometimes we don't get the materials, there is just not enough. At this time I must let you know that I am limited to only two letters per week so sometimes my response letters may be late and even hindered by these nasty, CO's. Our condition here has not really changed in fact it has taken a turn for the worse. Now we have a "nurse" orchestrating our recreation, telling the official if it's too hot for us or not [to go outside]. Sometimes they only use this to their advantage just to treat us unseemingly. There is nothing that can be done when your behind the door, they are at liberty to do what they want. No one is doing anything to see that the ASU prisoners are getting what they are supposed to and not being mistreated. No one, I mean no one cares. I am saying this as if I expected someone to, even though I halfheartedly did, now I realize that there isn't anyone. There is also another element of this program that has me even put on edge. That is the fact that we have to be up and out of bed by 7:00 am until 7:pm, which is five days a week, 60 hours per week. This has become a bother for me due to an accident I had in 1995...in which...I injured my back. Now because of the twelve hour refrain from resting in the bed my condition has worsened. I am in constant pain and medical will not give me a bed pass. Nor will they assist in the proper treatment for my back under these conditions.... ...I don't think that they are going to let any of the 5%'s into level three simply because we are on long term lockup. Our situation is the same as the level one prisoners, they are just selling us a dream. I can only hope that things change for the better for all of us, but somehow I know that it won't unless we stick together is struggle.... --A third South Carolina Prisoner, June 25, 1996. NEW PIG PROGRAM CAUSES SUICIDES IN SOUTH CAROLINA ... We continue to be repressed herein this putrid/forlorn component. In fact there have been three suicides since fascist Michael Moore started his control of prisoner movement program in all of the state's ad-seg units. Everyday they strip and place someone in the chair for eight hours.... In Struggle --A fourth South Carolina Prisoner, July 3, 1996. MIM NOTES CENSORED IN INDIANA, UTAH, CALIFORNIA, PENNSYLVANIA, SOUTH CAROLINA AND NEW YORK **MIM has received a number of letters resembling the one following. MIM Notes is a tool to expose the repression by the state and its pigs, we are not surprised that the state has a double standard for 'free speech' - it is not the only double standard applied against the oppressed.** Dear Sirs, I am currently incarcerated at the State Correctional Institution at Retreat in Hunlock Creek, Pennsylvania and recently subscribe to MIM Notes. The institution has confiscated the two issues that you mailed to me stating that your publication was disapproved because of the following reason: "Writings that advocate violence, insurrection, or guerrilla warfare against the government or any of its institutions, or which create a clear and present danger within the extent of the correctional institution." Is there anything that can be done legally to stop the institution for confiscating my copies of MIM Notes? I would appreciate any information that you can provide me with because I would like to start receiving you publication here at the institution. Your time and attention in this matter is much appreciated. -- A Pennsylvania Prisoner, July 3, 1996. MIM RESPONDS: We get many of these letters every week and we rely on the prisoners and our allies on the outside to fight these battles through the legal system whenever possible. Sometimes these legal battles can be won and censorship is stopped temporarily in one prison. Filing an appeal is a good first step by any prisoner who has his or her mail censored. The Washington State ACLU has recently taken up a legal battle on behalf of MIM Notes and a few other publications frequently censored in the prisons and we hope that these and other efforts will win us some more access to the prisons. LETTERS OF PROTEST CAN BE SENT TO: State Correctional Institution, R.D. #3, Box 500, Hunlock Creek, PA 18621-9580. Indiana State Prison, PO Box 41, Michigan City, IN 46361-0041. Utah DOC, Central Utah Correctional Facility, 255 East 300 North, PO Box 550, Gunnison, UT 84634. Elmira Correctional Facility, Box 500, Elmira, NY 14902-500. KCI-MSU, 4344 Broad River Rd, Columbia, SC 29210. PRISONER IS NOT DISCOURAGED BY CENSORSHIP Dear Comrades, Yesterday, I received a notice of publication restriction from the Pelican Bay State Prison mailroom for MIM Notes #115 and #116. This is due to the passing of Senate Bill 1260 (Presely) resulting in the changes to penal code section 2600. As you may already know Pelican Bay has a history of racist violence and political repression. The passing of this bill gives the authorities the right to stop