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         THE MAOIST INTERNATIONALIST MOVEMENT

     MIM Notes 128                DECEMBER 15, 1996


PRISON AWARENESS WEEK CULTURE EVENT

On November 22, RAIL and MIM held the final event 
of Prison Awareness Week at the University of 
Massachusetts at Amherst. It was designed to be a 
Revolutionary Cultural event and fundraiser for the 
MIM books for prisoners program.

While the event did not meet up with our 
expectations in terms of turnout and fundraising 
for a variety of reasons, we did have an active 
struggle over the importance of producing 
revolutionary culture and the meaning of the works 
presented.

One RAIL comrade performed a song by Bob Dylan 
about George Jackson and his murder by prison 
guards at San Quentin prison in California. This 
sparked a discussion about why MIM calls all 
prisoners political prisoners. George Jackson was 
imprisoned for a small time crime--the theft of 
$70. Within the walls he became a revolutionary 
leader, and joined the Black Panther Party. He 
wrote 2 books that were very influential to the 
revolutionary movement of the late 1960s and early 
1970s. George Jackson was causing Amerika too many 
problems with his anti-imperialist organizing so 
they had him killed.

When MIM says that all prisoners are political 
prisoners, we do not mean that all prisoners were 
arrested for openly political acts or are openly 
political. What MIM looks at, however, is the 
unjust political system that calls some people and 
their actions "criminal", and calls other people 
who harm their global neighbors to greater degree 
"chairman of the board" or "President of the United 
States." A system that enforces poverty for a 
targeted population has no legitimacy to complain 
about the lack of morality in people breaking the 
imposed rules. Furthermore, MIM would call the 
daily war against the Third World, be it in the 
form of IMF imposed starvation, Clinton raining 
bombs on Iraq, or Union Carbide poisoning the 
people of India the largest crimes in the world. 
Stealing seventy bucks doesn't even come close to 
this level of "crime."

The next performance was Doctress Neutopia who read 
an essay about her being denied access to the UMass 
computer system last year. Doctress Neutopia is a 
post-modern Internet activist, known for starting a 
pacifist religion and promoting "lovolution" over 
revolution. The December 1 issue of MIM Notes 
covered a talk by the Doctress that was ostensibly 
about human rights in Turkey. As MIM has already 
spelt out its differences with Doctress Neutopia, 
we chose to instead focus at the event and in this 
article on issues that come up more often: the role 
of intellectuals and the future of socialism.

Last year, Doctress Neutopia had an Internet 
account at UMass to use for research purposes, 
although she was no longer affiliated with the 
school. When she took some copyrighted news 
articles from one part of Usenet (a network of 
discussion groups within the Internet) and posted 
it to another, she had her Internet access revoked. 
UMass pays for access to some wire service news 
reports from ClariNet, and the Doctress spread a 
few articles around the world for free. ClariNet, 
the owners of the information, demanded "justice", 
so UMass pulled her plug.

MIM has no doubt that the Doctress was turned in to 
the owners of the material because some vigilante 
didn't like her politics, and that the University 
found her politics distasteful and therefore choose 
the most severe of the possible penalties. But that 
doesn't mean that we want to get caught up in 
arguments about her "deserving" Internet access. 
There are no rights, only those things we can 
organize to seize and maintain. We expect nothing 
from Amerika except its eventual defeat.

As MIM as explained previously, copyrights and the 
ownership of ideas is a reactionary part of 
capitalism that holds back progress. ClariNet has 
useful information, but withholds access to it to 
only those who pay for it. This keeps information 
away from those who can use it productively.

This is why MIM Notes is given free to those--
principally prisoners--who can not pay for it. MIM 
Notes is not copyrighted for a similar reason. Some 
libraries restrict the photocopying of archived 
literature in order to protect the publishers 
copyright. While some capitalist publications might 
want to withhold information, MIM would like to see 
our information spread as widely as possible, so we 
explicitly do not copyright material and encourage 
people to copy it.

Neutopia is correct that in a just society people 
would have equal access to the tools of mass 
communication, including the Internet. So in that 
sense, a criticism of Amerika's Internet policy for 
excluding the great majority of the world would be 
correct. At best, it's opportunism of the worst 
sort for someone with a Ph.D. to scream oppression 
because they have to pay for Internet access. Part 
of the Doctress's defense is that she gets "only" 
$900 a month from her father so that she can sit 
around and develop reactionary lovolution 
philosophies with her time.

The Doctress responded to this criticism by 
demanding Internet access for the world. When RAIL 
hammered Doctress Neutopia to admit that food, safe 
water and getting imperialist nations out of their 
country were important, she meekly said of course, 
and then added "and Internet access", with the 
emphasis on the Internet access.

Fundamental behind Doctress Neutopia's line is an 
intellectual elitism. She believes she deserves to 
sit around all day and philosophize about future 
societies, archologies and the lovolution. She 
wants peasants to slave in the fields all day so 
she can jet around the world to criticize 
revolutionary movements where she can't even speak 
their language.

A RAIL comrade explained the Maoist view that the 
division of labor in society is social. This 
comrade posed a rhetorical question, asking if the 
Doctress thought that some people dug ditches and 
plowed fields, and others sat around in coffee 
shops talking about philosophy because of 
biological differences. The Doctress exposed her 
belief in biological determinism answering that 
some people are big and like physical work, and 
some people don't.

MIM does not waste time developing reactionary 
philosophies that lead the people of the world down 
dead ends. Instead we organize for socialist 
revolution to liberate the people of the world from 
the oppression and exploitation of imperialism. One 
of the most important stages in global liberation 
will be the former parasites of the united states 
and other imperialist countries paying reparations 
to the Third World. Such a scenario would offer 
great material aid to the Third World, and lower 
the standard of living for Amerikans to something 
globally sustainable. For an Amerikan to do 
physical labor all day and end up with the 
Doctress's "oppressive" $900 a month might be quite 
lucky indeed. 

MIM Notes is not copyrighted. Please credit MIM 
when redistributing or referring to this material. 
Subscriptions are $20 for 24 issues, U.S. mail 
or e-mail. Send cash, stamps or check made out to 
"MIM Distributors."

Write: MIM Distributors, PO Box 3576, Ann Arbor MI 
48106-3576. E-mail: mim@mim.org.
http://www.prisoncensorship.info/archive/etext