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 123 OCTOBER 1, 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. IN THIS ISSUE: 1. U.$. ATTACKS TO INCREASE GULF OIL CONTROL 2. CHICAGO CONVENTION REEKS OF REPRESSION AND IMPERIALIST RHETORIC 3. LETTERS TO MIM 4. STRUGGLE CONTINUES FOR THE SISON FAMILY 5. HOW TO FIGHT FOR YOUR RIGHT TO DISTRIBUTE THE PEOPLE'S LITERATURE 6. PROTEST AND TEACH-IN SUPPORTS KOREAN STUDENTS 7. STOCKHOLM CHILD SEX ABUSE CONFERENCE MISSES THE POINT: IMPERIALISM 8. CHIPPEWA WIN TEMPORARY VICTORY AGAINST TOXIC TRAINLOAD 9. MARCIA CLARK SHOWS BANKRUPTCY OF PSEUDO- FEMINISM 10. PATRIARCHY: KEEP THE WIMMIN'S HAIR CLEAN AND GET THE DANGEROUS MEN AWAY FROM OUR PROPERTY 11. IRAQ: A LIITLE HISTORY OF AMERIKAN IMPERIALISM 12. STUDENT PROTESTS PRISON SLAVE LABOR 13. EXPOSED CORRUPTION IN PHILLY PIGS LEADS TO SMALL REFORMS 14. MORE KORRUPT KKKOPS EXPOSED IN NYC 15. BOURGEOIS ACADEMICS DEFINED 16. AMERIKAN KULTURE: TRAINSPOTTING AND WARPED 17. MARXISM-LENINISM-MAOISM ONLINE: WORLD WIDE WEB REVIEWS, AFFIRMATIVE ACTION 18. UNDER LOCK AND KEY: NEWS FROM PRISONERS AND PRISONS * * * 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 * * * U.$. ATTACKS TO INCREASE GULF OIL CONTROL President Clinton ordered two sets of cruise missile strikes at Iraq at the beginning of September, intended to increase Amerikan military control over southern Iraq, and control over the Persian Gulf region in general. After the attacks, which were supposed to weaken Iraqi air defenses, Amerika expanded its zone of air-based occupation by about 100 miles north into Iraq, almost all the way to Baghdad. The public reason for the attacks was to penalize the Iraqi government led by Saddam Hussein for its military strike into southern Kurdistan, which lies within Iraq's northern borders and within Amerika's imposed northern "no-fly" zone of air-based occupation. "When you abuse your people, or threaten your neighbors, you must pay a price," Clinton said.(1) Clinton was careful to direct the comment at Iraq only - but that did nothing to cover up the obvious hypocrisy of the Amerikan position. Bourgeois analysts were quite willing to give the real reasons for the Amerikan attack because Amerikans would never support military intervention just to help an oppressed nation such as the Kurds. So Defense Secretary William Perry made a point of saying Iraq posed a "clear and present danger" to nearby countries and to "the flow of oil in the world." And the ABC News military expert talking heads admitted the strikes on air-defense systems were long-intended, with the Kurdistan incident providing a justification.(2) Protecting the flow of oil is not really Amerika's goal, the goal is really to control that flow for Amerikan imperialist interests. Why else would the attacks have come just as Iraq was ready to implement a food-for-oil exchange that would have reintroduced Iraqi oil to the world market? That deal is now on hold. AMERIKA IS NOT PROTECTING KURDS The imperialists will not protect the oppressed nations of the world. Imperialism is the cause of the oppression and exploitation of these nations. The Kurdish people and all other oppressed peoples will only achieve self-determination through struggle against the imperialists. But even Clinton's high principle is revealed as meaningless rhetoric by the large Turkish invasion of that same Kurdish region within Iraq , against the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK), which is fighting for Kurdish liberation in Turkey.(3) This happened the same week Klinton ordered the air strike of Iraq. Turkey's bombing of Kurdish territory in Iraq doesn't offend Clinton's important humanitarian principles. The U.S. State Department said the Turkish incursion was OK, but Iraq's was not.(4) This is particularly revealing of the hypocrisy of the imperialists since Turkey crossed a recognized national border while Iraq acted within its own borders (a distinction which does not matter to MIM when we are talking about borders used to oppress people and enforce the imperialist world order.) In fact, Turkey has announced it will annex a strip of land on the Iraqi side of the border between the two countries as a "security zone," like Israel has in Lebanon.(3) This all fits the U.S. pattern of supporting Turkey's genocide of the Kurdish people, as in March 1995 when Turkey launched a major attack across Iraq's border. In that attack they struck mostly civilian targets, although they claimed to be after the "terrorist" PKK. The U.S. military cooperated by removing its patrolling aircraft from the area. As we wrote at the time: "The U.S. only cares for the Kurdish people when they are available for use as political pawns."(5) The U.S. government portrays itself as the would-be agent of Kurdish liberation, valiantly trying to get the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) together to oppose Iraq's government. In the latest dispute, the KDP has gone to Iraq for help against the PUK, which was getting help from Iran. U.S. government sources have been telling the press that the KDP was working with the CIA to oppose the Iraqi government, and the KDP's invitation to Iraq to intervene against the PUK has undermined U.S. efforts there. One group getting money from the CIA is the Iraqi National Congress, which includes the KDP.(6) By some accounts the KDP's Massoud Barzani was the CIA's main contact there.(7) When MIM covered the Kurdish uprising in 1991 in an interview with a representative of the KDP, we warned of the dangers of accepting aid from the imperialists,(8) but at the same time it's not for us to say who they should or should not accept help from as long as they do not compromise the armed struggle against imperialism. If they are successfully manipulating the opposing powers of Iraq and Amerika for the benefit of Kurdish liberation - which we do not have evidence of at the present - then more power to them. At the moment it is hard to see how Kurdish liberation has benefited from the latest developments. Amerika has no problem with Iraq hampering Iran's attempts to gain influence within Iraq. Amerika does not want to see Iraq fall apart -- Amerika just wants to control Iraq itself. Still, government officials told the press that they were upset that Iraq disturbed their covert operations based in the north. Iraq's military assault on Erbil, in Kurdistan, undermined a CIA operation to overthrow the Iraqi government, Clinton administration officials told the New York Times. That operation had grown since January, when Clinton signed a secret order for increased CIA efforts, which went up to about $20 million this year from about $6 million the year before. The CIA operatives supposedly fled the country when Iraq attacked, leaving behind their Iraqi accomplices.(6) OPPOSE AMERIKAN IMPERIALISM While Saddam Hussein is no friend of the oppressed, MIM opposes all attacks by Amerikan imperialism. The terror inflicted on the Kurds by Saddam Hussein is nothing new, back when Amerikan imperialism was funding Hussein he was attacking the Kurds and Amerika did not mind that this was done with Amerikan weapons. The suffering of the Kurdish people must end, but this end will be brought about by the people themselves, not by imperialists who pretend support for the oppressed when it serves political interests while at the same time attacking oppressed nations around the world. In typical chauvinist reporting, Amerikan radio and press echoed the white house's joy that no Amerikan lives had been lost. No one tried to count the Iraqi lives lost in this "successful" air strike. The kind face Klinton tries to put on imperialism is just a cover for political maneuvering. The real message from this attack is that nations should not attempt to resist imperialist domination. But when imperialism means suffering and death for the majority of the world's people, another imperialist offensive in World War III is nothing new. This war is being fought in the Third World where the imperialists and their lackeys carry out constant low intensity warfare against the proletariat and peasants. These attacks don't make it into the news very often but they wreck constant genocide on the oppressed nations of the world. One more overt attack will not stop the oppressed from resisting imperialist domination and the majority of the world's people will eventually defeat the dictatorship by the minority and stop them from abusing all people. NOTES: 1. ABC New, 9/3/96. 2. Nightline, 9/3/96. 3. The New York Times, 9/7/96, p. A6. 4. The New York Times, 9/6/96, p. A1. 5. MIM Notes 100, May 1995. 6. The New York Times, 9/7/9696, p. A1. 7. Jim Hoagland in the Washington Post, 9/6/96, p. A23. 8. MIM Notes 51, April 1991. * * * CHICAGO CONVENTION REEKS OF REPRESSION AND IMPERIALIST RHETORIC This year's Chicago Democratic Party convention was marked by lots of Amerikan chauvinist rhetoric and campaign-speak inside the well guarded walls along with lost of protests outside the walls. Many of these protests were liberals who did not even pretend to oppose imperialism including Rainbow Coalition rallies and labor aristocracy marches. But alongside these less political activities, large crowds turned out to protest anti-immigration repression, to oppose the criminal injustice system, to fight against the so-called drug war which is really a war on the oppressed, and to protest police brutality among the most prominent anti-imperialist causes. These protests sometimes focus on the Democratic convention as if the protesters expect to have a better chance of swaying the Democrats to progressive change. While the conventions make a fine opportunity for a protest, it is important to be clear that electoralism does not make anti- imperialist change and there is no significant difference between the parties. MIM does not see a difference between the Republicans and the Democrats on anti-imperialist issues and our campaign this year across the country has told people: Don't vote for imperialism. PIG REPRESSION STILL THERE IN 1996 Chicago was angling for the kinder gentler convention image in 1996 to erase the bad press and memories of the 1968 brutal repression of anti-war convention protesters. Chicago went all out to sanitize and beautify the parts of the city that would be seen by convention attendees. The streets used for travel between hotels and the convention center were renovated, trees were planted, and empty lots cleared. But for those in Chicago who live in the poorer sections who were not on the convention travel route, no new trees were seen and the abandoned buildings and empty lots remained. Chicago is willing to invest millions in image but little in substance. The security lockdown on the convention site was also complete and the pigs patrolling the streets kept tight control. At this year's democratic party convention the police repression was still there, it was just quieter and of less interest to the public. In part this was due to the lower level of activism relative to 1968 and in part this was because the pigs and the state have learned a few lessons from 1968. Setting up areas for official protests was just one of their many strategic moves to marginalize the protesters. In two designated protest areas, organizers had to apply for permits and were allowed carefully scheduled 30 minute segments of stage time. These protest areas came complete with a full regiment of police to guard against any problems and free ice water for the protesters to reinforce the benevolent image of the city. All of this planning combined with the lower level of activism to create a relative calm that was only interrupted by a few arrests. Several famous names from the 1968 Chicago convention were back in Chicago this year with many other people protesting prison conditions and the criminal injustice system. But when this protest ended in a civil disobedience sit-in at the federal building, the arrest of a few famous names was what made the stories in the media, not the causes they were fighting for. PIGS RAID COUNTER-CONVENTION CONFERENCE The largest incident of police repression against protesters of this year's Chicago convention (that MIM has heard about) took place at the same time Klinton was addressing the convention. The pigs raided the counter-convention conference Active Resistance, organized by the organization Autonomous Zone, a Chicago anarchist group. Police forced their way into the building on West Carroll street that served as the central meeting site for the conference. People were pepper-sprayed, and several were hospitalized. Searches of people's personal belongings were conducted and radio equipment and papers were confiscated. When conference participants asked to see a search warrant the pigs told them a search warrant was not necessary. The pigs also refused to give out their badge numbers. Although they were told they were not under arrest, when one woman and her 3-year old son tried to leave the pigs told them they could not. Police vans then went on to another Active Resistance meeting site but by the time they arrived the organizers had evacuated the building.