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 114 MAY 15, 1996 MIM Notes speaks to and from the viewpoint of the world's oppressed majority, and against the imperialist-patriarchy. Pick it up and wield it in the service of the people. support it, struggle with it and write for it. * * * RALLY DEMANDS RETURN OF MASSACHUSETTS PRISONERS HEALTH CONDITIONS APPALLING: PRISONERS DYING IN TEXAS The Revolutionary Anti-Imperialist League (RAIL) and the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) held a rally May 4th to call for the return of the Massachusetts prisoners still being held hostage in Texas. This issue became particularly urgent in early April when Charles Mosby, one of the transferred prisoners, sent a letter to Jill Brotman of the AFSC Criminal Justice Program describing the deteriorating health of a number of the transferred prisoners and their lack of medical care and horrible conditions. On the six month anniversary of the transfers, the pawns in Governor Weld's political game fear they may lose more than contact with their friends and family in this transfer: they may lose their lives. One Massachusetts prisoner in Texas has already died of AIDS complications undiagnosed prior to the transfer (in spite of prison official claims that only the healthy prisoners were being transferred). Mosby wrote about another inmate, Robert Lena, who, only after threats of violence by the prisoners, was finally taken to a hospital with a temperature of 104. He was returned to the prison the next day (April 4) with the promise of antibiotic (which they had not given him as of the date of the letter, April 6), the doctors still unable to figure out what is wrong with him. Mosby described how Lena's feet were swollen and turning black and red with patches of blood on his feet like he is bleeding from the inside of his feet and legs. He had a swelling problem in his feet and legs for three months that finally worsened to the current condition. Mosby wrote: "...in the 3 months before his condition got like this if he would have proper medical attention, he probably wouldn't be in the condition that he is in now, I do fear that through the lack of treatment, Mr. Lena's life is very much in danger: as I have told you, my own feet have started swollen about 2 or 3 weeks after Mr. Lena and we have both exhibit the exact same symptom, only his is in an advance stage, so that means in the next weeks I would probably go through the same stuff. Jill, I am living in fear of maybe losing my feet or my life, each morning when I wake up I wake in fear of seeing my feet in worse shape, it is at the point where I am not living in fear of dying, simply because these people are not providing proper medical care, Jill we need help in here and if we don't get it, I am very much afraid that me, Mr. Lena, and the other inmate who has the same problem will not live to be brought back to Mass." Mosby goes on to say: "We don't want to die here in Texas, whatever it is that is wrong with us, we got it here, and it is getting to the point where I am beginning to believe that it may either be the food or something they put in the food, we were perfectly healthy when we were taken from prison in Massachusetts." The prisoners have also reported that the water looks like beer. Conditions in Texas are appalling: constant light, no exercise, no heat in the cold, and no medical care in addition to the problems with the food and water. As was reported in past MIM Notes, Weld forced passage of a $500 million bill to expand prisons after shipping 299 Massachusetts prisoners off to Texas. But even after this victory for Weld (a defeat for the oppressed) the prisoners still have not been returned. In response to this plea for help by the prisoners in Texas, people showed up in downtown Boston to educate themselves and others passing by, gather petition signatures, and organize people to further action while demanding that the governor and legislature return the prisoners. The rally was scheduled for 2 p.m. and the rain started just in time for the rally. A number of dedicated activists turned out in spite of the weather with petitions (covered with plastic) in hand. It was harder to talk to people in the rain but we did make some new friends, gathered a lot of signatures, and were interviewed for a radio show on a local station (WMBR). We closed down in time to dry off before heading over to Governor Weld's house where the American Friends Service Committee has led a demonstration of the friends and family of the prisoners each week since the beginning of the hostage crisis. As we marked these two six month anniversaries, that of the exile of prisoners and the struggle for their return, RAIL decided to begin holding an informational rally the first Saturday of each month 2 p.m. at the Park Street T stop in downtown Boston, and afterwards at the Governor's house, until the return of the prisoners. * * * MOVE PUTS PHILADELPHIA ON TRIAL FOR MASSACRE April 23 was the opening day of testimony in the trial of the City of Philadelphia, in which ex- Police Commissioner Gregore Sambor and ex-Fire Commissioner William Richmond are facing charges that excessive deadly force was used in the attack on the MOVE organization on May 13, 1985. This attack by the city and their pigs killed 11 people including five children and destroyed 61 houses. MOVE survivor Ramona Africa, along with the brother and sister of the MOVE founder John Africa (who died in the bombing), are seeking millions in damages. The city dropped the bomb that destroyed so many lives because of MOVE's political line and practice. In MOVE's own words: "The MOVE organization is a seriously committed family of revolutionaries, founded and coordinated by John Africa...[It] is made up of many races of people (black, white, Spanish, Jewish, Indians) because John Africa don't teach prejudice, prejudice is against our Belief....MOVE's work is to teach, give people the truth, and set the example of revolution which simply means to move, to work, to be right." Putting their beliefs in equality of all beings into practice, "MOVE people went into the communities to try to put together programs to help stop the gang problem in Philadelphia, to help the drug addicts get off drugs, to help the pregnant teenagers who had nowhere to go and abused women, children and the elderly." MOVE brought food to the hungry, took in abandoned and injured animals, and held peaceful demonstrations "against institutions that exploit, abuse and kill children, the elderly, animals and the environment."(1) MIM believes that MOVE's strategy is not the most effective one for achieving equality for all people. They do not use the science of dialectical materialism to analyze the successes and failures of historical revolutionary lines and strategies and so they don't learn from history. Similarly they do not analyze in a scientific way who are their friends as a group and who are their enemies. Originating in the early 1970s, MOVE had the better political line of the Black Panther Party to learn from and did not carry forward the revolutionary legacy of the BPP. But MOVE's practice taught them that the government and its agencies are corrupt and the enemy, and on a whole their line and practice has been in support of revolutionary nationalism and the right of people to self- determination. So they are definitely on the side of the friends of the people and against the imperialists. It is for this anti-imperialist line and practice that the city bombed their house and murdered 11 MOVE members. Ramona Africa spent 7 years in prison (her maximum sentence) for surviving the bombing, and innocent MOVE members are still in prison.(1) This attack was preceded and followed by much media hype about the evil well armed MOVE members who started shooting at the cops first and left the police no choice but to toss the bomb. The truth was much less reported in bourgeois media: one handgun was found in all the rubble after the fire and it belonged to a Philadelphia policeman. MOVE members had no weapons.(2) In this latest chapter of the MOVE bombing story, the city is paying Sambor's and Richmond's legal fees and has hired former city solicitor Judith Harris for a flat fee of $325,000 to head the city's defense team.(3) But that the city defends its own is no surprise, the real twist to this trial is that W. Wilson Goode, mayor of Philadelphia during the bombing, was granted immunity in the case in exchange for his testimony. As Chuckie Africa, MOVE member held in Graterford Prison, pointed out in an editorial to the Philadelphia Daily News: "The man who said on May 14, 1985, 'If I had to make the decision all over again, knowing what I know now, I would make the same decision,' is saying he didn't make the decision at all. Goode testified under oath Wednesday [April 24th] he was 'shocked' and 'surprised' to see an 'explosive device' dropped on the Osage Avenue house by helicopter. The man who in 1985 praised then- Police Commissioner Gregore Sambor and then-Fire Commissioner William Richmond now says Sambor deceived him about the plans for MOVE."(4) This change of sides has many reactionaries attacking Goode for being wishy washy and going back on his support for the good guys (a.k.a fascist pigs). But this does not make him a friend of the people. Goode has his own hide to look out for: he could have been prosecuted in this trial for being responsible for the attack on MOVE. People like Goode can be useful to revolutionaries if they can be made to tell the truth and expose the enemies of the people, but they should not be trusted when their primary concern is covering their own asses. Ramona Africa and the MOVE organization are using the criminal injustice system to expose the brutal and oppressive system that it supports. This trial is keeping the issue of the MOVE bombing current and allows for renewed building of public opinion around this massacre. Victory for MOVE is unlikely in a system that is set up to keep its opponents powerless. But revolutionaries can turn the trial into a victory by turning people's awareness of the issue into understanding about the imperialists and the criminal injustice system and support for the MOVE political prisoners. It is rare that the revolutionaries are able to put the state on the defensive in a widely publicized trial. As with the case of the Rodney King trial, even a loss can be a victory in education for the people. NOTES: 1. First Day, Issue 5. Publication of the MOVE organization. P.O. Box 19709, Philadelphia, PA 19143. 2. Philadelphia Daily News April 26, 1996. 3. The Des Moines Register April 3, 1996. 4. Philadelphia Daily News April 26, 1996. * * * ISRAEL MASSACRES LEBANESE CIVILIANS When Israel fired more than 40 155mm shells for 12 straight minutes on a United Nations base in Qana on April 18--killing more than 100 Lebanese civilians sheltered there--Israeli leaders expressed some regret and the U.N. moved to condemn the attack, which violated "international humanitarian law" and a 1993 accord in which both Israel and Hizbollah agreed not to target civilians. The action, while one of the single bloodiest in Israel's 14 year occupation of Lebanon, was not exceptional. Israel's strategy to defeat Hizbollah guerrillas is built on systematic economic devastation of Lebanon and the forced relocation of its southern population to make way for further Israeli expansion. Israel's biggest sponsor in crime, the United Snakes, was the only country besides Israel itself to vote against the U.N. resolution condemning the attacks, and calling for an end to Israeli air raids.(6) That makes Amerikan credibility to broker a "peace" agreement among Israel, Lebanon and Syria a sadistic joke for the Lebanese people. As MIM Notes goes to press, a cease-fire agreement is in effect which states that neither Israel nor Hizbollah will fire at civilian areas, although both sides are allowed the "right of self- defense."(11) It is ironic for Israel to sign such a "self-defense" clause as it occupies a section of Lebanon ostensibly as a defensive measure. For the Lebanese people, any actions taken to expel foreign militaries from their land are justifiable as self- defense. True peace for Lebanon cannot include partial Israeli occupation, but the Amerikan- brokered agreement contemptuously ignores this fact. U.N. spokespeople have said that Israel was notified days before the massacre that refugees were in all U.N. posts.(2) And in the first 10 days of "Operation Grapes of Wrath," as well as the days since the Qana attack, Israel deliberately killed other Lebanese civilians, with missiles hitting an ambulance and a house filled with a family of 12 people.