any material that is deemed a threat to the safety and security of the institution. Euphemistically, this means any material that speaks about the oppression of Black people and other oppressed nationalities, or the state i.e. judges, police, and other civilian employees who help maintain the present order, etc. Whatever the case may be, the articles in the paper must have been good, because Pelican Bay will stop any publication that exposes their dirt and the dirt of other Federal, state and local law agencies. But I always say that dirt can't hide from intensified Tide. MIM keep up the good work in exposing the system. The main area you want to cover is those on the outside. These seem to be the people who can't quite understand that prisons are about profit and war on crime is about the state mechanism criminalizing the poor. When I see these publication restrictions, I do not get discouraged, although that is their [the pigs] sole purpose. One can not discourage a person who is class-conscious by stopping a publication. One only allow them to become fully aware again. You become fully aware that capitalism breeds a society where there are anti-socio-personalities. V.I. Lenin said, "When we go to hang the capitalist, they will sell us the rope." Keep struggling because eventually we will win through. Sincerely, -- A California Prisoner, July 17, 1996. LETTERS OF PROTEST CAN BE SENT TO: Pelican Bay State Prison, 5905 Lake Earl Ave, Crescent City, CA 95531. PRISON LABOR BEHIND THE OLYMPIC SPECTACLE **"Even if you can't throw the shot or synchronize swim, Massachusetts motorists can still help the US-Olympic team by putting on the new Olympic Spirit license plate on their cars...the multicolored special plates cost $80.00, of which $50.00 will go to the US-Olympic Committee to support athletes in Atlanta and future Olympics...The plates were unveiled yesterday at the State House by Governor William F. Weld."** (Boston Herald, "Bay State Plates Help Carry the Olympic Torch", July 20, 1996) What this quote doesn't reveal is the fact that currently the prison: MCI-Walpole, where these "Olympic Spirit" plates are manufactured is undergoing a Pseudo-lockdown, imposed by Larry Dubois, Massachusetts Department of Corrections' Commissioner and the self same person who implemented the locking down of USP-Marion. Out of the general prison population only 30 prisoners are employed in the prison industry which has been curtailed down to only the plate-shop. Most other prisoners are confined to their respective cells 23 and one half hours daily. The rest are herded like chattel into the big grassy prison-yard. There is no shade...A set of plates cost $80.00; prisoners make $1.00 per hour (6 hours daily). There is a rate of 21,000 sets of plates made daily. Simple math shows that capitalism herein America is the "Olympic in Spirits" The 13th Amendment to the US Constitution lets Slavery Exist. -- A Massachusetts Prisoner, July 23, 1996. ALL PRISONERS ARE POLITICAL PRISONERS Dear Comrades, I am writing in response to the letter which appeared in issue #116, June 15, 1996 issue of MIM Notes from the "worker in the New Afrikan Independence Movement." and the definition of a "political prisoner". The writer utilized terminology like the "national Liberation struggle" yet failed to correctly analyze the role of prisoners in that struggle. I agree that we have Prisoners of War which dedicated their lives and liberty to waging war against the Capitalistic elite in this racist/capitalistic monster currently called "Amerikka". Yet, he/she failed to make an objective analysis of the prisoner and the role of the prisoner in the national liberation movement. The prison front of the movement is just as essential as any other front. And you will never unify the lumpen proletariat by creating a lot of class distinctions among the prison class. Any intellectual and student of revolutionary science knows the difference. Therefore, you must utilize a broad definition of the term Political Prisoner (P.P.) which will incorporate those in that class into the prisoner front of the movement. I think that for the purpose of propagandizing the prison population that the MIM definition is broad enough to incorporate the entire prison class and define the relationship between that class and our common enemy which is "Monopoly Capitalism". All POW's in this country know who they are and the special status and relationship they enjoy among tendencies that share our common beliefs. They are to be emulated by the prison class and all in society. Yet, we do not need to create class controversies among the prison class because technically speaking, we are all "political prisoners" under the yoke of the same imperialistic monster. Every different political tendency in this country has its own definition of P.P.'s and we shouldn't waste valuable time and resources