(1) There were also reports of attacks on independent media makers when several of the videographers covering the Festival of the Oppressed procession were arrested and their cameras were confiscated and film destroyed by arresting officers. One vocal camera person had his camera smashed by the pigs.(1) 1996 IS NOT 1968 Although some successful anti-imperialist protests took place, the 1996 convention protests were not nearly as big or as radical as the activism at the 1968 convention. It's important for activists to understand what is different in 1996 compared with 1968. The media coverage of the convention protests focused on the "general apathy" and "general lack of interest" as the cause of the much smaller protests and change in atmosphere around the convention. But it's important to understand the role of the Vietnam war in radicalizing the youth in 1968 and the class interests of the Amerikan population. WHITE AMERIKA FIGHTS FOR SELF-INTERESTS People in Amerika are not stupid: the majority of the citizens of this country recognize that they have an interest in maintaining the relatively high standard of living they enjoy at the expense of the Third World. This bribery from the government has worked to subdue the anti-imperialist sentiments of the people over the past century. Wars that involve large numbers of Amerikans in active combat and therefore actively engage the material interests of Amerikans, do a lot to radicalize the people. The Vietnam war gave many people an important reason to oppose Amerikan imperialism and led many, particularly youth, to take a closer look at the barbarity of Amerikan imperialism around the world. But today World War III is being carried out mostly in the Third World with most of the casualties being from the oppressed nations of the world. And when the war is sufficiently removed from the interests of the Amerikan public, the compelling politicizing force is no longer there. Amerikans can slip back into the comfortable life of excessive consumerism funded by the exploitation and oppression of the majority of the world's people. The bribery that created the huge labor aristocracy that makes up the vast majority of the workers of this country has also infected the youth who strive to take their place among their successful Amerikan parents. These youth still have vacillating interests because of the contradictions of age in our society, and they are the most revolutionary group among the white nation. But even this group is best mobilized when the possibility of death (the draft) strikes them in the face. SECTION OF OPPRESSED NATIONS ALSO OFFERED A WAY OUT Oppressed nations face huge inequities in financial situations, opportunities, education, health care, and imprisonment compared to whites who have it better across all these measures. And oppressed nations have a history of slavery and exploitation that has created a group interest in ending imperialism. Revolutionary leaders from organizations like the Black Panthers and the Young Lords were among those on the forefront of the late 1960s protests. But in Amerika the rulers have caught on to the benefits of bribing even the oppressed nations. Offering strategic positions to enough tokens and bribing a large enough group of an oppressed nation by giving them the opportunity to take advantage of the wealth this country steals from the Third World has also bought the alliance of a segment of the oppressed nations. This segment includes many petty bourgeois individuals who may be allies of the revolution in the future but who are willing to work within the system when given the right incentives. Reverend Willie Barrow, chairwoman of Operation PUSH and an Illinois delegate, attended a commemorative rally of Martin Luther King's famous "I have a dream" speech that drew several hundred people. She said so few Blacks were protesting in the streets this year because they are now negotiating on the inside of the Democratic Party. "Marches like King's put thousands of people in the street," Barrow said. "That time, we couldn't get in the suites. Now, I am staying in the Drake Hotel. That's why we didn't have crowds in the streets, because we got them in the suites. Now, we have got to demand justice in the suites."(2) While there is some truth to Barrow's statement about the upward mobility of Blacks in Amerika over the past 30 years, this has primarily benefited an upper segment of Blacks while leaving the majority behind. With conditions in the projects, inner cities, and prisons still appalling and still mostly affecting oppressed nations, Blacks, Latinos, indigenous peoples and other oppressed nations are still the people within Amerikan borders with the interest in ending imperialism. The capitulation of a growing number of Black leaders who believe that electoralism is the answer must be fought by the young leaders both inside and outside of prison who have seen the harsh reality of conditions for oppressed nations in the United Snakes. MIM's work in the prisons and in the oppressed nations outside of the prisons has confirmed the revolutionary sentiments created by the still oppressive material conditions faced by the majority of the people from oppressed nations. The fact is that oppressed nations are already protesting Amerikan electoralism and have been for years. A disproportionate number of non-whites do not vote. And not voting is correlated with income so those in the bottom 20% of society are least likely to vote: this is mostly oppressed nation people.(3) While Klinton and Dole represent the interests of the majority of Amerikans, they do not represent the interests of this bottom 20% who understand this and don't waste their time at the ballot box. It is this correct sentiment that MIM is harnessing with the Don't Vote for Imperialism campaign this year and we are turning frustration with the system into organizing against the system. Write to us for more information on our 1996 campaign and what you can do to get involved. NOTES: 1. COUNTERMEDIA PRESS RELEASE, August 29, 1996. 2. Chicago Tribune, September 1, 1996, P.3. * * * LETTERS Dear MIM editor, While I was reading my copy of MIM Notes #120, (August 15, 1996), I came across a New York prisoner's letter on page 5, "Tour Between Circles of Hell". I was upset and disappointed to see this letter printed -- especially without a response from MIM. It is understandable that MIM wanted a letter relevant to their article on prison transfers. The letter does show how a prisoner suffered during a transfer, yet this prisoner also caused suffering to other prisoners. Would a Maoist have done the same? Since no response was along with the letter critics of MIM might ask the following questions. Does MIM condone violence against the masses for irritating religious belief or a malodorous smell? Does MIM agree that beating up a person for reading the Bible out loud is OK? Is this letter truly representative of the suffering prisoners face? Does this letter demonstrate the tremendous revolutionary force of the prison population? MIM Notes does not advocate for Christianity or religion in general. Religion dupes the masses into praying instead of acting, waiting for heaven instead of working for change. This does not mean that MIM condones violence on the masses. No matter how irritating, religious behavior from a prisoner should not merit violence. Instead possibly this could be used a teachable moment for Maoism to argue and discuss the idea of religion. As for the malodorous prisoner, often times prisoners are denied showers, toilet paper, toothpaste, etc. For all we know this prisoner could have be chained naked and spread eagle for day(s), forced to urinate on himself and denied a shower. This man is a victim of the tools of oppression, not a subject of ridicule or criticism. Yes it is unfortunate that this prisoner suffered and the pigs took his stuff. Unfortunately it is commonplace for prisoners to have their books, legal materials, and personal writings taken by the prisoncrats. Often during transfers especially, prisoners may lose all their personal belongings. MIM, this is an important issue. How did this happen? --a RAIL Comrade, August 17, 1996 MIM RESPONDS: Thank you for your criticism. Careful MIM Notes readers keep us on our toes. The decision to run the letter without a response was incorrect. Though the letter partially pointed to the inadequate conditions of prison transfers and the harassment of prisoners by the pigs, the letter did not correctly represent MIM line. After reading your letter it is more clear that the error of running the letter lies primarily in the fact that the piece does not point out the principal struggles against guards, against the pigs and against the repressive system. In addition, MIM did not take this opportunity to struggle with the prisoner to realize as well that he must struggle against the oppressor, not his fellow prisoners. The intended purpose of running the letter was to show how the conditions of transfers are oppressive, to show the way that the guards harass and intimidate prisoners between prisons and bring the parallel article pertaining to transfers of youth into a more detailed light. Transfers and shackles are oppressive and reminiscent of Amerikkkan slavery. Being told that you are anti- social cause you can't handle it is further harassment. Pigs encouraging fighting through making the conditions inadequate and infuriating is a tactic of oppression. The letter did not expose the principal enemy and you are right, it does not demonstrate the tremendous revolutionary force of the prison population. Additionally, running the letter without a response struggling with the prisoner to take up revolutionary struggle served the purpose of wasting space in the people's newspaper. What would have been correct is to struggle with the prisoner to find the reasons for these conditions. Like the religious prisoner -- the source for that is not the one individual, but a specific ideology the prison authorities sanction. Above all, Maoists must always focus on shackles being completely inhumane and focus on the pigs' reaction to the writer. We can use that struggle for a group analysis then as strong agitational material to address other prisoners with similar misconceptions. * * * STRUGGLE CONTINUES FOR THE ASYLUM OF THE SISON FAMILY For the time being, the order of the Dutch Government to expel Prof. Sison, his wife Julie and 14-year-old son Jasm from the Netherlands on 14 August has been pushed back by their appeal to the Aliens' Court and by the mass protest actions in 18 cities of the world. But the danger of expulsion of the Sison family from the Netherlands remains. It is a distinct possibility that, while the court case is still pending, Prof. Sison is detained in order to compel him to look for another country to transfer to. We should not underestimate the power of the Dutch, US and Manila governments to deny asylum to the Sison family in the Netherlands. They have already prevented them from getting asylum status for eight years and are now determined to expel them. We should not underestimate their capacity to use propaganda and their influence to misrepresent advocates and fighters for national liberation as "terrorists" in order to deny them asylum. It is therefore of crucial importance and necessity to arouse, organize and mobilize the support of the broad masses of the people. It is not enough that the juridical merits of the asylum application of the Sison family is strong. Powerful forces are out to lay aside the just grounds for the asylum of the Sison family. The International Campaign for the Asylum of the Sison Family urges the people to remain vigilant and militant in supporting the Sison family. 