(3) In the last two weeks of April, four hundred thousand people were forced to leave southern Lebanon. "Israeli fighter-bombers demolished a water reservoir at Sultaniyeh, a village about 15 miles southeast of the port of Tyre. ... [and] the airstrike deprived 20 villages of water," forcing all but 4,000 to flee the villages.(4) "Israeli ships blockaded Lebanon's ports, the source of most of its food. Jet fighters and attack helicopters repeatedly hit Lebanon's coastal highway and alleged Hizbullah positions in Beirut, the Bekaa Valley and Sidon. ... Israel destroyed two freshly renovated power plants serving Beirut."(5) Inevitable deaths resulting from the destruction of these economic targets (the New York Times conservatively estimates that 11,000 people now lack running water or electricity (6)) will be added to the death toll in this latest military offensive. On April 25, Israel fired precision missiles at a road that extends from the port of Tyre to the southeastern town of Ain Baal, bringing the number of roads destroyed to "at least a dozen," and preventing even more injured people from getting medical care or relief.(6) Israel's bombardment of the southern Lebanese coast, as well as its military blockade of sea traffic into the southern ports of Tyre and Sidon, is ostensibly aimed at cutting off "supply lines that might be used by Hezbollah."(7) But according to even pro-imperialist sources, only a tiny fraction of "supplies" used by Hizbollah are military. Like its Palestinian counterpart Hamas, Hizbollah uses the majority of its resources to support schools and health care facilities that serve the Lebanese population. In fact, the largest source of relief from these recent military attacks comes from Hizbollah.(8) History has shown that attempting to defeat a guerrilla movement means all out war on the civilian population, who are all suspected of hiding the guerrillas--the masses are all potential guerrillas. With financial backing from the U. S. Empire, Israel has insisted it will continue bombing Lebanon, and occupying its stolen security zone, until its own northern regions (which it defines to include the security zone) experience "quiet." MIM supports the self-determination of the Lebanese people, who appear to support Hizbollah. We have no independent sources in Lebanon to confirm this, nor do we know of Maoist activity there. The most effective strategy for national liberation and the overthrow of imperialism is to organize a Maoist People's War on the principles of socialist self-reliance. For negative example, Lebanon need only look to the nearby neo-colonial Palestinian regime, which displayed a tragic sense of timing in the wake of the Qana massacre, when the Palestinian National Council met and rewrote the famous PLO charter to remove references to the destruction of the Israeli state.(9) Better proof does not exist that the negotiated road to national liberation leads to concessions made from the point of extreme weakness, as Palestine itself is subjected to heightened repression and closure during this latest Israeli security crackdown. With the exception of some Israeli reports that Hamas had planned attacks in retaliation for Lebanon,(10) the bourgeois media has paid little attention to Hamas, preferring instead to promote the so-called peace process. Within Israel, the talk is on whether bombing Lebanon will help the "moderate" Prime Minister Peres win reelection at the end of May. For the people of Lebanon or Palestine, the outcome doesn't matter. Their future will depend on the course of their own anti-imperialist struggles. MIM will continue to support the oppressed nation masses in their struggles for self-determination by exposing the Amerikan role in national oppression and using our newspaper and other media to build support for those struggles within Amerika. NOTES: 1. Reuters, April 23, 1996. 2. Baltimore Sun, April 24, 1996. 3. The [London] Independent, 4/19/96. p. 1. Excerpted in "Middle East Realities," MIDDLEEAST@aol.com. 4. Dallas Morning News, April 24, 1996. 5. Newsweek, April 29, 1996. 6. New York Times, April 26, 1996. p. A18. 7. New York Times April 22, p. A6. 8. National Public Radio, All Things Considered, April 25, 1996. 9. Washington Post, April 26, 1996. p. A31. 10. Israel Line, April 19, 1996. 11. New York Times May 1, 1996. * * * LETTERS TO MIM MIM ANTAGONIZES FIRST WORLD FORESTS? MIM's article "Two Roads for Environmentalism" (Mid-April, 1996 MN 112) compares the Maoist line on revolution with environmentalists protesting the logging of Cove/Mallard, one of the bigger old growth forests left in North America. MIM correctly emphasizes that activists who want to protect the Earth's environment, and not just some part of it in the First World, need to focus their efforts at defeating imperialism and overthrowing the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. MIM righteously upholds the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) in this regard as those who are waging People's War against the U.S. backed Ramos dictatorship. The CPP and its mass organizations have shown the environmentalist community in the Philippines and around the world how to effectively stop the clearcutting of forests and rape of the environment by the imperialists and their local cronies. The key is to organize and arm the oppressed masses so they can defend themselves and the environment on which they depend. MIM distinguishes between two roads for environmentalism: a privileged First World reaction and a revolutionary proletarian offensive. First World environmentalists, those who really are concerned with defending the earth and not merely devouring it, are mostly pacifists or focoists. Pacifists rely on some combination of direct- action, lobbying and electioneering to achieve their goals. Some groups, like local not-in-my- backyard pseudo-environmentalists, merely want the nuclear waste, clearcut, or chemical dump in someone else's community; almost always the someone else is a community of oppressed nationals who don't have enough political clout to keep the toxic colonialists away. More progressive groups, like Greenpeace, take an internationalist stand and oppose French nuclear "testing" in occupied Mororoa (Tahiti) and Shoshone territory ("Nevada"), dumping in Black and Latino communities, and imperialist wars like the Gulf War. These groups are good but mislead the masses into thinking we can save the environment without overthrowing the system. They also use lingo like "environmental racism" which obscures the actual process by which imperialist pigs can destroy the Earth--toxic colonialism or neocolonialism and capitalism. Above all, First World people can afford to be pacifist (or at least they think they can) because they are not threatened as directly as oppressed nationals. Third World and Indigenous environmentalists know that any hesitation surely means death. The focoists rely on acts of sabotage to raise environmental consciousness or achieve a particular goal. Earth First! spikes trees and monkey wrenches logging equipment to raise the cost of logging any particular forest. Contrary to public opinion, they always warn the loggers first, as the point is not to kill anyone but dissuade the pigs from coming at all. The strategy is sometimes effective at stopping a particular clearcut, but doesn't decrease the net destruction of forests. Some activists contend that, as a result of opposition to clearcuts near privileged communities, loggers are more likely to pick forests in the Third World or on First Nation land where activists can be shot with more abandon. On the other hand, Earth First! also tends toward internationalism, publishing accounts of environmental struggles all over the world in their newspaper. Their philosophy, like most of the sincere environmental movement, is that of direct local-action coupled with global solidarity. [...] Nowadays the Unabomber is in the news a lot and s/he deserves credit as a hard-core focoist who has successfully proved that killing individual pigs doesn't do a thing but sell bourgeois newspapers. Progressive groups inspired by Earth First! focoism and Greenpeace pacifism are non- revolutionary and will not save the environment, though they build public opinion against environmental destruction and sometimes get through effective reforms. Our only real hope is overthrowing the imperialist system of world domination and profiteering. The only way that every people can defend their environment is through self-reliant socialism . That being the case, MIM and RAIL--as the Party and mass organization in North America dedicated to smashing imperialism and waging self-reliant socialist revolution--are presently the best way forward for environmentalists in North America. MIM and RAIL do not yet have an adequately worked out environmental line, and the article "Two Roads for Environmentalism" made three regrettable errors. It is important to keep in mind that smashing imperialism and building self-reliant socialism are necessary but not sufficient conditions for human survival. Therefore, revolutionaries must struggle diligently to work out the correct environmental line if we are to survive to see a world free of oppression. First, contrary to the claim in MIM Notes, there is no "national forest [in the First World] that exists at the expense of forests and people around the world." First World people can be parasites, living at the expense of the plundered colonies, but trees cannot. Forests are producers by nature, they never leech. What MIM correctly wants to say is that it is parasitic and imperialist to save trees in North America as a cute national park while clearcutting the rest of the world. However, environmentalists should not stop protecting North American forests. They should just do so within the general framework of anti-imperialism and revolutionary organizing. Plenty of pseudo- environmentalists are guilty of national park-ism and Sierra Clubbery, but that is a people-error not a forest-error. If we ever get to build self- reliant socialism in North America we will need the forests, as will our comrades in India, the Philippines and Peru. Second, MIM misinterprets so-called Luddism and "the neo-luddite approach" taken by some environmentalists and Indigenous activists. Neither the Luddites or the so-called "Neo-luddites" were ever or are now opposed to all technology or change. Rather, like Marx and genuine communists everywhere, revolutionary environmentalists oppose certain technologies that foster alienation, hierarchical divisions of labor, brain vs. brawn divisions and ecological degradation. Thus monocrop agriculture, nuclear energy plants, and huge centralized factories are all out of the question. The very scale of the projects--as well as their traumatic effects on the ecosystem--make them enemies of humanistic labor. Finally, MIM accuses some environmentalists of "offering to die to protect the land for non-human reasons." While it is good to tell environmentalists more effective ways of dying--or better yet, living--to save the environment, it is not true that environmentalism depends in any way on "non-human" justifications. As Marx and Engels repeatedly said, people are of nature. The distinction between human and non-human--like all distinctions--exists for humanity at a particular stage of historical development. Like other philosophical constructs, the mind-body distinction for example, it pops up and disappears throughout human history. Western science--not to mention non- Western or Indigenous knowledge--recognizes an identity and continuum between humanity and "nature". Evolutionary biology, ecology and physics resist the notion of borders and divides. Minute particles are constantly passing through "us" while we have the feeling of identity through time. Apes are genetically closer to people than zebras are to horses, yet people continue to talk of the unbridgeable human/non- human divide, or even of "races" of people. There are differences of course, most importantly for revolutionaries differences about how and who to organize (people yes, horses no). But that hardly changes the reality of the world and the dialectical nature of existence. There is a basis in Marx for some of these undialectical constructions of theory and, regrettably, of practice too. In the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts, Marx describes the relationship between humanity and nature as the relation between a person's head and their body. Marx wants to say that humanity is part of nature, yet is able to change nature consciously. In reality, however, the head is no more able to "consciously" control