This is an archive of the former website of the Maoist Internationalist Movement, which was run by the now defunct Maoist Internationalist Party - Amerika. The MIM now consists of many independent cells, many of which have their own indendendent organs both online and off. MIM(Prisons) serves these documents as a service to and reference for the anti-imperialist movement worldwide.
This is an archive of the former website of the Maoist Internationalist Movement, which was run by the now defunct Maoist Internationalist Party - Amerika. The MIM now consists of many independent cells, many of which have their own indendendent organs both online and off. MIM(Prisons) serves these documents as a service to and reference for the anti-imperialist movement worldwide.
Maoist Internationalist Movement

Boston demonstration supports Boycott Gringo Day May 1st International Workers Day 2006

BOSTON, 1 MAY-- Over 2,000 people gathered on Boston Common this afternoon in support of the U.$.-wide migrant boycott. As in other cities, the crowd here was majority non-white. Many high-school and college students were present. The speakers from the podium expressed a range of ideas, some of which MIM agrees with, some of which MIM strongly disagrees with, and others that MIM finds amusingly quaint.

MIM had the most agreement with a young speaker who emphasized the U.$. role in creating the "push" behind migration to the United $tates and other First World countries. People come to the United $tates for work because of the high unemployment and very low, exploitative wages in their home countries. The United $tates is often directly responsible for these conditions. Amerikan companies profit from low wages in Third World countries, and the United $tates backs the repressive governments that smash labor unions to keep those wages low.(1) Chronic unemployment is a by-product of the capitalist organization of production for profit--exacerbated by the fact that much of the production in the Third World is geared for export to the First. It's not that there isn't plenty of work to be done in the Third World--there are roads to build, foods to grow, medicines to produce for local use. It's that little of this is profitable.

Another speaker led the crowd in the chant, "Immigration built this nation." This chant is similar to the slogan "Peace is patriotic," which we don't like either (1). Both seek to build unity between proletarian forces (those against imperialist war or those in support of migrants from oppressed nations) and non-proletarian forces (the majority of the U.$. population). Amerikan companies are not the only ones who profit from low wages in the Third World. The transfer of value from the Third to the First World is so large that anybody who gets paid the U.$. minimum wage or above is receiving some of the superprofits from the exploitation of Third World labor. Rather than encourage recent migrants to integrate into U.$. society like other groups who now think they pulled themselves out of the working class--as if the theft of a continent from the First Nations, slavery, and imperialism had nothing to do with it--we want migrants to identify with the oppressed in their home countries. They should not see a $10 an hour wage as their god-given right, or something they could achieve in their own country if they just adopted Amerikan economic principles. Rather, they should contrast that $10 with the $0.50-$1.00 per hour many Third World workers receive, and recognize that the $10 wage for Amerikans is only possible because most of the rest of the world is exploited.

Finally, one speaker unintentionally got MIM to laugh when he suggested in all seriousness that to increase the transparency of Amerikan government, the minority party in congress should be able to name all bills. Our heads are still spinning at how many bourgeois and peculiarly Amerikan assumptions are built in to that proposal: it takes the two-party system as a given, assumes the majority of Amerikans were opposed to invading Iraq or oppose anti-migrant goons like la Migra and the Minutemen, and generally has a narrow, Amerikan-electoral-politics-first focus. This same speaker made a big deal about the fact that the Amerikan flag he was carrying did not have a star for Texas. Apparently he thought this would get a big cheer from the crowd, because he paused for a reaction--and got nothing but proverbial crickets (in contrast to the cheers the crowd gave the earlier speaker who talked explicitly about Amerikan imperialism). His legislative-reform proposal also drew no response from the audience. MIM takes this as promising evidence that most of the hundreds of thousands of people who took to the street on May 1st view migrant rights as something more than a partisan electoral issue. It's not about George Bush; it's not about republicans versus democrats. It's a system; a system that extends beyond U.$. borders and links the struggle for migrant rights with the struggle against U.$. imperialism in their home countries.

MIM distributed several hundred copies of MIM Notes to the crowd in less than an hour.

Notes:
1. http://www.prisoncensorship.info/archive/etext/gender/nowapril2906.html
2. http://www.prisoncensorship.info/archive/etext/mt/imp97/index.html