1. Demonstrations and pickets far bigger and in more cities than already held in August are proposed for the second week of October 1996. 2. The campaign to collect signatures on the appeal on behalf of the Sison family aims at collecting at least 50,000 signatures in as many countries as possible. 3. Statements from organizations and personalities are also being solicited in support of the Sison family. 4. The International Campaign for the Asylum of the Sison Family is producing printed, electronic, and audio-visual materials on the Sison Asylum case. 5. Meetings are held to present the facts and significance of the Sison Asylum case and the Philippine situation, especially the deplorable human rights situation. 6. Committees in support of the Sison family in their appeal for asylum are being formed in many cities of the world in order to promote the foregoing activities and raise funds for the work of the undersigned International Campaign for the Asylum of the Sison Family 7. An international team of lawyers and representatives of major international lawyer's organizations is being formed in order to support the Sison family, observe and intervene in court proceedings, hold an international conference on the Sison case and conduct a fact-finding mission to investigate the human rights situation in the Philippines. The International Campaign for the Asylum of the Sison Family will continue until the Sison family get their asylum in the Netherlands and the procedure for granting asylum to all political refugees is facilitated and freed from neocolonial political and economic pressures and maneuvers, including malicious attempts to vilify and criminalize fighters for national liberation and democracy. The International Campaign for the Asylum of the Sison Family is encouraging the committees in support of the Sison family to consider becoming simultaneously or eventually committees in solidarity with the Filipino people's struggle for national liberation and democracy. Thus, the committees can take a long-term interest in what the Sisons stand for--the just cause of the people's struggle for liberation and social emancipation. --The International Campaign for the Asylum of the Sison Family 22 August 1996 * * * HOW TO FIGHT FOR YOUR RIGHT TO DISTRIBUTE THE PEOPLE'S LITERATURE When Ross Perot needs publicity, he buys television time and doesn't worry about distribution. Movements of the oppressed have to fight for their right to distribute literature when almost all property where lit can be distributed is considered private property and the rest is a fiefdom of some bureaucrat. Those who attempt distribution know that reality is much different than the legal fiction of rights that exist on such pieces of paper as the "Constitution" or Supreme Court rulings. Nonetheless, Mao said we in the imperialist countries must fight "long, legal battles" until the day the imperialists have been so weakened that they are "really helpless." TARGETS OF WINNABLE BATTLES: 1. Public libraries cannot refuse to allow you to leave your literature for free distribution. Example: New York City Public Library must create a place for you to leave literature, whether such places exist or not already. 2. Any host of a public official's or public figure's speech or appearance whether public or private must allow you to distribute literature on the grounds where and if the public has been invited. Example: Leonard Jeffries speaks at Private U. which publicized the event and invited the public. You cannot be stopped from handing out literature. 3. Shopping malls must allow you to distribute literature free. 4. Police must not stop you from any of the above. TACTICS FOR VICTORY IN THE THREE ABOVE GOALS: 1. Attempt distribution once. 2. Retreat from distribution when asked to stop but ONLY after the following: a) Taking note on the TIME and PLACE you were stopped. b) Getting the name of the person who stopped you and the name and address of the librarian, forum host or mall management if you don't already know it. c) Give the relevant people copies of documents proving your rights if you have the documents with you. d) Take notes on any evidence that other people or organizations were allowed to distribute literature. Take copies of said lit if possible. 3. Go home and write a letter noting the above facts addressed to the head librarian, forum host, mall management, police chief or other bureaucrat in charge. a) Request a written response in which you are guaranteed the right to distribute literature and not just for a specific instance but as a matter of policy. (If you get a favorable written response, bring a copy next time you distribute.) b) Inform the bureaucrat that should this matter have to go to court, you will not only obtain your right to distribute, but also you will ask for legal expenses and a sum of money to make an example of the bureaucrat's organization for violating your supposed civil liberties. c) Enclose relevant news clippings or legal documents relating to your supposed rights, so that they cannot claim their subsequent action was unintentional and uninformed. Note what you enclosed in the body of the letter. d) Note that any future use of force against distributors of the organization you sign the letter with will be regarded as criminal and the subject of a civil suit. e) Keep a copy of the letter and documents you sent. 4. Send the letter and documents and get the post office to register the mail in order to obtain a return receipt from the relevant bureaucrat. 5. If less than your full "rights" would be sufficient for you practically-speaking, inform the bureaucrat verbally. Example: You would settle for unimpeded parking lot access, but you will be in the mall itself handing out flyers if management doesn't capitulate immediately. Tell the bureaucrat this verbally, but do not commit yourself to giving up rights on paper. 6. Publicize the case; do fund-raising for the battle. 7. If response is unsatisfactory obtain real legal help. Use your letter to the bureaucrat and any written responses as information to give your lawyer. If the lawyer shows any hesitancy or lack of aggressiveness, get another one. The ACLU and National Lawyers Guild are two places to go. 90% of lawyers are involved in more financially involved matters and have no clue what you are talking about. * * * PROTEST AND TEACH-IN SUPPORTS KOREAN STUDENTS LOS ANGELES, September 2 -- More than twenty people gathered outside a dinner for south Korean president Kim Young Sam in order to protest his governments recent brutal repression of protesting university students. The protesters carried signs with slogans like "Down with civilian dictatorship" and "All Koreans want one Korea." They also chanted in support of reunification. Flyers from the "Korean-American Coalition Against Political Repression in south Korea," which organized the protests, carried the headline "Kim Young Sam: New Civilian President, Same Military Repression" and described the students' demands as well as the violent response of the south Korean government. The students demanded abolishment of the National Security Law, removal of U.S. troops from Korea, and peaceful reunification of Korea. Kim's government responded by sending in 10,000 riot police who brutalized and arrested the students [See MIM Notes 122]. The rally in Los Angeles included a spontaneous teach in. Several eyewitnesses explained that the Y.S. Kim government used nerve agent (poison gas) on the students and that government troops sexually harassed wimmin students they had detained. Some of the coalitions flyers and posters claimed that the students were "not anti-State" (and therefore the violent crackdown was unnecessary). From MIM's perspective, the existing south Korean government is defined precisely by the facts that it houses the Amerikan troops and implements fascism in order to prevent re-unification, so the student protesters were objectively anti-(puppet)- State. They have the honor and obligation to oppose any organized force which prevents the self- determination of the Korean people. The protest in Los Angeles also attracted some agents of repression. Protest organizers were harassed by the Secret Service. Additionally, Amerikan and south Korean government agents took many photos of the protesters. Although these pigs did not violently attack the masses this time, MIM reminds anti-imperialist activists that the pigs' role is to harass and eventually violently repress activists -- especially those connected to advancing struggles in the oppressed nations. Activists should take this tactical threat seriously and take appropriate precautions. * * * CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE DISCUSSED AT STOCKHOLM CONFERENCE: ANALYSIS BANKRUPT by MCB52 At the end of August, thousands of delegates mostly from non-governmental organizations (NGOs) participated in the first World Congress Against Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children in Stockholm. Though they did succeed in raising some awareness of the oppressive and often brutal treatment of oppressed-nation children, their analysis and solutions were fundamentally bankrupt as they could only urge poor countries to save their children from oppression -- implicitly ignoring the conditions of the imperialist- dominated nations as a whole. The conference organizers correctly realized that most of the commercial oppression of children is done in the Third World, a correct view relative to some on the anti-kiddie porn crusade who pretend that all children are equally likely prey. But their answer, "stiffer legislation" cannot solve the problem. Part of their solution was to encourage Third World governments to prosecute those who sexually abuse children. How the Ramos regime of the Philippines, for example, could possibly track down every marine who buys sex with a 12-year-old pimped from Malaysia, is left unsaid. But they also don't recognize that the Ramos regime does not protect its citizens in general, children or otherwise. The Ramos puppet government is going to go right on appeasing the marines until the youth and other oppressed force them to stop. A more interesting piece of policy the NGOs were pushing was to increase prosecution of First World men in their own countries for crimes sex committed abroad. At least then they are telling governments that have power over First World men to control them. But this actually only serves to legitimize the police state, and does not stop the crimes. The proposals also included the creation of paedophile registers, international criminal courts, and special police forces to deal with the issue. These all individualize the problem, ignoring the fact that in imperialist patriarchy, power is eroticized. Condemning individual men for acting just as advertising and porn tell them to is hypocritical. Even if the laws were enforced, one man is put behind bars for a few months or, on a fluke, years. But locking up the predators one by one is like obstructing a deluge with buckets. So few individual men could possibly be caught that such laws are just hypocritical. Several Scandinavian countries already have them, but don't enforce them. They won't start enforcing them until the power shifts. The conference followed the great Western tradition of hyping sexual oppression to the exclusion of all else. Gotta save the kids from rape, they plead, which is somehow more important than saving