the rest of the body than hormones, genes and the environment let it. More precisely, it doesn't make sense any more to talk about the mind as separate from the hormones (the body) or anything else. Even Marx would have to admit that if you shoot a person in the head they will die, but nature can get along just fine without humanity. The metaphor is no good, but another point in the Manuscript is right on the mark: there is no genuine resolution of the conflict between people and nature without resolving the conflict between groups of people. Today the principle conflict in the world is imperialism. There will be no environmental progress made until imperialism is smashed and every people can safeguard their local environment from toxic colonialism. There is no time to waste on failed strategies. Smash imperialism, defend the earth! MIM RESPONDS: You make three criticisms, the first of which is correct. While Third World people should be first in line to stop their forests from being injured, there is nothing harmful in trees in the First World. However, there is a dangerous provincialism in the slogan "Think Globally, Act Locally." The imperialists are organizing globally, and we need to be organizing globally to oppose them. First World environmentalists who focus on First World forests are not taking the most effective and necessary actions to fight imperialism and really save the people and the environment. The second criticism, regarding whether those MIM called Luddites oppose technology per se, feigns more unity between Marxists and the anti-technology line than is the case. Perhaps you would call those who really do oppose essentially all technology past the knife revisionist Luddites, betraying the original cause. However, we disagree that it is Marxist to oppose large-scale production on principal. You are correct that ultimately communists seek smaller scales of decentralized production, but we do not believe that goal can be accomplished prior to the transition from socialism to communism. In fact, in the development of socialism there may be a great need to develop large-scale production to meet immediate needs. This dialectic was recognized in the Cultural Revolution (for more on this see Charles Bettelheim's book Cultural Revolution and Industrial Organization in China, available from MIM for $4). On the third point, we agree with you insofar as genuine environmentalism does not require non-human justifications. However, some environmentalists think that ignoring human beings is the best way to organize. Recognizing that many in the First World do not want to help the oppressed in the Third World, they pander to reactionary sentiment by assuring their supporters that they only care about trees, or worse yet only First World trees. There is a great deal more that can be said about revolutionary environmentalism in the context of the First World. We encourage you to write articles for MIM Notes and for RAIL Notes on this topic so that those who read MIM Notes will be more informed on the news at the same time that your theory is opened for critique as we see how you put it into practice. * * * INTERNATIONAL WORKERS DAY RALLY AGAINST U.S. IMPERIALISM by a RAIL comrade ANN ARBOR, MI, May 1--MIM and RAIL held a rally against imperialism at Liberty Plaza on Liberty St. at Division. Things started off a little slow, but as more people began to show up things got more lively. One comrade started things off by telling people about MIM and the importance of an internationalist perspective. S/he explained that for this reason we chose May first (International Workers' Day ) to rally against imperialism. May first has traditionally been a day of action, protest, and international solidarity. The comrade also explained that not all workers have the same interest in opposing imperialism. White Amerikan workers are a bought off labor aristocracy that directly benefits from imperialism. International solidarity does not mean solidarity with the wage struggles of parasitic imperialist workers. MIM supports the national liberation struggles being waged by oppressed people, like the war being fought by the National Democratic Front of the Philippines against Amerikan imperialism. A RAIL comrade then told people about RAIL, anti- imperialism, and the struggle in the Philippines. S/he pointed out that Ramos was a key figure in both the Marcos dictatorship and the bourgeois democratic Aquino administration, fought for the United Snakes in Korea and Vietnam, and graduated from Westpoint. Ramos does such a good job of licking his imperialist masters' boots that many Filipinos call him "Amboy," short for Amerikan boy. After these speeches a comrade started off a series of anti-imperialist chants, using a bullhorn. "National Liberation for the World's Population" was the most popular chant, but people also liked "Self-determination for all Oppressed Nations" "Support the People's Fight Against the U.S. Parasite" and "Salt for the Leeches, Land for the People." The RAIL comrade distributed some signs bearing anti- imperialist slogans to the people in attendance. The demonstration started in the center of the park, then moved to the sidewalk where it began to get a little louder and livelier. Moving to the sidewalk gave the demonstration much more exposure to the heavy mid-day downtown traffic. On the sidewalk we were much more conspicuous, it is hard to ignore a crowd of people lined up on the sidewalk holding signs supporting the New People's Army of the Philippines and other anti-imperialist struggles, especially when they are all loudly chanting and being led by a communist with a bullhorn. The demonstration part of the rally lasted about a half hour. RAIL and MIM then led the more interested participants to the center of the University of Michigan campus to distribute anti- imperialist flyers and MIM and RAIL literature. For about another half hour, a number of activists handed out a flyer on imperialism written specifically for this event. The rally provided MIM and RAIL with an excellent platform for spreading revolutionary anti- imperialist ideas. In the process, RAIL made a few new friends who helped to educate the masses on the nature of U.S. imperialism and the revolutionary struggle to eliminate it. * * * AMERIKA THREATENS TO NUKE LYBIA APRIL 23--The outlaw united snakes threatened to drop a nuclear bomb on an alleged weapons plant in Libya today. The Pentagon claims that the underground plant is "the world's largest chemical weapons facility" and says it is "prepared to take... drastic preventative measures." According to Amerikan government scientists, conventional bombs could not harm the underground plant, only nuclear weapons could. The united snakes is the only entity to ever to engage in nuclear warfare and continues to engage in nuclear terrorism. In 1991 the united snakes threatened to use nuclear weapons against Iraq, again in order to "deter chemical weapon attacks." Of course the united snakes (which has the largest chemical and biological weapons arsenal in the world) has an interest in and a history of fabricating these supposed threats. Plants in Baghdad bombed during the gulf war which the u.s. claimed were chemical weapons factories turned out to be powdered milk factories. These threats against Libya, which has a history of defying the Amerikan government, are meant to send a message to Libya and other oppressed nations: play ball, or else! The threat of nuclear war was not confined to the old u.s.-U.S.S.R. inter-imperialist rivalry. Imperialism breeds war in general as competing capitalist conglomerates struggle to control the world's resources. The imperialists have waged and are currently waging genocidal conventional wars against the people of the oppressed nations in order to ensure their control; in this context nuclear bombs are just one more weapon in the arsenal of modern militarism used to oppress the colonies and neo-colonies. Arguing (as some Social Democrats do) that nuclear weapons no longer serve a purpose will not convince the Amerikan government to give up its nuclear bombs or reduce the risk of nuclear war because these weapons continue to serve the evil purpose of reinforcing imperialist power and domination. The only way to eliminate the danger of nuclear war is to replace war-mongering imperialism with socialism. The oppressed yearn for peace and justice; their righteous struggle to topple their oppressors will stifle the imperialist campaign for conquest. NOTE: Los Angeles Times April 24, 1996. * * * UN STUDY: INCREASED POVERTY IN LATIN AMERICA A new study by the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean concluded that the so-called economic reforms of the 1980s have done absolutely nothing to improve the lives of the majority of the population in Latin America. Even the short quotes and bourgeois analysis in the Washington Post paint a picture of a widening gap between rich elites and the poor majority; economic policies in the way of stabilizing prices and decreasing social welfare expenditures that make Latin America profitable for imperialists but unlivable for the people; and comprador governments afraid of imminent revolution in many countries. The study indicated that "the poverty rate in Latin America is now higher than it was in 1970." Per capita income was $1,820 for Latin America and the Caribbean in 1993, the last year for which statistics are available. These numbers--which can never adequately represent the desperate poverty and misery imposed on the Third World by the murderous imperialists and their Third World stooges--show that no matter how good capitalism looks in rich First World countries and a tiny minority of hand-picked developing nations (like Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the south Korea), it can only mean poverty for the majority of people in the world. The study recommends "reforming the way pensions are managed to increase savings...using tax breaks to increase business investment... making credit accessible to small and medium businesses." These reforms only benefit the tiny middle class and wealthy elite of Latin America and do absolutely nothing for the vast peasant majority who need sweeping land reform. Land reform can never be accomplished under the present imperialist dictatorship because it would mean expropriating the "property" of the very people calling the shots now. In truth, the United Nations and the imperialists who fund it, have no interest in solving poverty and only want to stall revolution so they can keep repatriating their superprofits. In that line, the study concluded that "the principal reason the region has not fared better is its modest growth rate, which is around 3 percent annually." Gert Rosenthal, the secretary general of the commission, "said that the region must achieve a sustained growth rate of 6 percent--roughly what Chile, the region's role model, has attained." Chile has been a haven for imperialist exploitation since the U.S. assassinated and overthrew Salvadore Allende's progressive, democratically elected government in 1973 and installed the Pinochet dictatorship. Chile has expanded its middle class and enriched its military-neocolonial elite, at the expense of its impoverished majority, particularly the indigenous peoples of the area. Large houses-- staffed by servants captured as children from indigenous groups, renamed and educated to clean or cook--sit in close proximity to shanty towns. Poor children who attend inadequate government schools watch as their wealthier peers walk to British schools in their freshly pressed school uniforms. Not only would doubling the growth rate in Latin America do nothing for the vast majority, but neither the UN nor any of the countries in the region are in a position to administer the kind of sweeping environmental regulations and industrial reorganizations that are necessary to increase production without destroying the already damaged ecology. Increasing the number of cars for the middle class by planting more cash crops or mining more raw materials for export to the First World makes life for all but the bottled- water drinking minority an impossibility. Only because the imperialists own stock in water bottling facilities is the idea thinkable at all. Looming large in the minds of the UN, imperialists and comprador elites is the threat of revolution. According to the study, "this [poverty and rich- poor gap] presents a not too healthy social panorama with latent problems that could make it difficult to sustain the process of development." The Washington Post writer asserts that "frustration over the economic model is now one of the principle causes of civic unrest in the region." The frustration is not merely intellectual in origin however, the immiseration is physical, overwhelming, and insoluble without revolution. NOTES: Washington Post April 13, 1996. p. A25. * * * PSEUDO-FEMINISM SUPPORTS OPPRESSION **In April, MIM and RAIL attended two different Take Back the Night rallies and marches. Both events demonstrated that pseudo-feminism and the gender aristocracy objectively support oppression of people in the Third World and of oppressed nation peoples within U.S. borders. There was no mention of imperialism at either rally, although imperialism is surely an integral part of the greatest patriarchal injustices. This failure to mention imperialism underlines the stake the Take Back the Night ralliers have in maintaining it.