in MIM Notes and other propaganda vehicles debating things which are trivial. In sum, let's stop bickering and debating b.s. and let's organize, agitate and educate so we can liberate. I am. Yours in Solidarity, --An Illinois Prisoner, July 28, 1996. MIM RESPONDS: We agree with this comrade that all prisoners are political prisoners. But we disagree that this is not worth debating in the pages of MIM Notes. The words we use are important because of the political meaning behind them. If some people do not believe that prisons are political institutions used to lock up people for politically defined crimes then this reveals a larger disagreement that is worth struggling over. It is through this struggle that we can all advance our political analysis and move forward in greater unity and strength. "Class" as used by Marxists is a scientific term which does not accurately apply to prisoners as a single group. Prisoners in Amerikkka's gulags are in fact composed principally of two classes: the proletariat and the lumpenproletariat. Marxist terminology refers to prisoners as a "stratum," and to the plural of such non-class, non-national, non- gender groupings as "strata". For a more thorough analysis of this issue and more, check out MT11 for $5 from MIM in which we address the gulags in Amerika. PENNSYLVANIA PIGS TORTURE PRISONER IN RETALIATION FOR LAWSUIT ...I am currently trying to save the life of a death row inmate. His name is Mr. X and he is truly an innocent man on death row. To find out more about his case, look for the essay "Until Justice is Served" under the Death Penalty section of the Bruderhof web site (I am not a Bruderhof member). Recently Mr. X was transferred from Greene Correctional Institute in Pennsylvania to Pittsburgh because the guards there were caught torturing Mr. X. They poured acid on his arms, kicked in his rib cage and threw him repeatedly down a flight of 14 steps. Why, you ask? Because GCI was sued by Mr. X and he won. He charged them with deliberate indifference. He was born with Celiac Disease, a pre-existing condition that dictates a certain diet to remain healthy. On the street, you can stop it from ever rupturing. In prison, you have to have special foods not on their menu in order to sustain yourself. Mr. X was denied medication and food by this prison to where he sued them and WON! But the prison guards decided to take matters into their own hands and they beat him. Luckily a warden was on duty and caught the guards. And now he is in another prison. But his health his still in trouble and he is still in danger of being hurt... I just wanted people to know that even on Death Row, there are still cruel acts being carried out, even in maximum security prisons like this... -- A friend of a Pennsylvania prisoner, July 15 1996. PRISONS ARE NOT DESIGNED TO REHABILITATE I am currently a prisoner in the Michigan Department of Corrections (Chippewa KTF). I have become a true believer that these prisons are not designed to rehabilitate inmates. The prisons here in Michigan promote hostile atmospheres for the inmates to reside in, by stacking inmates (full grown men) on top of each other. For example, here at KTF, 120 men are housed in a pole barn, which is designed to hold only 60 inmates. These facilities offer hardly anything positive for the inmates to involve themselves with. Then, when an inmate joins an organization to give himself something positive to occupy his time with he gets harassed and accused of belonging to a gang! The institution does not allow these organizations to participate in any positive activities. All proposals submitted are being denied. It seems like the DOC is no longer interested rather if an inmate receives rehabilitation, nor the education he/she needs to become a productive member of society upon his/her release. Instead, Governor Engler stopped inmates from receiving financial aid to further their education. An inmate is only allowed the luxury of obtaining his GED in this facility...and we all know that is only the beginning of the road to success concerning education. They are constantly passing new policies which are making it more and more difficult for inmates to communicate with the outside world, which is a vital part of rehabilitation. They have restricted our telephone calls by giving us only 10 phone numbers to call. These numbers can only be changed every six months. These phone calls are being recorded and monitored. The have done the same thing with our visits. They have made us send our loved ones visitor applications which invade their personal lives with questions that are not applicable; although required to answer if they wish to visit. These prisons in Michigan are nothing more than an economy saver. While us prisoners in Michigan are steadily working for slave wages. We are also being subject to all kinds of diseases by being forced to