them from starving. Sweden's own Queen Silvia closed the conference calling for "forceful action" at "all levels of society" to stamp out the "atrocious and horrifying business with innocent children around the world. As long as there is any child being sexually exploited, there is work to do." For revolutionary feminist communists, as long as there is any power of groups over groups, which is the precondition of all exploitation, there is work to do. Since the NGOs do not address the need of the youths for money from some other source if not sex, they leave all the players in the trade just as they are -- optionless Third World children and eager, moneyed First World men. The only way to change the situation is either give options to Third World children -- not just feel-good "rehabilitation" to a society which only oppressed them in the first place or take away the money and sexual privilege from First World men. This is, of course, exactly what the actual progressive forces are doing. Where non-governmental organizations are putting brittle band-aids on the wounds of the oppressed, revolutionaries like the Communist Party of the Philippines are building their independent power. NOTES: Agence France Presse, August 31, 1996. Read a Maoist analysis of child abuse in MIM Theory 9-"Psychology and Imperialism", available for $4.95. * * * CHIPPEWA WIN TEMPORARY VICTORY AGAINST TOXIC TRAINLOAD MIM reported last issue that the Ogitchida Ashinishabe (Protectors of the People) of the Bad River Chippewa were blocking the tracks to stop a trainload of highly corrosive sulfuric acid from going across their land. That occupation has ended on August 12 when trains were allowed to pass that contained no hazardous materials and an agreement was reached with the US government's Environmental Protection Agency to do an assessment of the proposal to both move the toxins along unsafe tracks through pristine wetlands and its subsequent use to flush out mines just five miles from Lake Superior. The Bad River and other Chippewa tribes in the region rely heavily on wild rice that grows in the wetlands and fishing for their sustenance, and so their radicalism on the issue is no surprise. But they are also winning over segments of the mostly reactionary populations of their neighbors in Wisconsin and Michigan, who are having their consciousness raised to think about the long-term effects of development projects like this one. Subsequent to the demands of the Bad River council and others, Wisconsin and Michigan have joined the call for a more thorough analysis of the project underway. NOTES: Indian Country Today, August 19-26, 1996, pp. 1-2. * * * MARCIA CLARK SHOWS BANKRUPTCY OF PSEUDO- FEMINISM by MC12 Marcia Clark, the lead prosecutor of the O.J. Simpson murder trial, was presented with clear evidence that Black wimmin were the most likely group of jurors to vote to acquit Simpson, and yet she insisted on trying to get Black wimmin on the jury because she believed they would feel a common bond with Simpson's ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, whom he was charged with killing. A recent article in the New Yorker shows that a high-price jury-consulting outfit working for the prosecution (for free) conducted telephone surveys in the Los Angeles area, assembled mock juries, and interviewed people - some of them right in front of Clark - all demonstrating that Black wimmin were most likely to vote for acquittal. The firm, DecisionQuest, did a telephone poll that showed that while Black men and wimmin were more like to believe Simpson than whites, Black wimmin were the most likely to believe him. "Moreover," wrote Jeffrey Toobin in the New Yorker, "black women responding by phone felt overwhelmingly that, even if Simpson had engaged in a pattern of violence against Nicole, doing so didn't make him more likely to have killed her." "On the eve of jury selection," he concludes, "Clark had all this to consider - the focus groups, the telephone survey, the demographic analyses, the whole jury-consulting package. She also knew black women - and she knew they were disproportionately victims of domestic violence themselves. As far as this case went, Nicole Brown Simpson was really one of them." And so Clark helped select a jury that had eight Black wimmin out of twelve people on it, much more than was representative of the jury pool. Why do we bring all this up? Because it's a lesson on pseudo-feminism. Marcia Clark apparently believed that Black wimmin would see Nicole as another womyn, just like themselves. Because Nicole had no national or class oppression to contend with, just a gender disadvantage, gender was her principal concern, in Clark's eyes. And because Black wimmin share Nicole's anatomy, Clark believed they would see things the same way, that they would see gender as principal in the situation. That is pseudo-feminism - imposing the gender views of privileged wimmin on all other wimmin. As an ideology it doesn't lead to liberation for the oppressed, and here Marcia Clark demonstrated that up against hard evidence, this ideology fails empirically as well. MIM does not know if O.J. Simpson committed the murder of Nicole Brown Simpson or not. And we don't know the thinking of the jury that acquitted him. What interests us about the case are all the lessons it holds for understanding national contradictions and gender in the united states. More than anything, the case showed the bankruptcy of pseudo-feminism and its uselessness for Amerika's oppressed nations. NOTES: The New Yorker 9/9/96. * * * PATRIARCHY: KEEP THE WIMMIN'S HAIR CLEAN AND GET THE DANGEROUS MEN AWAY FROM OUR PROPERTY The view that gender oppression is simply additive to national oppression received another blow in Alabama. The Governor Fob James fired his Prison Commissioner Ron Jones, not for bringing back the chain gang, rock-breaking and 12 hour shifts in shared bunks in prison cells. No, Governor Fob James drew the line when Ron Jones announced that he was going to start putting female prisoners in the chain gangs too. If it were a simple matter that wimmin prisoners had to break rocks four hours instead of three hours for men, we could say gender oppression is just added in oppression. However, as MIM has pointed out, gender has a life of its own which makes it simply different than other oppressions, and prison repression is not principally aimed at females. This can cause an important gap in understanding of state power between females and males. Gender roles in patriarchal society include protecting wimmin and thus keeping them accessible and humble. The Governor huffed in his best Hollywood role, "There will be no woman on any chain gang in the state of Alabama today, tomorrow or anytime under my watch." NOTE: The Chicago Westside Journal 29Aug96- 5Sept.96, p. 3. * * * IRAQ: A LITTLE HISTORY OF AMERIKAN IMPERIALISM To understand current Amerikan machinations, we have to remember what the U.S. military is doing there in the first place, and that means returning to the 1991 war against Iraq. That was more than five years ago, and we can't count on Amerikan media or schools to teach this history in an honest way. To hear them tell it, Amerika has reluctantly accepted the difficult responsibility of being parent to the Persian Gulf region. Columnist Stephen Rosenfeld, for example, wrote: "this episode may soon fade into a background littered with past efforts by the United States and others to manage the oil-crucial and unruly Persian Gulf."(1) In January 1991 we reported that the U.S. had begun an economic push into the Gulf region before the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in August 1990, which supposedly triggered the war. Iraq was part of a network of client states the U.S. was developing in its expansionist push for hegemony over the region in the wake of the Soviet power's collapse. Saudi Arabia had plans to double its oil exports, and increase capital-intensive purchases from U.S. companies, and Kuwait was on the same course. But Iraq attempted to become a regional power, and threatened the U.S. plans. By invading Kuwait, however (which Amerikan diplomats subtly encouraged) Iraq also provided the U.S. with the opportunity to convert military power into economic and political power, as the war eventually did.(2) We wrote: "From early on, the United States saw the crisis as an opportunity to gain more control over Middle East oil supplies, to tie client states into a system of dependency on Amerikan imperialism through material incentives and coercion, and in general to use its military might to gain advantage over economically growing imperial powers such as Germany and Japan."(2) President Bush piously declared: "No nation will be permitted to brutally assault its neighbor." This is even more laughable than Clinton's remarks, given the U.S. record of brutally assaulting not just its neighbors, but people around the world, from Vietnam to Nicaragua. We said: "The United States has gone to war to maintain and extend its economic power over Iraq, the oil reserves in the Persian Gulf and the entire region. Victory in this war will increase Amerika's strength as the world's most powerful nation."(3) The war against Iraq marked the beginning of a period of open Amerikan violence in the Gulf-oil region. In April 1991, we quoted a congressman who said, after the war, "The power has shifted . . . the world is a different place today." And George Bush said at the same time: "Now, we can see a new world coming into view. A world in which there is a very real prospect of a new world order. The gulf war put this new world to its first test. And my fellow Americans: We passed that test."(4) Theyalso killed several hundred thousand people, depending on accounts. Amerikan power was increased by the war against Iraq and the collapse of the Soviet Union. The imperialist competition for hegemony over the Middle East is relatively light at the moment. The "coalition" of countries that supposedly fought Iraq was a sham from the beginning, with no country providing even one-tenth the number of troops that the U.S. sent to Iraq.(5) It was an Amerikan war, and to Amerika went the spoils. There are some sour grapes, especially in France, which has lost economically from the Amerikan seizure of control over Iraq's oil. That's why France was cool about endorsing these latest attacks, and why they are refusing to participate in the new, bigger air- occupation zone.(6) Imperialism expands to survive, and in its expansion it also sows the seeds of its own destruction. To convert imperialist wars into revolutionary victories for the people, we have to vigilantly learn the lessons of the past in order to direct our energies in the best possible way. At present, our principal weapon is information. We urge readers to work with MIM to get out the true story of Amerikan aggression and imperialism, and build public opinion for the revolutionary struggle. NOTES: 1. Washington Post, 9/6/96, p. A23. 2. MIM Notes 48, January 1991. 3. MIM Notes 49, January 18, 1991. 4. MIM Notes 51, April 1991. 