** DOWN WITH PATERNALIST RACISM; RISE UP WITH REVOLUTIONARY FEMINISM by a RAIL Comrade AMHERST, MA, April 18--The annual "Take Back Our Rights," previously "Take Back the Night," march attracted approximately 250 men and women from the five-college area to speak out on feminist empowerment and violence against women. Many people spoke, ranging from a woman whose daughter was killed by her abuser to a Black lesbian making a film on rape and violence. There were also martial arts demonstrations by local women and youth. Though we could find some unity among the progressive empowerment of self defense and the film-maker's criticism of a patriarchal state, overall the event amounted to supporting patriarchy. Self-proclaimed radical and feminist groups such as the Every Woman's Center, Radical Student Union, Power and Third Wave co-sponsored the event along with the University and town police departments and the District Attorney's office. In retaliation to this inclusion of the pigs, RAIL sent a contingent with flyers and posters to the event. By including the local pigs, the sponsors support the role of the police, which is to defend the current system--a system which is capitalist, imperialist and patriarchal. The police have no interest in ending patriarchy, only manipulating the reformist "feminist" groups and keeping a tight control on any chance of serious social change. The pig sponsorship determines that these budding feminists choose to defend the state and ignore imperialism. By doing so they support the oppression of the majority of the world's women-- those in the Third World. Hundreds of thousands of Third World women are forced by U.S. induced poverty to prostitute themselves to Amerikan servicemen around the world. The biggest enemy of these women is Amerikan imperialism, and to be a feminist in the 1990s is to be an anti-imperialist. Paternalism is inherent to the pig's agenda of keeping Amerikan pseudo-feminists in their place. The police and their culture tell women--from pro- fear escort service advertising, to Katie Koestner, to the grocery store women's magazines--to be afraid and to seek state protection. This paternalism works to discourage revolutionary sentiments in women to change the entire system, and gives the pigs carte blanche to open fire (literally and figuratively) on oppressed nationals. One in three young Black men are under the control of the injustice system, and the Black imprisonment rate in Amerika is four times that of apartheid South Africa. This shows that pig inclusion in a so-called feminist event is openly racist. Regardless of the intent of organizations that promote pro-pig approaches to rape, the result is more Black men in prison. These organizations should either break with their white supremacist practice, or be honest and don the Klan robes. The responses by rally-goers were in line with their material interest. One person verbally attacked RAIL and claimed that RAIL's criticism was "inappropriate." This amounts to paternalism because the critic is assuming that women can't handle the criticism. An organizer of the rally asked the RAIL activists not to march with their anti-cop signs with the rest of the group, so as to not jeopardize their relationship with the pigs. The head of the rape hotline at the Every Women's Center at the University of Massachusetts also accused the activists of jeopardizing their relationship with the pigs, and must we say most likely her job. She also criticized the RAIL activists for going to an event with signs and flyers because we were "disempowering" women at a so-called "empowering" event. She called us "arrogant" for saying that one option a woman who was raped might choose--going to the police--was wrong. We agree that this is arrogant. It's also arrogant to want to go head to head with the patriarchy that pushes reliance on the state. If we are going to destroy patriarchy and actually stop violence against women of the world, we are going to have to break the patriarchal rules. On the same note, we see it as imperative for ultimate change to interject a revolutionary analysis wherever possible. RAIL did gain the support of several new friends through distribution of our anti-cop literature. We also discussed revolutionary politics with the producer of a zine called "amerikkka on Trial". The solution to violence against women is in revolution that eliminates the power of group over group, including the power of men over women and First World women over Third World women. Anything short of breaking with the police and building revolutionary feminist power amounts to postponing the day patriarchy dies. The 4.5 billion people who suffer under and struggle against U.S. imperialism need allies. What they don't need is women believing the crap about being powerless, and they don't need people marching in lockstep with the imperialist government that oppresses them. Third World people will dismantle Amerikan imperialism whether the attendees of the rally join them or not. To them true freedom through revolution is a matter of life or death. We need to fight for them by working with RAIL and MIM and gaining support for a revolution here in North America. *** SHUNNING THE PIGS IS NOT ENOUGH: REAL FEMINISTS WORK FOR REVOLUTION ANN ARBOR, MI, April 20--MIM handed out flyers at and struggled with attendees of the annual Take Back the Night rally here. Two hundred people attended the event, which proclaimed the theme, "breaking the backlash against economic, cultural, and physical violence" against women. The two hour rally included half a dozen speakers, both women and men attended. The march which followed was for women only. Pigs did not escort the march, nor were they present at the rally. This is an improvement upon past practice and is not as openly pro-imperialist as working with the police. But the event still objectively supported imperialism by ignoring the plight of the majority of the world's women, who are the victims of U.S. imperialism. Some people MIM talked with thought our criticism of pseudo- feminism made sense and were interested in reading our flyer which stated that any movement calling itself feminist must be anti-imperialist. In a major step back from past Take Back the Night practice, rally organizers canceled a planned self- defense presentation because they wanted to place the responsibility of preventing violence against women on men. The organizer stated that "if men were not committing violent acts then women would not have to go to self-defense classes." This privileged pseudo-feminist logic reveals the material interest of the gender aristocracy, which doesn't really want to end oppression and violence but wants a higher position in the hierarchy of power at the expense of the majority of the worlds people. By contrast, MIM believes that women can and must take the lead in defending themselves against and destroying patriarchal power. The first speakers were welfare rights activists. One woman identified herself as a "welfare survivor, domestic violence survivor and U.S. citizen survivor." MIM agrees with this connection to a larger oppressive social structure. Two other speakers stated that rape is not sex. MIM disagrees and says all sex is rape, therefore rape is also sex. Rape is defined as coerced sex. Because women never consented to being born into a world where they have unequal power with men, all sex involves coercion, therefore all sex is rape. One woman told of her rape by an eighteen-year-old when she was 5. A standing ovation followed this woman's speech (most people were sitting on the pavement). She spoke about taking back her childhood and not allowing her rapist to control her ever again. MIM thinks that it is important for women to control their own lives, and that they have the power to do much more. Women can work to change the power relations in society that make rape so common by working to overthrow the patriarchy. One speaker openly called for longer prison sentences for rapists. This strategy will only succeed in incarcerating more Black men and will never decrease the number of rapes. Though other speakers did not say this directly, they did support it indirectly by referring to their own personal experiences and their utilization of the criminal injustice system. One speaker marginally addressed national oppression by talking about a song written as a tribute to women victims of the so-called Ann Arbor serial rapist. The song was called "Don't let darkness catch you on the edge of town." The speaker expressed disbelief at the irony of cautioning women in this way, given that this is historically a warning to Black folks to not be caught on the outskirts of town after dark because of the danger of white chauvinist violence. This speaker also correctly pointed out that rape is not about a "strange Black man lurking." One speaker addressed the oppression of disabled people, stating that they are "beaten, raped, robbed and left to die in their own urine." She also spoke of the "incarceration" of disabled people in nursing homes and went on to explain that the average profit for nursing homes is $600,000 a year. The last speaker said not to "forget women in prisons and jails." She also mentioned that the state controls the bodies of women in prison. MIM would take this a step further to include men in prison. The sexuality of both women and men in prison is controlled by the imperialist, patriarchal state. We also learned from this speaker that the Children's Visitation Program (CVP) in Washtenaw county was reinstated. This program, which allows women in prison to have contact visits with their children, was recently threatened.(See MIM Notes 112 for more on the CVP.) The political line of the event was less openly contradictory than other Take Back the Night rallies as the call for more cops to stop rape was minimal. But the event still ignored the role of imperialism in oppressing the majority of the world's women. MIM thinks it is an improvement to not call for a police state to stop violence against women. But the organizers had no plan for halting or even decreasing rape or domestic violence. MIM is working to build a revolutionary proletarian feminist movement which will dismantle imperialism and all power of groups over groups. To find out more about why we say that an internationalist approach is necessary to feminism, write to MIM, P.O. Box 3576, Ann Arbor, MI 48106- 3576 or mim@nyxfer.blythe.org. * * * KKK=IRS=COPS SECURITY JUSTIFIED BY CORRUPT STATE The Boston Globe has reported that IRS employees use their access to taxpayer records for their own personal purposes. MIM is not surprised that an alleged KKK member has been convicted for using his access to tax records to snoop on people he thought were infiltrating the KKK. Nor is MIM surprised by recent stories in the press that the military, FBI and IRS have KKK and Nazi members who cannot be removed from their jobs by the rules of this bourgeois dictatorship known as the U.S. Government. Some employees at the IRS contend that such snooping goes on all the time. The only time the government cracks down is when police identities are threatened or politicians get snooped on. The Boston Globe also reported a case where an IRS worker used his access to records to help a campaign against a candidate for Congress. The typical, natural and naive conservative authoritarian position is that those who have done nothing wrong don't need to keep secrets from the government. Some reactionaries--especially in East Asia--even oppose individualism from this point of view, saying that privacy rights are unnecessary. These reactionaries accuse communists of believing that so-called human nature is "good," but it is they who assume everyone in government authority will have good behavior--even in the profit-mad capitalist-system. While we at MIM oppose individualism, we won't whitewash