This is an archive of the former website of the Maoist Internationalist Movement, which was run by the now defunct Maoist Internationalist Party - Amerika. The MIM now consists of many independent cells, many of which have their own indendendent organs both online and off. MIM(Prisons) serves these documents as a service to and reference for the anti-imperialist movement worldwide.
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 137 MAY 1, 1997 MIM Notes speaks to and from the viewpoint of the world's oppressed majority, and against the imperialist-patriarchy. Pick it up and wield it in the service of the people. support it, struggle with it and write for it. IN THIS ISSUE: 1. TAPES EXPOSE WHITE PIGS PUNTING OPPRESSED NATION HEADS 2. GULAGS TO HOLD 10 MILLION BY 2020 IF TREND CONTINUES 3. LETTERS 4. SORRY CLINTON, APOLOGY NOT ENOUGH FOR BLACK NATION 5. CAPITALISM MEANS WORSE HEALTH CARE 6. NORTH DAKOTA SIDESTEPS HEALTH CARE AND ADVANCES REPRESSION 7. MEXICAN PUPPET RULE MURDERS ZAPATISTAS 8. ACTIVISTS STRUGGLE TO CLOSE THE SCHOOL OF THE ASSASSINS 9. CHILEAN YOUTH PROTEST MILITARY BRUTALITY 10. HAITIANS BOYCOTT BOGUS ELECTIONS 11. "CAPITALISM RESTS ON RESERVE ARMY OF THE UNEMPLOYED," SAY BIG WIG AMERIKAN FINANCE CAPITALISTS 12. FEDERAL COURT STRIKES BLOW TO CHIPPEWA FISHING RIGHTS 13. ORGANIZE AGAINST IMPERIALISM OPPOSE MORE CAMPUS COPS 14. FORMER DEALER OF CIA CRACK SAYS: "I DO NOT EVER WANT TO BE A PIG AGAIN." 15. TRIP THROUGH AMERIKKKA 16. REMEMBRANCE OF STALIN'S RED ARMY 17. MARXISM-LENINISM-MAOISM ONLINE 18. PRO-LESBIGAYTRANS LOBBYISTS: CORRECT ON PROP 209, OPPORTUNIST ON STRATEGY 19. UNDER LOCK AND KEY: NEWS FROM PRISONERS AND PRISONS * * * WHAT IS MIM? The Maoist Internationalist Movement (MIM) is a revolutionary communist party that upholds Marxism- Leninism-Maoism, comprising the collection of existing or emerging Maoist internationalist parties in the English-speaking imperialist countries and their English-speaking internal semi- colonies, as well as the existing or emerging Spanish-speaking Maoist internationalist parties of Aztlan, Puerto Rico and other territories of the U.S. Empire. MIM Notes is the newspaper of MIM. Notas Rojas is the newspaper of the Spanish- speaking parties or emerging parties of MIM. MIM is an internationalist organization that works from the vantage point of the Third World proletariat; thus, its members are not Amerikans, but world citizens. MIM struggles to end the oppression of all groups over other groups: classes, genders, nations. MIM knows this is only possible by building public opinion to seize power through armed struggle. Revolution is a reality for North America as the military becomes over-extended in the government's attempts to maintain world hegemony. MIM differs from other communist parties on three main questions: (1) MIM holds that after the proletariat seizes power in socialist revolution, the potential exists for capitalist restoration under the leadership of a new bourgeoisie within the communist party itself. In the case of the USSR, the bourgeoisie seized power after the death of Stalin in 1953; in China, it was after Mao's death and the overthrow of the "Gang of Four" in 1976. (2) MIM upholds the Chinese Cultural Revolution as the farthest advance of communism in human history. (3) MIM believes the North American white-working-class is primarily a non- revolutionary worker-elite at this time; thus, it is not the principal vehicle to advance Maoism in this country. MIM accepts people as members who agree on these basic principles and accept democratic centralism, the system of majority rule, on other questions of party line. "The theory of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin is universally applicable. We should regard it not as dogma, but as a guide to action. Studying it is not merely a matter of learning terms and phrases, but of learning Marxism-Leninism as the science of revolution." -- Mao Zedong, Selected Works, Vol. II, p. 208 * * * TAPES EXPOSE WHITE PIGS PUNTING OPPRESSED NATION HEADS In Denver on March 26, a cameraman from Channel 2 caught the police and paramedics manhandling and kicking in the head Gil Webb, 17. Webb had just rammed a police cruiser in a stolen car, critically wounding one officer. By the time Webb arrived at the hospital, his neck was broken. In Springfield, Mass on March 20, a tourist's video camera caught Officer Jeffrey Asher kicking Roy Parker in the head, while two other pigs held the 47-year-old Black man down. Many activists and those in the Denver media have been comparing the Denver incident to the videotaped police beating of Rodney King. Denver Mayor Wellington Webb (no relation to the beaten youth) opposed this analogy: "Don't push the issue in the context of inciting communities.... The constant references (to Rodney King) to inflame passions in the community, without giving us the opportunity to investigate, are irresponsible."