5. MIM Notes 50, March 1991 6. New York Times 9/6/96, p. A17. * * * STUDENT PROTESTS PRISON SLAVE LABOR On August 28, a University of Massachusetts graduate student won an appeal against a ticket the pigs issued for his protest of slave labor in the Massachusetts prison system. In March, the student turned his licensee plate upside down and painted on his back car window "Slave Labor Made This Plate". The student described, as many prisoners and readers of MIM Notes will know, prison labor as "brutal, repetitive, meaningless work." In May, he was pulled over by the police who issued a ticket for displaying an upside-down plate. The student restored the plate to its normal position, pending appeal of the ticket. On August 28, the Northampton District Court ruled that there was no law against having your plate upside down and that such speech was protected by the First Amendment. MIM supports the efforts of people to publicize prison conditions and the treatment of prisoners. We do recognize the tactical value of First Amendment arguments, while we recognize that dissident speech that is not backed up by an armed populace exists only at the discretion of the government. Finally, MIM would caution against actions that bring extra attention from the police onto activists. While it is without doubt that the "upside down" plate has raised consciousness and sparked some useful discussions, it might not be so productive to be spending a lot of time on the side of the road, trying to explain prison labor to the cop who pulled you over. NOTE: Weekend Hampshire Gazette August 31-September 1, 1996, p. 9. * * * EXPOSED CORRUPTION IN PHILLY PIGS LEADS TO SMALL REFORMS; EVEN THE MAYOR SAYS IT ISN'T ENOUGH The Philadelphia Police Department is the target of a federal corruption investigation. This has included $8 million dollars in settlements for civil rights violations in August alone, and the overturning of over a hundred wrongful criminal convictions based on concocted arrests by the pigs. On September 4, Mayor Ed Rendell (D) announced, in agreement with civil rights groups, a series of reforms in the police. Most cases of police brutality are completely ignored and don't lead to any reforms. But this time the exposure of corruption, wrongful arrest and brutality was so severe it forced Rendell to enact reforms so that he could say his reforms would end the problem. Rendell said that there will be police corruption as long as drug trafficking is profitable, but he denies that corruption is systemic in the 6,000 member force. Rather than indicting capitalism for breeding corruption, Rendell (no surprise) is excusing it. If it was not for the exposure of wide-spread corruption, Rendell wouldn't even have made this bold of a statement. Falsified evidence led to the convictions of a 54- year-old West Philadelphia grandmother as a drug dealer who served 3 years in prison, and "a furniture store salesman" was sent "to death row for 14 months for a double murder he didn't commit." "The 12 reforms include the creation of a task force to review police misconduct, computerization of citizen complaints and records, and the creation of a new Integrity and Accountability Office to watch Internal Affairs." The ACLU represented two civil rights groups (Police-Barrio Relations Project and another group) and threatened to sue the City for "unfairly targeting Blacks and Latinos." The ACLU argued that the police promise to monitor race bias "sends a strong message that you can't have law for the Caucasian community and law for everybody else." The ACLU argued on constitutional grounds that the United Snakes is a "nation of one law and equal protection for all." Actually, the United Snakes is an apartheid society, with many nations under the oppressive thumb of white Amerika. The Constitution doesn't say that directly, of course, and sometimes small battles can be won on those grounds. Pressure put on the City of Philadelphia by the ACLU exploiting this contradiction has led to the 12 reforms. The Police-Barrio Relations Project, one of the civil rights groups represented by the ACLU, said that the computerization of records of police complaints will make it more difficult for the police to deny knowledge of complaints. However, MIM could see this backfiring and allowing more accurate record keeping on residents who file complaints. The limited nature of these reforms is exposed by the fact that the "new task force on corruption will not have the power to subpoena officers." This is key. For the people to control the police, the community members themselves must have the actual ability--not just on paper--to subpoena officers as well as fire them. This is an example of why working to reform the police under capitalism will never work: they have the power and are not about to grant it to a community that does not have an interest in letting them use this power. That small reforms aren't enough becomes clear when you listen to the head of the Fraternal Order of Police, Richard Costello: "We have more people watching police than we do police watching members of the public right now in Philadelphia, and we're approaching the theater of the bizarre." If Philly pigs were really outnumbered by people watching them, that would be progress, although it would take more than cameras and lawyers to compete with the heavy armament of the Philadelphia Police. In addition to 6,000 sidearms attached to 6,000 pigs, as of 1985 at the attack on the MOVE house alone, the Philadelphia police had "deluge houses, tear gas, stun grenades, M-16 rifles, 12 gauge shot guns, 30.06 sniper rights with silencers, Thompson machine guns, 9mm Uzis, explosives, 50 caliber machine guns, 20mm armor piercing anti-tank guns, M-60 machine guns and a bomb made of a military explosive called C-4." Plus the police used a helicopter to drop the bomb.(1) Who knows what kinds of military hardware the City of Philadelphia has purchased in the 11 years since the bombing of Move. When the Black and Latino masses of Philadelphia have that kind of armament, then perhaps Costello might have some sort of case that he's being controlled and we look forward to that day. MIM supports the self-determination of oppressed nations and the exercising of dictatorship over the colonizing Amerikan nation. To Costello that would be bizarre. Or in the more immediate sense Costello might also be finding it "bizarre" that criticism of police "misconduct" would move beyond publications like MIM Notes or the writings of Mumia Abu-Jamal and make it into the city government itself. MIM would find that bizarre too, if we actually thought the announced reforms would make a big difference in the colonial occupation of Philly's ghettos. Costello has threatened to sue if the reforms infringe on the police contract. Costello also objects to the police being "stereotyped." On NPR he got some support from Sociologist Nancy Rhodes, of the National Coalition on Police Accountability: "We can go through city after city after city, and there are very, very serious problems in the United States with both brutality and corruption. It would be a very, very big mistake to focus only on police and say they're the only ones doing it. That's certainly not the case. The system very much supports them doing it." It is correct that the police are not the only problem. They are merely the occupying force in Amerika' internal colonies. Revolutionaries must oppose not only the hired goons of imperialism but also work to expose and defeat the whole system, from the pigs, to the mayor's office, to the White House to the corporate board rooms. What we would object to is Rhodes, and NPR, saying the problem is bigger than the police as a group but failing to take on larger institutions. This is nihilism that lets everyone--including the pigs-- off the hook. NOTES: 1. First Day, the Move Organization Issue 7, PO Box 19709, Philadelphia, PA 19143 All other facts and quotes from "All Things Considered" on National Public Radio, September 4, 1996. * * * MORE KORRUPT KKKOPS EXPOSED IN NYC On September 5, New York City was preparing to arrest 4 officers on felony theft charges. The officers are from the 34th Precinct in predominantly oppressed national territory. This is another public relations ploy about "bad apples" and purifying another otherwise Ok police force. One police official was quoted in the New York Times "We're not talking about another 30th Precinct." In 1994, more than 30 officers were arrested "on charges of drug trafficking, brutality and perjury." Two years ago it was so many bad apples that it was pretty clearly systemic and a conspiracy. Now it's a much smaller cleansing. Police officials did not give much information to the New York Times other than that this wraps up an internal investigation into the 34th precinct. Apparently the NYPD feel that enough cleansing has happened to restore legitimacy to the force. MIM recognizes that the police are an occupying force in the internal colonies and we would target the systemic nation of police oppression, not just the "bad apples". NOTE: New York Times 9/10/96, p. B5. * * * BOURGEOIS ACADEMICS DEFINED Someone at a big Amerikan research corporation recently finished putting a powerful computer through a lot of cycles to find a new prime number. The significance of this discovery is twofold: academia in some cases is defined only as finding things no one else has the energy or equipment to find; and bourgeois academia often has substantial military or intelligence applications. As National Public Radio reported this discovery, it serves no useful purpose and only one useless purpose: temporary notoriety for the individual and the company with enough money and CPU cycles to waste to find this new and big number. But in real life, algorithms used to find new numbers can be used to improve cryptographic technology. When the research for this is funded in an imperialist country -- either by a large corporation or by the government -- it is being funded for the purpose of improving imperialist security. Under socialism, research will not be masked as supposedly "pure" intellectual curiosity taking its natural course. Military research will of course be hidden from the enemies of the proletariat, but it also will not be used to promote individual fame and fortune of researchers. Research will benefit the masses' quality of life and the masses will lead in identifying research projects of genuine social value. All research, whether clandestine or open, will be guided by these principles. NOTE: National Public Radio's "All Things Considered" Sept. 4, 1996. * * * AMERIKAN KULTURE TRAINSPOTTING: FALSE ALTERNATIVES The Scottish film Trainspotting is getting lots of press and talk because of its realistic representation of the intense high of a hit of heroin. But anyone who comes away from Trainspotting thinking it advocates or is focusing just on heroin use is not listening. The movie says there are two alternatives: boring labor aristocrat life or miserable junkie life. It is critical of both, but the thing it's missing is that there are other options, too. Social change is mentioned in passing, only to be dismissed. That is the real solution to the emptiness posed by these young men's alternatives. The opening section of the film is going to capture the attention of young radicals of whatever persuasion, including Maoists. The main character recites a little bourgeois plug to the extent of: Choose life, choose a job, choose health insurance, choose a big fucking television. Then he asks "Why would I want to do that?" This is exactly the question of a whole lot of youth. The decadent, individualist, imperialist tailing petty bourgeois lifestyle is so meaningless, might as well reject it. The film portrays this vacillation, between rejecting labor aristocracy and seizing it, provocatively. With a simple change of clothes and venue, the temporarily off heroin hero becomes a real estate agent for London yuppies. There is no pretense that the hero is a product of miserable circumstances -- his parents are very loving, he has a "good" bourgeois education and can succeed at a petty bourgeois life if he wants to. Peddling stolen goods for smack is presented as no more morally reprehensible then peddling apartments for rent money. The former just means you'll probably die sooner. Both the labor aristocracy and the drug scene are portrayed as a waste of time and energy of the youth -- and they are. Neither creates a sustainable society for the lives of the future. The hero almost gets what an alternative to all this might be. As he and his friends are off in the countryside of Scotland, pretty as a postcard, someone disses the English. Mark responds that hating the English Imperialists is not good enough. "The British are wankers, but we are colonized by wankers." He says he hates the Scottish for accepting their alienation more than the English. The realization is that the main enemy is not just the settlers who took land and liberty, in this case the English, but also those buying into the colonization for their own material interests. This is like all the labor