any of the current governments in the world to do so. MIM supports privacy rights against capitalist governments and we go a step further and advocate that activists protect their identities. The Greensboro, North Carolina shootings of five Communist Workers Party members on November 3, 1979 was a perfect example of why such security is necessary. Because of the infiltration, many members of the Klan were police officers, which means the pigs were participating in these Klan activities, but they did nothing to stop the Klan from shooting communists. Since the government cannot protect the citizens against anything ranging from spying to murder, the citizens must preserve their privacy rights against the government. The same is true of the police beating of citizens- -again videotaped in Los Angeles in the case of Rodney King and the two Mexican immigrants and also Worcester, MA where police lied about choking a man to death only to have been videotaped doing it. The reactionaries always say that "it's just a few bad apples." It turns out a few bad apples can kill you, so even if the reactionaries are correct, it doesn't mean people should not protect themselves against the government's law-abiding officials and its rogue officials. In reality, the reactionaries are not correct, because if it were just a "few bad apples," the good apples would have the integrity to stop the bad apples. Yet police are taught the "code of silence" to protect each other. Hence, those who put the code above integrity are all "bad apples." Under the proletarian dictatorship, the highest standards will apply to government officials. Cops and other government officials who don't want to serve the people will be fired and we will be able to do that without resistance, because everyone will be guaranteed a job. The highest standards of proletarian morality will be exercised from the top down so that no cops or other government officials will get the idea they can get away with racism, national chauvinism, sexism, selling drugs etc. NOTE: Boston Globe Apr. 14, 1996, pp. 91, 97. * * * PIGS CAUGHT ON TAPE BRUTALIZING MEXICANS On Monday April 1, 21 Mexican nationals riding in a truck were chased and stopped by riverside sheriffs. The chase lasted for about 80 miles. The pigs took out their batons immediately after the truck stopped, ran towards the riders, and without first saying a word started bashing people. Meanwhile a local news TV camera was taping the whole thing from a helicopter, and broadcasting live. It can be clearly seen on the video that these pigs were very eager to break somebody's bones. The liberals from the ACLU label that behavior "High Speed Chase Syndrome" MIM just calls it pig brutality. These pigs hadn't noticed that there was a TV news helicopter taping the whole thing, which is why they went on beating the victims as they would have anyhow. It is anti-immigrant furor and Amerikan chauvinism that fuels violent pig brutality, not this bullshit psychological "syndrome" that just got invented. Apparently the Riverside Sheriffs had been told to relinquish the chase over to the California Highway Patrol, but they pursued it anyway.(1) A lawsuit for $10 million has been filed by one of the victims. MIM hopes he wins. Taking money from the imperialists and giving it back to the people from whom they stole it (the exploited masses forcibly kept outside of the artificial US borders so that they can't compete for the high paying jobs given to the parasites inside these borders) is progressive. The AFL-CIA was quick to speak out in favor of all cops and say that these two were just "rogue officers" and "bullies." We don't expect the AFL- CIA to do any better, they are pigs and firmly stand behind their fellow pigs that haven't been caught on tape.(2) An investigation is being set up by the pigs themselves. The two pigs who are more directly visible in these beatings, Kurt Franklin and Tracy Watson, were placed on paid leave. Here's what LAPD's head of the Bureau of Special Investigation, including internal affairs, Deputy Chief Bernard Parks had to say about this incident: "From what's on the tape, there's justification for the force that was used."(1) So much for protect and serve. ASSAULTS TRIGGER PROTESTS The day after the beating was aired live on L.A. TV a protest was held in front of the Riverside county sheriff station, several other protests were held across Los Angeles and the rest of Southern California. The biggest one MIM attended was on Saturday April 6, when approximately 13,000 people marched through downtown L.A. demanding justice, and condemning the pigs. The march was something of a lightning rally organized by liberals; although not everyone in attendance was a liberal. Our organ Notas Rojas sold like hotcakes to crowds that practically got in lines to buy it. SETTLERS VOICE THEIR REACTIONARY MINDS (WITH HELP FROM THE MEDIA) At the same time that march was taking place in Downtown L.A., another "protest" was taking place in front of Westwood's Federal Building. We would've never known about it had the media not given it so much coverage. They were effective in emphasizing the views of the settler demonstrators: "They [immigrants] have no human rights whatsoever," "They broke the law and should be treated like criminals." etc. etc. The only good thing that comes out of these anti-immigrant rallies is that they make it easier for the oppressed of Aztlan to discern who their enemies are, the parasitic white nation (Amerika) whose very existence depends on the oppression and exploitation of the majority of the world's people. Join with MIM in fighting to open the borders and smash imperialism. We don't just oppose individual pig violence, we oppose the system that sets up the pigs to enforce artificial borders that keep the people of Aztlan (and other oppressed nations around the world) working in jobs that do not pay enough for adequate food, housing and medical care so that the imperialists and their parasites can afford a second car and a vacation to Disney Land. NOTES: 1. Los Angeles Times April 5, 1996, p. A22. 2. LA Times April 6, 1996, A15. * * * REPUBLICANS PRACTICE PHONY SOCIALISM Long Island Lighting Company (LILCO) is on the verge of a takeover by New York State. "In the governmental equivalent of a hostile takeover, New York state wants to seize LILCO, whose annual revenue, at $3.1 billion, ranks 15th among U.S. power companies." The leaders of this movement are not social- democrats. They are staunch Republicans: Governor Pataki and Senator Alfonse D'Amato, who led Bob Dole's presidential campaign in the New York Republican primary. The reactionaries are turning toward what they call "socialism," in order to protect rate-payers. Typical family of four LILCO rate- payers pay double the national average for electricity. They have given up on other methods of reform, because the company has already had one takeover that only fixed its problems by gouging the rate-payers. The current management of LILCO has pleased its shareholders. Now the Republican leaders of New York are going to fix their wagon. This leaves the Wall Street Journal wondering aloud, because usually the politicians are praying to the gods of Mammon. IF THE SOCIAL-DEMOCRATS CAN'T DO IT, THE CAPITALISTS CAN Ordinarily the capitalist class saves this kind of dirty takeover work for social-democrats to do. That way, they can get done what has to be done and then blame it on "socialism," so that everyone will be sickened by what the bourgeoisie invented and called "socialism." In this case, the nature of capitalism has been so exposed, that the New York ruling class does not have time to put together a social-democratic party, an example of which is the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) or the German Social-Democrats, which is the most famous social-democratic party. MIM has always maintained that incremental takeovers are no threat to the capitalist class, so we have to have a revolution. Now we see the proof in New York. Far from disapproving, the reactionaries are leading the movement for a government takeover. It is already regular government practice to take over failed banks to prevent the whole banking system from falling like a house of cards. Sometimes companies like Chrysler get government bailouts too. In most cases these government takeovers are intended to force taxpayers to make the companies profitable again. Once they are profitable, the companies are sold to the rich again--at a loss to taxpayers. That's what happens if the company is important enough that it can't just go out of business. The government doesn't just let companies like LILCO go out of business because of the political pressure from its mass base: the majority of the people served by LILCO, who might support another wing of the bourgeoisie if the one currently in power does not serve the class well enough. In addition, the mess created by companies like LILCO leads to even more blatant than usual exposure of the failures of capitalism. REAL SOCIALISM In the late Yugoslavia, localities had control of their businesses, under so-called market socialism. Such socialism is not internationalist, because it does not account for unfair historical advantages or natural resources. If one locality happens to be sitting on an oil reserve, it gets fabulously rich in the Yugoslavian solution of old. Such is now happening in China too where privatization of agriculture has resulted in some locales getting fish farms while others get land barely fit for rice. Under socialism, the proletarian party must thoroughly squelch provincial interests in order to build unity amongst the people. Real socialism demands proletarian leadership at the society-wide level and the local level. Otherwise, the government or local leaderships simply imitate the capitalist businesses they are in competition with, because they are forced to. LILCO found itself in the position of having to please stockholders. So even though it is under extreme governmental pressure, it still has to imitate the other capitalists to retain its shareholders. When we are speaking to young bourgeois types, we can even use the language of the Wall Street Journal. Socialism is "the governmental equivalent of a hostile takeover" but for the whole country, with the workers in control of production with politics led by a proletarian line. Ordinarily a takeover specialist like T. Boone Pickens or some other billionaire takes over a company by telling people that the current management is not squeezing out enough profits. If you let Pickens in there, he will get the job done, so give him control of the company. Then shareholders will get higher dividends and their stock price will go up higher the takeover specialist says. Communists say that these capitalists are unfit for running society, because they degrade and exploit the proletariat, destroy the environment to obtain fabulous private profits, subvert Third World governments with bribery and CIA-types in the imperialist governments. These capitalists sell weapons, drugs and pornography for profit, get into world wars where the victor sets the business terms. They also create tens of millions of paper- shuffling jobs whose product does nothing to advance society--jobs like settling disputes between property-owners (lawyers, judges, accountants), jobs protecting private property (security guards and police), jobs attacking other countries (the Pentagon and military-industrial complex) and jobs scheming up ads for technologically advanced and earth-shattering products like fizzy water with color in it called Coca-Cola. Older people with their fat salaries in meaningless jobs are pacified as long as the people of the oppressed nations do all the hard work, but young people have a chance to make a change in their lifetimes and have it make a difference. When the communists gain state power and take over the LILCOs and other businesses, it won't be to please shareholders or local politicians. No one will be allowed to make profits, so that the motivation to oppress and exploit will be gone, and so we can attempt to organize LILCO for the people. NOTE: Wall Street Journal April 26, 1996, p. 1. * * * ECONOMISTS CATCH UP WITH MIM The chairperson of the Council of Economic Advisers in the Clinton Administration, Joseph E. Stiglitz has noted in a study this year what MIM pointed out four years ago in MIM Theory 1. Stereotypes about service jobs in the united states have picked up political momentum, but they are false. "The cartoons might make you think these new jobs are all hamburger flippers," said Stiglitz. "The big growth in service sector jobs has not come at McDonald's but at