live in such crowded quarters. Then when an inmate request health services, he usually does not get the attention he needs until he has naturally recovered! If an inmate does not have financial support from the outside world, he is a lost cause! These people know this, that is why they are making it so hard for a person to have contact with the outside world. --A Michigan prisoner, Mar. 11, 1996. NEW NEWSLETTER FOR PRISONERS: DAILY MAIL We have started a prison pen pal organization and would like your help in spreading the word. We are a pen pal service for prisoners. We are writing organizations like yours to let you know we are a new newsletter published quarterly, dedicated to information and enrichment and to helping prisoners help themselves receive daily mail. Seeking prisoners who would like a copy of our newsletter or prisoners who would like an application to place a free ad in our newsletter. For a free newsletter or an application for an ad in our newsletter, please send us a Self-Addressed Stamped Envelope, (SASE) If you want both a newsletter and an application to be in our newsletter send two SASE's. --Daily Mail, 8139 Sunset Avenue, Suite 190, Fair Oaks, CA 85628. ***WHAT NON-PRISONERS CAN DO TO SUPPORT PRISONERS*** *1. Struggle with, work with, finance and join MIM. The best way to support prisoners is to overthrow the system under which capitalists profit from the exploitation of prisoners. History shows that the best way to do this is to build a Marxist-Leninist- Maoist party. The oppressors will not give up their power without a fight. *2. Finance MIM's prison work. Our biggest bill each month is postage. Most of the prison comrades who read MIM Notes have no way of paying for it. So if you have money, send what you can afford. Every cent helps, and stamps are as good as cash to us. *3. Distribute MIM Notes and Notas Rojas. Bring the voices of prisoners and their supporters to as large and wide an audience of people as possible. Contact MIM for bulk rates and distribution tips. *4. Start or join a prison support group. MIM can provide advice and resources to help you build public opinion for prisoners and their struggles. *5. Fight censorship, beatings, torture and other fascist outrages. Under Lock and Key often features the addresses of prisoners' friends and enemies. Work with the friends and let the enemies know you're watching. (Don't expect to win the fascists to the side of humanity, however. See #1 in this list). *6. Stay in touch. Keep us informed of pro-prisoner work you do. Our readers might find it educational or inspirational. ***WHAT PRISONERS CAN DO TO BUILD MIM*** *1. Start a study group. This is the best way to share materials and ideas. In groups, prisoners can better benefit from the limited resources MIM has. *2. Get MIM Notes and MIM Theory into your library. This allows one copy of the paper to be seen by many comrades. *3. Contact people on the outside. MIM needs comrades and allies everywhere. Maybe you know people on the outside who want to subscribe to MIM Notes or distribute it. *4. Share materials. If MIM sends books or periodicals, please make sure that as many people as possible get a chance to read them. *5. Write MIM at least every three months. Otherwise, you will be dropped from our mailing list. There are many cases where your keepers throw out MIM Notes, so we need to know that you actually get it. Also, comrades are moved around a lot, especially those who are known to be political. Please let us know of any address changes as soon as you know them. *6. Make MIM Distributors an official distributor. Many prisons require registration before MIM can send books or other materials. Usually we can comply with these bogus rules. It helps immensely to have someone there do the reasearch and send us the proper forms. *7. Send money or stamps. Our biggest bill each month is postage. Most of the prison comrades who read MIM Notes have no way of paying for it. So if you have money, send what you can afford. Every cent helps, and stamps are as good as cash to us. Please make all checks payable to "MIM Distributors." *8. Write for MIM Notes or Notas Rojas. Prisoners write almost all of Under Lock & Key. We don't care if you know how to spell or write good English or Spanish. Write on any topic you like, it does not have to be a prison story. *9. Translate. If you can read and write English and another language fluently, let us know. Any translation work you do will help us make Maoist ideas accessible to more people. *10. Fight censorship. When you know of censorship of books or newspapers, investigate. Write to MIM to confirm what has happened, then see what you can do about it. *11. Keep in touch after your release. Many comrades stop doing political work after their release. Write to MIM as soon as you know where you'll be so we can hook you up with comrades on the outside.