aristocrats who gripe about their lack of control but don't do anything about it for fear of rocking a pretty good boat. Unfortunately, rather than creating change around that analysis, Trainspotting takes the apathetic route and says fuck it, do whatever you want, accept being a pathetic labor aristocrat or accept being a worthless punk. Lacking in scientific analysis and organization, the complacent attitude that Trainspotting advocates just turns around to support the imperialists and labor aristocracy that it complains about. MIM would respond instead by saying accept neither, overthrow the entire oppressive system and organize to create revolutionary alternatives. * * * WARPED TOUR -- AMERIKKKAN ANARCHISM On June 30, Northampton, MA. was host to Warped, a tour of punk bands and skateboarding and roller blading athletic events. Seeing this event as no more righteous then every other Amerikan leisure time activity, MIM and RAIL still saw it as an opportunity to engage in politically revolutionary discussions with First World youth. The decadent culture that Amerikan imperialism produces attracts and lays ground work for complacency toward oppression, which just creates a support group for reactionary imperialist politics. However, while still being born into the oppressor society, youth have more to lose from imperialism and form a potentially large revolutionary group. The reactionary grip the imperialist have already taken on First World youth manifested itself with responses such as "I can't read". Most likely a lie for the majority, that acted as an easy, and seemingly funny, escape from talking politics. If any of these people were illiterate, or for that matter not falling friend to imperialism, they might want to take a look at all the Chinese peasants who had no choice in taking the "easy" way out and taught themselves to read with Mao's "On Contradiction", a thirty page essay on the meaning behind dialectics. It discusses the scientific reasoning behind contradictions and their unity in society, and was applied across the board from improving rice cultivation to ending the gendered roles people were being forced to play in society. Some others proclaimed themselves as anarchists 100% against communism. When asked what they were doing now to end the oppression in the world, one responded with, "I listen to Rage (Against the Machine), that's enough." This just exemplifies, yet again, the decadent attitude that plays so well along side Amerika's imperialist power. It's also seriously offensive to the true motives behind Rage Against the Machines songs. They don't talk about sitting around and listening to their music, but rather are trying to use their music as a motivating force for revolutionary politics. This person has it all wrong, or should it be said, all right in favor for imperialist oppression. Others agreed with MIM and RAIL's line on armed struggle. However the reactions were more in favor of just randomly killing people rather than realizing the tactical necessity behind picking up the gun. The imperialists are not going to give up the power without a long and all encompassing battle, which they have begun with years of starvation, land stealing and colonization. Armed struggle is not a blood fest like the pseudo- anarchists were advocating, but a necessity for finishing the battle in the favor of the masses that Imperialism began ever since the beginnings of colonization. A few discussions on communism versus anarchism took place, and a bunch of zine addresses were exchanged. On person was starting a zine on anarchism, tribal living, anti-racism and anti- sexism who, on the address printed, "remember this is a zine for intelligent well informed punks. not fuckups with nothing to rebel against except the ever climbing prices of stussy wear." (Stussy wear is clothing manufactured "copying" the alternative/punk culture and now available, for a high price, on every trendy store shelf. Yet another example of capitalism's commodity fetishism.) At least someone out there is taking the end of oppression seriously and can see the true decadence and aristocratic position that a majority of Amerikkkans are adopting at a young age. Amerika's youth does form a group of possible revolutionaries able to unite with the world's proletariat to overthrow imperialism. By adopting an ultra-left stance like anarchism, youth only work themselves into the hands of US imperialists by ignoring the principle contradiction, failing to organize around and against imperialism, and relying on metaphysical escapist ideas like individuality to change the world. The oppressors rely on youth to take such paths, because in the end they just produce another mystified supporter of US imperialism. If you favor a society without oppressive conditions as they exist today, the only route to change is uniting with the international proletariat and overthrowing imperialism by working with MIM and RAIL and revolutionary politics. NOTE: For the zine mentioned above, write to Zach Lihatsh 131 Lyme rd. Hanover, NH, 03755 * * * THE VOICE OF OPPRESSION IS NOT A LIE by a New York Prisoner Black Churches are burning on urban streets Oppressed nations are being lied to with promises, progress, pure deceit. The fascists have formulated a plan, to oppress the masses within every land. the Third of the World is being tricked by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), The Central Intelligence Agency is the supplier of the guns. Division is the order of the day, the Imperialist intend to stay. Exploitation, fortification, capitalism is a crime, the fascist have you to think, everything is fine! Extracting minerals, polluting every inch of the land, The oppressed nations must take a final stand. To win we must first all unite, the masses as one putting up a diligent fight! * * * M-L-M ONLINE AMERIKAN CRITICS DENOUNCE AFFIRMATIVE ACTION, UPHOLD SLAVERY When MIM posted an article to Usenet about affirmative action in Texas ("Affirmative Action Setback in Texas," MIM Notes 118), we elicited some hostile comments from Amerikan readers who understand clearly that their privileges rest entirely on group oppression, and are willing to defend anything if it means protecting that privilege -- even slavery: The MIM Notes article had quoted a University of Texas student saying, "Given that slavery lasted more than 200 years, shouldn't we give affirmative action an equal time span to prove itself effective?"(1) "Slavery," wrote one Usenet reader, "as evil as it was, at least *produced* something in this country. There is nothing productive in affirmative action other than a socialistic method of punishing one group of people in favor of another group of people. There is NO guarantee that A.A. will lead to productivity or betterment of our society." To which MIM responds, "which society?" These kinds of reforms will bring some material benefit, in the form of access to education, to oppressed nation peoples. The reader is only concerned about the betterment of the white nation. Objecting to our contrast of white educational privilege, including private tutors, with the disadvantages of Black and Latino students who went to worse-funded high schools and probably worked part-time, the reader indignantly replied "Most white kids do not have, nor do they need private tutors." To MIM's point that any policy benefiting Blacks and Latinos to the detriment of whites, in this case in the educational system, is a good thing, the same reader told the oldest settler lie in the book -- that whites as a nation have been the most productive. This lie is told by the white bourgeois as well as the white working class and its Trotskyist defenders: "Typical socialist thinking, take everything away from the people who worked hard to produce it and give it to those who did nothing." This is a typical settler bind -- defending slavery as productive on one hand but then turning around and calling oppressed nations non-productive. Finally, the reader uttered his spin on the magic Amerikan words "love it or leave it:" "Oppressed nations? I thought we were talking about Americans here. There are NO members of nations that are citizens of this country. If they are, then they are expatriates and I have no sympathy for their ability to even survive here." Fortunately, the oppressed do not rely on sympathy from the oppressor -- but work toward self- determination by organizing to seize power from the imperialists. Notes: 1. The University Review, The Independent Student Journal at The University of Texas at Austin, May 15, 1996., in MIM Notes 118, July 15, 1996. * * * WORLD WIDE WEB REVIEW: ISLAMIC ASSOCIATION FOR PALESTINE http://iap.org/ We always need good sources of anti-imperialist information about the Middle East. The Amerikan media is as restrictive of information regarding Palestine as anything, if not more so in MIM's experience. For people with good speed connections and browsers, we highly recommend the homepage of the Islamic Association for Palestine. No doubt MIM has many disagreements with the politics of this group, but they have assembled an incredible collection of information sources regarding Palestine and the Middle East, including many Arabic language cites, local publications, and organizations of many stripes. For example, we found this picture of a wounded child taken after the Israeli army's deliberate shelling of a refugee camp in southern Lebanon earlier this year. * * * THE ANTI-CAPITAL WEB http://www.webcom.com/maxang/ This mostly anarchist site makes some good critiques of decadent capitalist culture and the so-called information age -- including the majority of the Web itself, which it aptly compares to television -- but like typical anarchists, stops short of providing an alternative theory or practice to supporting the status quo. Its goal is clear enough: "Abolish wage labor, commodity production, the state and capital." But its proposed action, at its clearest, is "subversion" and the site says "They gave us enough rope. It's time to hang them with it." *Against Sleep And Nightmare,*(ASAN) "a marxist and Situationist influenced" zine housed on this site, identifies the oppression of neo-colonialism in Palestine and El Salvador, the bourgeois media- supported campaign lies of Republicans and Democrats, and the general evils of imperialist culture. But in its critique of culture, ASAN makes little distinction between the material and the cultural realms of society. While it states that "War is a continuation of social peace by more extreme means," it lapses into a culture-driven explanation for that. "Social peace is based on most people's acceptance of the 'mundane' daily routine of the modern world. Dull work, television and the police create a world that is already militarized."(1) MIM also says "World War III is on," referring to the ongoing imperialist aggression against the Third World. And we agree that television supports militarist ideology and the imperialist agenda. But blaming television implies that if we just create revolutionary culture in the present political economy, we can combat militarism. We need to create revolutionary culture so we can build the revolutionary forces and overthrow imperialism. Speaking of culture, the Anti-Capital Web says, "every new tool is a two-edged sword. Capitalist society needs the free-flow of information even if Senate crazies try to reign it in. This gives revolutionaries a chance to gnaw at the guts of the rotten corpse of America. But we will only succeed if we attack the very fabric of system. Starting with the web itself."