mutual funds and hospitals, software companies and accounting services," said the New York Times in a paraphrase. An influential book by Harry Braverman at our favorite academic press called Monthly Review held the hypothesis called the "degradation of work." According to Monthly Review political economists inspired by Marxism, the development of capitalism in the united states involves ever greater "deskilling" of work. For this reason, everyone would end up in service jobs akin to McDonald's. Braverman attempts to apply the universals of Marxism to Amerika as if Amerika were a capitalist economy unto itself. But really Amerika keeps the bulk of its proletariat outside the borders so that deskilling doesn't carry the same implication as it did when Marx talked about it. Monthly Review also suggested we update Marx and Lenin by accepting these degraded white-collar workers as proletarian and thus gather our line from this class. Democrats and now Dole and Buchanan have been spreading a similar image, because it is safe for them to pander to the class interests of the bought-off workers here. However, according to the Stiglitz report, hamburger-flipping jobs actually declined between 1994 and 1995. Furthermore, 68 percent of the growth in employment in the last two years has been in jobs that paid above the median of $480 a week. Hence, we again have evidence of a stabilization of the labor aristocracy, not an imminent revolutionary crisis for that class. If we tie ourselves up with that class now in the expectation that it will soon become revolutionary, we will only corrupt our own lines and turn against the international proletariat, the way some Detroit newspaper workers did recently by inventing a story about Mexican scab workers. (See May 1 MN113.) MIM has in the past pointed out the fallacy of generalizing to all service sector jobs with regard to pay by using statistics that apply only to the shortest-term service sector jobs that most white workers move out of while they are still in their 20s. Monthly Review's "degradation of work" hypothesis is an apt description for the world's majority of workers. In the imperialist societies, however, the degradation of work is its increasing parasitism. Forward-looking workers in the imperialist countries do not seek to protect their parasitic jobs, but seek to change them to work that goes beyond paper-shuffling waste. NOTE: New York Times April 24, 1996, section D. * * * EVIL EMPIRE RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE 1996 Sony Music Entertainment rage against the machine is holding strong to anti- imperialist politics but still has not given up the anarchism that marked the group's past CDs. This latest release opens with "People of the Sun," a reminder of oppression and exploitation "since 1516:" "Neva forget that the wip snapped ya back, ya spine cracked for tobacco, oh I'm the marlboro man." The answer: "Now you found a gun/This is for the people of the sun." Righteous armed struggle is the answer, but this struggle must be organized and led by an organization with a political line and strategy that can win and make progressive change. "Tire Me," "Vietnow," "Without a Face" and other songs also bring up the history of imperialist repression the world's people have suffered. Other tracks defend the right of people to self- determination. "Wind Below" upholds the struggles of the women and men from the south, including armed struggle. This song ends with "They force our ears to go deaf to the screams in the south." One theme to this release is the miseducation of the masses which is attacked in many of the songs. The song getting the most play on the radio, "Bulls on Parade," takes on the right wing hypocrisy: "They rally round tha family/with pockets full of shells/weapons not food, not homes, not shoes." It goes on to attack the miseducation system: "I walk tha corner to tha rubble that used to be a/library/line up to tha mind cemetery/what we don't know keeps tha contracts alive an/movin'." This suggests that it is just lack of information that keeps the masses from fighting back. "Vietnow" carries on the attack on the masses as miseducated sheep forced to listen to misinformation, duped by religion and ends by asking "Is all tha world jails and churches?" While miseducation has always played a role in keeping the oppressed down, in Amerika there is the important question of material interest that keeps the majority of the people so readily willing to accept and support imperialist bullshit. Miseducation is rampant in all countries controlled by imperialism but it is not just misinformation that is keeping the majority of the people in Amerika from rising up in revolutionary struggle. The white parasitic labor aristocracy doesn't resist the miseducation because they want to hear that the brown people down below are inferior and terrorists and stealing their jobs because they want to continue to benefit from the exploitation of the world's majority. It is not just lack of information that has made white Amerika non- revolutionary, it is their benefit from the exploitation of the people of the world that has created a labor aristocracy willing to support fascism before thinking about supporting just struggles for national liberation. "Down Rodeo" points out "A ballots dead so bullets what I get". This is one of the best tracks on this CD and suggests that maybe rage against the machine understands the national contradiction in the United Snakes and why the whites have been bought off into passivity: "So make a move and plead the fifth 'cause ya Can't plead the first Can't waste a day when the night brings A hearse So now I'm rollin' down rodeo wit a Shot gun these people ain't seen a Brown skin man since their grandparents bought One Bare witness to tha sickest shot while suckas Get romantic They gonna send us campin' like they did my man Fred Hampton Year of tha Boomerang lays out the revolutionary plan just short of a call for Maoist organizing, invoking the memory of Mao's comment that a death for the people is as heavy as Mount Tai: So I grip tha cannon like Fanon and pass tha Shells to my classmates 'Cause tha bosses right ta live is mine ta die So I'm goin' out heavy sorta like mount tai Wit tha five centuries of penitentiary so let Tha guilty hang In the year of tha boomerang I got no property but yo I'm a piece of it So let tha guilty hang In tha year of tha boomerang An now it's upon you But in the end rage against the machine is still calling on people to take up guns and not offering them any leadership or organization to work with in this country. They seem to be leaning towards the Revolutionary Communist Party, acknowledging several of their front groups as comrades on the jacket of the CD, whose influence could explain the failure to adequately distinguish between the white nation parasites in Amerika and the oppressed nation allies of the revolution as well as the derogatory attacks on the masses as miseducated sheep. In spite of these failings, overall this is an excellent anti-imperialist attack on the Evil Empire of Amerika so long as the listener bears in mind that the Amerikans (a.k.a white labor aristocrat parasites) are a part of this Evil Empire and want to continue to be a part of it. And in order to really make our deaths as heavy as Mount Tai we must work together in an organization that can lead the revolution and make every life and death count. * * * YOUTH GATHER TO DISCUSS THEIR RIGHTS On April 13-14, the National Children's Rights Coalition held its second annual Youth Summit at Hampshire College in Massachusetts. Some RAIL activists were there, handing out RAIL and MIM lit and attending informative workshops. We found many allies at the conference, even as we recognized the differences that existed between the various groups in attendance. The groups involved were as diverse as Empowered Youth Educating Society (EYES), a group of teenage youth bringing attention to the anti-youth legislation in Seattle and the complicity of many reformist groups with anti-youth aims; and the Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors who held a talk on "The Military Invasion of our Schools" about opposition to JROTC. There were plenty of revisionists (people who call themselves Marxist but revise Marx's ideas fundamentally) in attendance as well. Workshops were informative despite the often incomplete analysis of those holding them. For example, in one workshop on "Homelessness and Youth" participants asserted (to the facilitator's agreement) that layoffs at AT&T were the cause of homelessness. Actually, white-collar workers' layoffs usually result in their employment in other white-collar jobs. Paper-shufflers do not usually become homeless, especially those educated enough to milk the social system for all they can use their privilege to get. In spite of this incorrect assertion, the facilitators, representing an Atlanta-based high- school group called Youth for Justice (which is affiliated with Empty the Shelters) provided lots of information about the situation in their city. They talked about the labor pools, which are basically temp agencies organized to hire homeless people to set up for the Olympics. They are extremely exploitative and wind up paying barely enough for a night in a shelter and some food. Some of the most interesting discussions took place outside of the workshops, where RAIL was tabling. MIM is one of the few communist groups out there with such a complete gender analysis, including talking about children's situation, and the attendees appreciated this. One woman who had seen MIM's article concerning the Parental Rights Amendment (March, 1996) on the Internet was glad to meet people distributing more literature. She said that she was thrilled to read our call for youth liberation as she has been telling "the Left" to talk about child abuse as a political issue since 1965. Most of the participants were far too young to be doing such things since the sixties, as most were high-school aged. However, many were receptive to finding out more and interested in both MIM and RAIL newspapers. They liked our recognition that youth are the main revolutionary vehicle within the white Amerikan nation, unlike most groups that keep looking to bought off workers to choose the progressive activism youth are embracing. * * * UNDER LOCK AND KEY: NEWS FROM PRISONERS AND PRISONS THE POWER OF REVOLUTION Living in oppression each day is a vision of Hell. I wake up daily and my physical rebels. Refusing to submit, I'll never bow to defeat. I walk with shackles on my feet, My waist is chained, my wrist cuffed, Still the oppressor can't get enough. He spews out mental torture and dispenses physical pain. My Comrades know him by many names: Imperialist, capitalist, fascist, Commander in Chief, Speaker of the House, psychopathic beast. Faces of the Enemy, No! they can't hide, Revolution is on my side. Yes! Revolution is the key, The only way oppressed nations will be Free. --a New York prisoner, Mar. 4, 1996. FLORIDA CENSORS MIM NOTES In early January, a prisoner from the DeSoto Corr. Inst. asked MIM to send subscriptions to nine of his friends at this same institution. A few weeks later, all nine issues of MIM Notes were refused and returned to MIM. --RCG1 WASHINGTON STATE CENSORS MIM NOTES According to a letter sent to MIM from the Washington state Department of Corrections, MIM Notes was censored because it is a publication unauthorized by policy, per memo issued by headquarters. To protest this censorship, write to the Director, Division of Prisons of Community Corrections, PO Box 41100, Olympia, WA 98504-1100. TEXAS PRISONER DIES OF NEGLECT On October 6, 1995, in Beeville, Texas, in McConnell Unit, ad-seg area, a brother named Rufus Green 586875 was found dead in Cell-1, Pod-F, Section-C at approximately 8:45 am. Brother Green died from a ruptured hernia, which caused blood poisoning, resulting in death. From Oct. 2, 1995 until his death, Brother Green pleaded with prison officers and nurses. The first, second and third shifts for medical assistance could see that he was suffering in severe pain, but they just totally ignored and disregarded his and our complaints. Just to name a few among the officers and nurses who showed a deliberate indifference toward his medical needs were: Eric M. Lang Co. 3, Charles A. Bridges Co. 3, Regino A. Quintero Co. 3, Eric D. Wood, Sgt. Philippa A. Lang, Sgt. Wesley W. Hemphill, Garca Pablo Co. 3, Jose R. Garcia Co. 3, Medical Nurse Sylvia Tapia, LVN. I have written to many state and local organizations requesting their support but it seems that the whole world has ignored my cry, while all those involved