Maoist Internationalist Movement

For knowledge of structure, not individualist motivational clap-trap

July 20 2007

An article about the Iraq War that MIM published that gave rise to some controversy among pornographic racists in the blogosphere was based on MIM's published line going back to MIM's earliest theory publications and votes. The article also ended up having allegorical value regarding the CIA.

Enemies suddenly noticed the article and opposed it but why? The answer is that cop-thinking combined with spying leads to voyeurism. At a much reduced level of intensity, Abu Ghraib is also at home. Spies sitting around at home are not much different than prison guards sitting around in Abu Ghraib.

Psychological or cop-type thinking on the motivations of actors in history is individualist and therefore unscientific. By its nature, most Anglo-Saxon thinking is unscientific. In today's context, when Paris Hilton is often a lead news story, unscientific thinking leads to pornography and racism.

One check against pre-scientific psychological thinking one can use is to imagine different people in the same context. So instead of saying something stupidly Anglo-Saxon and motivational in regard to MIM articles, ask yourself what you would have said if another party in another country said the same thing. If your answers differ that should be proof to yourself that you psychologized MIM--and thereby surely ended up in pornography and racism.

Psychological or motivational thinking with regard to individuals can always be had both ways. That is why it leads to such a high imprisonment rate in the united $tates where motivational thinking on the individual is king. If motivations were not evil in one direction, they were simply evil in another direction say the cops. If one starts with a dead body as evidence, then one looks for the evil in one direction or another by going back over evidence at the scene of the crime. As MIM pointed out about Stalin and the case of the death of Frunze at the operating table, had Stalin's party not ordered the operation, critics would have said it conspired to have him die from a lack of medical attention. Since the party did order the operation, critics said the doctors must have intended to kill Frunze, and politics overrode science. There was no option whereby Stalin could have been innocent.

The difference between a scientific approach and an individualist one is that by looking at the figures for a group of people we can stop trying to have things both ways and start to check on motivations in one direction. By looking at figures on imprisonment both globally and by ethnicity, MIM suspects the U.$. injustice system for white nationalism. We do not suspect it both for white nationalism and spineless-pc-bending-over-backwards for oppressed nationality suspects.

In the midst of the voyeuristic death threats generated by an FBI informer and a long-time CIA lackey, a writer from Australia tried to explain to the hacks that integrity comes from having an overall knowledge of the world. Such factual knowledge summed up to higher levels is called rational knowledge by Mao. It could also be referred to as structural knowledge. It does not change from minute to minute based on the latest individualistic flip-flop. People who cannot sum up to a structural level and hew to that generalization do so to preserve their flexibility for corruption, not because they are more open to facts.

As the writer from Au$tralia pointed out, anyone paying any close attention to MIM at all knew already that it sees the principal contradiction as between imperialism and oppressed nations and has for about 20 years. All the parties claiming Mao agree.

That principal contradiction is not something pre-set in stone. In fact, it has to be arrived at by comparison with other candidates for principal contradiction that Stalin enumerated. In other words, the principal contradiction is something at the so-called philosophical level, but comrades buy into it because of their general factual knowledge, not because Mao in heaven sent an angel to reveal the truth to us.

The principal contradiction sets our first-order priorities.

There is a big difference between taking a stand on the principal contradiction and going through life looking at individuals one-at-a- time and then imputing motivations in both directions. The individual approach can never be based in any scientific knowledge.

Against us, the Liberals say we are dogmatic or impervious to factual knowledge. That is incorrect. It is the Liberal impervious to general factual information. The problem of white nationalism, the problem with the imprisonment rate for instance has not changed in a generation. On the other hand, MIM is impervious to clan-reasoning, klan-reasoning and individual flip-flopping, because we use Mao's method, a scientific method.

When reactionaries fulminated violently against the MIM article in a combination of pornography and racism, they merely made themselves look stupid. It was complaining about something as regular in the MIM line as the sun setting.

In this particular case, the counterfactual reasoning process suggested by MIM to check on Anglo-Saxon reasoning by other Anglo- Saxon reasoning leads to concrete results. The article in question by the FBI and white nationalist Liberals who think of themselves as "leftists" came out well after an article on the same subject by Luis Arce Borja, a Peruvian in Belgium. Luis Arce Borja used to consider himself a supporter of Maoism in Peru.

If one had done one's Anglo-Saxon homework instead of spouting pre- scientific nonsense, one would have known that Luis Arce Borja has almost never in the last two decades beaten MIM to the punch on an article about the United $tates. Most of his articles are about Peru and Latin America. It just so happens that in the case of the article the FBI defenders fulminate against, Luis Arce Borja did beat MIM to the punch. In other words, had the FBI defenders done their Anglo- Saxon homework, they would have canceled out and perhaps an intelligent persyn would have realized the inherent flaws in such an approach.

If the reactionaries had examined Luis Arce Borja's journalistic decision regarding the story, they could have canned their voyeurism on the spot. In fact, MIM ended up using part of Luis Arce Borja's story as a real investigator would know. While we are on the topic, Katie Couric is not a valid comparison for MIM's work. Luis Arce Borja can rarely be directly compared with MIM, but in this case he can be.

Beyond the conclusions to be derived from Luis Arce Borja's journalistic decision, had the FBIers realized that MIM in fact was embarrassed on the topic from not publishing soon enough, the reactionaries probably just would have imputed a different evil motivation in a different direction. In the end, that's exactly what happened--a flip- flop by some. Such flip- flopping is also inevitable when one does not have a structural approach to knowledge, only post-hoc psychologisms.

While we are on the topic, certain pseudo-historians intensely interested in a certain period in MIM history and defending COINTELPRO should go beyond reading the AP and UPI. People wanting to understand MIM need to be more than quarter-assed about politics. That means finding and reading the alternative, wimmin's and gay/lesbian publications from the period and locale of interest. Had this been done, a lot of shit being spread on the Internet never would have happened or at least the excuses for it would have had to differ.

P.S.

On a persynal note--to one writer/FBIer out there interested in COINTELPRO, you should just face it that you made an historical mistake. Obviously you had a lot to overcome in your background. MIM is going to cover for you, as you may have heard or guessed, but you should drop it. You are missing a few major sources for what interests you, unless you are lying about your motivations.