(2) Again, revolutionaries should absolutely use this still cheap technology to spread anti-imperialist material as widely as possible -- but we cannot fall into the same information fetish that the imperialists promote. We produce revolutionary literature so we can build the revolutionary forces. The Anti-Capital Web is also anti-nations and anti- nationalism. While this is not particularly new for anarchists, they also claim that "every racial nationalist is willing to stand with every other racial nationalist. And every nation is based on the ideology of race." Maoists, by contrast, recognize that with the principal contradiction between imperialism and oppressed nations, the proletarian led national liberation struggle is the most effective strategy for overthrowing imperialism. For MIM, the concept of nation is not based on a "racial" ideology -- it replaces the bourgeois, pseudo-scientific category "race" with an analysis of a material formation, nation. So without an analysis of nations, the Anti-Capital Web cannot correctly analyze class oppression, and rails against "consumer culture" and "suburbia" as the death knell of class consciousness among white workers, rather than recognizing their alliance with imperialism based on their share of Third World superprofits. NOTES: 1.http://www.webcom.com/maxang/ASAN/welcome.html 2. http://www.webcom.com/maxang/ANTI- WEB/welcome.html * * * UNDER LOCK AND KEY: NEWS FROM PRISONERS AND PRISONS CONTINUED REPRESSION AND RETALIATION IN MASSACHUSETTS ...We dealing at this kkkamp to back off the repressive tactics of these fools and its touch and go. Winning some rulings from the kourts, but these clowns just disregard rulings and continue with their fucked up retaliation and abuse of discretion. Many dudes are giving up and going along with their behavior modification so they can get somewhere soft, its joke. Many comrades are still holding the line and are giving as well as we are taking. The joint is still locked down 22 and a half to 23 hours a day in the max end. They are getting ready to build a 1,000 man joint in the hills near Shirley and Gardner, these people want the jobs and money off our suffering!... -- a Massachusetts Prisoner, July 28, 1996. OHIO GETS TOUGH ON "CRIME" ...Things here in the Ohio penal system are very bad. The population at this place is steadily increasing with younger black males mostly. The population at L.O.C.I. is about 2,800, but construction is underway and they plan on housing 5,000 by 1999. So the theme here is get tough on crime: Lock them up for as long as possible. -- an Ohio Prisoner, June 17, 1996 POLICE INCITE VIOLENCE IN MARYLAND ...On July 13, 1995, we (housing unit #3) were locked down after the police incited a small riot. The lockdown lasted until July 19, 1996, during which time we received no showers, visits, or hot meals (bag lunches only). A few of the officers were hurt, unfortunately, all of the prisoners (at least 5) didn't get away as others did. However, their sacrifice is appreciated, praised and won't go in vain. This is why they have me on administrative segregation pending investigation at this time. Because I refuse to allow what happened to be swept under the rug so easily. They are afraid that I'm a threat to the security of this institution. They, however, haven't decided as to whether they are going to keep me on ad. seg. for a while or send me out of the prison.... -- a Maryland Prisoner, July 29, 1996 OPPRESSION IS ROUTINE IN ILLINOIS ...Most of the info that I would offer is already being covered by other prisoners' mail...negligent medical care resulting in prisoners' deaths, bad food, appeals routinely denied by the courts, grievances routinely denied by the prisoncrats, sex between guards and inmates, guards bringing in drugs while they lord it over inmates who are in prison for drugs, psychotropic drugs being prescribed by the psychiatrist as if they were Tylenol... nothing new here.... -- An Illinois Prisoner, Aug. 5, 1996 BASKETBALLS INSTEAD OF BOOKS IN NORTH CAROLINA Comrade, ...Regarding this new prison, presently there is not much going on as far as programs are concerned cause they are really behind in everything educational, something that could really benefit an incarcerated person. But we do have, or they made sure that we had plenty of basketballs, weights and weights in the gym. Unfortunately the area of, or the classroom of higher learning are empty. This is why I always try to teach myself the important things I need to know. Also my teaching of the Nation of Islam require all striving brothers to seek knowledge from the cradle to the grave, so that's my quest to the end.... -- a North Carolina Prisoner, July 21, 1996. GEORGIA PRISONER WORKS TOWARD REVOLUTION Dear Comrades, ...Myself and three others have been in segregation for almost two months for some BS about being a threat to security because of our study group. The oppressor has put his foot down on the Little man once more. Our study group is going very well. But at this time I've had to start all over because the other two have been transferred to other prisons. All in the world we've done is continued our group after being told to stop. The prison pigs don't like your newsletter and have a difficult time with the truth....It's really funny the pigs don't like the revolutionary politics, and yes, they keep a very close eye on me. As far as my lawsuit, things are well. The United States judges have handed down an order to the Department of Corrections that all inmates will have access to the law library materials in lockdown areas. As well as for indigent inmates who need paper, envelopes, pens and carbon paper can complete a request form and get his supplies, after being verified to be indigent. It's not much, but it's a start. Really they just tried to take the access to see if they could get away with it. Comrades please remember me, down here the oppressors have it in for me Big Time. But the struggle will never end for me, the battles will be many. I'm Iron-Clad and will sacrifice to bring down the oppressors. MIM you're my heart. You stand for everything I believe in....Respectfully in Struggle. --a Georgia Prisoner, July 31, 1996 PSYCHOLOGY AND SEX USED TO CONTROL PRISONERS IN CONNECTICUT Warm revolutionary greetings, I am writing so that you will know that I am still alive, and I wish for my papers to continue. I apologize that I have not been in touch, or sent any of my essays or writing lately, but I have been trying to survive a situation which developed here. I'm enclosing a copy of a report that I wrote [printed below]. I am hoping you could write up an article on this report, because I am sure that this tactic is much more widespread that we are aware. The purpose of it is to kill the desire of leadership, through psychotropic drugs... If they are unable to break your spirit one, they try another. So when they realized that the isolation (almost complete), the repression of all my emotional ties and community support, and all of the other means they have attempted to get maximum control over me, failed, they sent this mental health woman at me, bringing me to the brink of destruction. I would like to see if others have been approached by these means, to get them on some type of psychotropic drugs. I have been successful in locating at least 10 to 15 people that are now on some type of psychotropic, mind controlling drug, and I'm confined to a cell 24 hours a day. All of the persons I've located, had some type of contact with this person [the mental health woman]. She used the same basic approach, the higher your profile, the more sexual games she played with you. Even to the point of having sex with a few [prisoners]. This issue is being swept under the rug by the DOC [Department of Corrections] and mainstream papers. It needs to be brought out of the darkness.... -- a Connecticut Prisoner, July 1996. [SEXUAL MANIPULATION] REPORT JUNE 19, 1996 I have just emerged from a very traumatic experience. I was involved with a personal relationship with my therapist. She is a female by the name of Joan Mason who has since resigned from the DOC as of June 6, 1996. I truly believe that she was sent to snare me, [sent] by whom, I'm not sure. But I believe that the purpose was to get me introduced to some type of psychotropic drug in order to suppress my revolutionary ideology and philosophy. There are many reasons that I believe the above statement, too numerous to go into, completely at this writing. The plot and scheme was a typical Samson and Delilah machination. To have me fall in love with her, [and have her] manipulate me into taking some type of psychotropic drug and thereby killing my tendency to fight. [Killing] my revolutionary drive and spirit. The scheme was so shrewd and sophisticated I was unable to recognize it as such, until it was too late. But I accidentally stumbled upon it due to my stubbornness and beliefs that a man is not supposed to be led like a sheep, by a woman. The details of this whole experience are so intricate and complex, I'm not sure I'll be able to put it on paper. I believe that there is a protracted effort by elements in the Mental Health Department and DOC to medicate and zombitize "High Profile Individuals", and the record will support by theory. The process works by getting female staff to befriend you, and gain your confidence by whatever means necessary, even enticing you sexually. I was not any easy mark, thereby making it necessary to go beyond her normal call of duty, leaving me with a lot of material evidence, which I initially was destroying until my ESP caused me to start saving certain evidence. I did eventually fall in love with her. She had me in a constant state of flux, an emotional roller coaster. She was on the verge of succeeding at her task. She constantly had me angry, hurt, frustrated, upset and in a disturbed state of mind. She would come to my door, tell me lies and bring me bad news; tell me she would call me out, then not do it; tell me she would answer my letters, and then have all kinds of excuses. She would tell me, "Oh I'm just causing you too many problems. Maybe I better step back.", knowing full well that would evoke my fear of loss.... Then she would suggest that I take an anti- depressant. I resisted taking any drugs, and she would be very persistent. By no means am I weak, but when it comes to matters of the heart, it is my Achilles heel. Coupled with being in this environment which is devoid of human compassion and feelings. [Since I was] never allowed any real social intercourse, it was not hard for her to trap me with her sexual games and innuendos. But my resistance to taking psychotropic drugs was still strong. My principle of love is one of trust, and I caught her in lie after lie. And this actually saved me in a way, because while I was in love with her, the animosity created by her lies was just strong enough to keep me from being "all in". She came to my door with something some guard said, but would not tell me who. Something I didn't need to know. Anyway it ended with me giving her an ultimatum, if she left my cell without telling me ... either who the pig was, or at least why she would not tell me, [I would break off the relationship with her]. She was so confident in the thought that she had a ring through my nose, she left. I did what I had to do. She came to my cell the next day and told me that she loved me. I told her it was too much, too little, too late. She could resign or stay and be disgrace and fired. She resigned. In the aftermath of her resigning, I got feedback from through-out the prison. Learning that my suspicion of other relationships were true. Another prisoner whom she had done the same to, unlike me had cut his throat (he did survive). There are some 6 or more men she had [treated] like this. I am at present trying to get an attorney so that I can sue her and the state because it is now known she has a history of inappropriate behavior. She was my therapist and she violated every rule and code of ethics that exist. And the state knew of her past or should have known. She was disciplined on April 18, 1996 for unauthorized contact with another prisoner. She has left me mentally scared for life. -- the same Connecticut Prisoner, June 19, 1996 LAWYERS AND PRISONCRATS HAVE THE SAME INTERESTS ...Check this out, I went to my pre-trial hearing and I wasn't allowed to take a B.M. I was forced to wear leg irons and chains were run through my handcuffs. My attorney never said one word to the prison official about our privacy. They were looking down our mouths. I told one of the prison officials