are getting away with the death by neglect. I am requesting the support and advice from prisoners and outside comrades in my quest to see that justice is brought upon those involved in the death by neglect of Rufus Green. Please write or call the following agencies below and request that the above-listed officers and nurses be investigated regarding Brother Green's death. Write or call: Alvin J Bronstein, Attorney, National Prison Project, 1875 Connecticut Ave., NW, Suite 410, Washington, D.C. 20004. American Civil Liberties Union, PO Box 3629, Austin, TX 78764-3629, Tel. (512) 441-0077. Attorney David Deutch, Special Litigation Service, Civil Rights Division, U.S. Department of Justice, 320 First St, NW Room 944, Washington, D.C. 20534. --a Texas prisoner, Jan. 31, 1996 THE STRANGE DEATH OF DONALD WOODS ...Remember the September 1990 death of Donald Woods at the Waupun Correctional Institution? There was no video, the media did not do a front page story on the broken bones and extensive wounds inflicted on Woods, but the fact remains, he died as a result of the actions of the Waupun staff. On September 8, 1990 at 6:00 p.m., five correction officers forcibly removed Woods from his cell for disturbing other inmates in his block with "bizarre noises." This cell-extraction was accomplished by cornering Woods with a plastic shield, handcuffing him and gagging him with a towel. Woods was gagged because he was tested HIV positive and allegedly spat at officers in the past. Once out of his cell, Woods was thrown into a laundry cart, like a sack of dirty clothes and transported to the "Adjustment Center," where he frantically struggled against the officers trying to place him in restraints. Their adrenaline pumping from the heat of battle, the officers lifted him onto the bed and began the process of subduing him. One officer applied pressure on the towel over Woods' mouth to keep his head in place, while a 200 pound officer dug his right knee firmly into Woods' chest, preventing the manacled inmate from arching his back. Stripped of his clothing and placed tightly in restraints, Woods urinated on himself and slowly drifted into unconsciousness....At 3:30 a.m. he was found dead. A four month investigation by the Dodge County District Attorney concluded that there were no grounds for criminal prosecution against the Waupun staff because they did not "knowingly" contribute to Woods' demise. The bottom line is that Woods died of asphyxiation brought by the restraining methods of the state, therefore someone has to answer for his death.... A Wisconsin Prisoner responds: This document represents the death of a prisoner by correctional officers who were not charged. They suffocated this prisoner, murdered him and got away with it!!! Pigs need to learn they have no right to take another life, or even to mistreat lives. However, a great percentage of pigs like their job as it is their legal way to relieve their hate. Prisoners are merely "Hate Rocks" for society-- for those who cannot portray hate in their personal lives. We are the Hate Rocks, a route for their negativity to flow into! Here in Wisconsin prisons, the only things that protect an officer are the 10 years for the crime, 6 more years for the repeater law, then another strike towards three strikes and you're out. Surely pigs don't think they themselves protect one another? They're foolish, so they likely do. Pigs must stop their actions. Some of us just can't keep holding back, time after time, year after year. We don't want to hurt anyone... --a Wisconsin prisoner, 10/23/95 INEFFECTIVE COUNSEL REMOVED FROM PRACTICE OF LAW In the case of Francis Dole Burke, Attorney vs Kentucky Bar Association, Case No. 94-SC-267-KB (May 26, 1994) of the Supreme Court of Kentucky, the Supreme court rendered Attorney Francis Burke to be unethical and unprofessional to his client.... Mr. Burke was put on suspension for 59 days, made to pay a $953.80 disciplinary fee and removed from the practice of law. It should be noted that Francis Burke was under multiple disciplinary complaints for misrepresenting prisoners. ...any prisoner who had Francis Burke as an attorney from the state of Kentucky should contact MIM or the Supreme Court law book, published May 26, 1994, Case No. 94-SC-267-KB. This case may be of great importance to people who have had Mr. Burke as their attorney and are fighting for ineffective assistance of counsel cases. --a Virginia prisoner, Feb. 22, 1996 IN WISCONSIN, WE SAIL "Governor Tommy Thompson, known to many state residents as "King" Tommy, has announced that "if keeping criminals off our streets means sending our prisoners to Texas--bye, bye...they're going South." That's just one of the proposals set forth in the State of the State address delivered by Wisconsin's chief executive on Tuesday, January 30, in Madison. He means it about the deal with Texas. "We have talked with Texas corrections officials. They have room for our prisoners. They have agreed to take them. And we're working out the details." According to Tommy Thompson, "Wisconsin is Working -- better and stronger than at any time in our history." To this governor, a "better and stronger" state is one that shows "zero tolerance for crime." Here are the latest anti-crime proposals he unveiled: Building a SuperMax prison: "Prisons work," said Tommy Thompson. "They keep violent people from harming good people. It's that simple. So tonight I am committing to build a SuperMax prison. If we don't get federal funding, we must build it ourselves. And once this plain, stark and austere facility is built, that's where Wisconsin's most vicious criminals will go. The SuperMax will be a criminal's worst nightmare." Building a new "sexual predator" prison: "Statistics show that 50 percent of violent sexual offenders commit more sex crimes once released from prison untreated. That's why we joined together to pass a ground breaking sexual predator law... Tonight, I am proposing construction of a new sexual predator facility." Sale of Prison labor to three selected corporations: "We're putting prisoners to work, both inside our prison walls and alongside our roadways. Next month I will announce the first three companies that will come into our prisons and put inmates to work in activities no other workers want. No more sitting around. Prisoners are going to start working. And they're going to help pay their keep." Creation of the Office of Gang Intervention: "We struck a blow against gang crime recently when we toughened our laws so gang members can't hide behind their birthdays and be coddled by a weak juvenile justice system." Creation of a victim information system at the Department of Corrections: "This Victim Security Card puts the status of criminals in the hands of their victims... Court dates. Sentencing. Prison Location. Release Date... the victim will know it all. And will never have to wonder when the criminal gets out or where he or she is. We need to start worrying more about protecting our families than about the confidentiality of convicted criminals." Providing broader access to criminal data: The state will now employ a Mobil Data Terminal System to make it "easier for law enforcement agencies throughout the state to keep tabs on criminals." Banning pornography and movies in prisons: "...we are banning pornographic materials from our prisons and removing all movies. Prisoners won't have time for these things anyway. They'll be too busy working." Nan Brian, a spokeswoman for the Wisconsin Council on Children and Families gave her reactions to the speech: "It's all really a crime and punishment plan. When people in Wisconsin think about security, they think about stable jobs, family supporting wages, affordable health care, good K-12 education for their kids, and the opportunity for higher education for their children later." She added that the governor's security plan focused entirely on building more prisons... and treating criminals more harshly. [See The Capital Times, Madison, WI 1/31/96.] Wisconsin already has eliminated many educational programs in prisons, has a three strikes law, has restricted property allowed to prisoners [including books, hobby supplies or educational materials], has eliminated free weights and may also eliminate all weights, has double celled about one- third of prisoners, has added new segregation units, has moved to restrict the rights of prisoners to request public information or file lawsuits, has eliminated the position of an attorney in the Public Defender's office who was responsible for investigation of complaints about conditions of confinement, has introduced monitoring of prisoner telephone calls and stamping of all outgoing mail, and has plans to add chain gangs of a "high-tech" variety [the proposed "chain gang" program would use stun belts and shackles instead of chaining prisoners together]. The prison waiting lists for treatment programs are years long. There is an inadequate grievance system, and complaints about lack of medical care, denial of legal rights, mail tampering, racism, abuse and other forms of mistreatment abound. Tommy Thompson vetoed a bill that would have established an Inmate Death Investigation Board. There is no independent citizen oversight of the Dept. of Corrections, and services for women prisoners are truly limited in a prison system designed primarily for men. Requests by families of prisoners for improved visitation conditions have gone unheard for decades, and Wisconsin is transferring juvenile offenders from supervision by human service agencies to the control of the Department of Corrections. The state has just begun to enforce a new law that sends violent juveniles to adult courts. But all these measures are not deemed punishing enough by Tommy Thompson, the Department of Corrections, or the get-tough legislators in Wisconsin. A bill to re-instate the death penalty has also been introduced, and the governor says he'll sign it if it reaches his desk. Tommy Thompson built his national reputation by pushing for "workfare" and "learnfare" under the label welfare "reform" -- the safety net for Wisconsin's families is full of gaping holes. He uses his veto power to change the intent of bills with the stroke of a pen. He is dismantling the Wisconsin educational system. He has blurred the line between church and state. He and his associates have reaped untold millions in profits from prison contracts and highway construction, and he is prepared to assist corporations to loot mineral and natural resources with little accountability for the social and environmental consequences. Virtually all state agencies have been forced to tighten their belts, but one agency has been getting fat budget increases: the Wisconsin Department of Corrections. Near the end of his speech, Tommy Thompson left his audience with these words: "In Wisconsin, we sail. We sail toward our dreams... Good night, and God Bless Wisconsin." To some of us, it sounds like we sail toward a nightmare. Watch this man, folks. He could be sailing your way any time, and his dangerous ideas have already sailed on ahead of him. He claims to have no national aspirations, but he acts like a man who would be King. For full text of the State of the State address by Tommy Thompson, see: <http://www.wisgov.state.wi.us> For local articles about the speech see: THE CAPITAL TIMES, Madison, WI 1/31/96 (email: tctvoice@captimes.madison.com) THE WISCONSIN STATE JOURNAL, Madison, WI 1/31/96 (phone: 608/252-6110)" -- A Dissident in Dairyland, Feb. 2, 1996 REMOTE PRISONS MAKE LIFE TOUGHER The Ely State Prison (ESP), a state of the art maximum- security institution located in the barren mountain region of eastern Nevada, stands as a symbol of prosperity and long-term employment for the little village of Ely, Nevada. To the inmates of ESP, their stay here is similar to being sentenced to a prison in Siberia. Most prisoners, after arriving at ESP, succumb to the harsh reality of just how desolate an area this governmental monument is. Free world contact is virtually non-existent, family visits are few, phone calls to loved ones are costly, and abuse of power is an everyday occurrence. This is an all-too-common story shared by thousands of inmates sentenced to prisons in remote areas across this nation. Like so many other prisons built around small town economic revival, ESP offers prison officials an enormous opportunity to misuse their authority. We prisoners have rules and regulations, not to forget state and federal laws me must follow. If we fail to abide by these written rules, we get punished. Prison staff members also have written rules and regulations to follow, but because of the isolated location of ESP, they tend to disregard their own written policies. This brings us to why the Nevada Department of Prisons has so many lawsuits filed against prison officials in the U.S. District Court. Per capita, Nevada inmates file more lawsuits against prison staff than any other state prison system. When prison officials fail to follow the procedures set down in writing by the lawmakers who oversee state prisons, it is the given right of all inmates to sue prison officials so that they will discontinue this practice of disregarding and avoiding written policy and making up rules as they go. It seems here at ESP, there are no rules for staff to follow, so we file many lawsuits. For the inmates at the Ely State Prison, relief in most instances can only be found through judicial litigation. You, too, can find relief from the constitutional violations caused by prison officials by using title 42 U.S.C. 1983; its your avenue to relief....Use it! Don't abuse it! --a Nevada prisoner, written May 1993, sent to MIM Jan. 4, 1996. MIM RESPONDS: We too say "use it!" but while some legal battles are winnable, we do not agree that litigation spells relief. If Amerikkka's legal system weren't stacked against the oppressed, there wouldn't be so many prisoners in the first place. This is why MIM says that only revolution will give the oppressed full relief. * * * FBI NAMES UNABOMBER SUSPECT; FBI-CONTROLLED MEDIA CONVICTS by MC234 In early April, the FBI announced it had a suspect in the Unabomber case and arrested Theodore Kaczynski. Unabomber is the code name applied to the case by the FBI, as initial targets were mainly universities and airlines. The organization behind the bombings appears to call itself FC, and holds an anarchist, anti- technology ideology, of which MIM has considerable criticisms in the realms of line, strategy and tactics. Principally, we see technology as merely the tools held by the ruling class. Under socialism, technology--and society--itself will cease to be alienating to the masses of people. Like the Luddites who attacked machines--and not the capitalists--as the root of their oppression, the Unabomber mistakes the symptoms and tools of capitalism for the system. The Unabomber seeks a more harmonious relationship between humans and the planet by the destruction of the technological way of life. In contrast, MIM seeks the liberation of the world's people, and a resulting realignment of society, which will include a sustainable relationship with non-human species and matter. In the realm of strategy, we disagree with the approach taken by the Unabomber. Maoists hold that armed struggle should only be undertaken when the bourgeoisie is really helpless and the people can make concrete gains through its use. Scattered acts of sabotage or executions are useless--or even counter-productive, bring repression down on everyone--because they are not tied into the direct and increased politicization and participation of the masses. The Unabomber type strategy relies on the bourgeois media to convey one's message and results in increasing the split between the masses and the political line being advocated. This last point MIM makes only in reference to how Maoist organizing works and is less important than the overall line difference between the Unabomber and MIM on the role of technology and imperialism. While the FBI claims that FC is one person, the documents from FC that MIM is familiar with refer to "we" so we will refer to FC as an organization. MIM doesn't know for sure if Kaczynski is FC or related to FC. The arrest of Kaczynski has been characterized by extreme manipulation of the media, and this has been the case all along. For years, the FBI has decided what information and letters (and portions of letters) from FC are fit for print. MIM says "assumes" or "allegedly" on some of the "facts" in this case because it is difficult to know exactly what is going on when politics is filtered first through the enemy FBI and then through the enemy mouthpiece media. As NPR reported, U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno refuses to comment on the on-going investigation, but "unnamed sources" in the FBI are leaking a Niagara Falls of information to the media. This should be a sign of concern to all. While there are reasons to keep people's names secret, the FBI is currently using a policy of "press conferences by leaks". This gives the FBI maximum control over what information it gives out and in what context, and allows it maximum deniability in cases of incorrect information or outright lies. Already small things like the fact that Theodore Kacznski's brother (who allegedly turned him in) sought assurances that the death penalty would not be sought, have turned out to not be true. It is impossible to know what more significant things are being hidden. FC is an underground organization that only communicates with it's victims directly and via the censored media, Kaczynski (according to unnamed sources) isn't talking, and the FBI is "unnamed". So this all ends with the public not really knowing anything at all. As time has progressed since the arrest, it has only gotten worse, with the media obviously becoming increasingly subservient in exchange for this increased "access" to informal briefings (the leaks.) In fact, to read news articles in the front of the New York Times only a few days after the arrest, one would think that Kaczynski had been convicted already. There is a lot to criticize in the FC line (assuming we are being given accurate information in the "Industrial Society and its Future" (the "Unabomber's Manifesto") published in the Washington Post. But what really galls MIM is the mainstream media's attempts to de-politicize this case and individualize it. The syndicated column by LA Times columnist Peter H. King is an excellent example of this. Before the arrest, "Industrial Society and its Future" was boring, rambling, etc. to King. In addition, it wasn't politically valid, because as a "sneaky assassin" FC hadn't earned a "seat at the debate." Now, however, "Industrial Society and its Future" is important to King because he can psychologize its politics to the profile of Kaczynski. Instead of reaching individuals wishing to work against a society bent on it's own destruction--in this MIM has unity with FC--by exposing the controlling nature of society's reactionary socialization, King sees a criticism of Kaczynski's parents. FC falls into a lot of psychological arguments him/herself, but s/he correctly exposes a major tactic of the ruling class against it's enemies: "The concept of 'mental health' in our society is defined largely by the extent to which an individual behaves in accord with the needs of the system and does so without showing signs of stress." King takes this as the defensive posturing of someone afraid of being called crazy. Saying that you are crazy if you don't enjoy your own alienation from society and you are crazy if you point out the fact first is a particularly common form of attack for the patriarchy. The next step, of course, is to lock you away. MIM disagrees with all the bourgeois pundits criticizing FC for using technology to force a break from technology. This is a is perfectly dialectical thing to do. It can be a cover for hypocrisy--which we don't think FC was doing--such as Ronald Reagan's peace-through-strength arms buildup which saw criticism only from the left. King's final statement is that "the manifesto's importance is not whether it made points about the evils of technology. It is whether the document can be matched to manual typewriters found in Kaczynski's cabin." If Kaczynski typed the document, had the typewriter or didn't it doesn't change the political value of the ideas. Reading between the lines of the political pundits and media servants to the FBI, the case of the Unabomber has become an excellent example of why we need alternative press and why focoism (the strategy of individual armed attacks) is not the most effective way to attack an enemy. MIM builds independent media while also building an organization based on Maoist line and strategy: the most effective way to attack and overthrow imperialism. NOTES: Syndicated column by LA Times columnist Peter H King, April 12, 1996; National Public Radio, April 8, 1996; http://www.envirolink.org/orgs/coe/resources/fc/coe vspf.html * * * IMPERIALISTS TIGHTEN GRIP ON PHILIPPINE ECONOMY The U.S.-Ramos regime in the Philippines recently passed several new laws which further subject the Philippine economy to the imperialist policies of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and U.S. imperialism. These laws include the Mining Act of 1995, the Agricultural Tarriffication Act, the Oil Deregulation act, and the Home Consumption Value Act. Together, these laws benefit local reactionaries and big landlords and allow foreign monopolies to invest in broader sections of the Philippine economy and repatriate more superprofits.(1) These laws are part of the U.S.-Ramos regime's "Philippines 2000" economic plan. President Ramos claims that this plan will turn the Philippines into a "newly industrialized country" by the turn of the century, but the plan only encourages further imperialist domination which will only bring greater poverty to the nation and increases the exploitation of the working class and peasantry.(2) MORE MARKETS, MORE SUBSIDIES FOR FOREIGN MONOPOLIES The Foreign Investments Act removes restrictions on foreign ownership and foreign owned enterprise, and the Home Consumption Value Act changes the determination of tariffs on imported goods from local prices to the prices in the mother country. The new tariffs are a hidden subsidy since prices in the mother country are cheaper than prices in the Philippines (or at least they would be reported to be cheaper).(1) These new laws will especially hurt the small entrepreneurs in the retail trade who will not be able to compete with large foreign monopolies. The May First Movement (KMU), a legal national democratic organization, also pointed out that the new policies would result in further unemployment, "due to the closure of many local industries under the onslaught of foreign domination and monopoly competition."(1) DEREGULATION = MONOPOLY CONSOLIDATION, INCREASED EXPLOITATION The U.S.-Ramos regime claims that the Oil Industry Deregulation Act will increase competition among oil companies by allowing new investors into the industry. According to the regime, this will cause the price of oil to fall. Actually, full deregulation will simply allow the three companies which currently control the oil industry (Shell, Caltex, and Petron) to set prices at will without prior government approval. Deregulation places local oil prices directly under the control of U.S. monopolies. The Mining Act opens up vast new tracts of land to foreign mining companies and allows them to use the highly destructive method of open-pit mining. Amerikan and Japanese (and to a lesser extent Australian and Canadian) monopolies already control the industry through their local comprador partners (in one case the local partners own only 23% of "their" mines). More than half a million people work in the mining industry, but only 28,000 are unionized. Safety conditions in Philippine mines are among the world's worst; cave-ins and landslides are common, and workers are regularly exposed to dust, chemicals, and toxic gas.(1) Increased penetration by imperialist mining interests can only increase the exploitation of Filipino miners and the destruction of the Philippine environment. FOOD "SHORTAGE" Like in other semi-feudal and semi-colonial countries, food production in the Philippines is dictated by the profit margins of agribusiness monopolies and their big landlord allies but not by the needs of the people. Last summer the price of rice in the Philippines reached record levels. Even the pro-imperialist Far Eastern Economic Review concedes that the price hike was due to hoarding on the part of the rice cartel in the Philippines.(3) According to the Peasant Movement of the Philippines (KMP), a legal national democratic organization, the rice cartel made $4.3 billion in profits during the so-called "rice shortage."(4) The Agricultural Tarriffication Act will make this situation worse by driving more small food producers off of their land. The Act lifts quantitative restrictions on foodstuffs and replaces them by tariffs. This allows foreign monopolies to flood the market. Filipino peasants, many already landless, with small plots of land, no modern machinery, facing usurious loans from local landlords and violence from landlords and the military, will not be able to compete.(1) As more peasants cannot make a l