to get out of my mouth. I was in chains from 5:00 am until 2:00 pm. My family came to the courthouse in Brazoria county to see me but were not allowed to visit me nor talk to me. Them SOB's pulled guns on me and talk shit to my family, my attorney didn't say a word. She [the lawyer] was busy trying to undermine me to cop out for 20 years. Mrs. Barbara Landes, Staff Attorney for Inmate Legal Services. This woman is my lawyer. See I told her that the Asst. Warden, Norman E. McClure, put me or tried to set me up to kill a friend of mine, an inmate named "T." He is a writ-writer and has a civil rights lawsuit against Warden McClure. I refused to take [my friend's] life for this snake [McClure]. Mrs. Landes is trying to cover up for Warden McClure. She has not told the District Attorney or the judge that I was pressured into cutting "T" up with a homemade knife (a razor blade on an ice cream stick), but "T" cut me first. Mrs. Landes works for the prison system, as staff attorney. She is real transparent and you can see through her lies. I had to tell you that because it is absolutely disgusting. She has not done one thing to defend me, but to have me in for a plea bargain. -- a Texas Prisoner, June 26, 1996 FLORIDA PIGS HARASS PRISONER BY TEARING UP MIM NOTES Dear MIM, I've come to realize that the prison staff not allowing MIM Notes in, or the confiscation of after it's let in, is not always censorship. In my case it was pure harassment. You recently sent me MIM Notes 117 and 118. I'd already read and passed on 118, but was still reading 117. I am in the Special Housing Unit (SHU) for "security concerns" whatever that is. No one will tell me and I'm using the grievance procedure to try to get out. Anyway, last week our prisoner (want-a-be-federal- agents) guards came in to shake down my cell. On my table was MIM Notes 117, which on the cover has a picture of a KKK person. Well, they took it saying I couldn't spread my "racial hate" in here. I tried to explain that the paper and article was not pro- Klan. I also pointed out that despite me being white I believe in the causes of MIM, which is a supporter of all minority causes. But they would hear none of it and accused me of being a racist. They promptly tore up the copy and threw it in the trash. While I'm sure the guard was only trying to harass me, as is the norm in the SHU, I still wanted to share with you how MIM Notes was accused of being Klan literature. Until now, I've never had a problem getting MIM Notes. So don't think their censoring you, [they were] just harassing me. I look forward to getting my next copy of MIM Notes, as it's the one of only a few papers to print the truth and support those that are in need of support.... In Struggle! -- a Florida Prisoner, July 31, 1996. TENNESSEE PLAYS CENSORSHIP GAMES MIM has received another notice from Mr. Howard Carlton, Warden at the Northeast Correctional Center in Mountain City, Tennessee. The letter claims that "Under Tennessee Department of Corrections policy, this material [MIM Notes] is not allowed into this penal facility." MIM first received this notice in April 1996. Soon after, the prisoner who was being censored said prison officials would allow him to receive MIM Notes if the "X" was removed from his name on the address label. MIM then removed his "X". Then the July 1996 issues of MIM Notes were returned to MIM, with a note from prison officials stating, "insufficient address". August 5, 1996, MIM received the above notice again with the same prisoner information as the envelope marked "insufficient address". What will these prison officials think of next? Letters of protest can be addressed to: Howard Carlton, Warden, Tennessee Dept of Corrections, Division of Adult Institutions, Northeast Correctional Center, PO Box 5000, Mountain City, TN 37683-5000. -- RCG1, August 13, 1996. WASHINGTON CENSORS MIM NOTES STATE-WIDE MIM has received several notices from the State of Washington Department of Corrections stating that MIM Notes is being "rejected statewide per headquarters". The specific reasons differ with each institution. For example Clallam Bay Corrections Center claims, "mail advocates that any ethnic, racial or religious group is inferior for any reason and makes such a group an object of ridicule and scorn and may reasonably be thought to precipitated a violent confrontation between the recipient and a member of the target group." On the other hand Airway Heights Corrections Center took the shorter route. It claims "the mail or publication is a threat to legitimate penological objectives." The following is a letter protesting the censorship of MIM Notes by a prisoner at the Washington State Reformatory in Monroe, WA which has also been censoring MIM Notes. It is addressed to the director of Washington state Division of Prisons. -- RCG1 Aug. 13, 1996 Dear Mr. Rolfs: I am appealing the "Offender Mail Rejection" I received on July 19, 1996 at the Washington State Reformatory. No file number was given on the form. The rejection was for the MIM Notes (a political newspaper) No. 116, June 15, 1996. The reason for the rejection alleges it "Promotes the seizing of power through armed struggle. Since that is the stated purpose the Division has rejected this issue statewide." I contend this censorship is discriminatory and violates my First Amendment Rights to Freedom of the Press and Freedom of Expression. Every major political entity in history has promoted the "as an extension of politics" --- Clautzwitz on War. Even the Declaration of Independence of the U.S. has promoted the same. The purpose of MIM Notes is not to promote violence in prisons, as it would serve no political purpose, but to express the range of politics under the communist philosophy. The U.S. Supreme Court has found Washington State's anti-communist statues unconstitutional on their face. The mail rejection of MIM Notes by WSR, DOP or DOC policy can not circumvent the Supreme Court's decision. I therefore appeal the mail rejection as violative of my rights to freedom of expression and freedom of the press. -- a Washington state Prisoner, July 22, 1996 RCG1 ADDS: It is MIM line that there are no rights under capitalism only power struggles. Continue the struggle. Letters of protest can be addressed to: Tom Rolfs, Director, Division of Prisons, PO Box 41123, 401 W 5th, MS:1123, Olympia, WA 98504-1123. NEW YORK CONTINUES REPRESSIVE CONDITIONS To whom it may concern: In 1991, May 28th and 29th...there was a major rebellion at Southport Correctional Facility...where numerous prisoners suffer severe injuries as well as state officers who operate the facility. Such a rebellion was caused by the barbarous treatment and inhumane conditions prisoners were being subjected to by members of the Ku Klux Klans. Today the situation in Southport Prison is unchanged. In fact it is even worse. The prison's response to demands for basic human rights have been to increase repression, oppression, depression and suppression in the name of "security" and beat up on prisoners for no reason whatsoever, while in mechanical restraints, waist belts and leg irons. The number of guards has doubled since 1991. Racist guards, staff and employees, which many believe to be Ku Klu Klan [members] harass, beat and threaten the lives of prisoners daily. Southport is in a very high tension right now as the racist, unprofessional and prejudiced officers continue to push, press, destroy personal property, sexually assault prisoners, tamper with food and mail, frame prisoners up, steal prisoners' photos, harass visitors and beat up prisoners. The menu that was sent from Albany (statewide supposedly)... [portions are] drastically reduced, i.e. fruit juice, fresh fruit and the main course are usually cut in half... Any religion other than Christianity is heavily scrutinized by chapel staff and the guards...The store prices here are about 20-40% higher than any other facility.... The staff here is disoriented, ...related to each other and make sure to cover each others tracks. None of the staff follow the NYCRR (New York Codes Rules and Regulation). They make up shoe string policies daily... Prisoner's property is consistently stolen by the guards and there is constant misuse of the inmate betterment fund. The grievance system is a joke. No steps are ever taken within the institution to correct any problem. Any prisoner complaint of staff misconduct results in the prisoner being infracted and harshly punished. Counselors never make any attempts to work with prisoners to help them better themselves. All they do is push through miscellaneous paper. Personal mail is unlawfully read by guards and constantly stolen. Harassment of visitors is commonplace. The guards are ... constantly physically and verbally abusive toward visitors and prisoners. Prisoners have limited access to the legal library. Sanitary supplies which are given to clean our cells contain feces and urine...While institutional investigations are being held guards, staff and employees ... conspire ...to cover up the barbarous treatment prisoners face daily. -- a New York Prisoner, May 25, 1996 PRISONER EXPOSES CA PRISON "BENDING THE RULES" Dear MIM Notes, They did it again! A you can see, this fine institution that I'm blessed to be housed in denied delivery of your publication again. Now, instead of stating which pages are offensive they say the "entire publication meets disapproval criteria". What can be done to ensure that mine, and your, right to free speech is not taken away? This prison seems to bend a lot of rules concerning our rights. Just last month I went to classification for an annual review and at that time I requested a transfer to a prison closer to my family. Penal Code 5068 clearly states that inmates have every right to be housed at a facility close to home. The Penal Codes obviously don't mean squat to Pleasant Valley State Prison! I was denied and given a lame excuse of: "Sacramento sent out a memo stating that inmates will no longer be transferred to other prisons unless the inmate's points change their level of custody." When I asked if I could see this so called "memo", I was flatly denied again! My question is: Why do certain inmates have the luxury of being housed in prisons close to home, and in prisons where the inmates are able to earn enough money to buy hygiene products (that the state won't give indigent inmates) and other items to make their sentence more bearable, and I'm not? I have remained write-up-free for the entire 3 years of my incarceration and for what? I'm stuck away from my family and their potential visits. I'm forced to survive on the meager state issue and unable to get a paying job because of the vocational training that I was basically forced into. Oh, I didn't tell you about that! I signed up for a computer training course when I arrived here in January of 1994. They said the waiting list was 6 months. At my annual review (my second one since I've been here) in April, I was told that I had to get off the computer training list because that list was now 2 1/2 years long! It was only 6 months when I signed up, over a year ago! So without my consent I was put on the consumers electronics class list. I've been a blue collar worker all my life and can't see myself trying to get a job at the age of 42 trying to repair TV's or radios. But, can I get out of that class? Not unless I want to go to the hole and subsequently have my points jacked back up so I could never leave this cesspool! I feel the action of PVSP [Pleasant Valley State Prison -MIM] need to be brought to somebody's attention. If there's anything you can do, or perhaps you have an idea for me to use, I'd greatly appreciated it. Have a great day and I apologize for dropping all this in your lap. I wish there was a way I could get your publication! I feel PVSP is out of line in denying me to read it. I hope to hear from you soon. Respectfully yours, -- A California Prisoner, June 18, 1996. Letters of protest can be sent to: Pleasant Valley State Prison, PO Box 8500, 24863 W. Jayne Ave, Coalinga, CA 93210. ***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.