(1) MIM believes the Rodney King analogy is correct, and one which allows the people to make the correct analysis of the political situation. The issue is not a small number of bad apples in the police forces, but a systemic problem of the police occupying the territory of the oppressed nations like a foreign troop. What makes the Rodney King and similar incidents notable is not the brutality, but the videotape itself. The quality of the Webb videotape is very poor, leaving some doubt about what happened. The videotape is poor because a cop forced the cameraman to retreat a block under threat of arrest. Since the initial airing of the Channel 2 videotape, Channel 9 "enhanced" the quality of the tape, and it now apparently shows the cop kicking Webb below the waist. No one is disputing the fact the paramedics and police twice dropped Webb onto the gurney (the first time he slid off and hit the ground). A wooden gurney and neck brace, typically used when neck injuries are suspected, were not used. MIM hasn't seen the "enhanced" videotape, and isn't familiar with the methods used to so-called "enhance" it. But unlike the mainstream papers and the police spokespeople, it doesn't matter to MIM whether Webb was kicked above or below the waist, as a kick is clearly unnecessary. More importantly, we work to oppose the power of the police, not just attempt to make it "kinder and gentler." MIM also believes that the accused should be treated with respect, regardless of their crime. This will be true under socialism. The mainstream media, Gil Webb's supporters, and the police dispute whether his neck was broken in the car crash or during his beating. Either way, this doesn't make the police look good. If his neck was broken in the accident, the alleged resistance couldn't have happened as the pigs describe it, and the manhandling and kick was inappropriate even by police standards. If Gil Webb's neck was fine from the accident but the paramedics and pigs broke it, then it's a clear case of excessive force. Arguing about when Webb's neck was broken serves the police as it allows the pigs to distract attention away from the question of the correct way to treat someone accused of a crime. In the U.S. konstitution, it is stated that people are to be treated innocent until proven guilty. But where the oppressed nations are concerned, the konstitution is exposed as a farce every day. It is not a matter of struggling to get the konstitution to apply to the oppressed nations as the konstitution was never intended to apply to them anyway. In Springfield, MA, the pig who kicked Roy Parker was placed on suspension after the videotape surfaced. A criminal investigation has been started. Initially the NAACP was predicting that the officer would not be punished, but apparently the Springfield Police Department is continuing its symbolic hunt for bad apples, as covered in previous MIM Notes. Starting from the very beginning of the Springfield exposure, the criticism of Asher, the pig who did the beating, was muted. The Police Commission Chairperson said "I understand [Asher] was assaulted and slashed on the neck. Not that that justifies his action. This is just a bad incident and it certainly doesn't help the police department's image." Below the picture of the beating, the Springfield Union-News ran a file photo of Asher holding an infant he had rescued. The obvious message: Asher's saving a white infant balances out getting caught beating up a Black man. Our struggle is to build up our own independent institutions of the oppressed, including a force to deal with crime as defined in the interests of the oppressed. In the medium to long term, we need to wrest control of our communities away from the pigs. NOTES: The Denver Post 11 April 1997, p. A1. Also: Springfield Union-News 5 April 1997, p. A1. * * * GULAGS TO HOLD 10 MILLION BY 2020 IF TREND CONTINUES MIM'S PRISON PROJECTIONS MIM offers these projections of where the U.$. prison system is going, not because we expect to get to 2020 and find that this has happened, but instead to show people what would happen if things keep going as they are. We don't expect these to come true; this is to help people understand the trends currently in progress, and to motivate people to get involved and overthrow this system before this or something worse actually happens. If current trends continue, MIM estimates, by 2020 there will be almost 10 million prisoners in the U.$., 4.3 million of them Black and 3.6 million white. In terms of incarceration rates, these projections show that there would be 9,517 Blacks in prison per 100,000 in the population (9.5%), compared to 1,400 per 100,000 whites, and 3,035 per 100,000 overall. That is, the Black incarceration rate would increase almost 5 times, and the white rate would increase almost five times, but with the Black rate starting out more than 6 times higher means they would spread further and further apart over the years. The projected trends are shown in the graphs. PROJECTION METHOD AND STARTING POINTS We started with two facts from the government, which reported that at midyear 1996 there were a total of 1,630,940 people incarcerated in all prisons and jails. They also said the average rate of growth in this number from 1985 to 1996 was 7.8%.(1) Then, we took the incarceration rates for whites and Blacks from the 1992-93 Sentencing Project report, which were 306 per 100,000 for whites and 1,947 for Blacks.(2) From there we derived a starting point breakdown of 733,443 whites and 723,537 Blacks in jail or prison in 1996. So, we had starting points and a rate of growth. However, we know that the Black and white prison populations are not growing at the same rates. To take that into account, we used the latest numbers we could find of the breakdown of new prisoners. In 1991, the government estimated that 34.295% of the new prisoners were Black, and 43.567% were white.(3) For our projections, we assumed this was the breakdown of future prison growth as well. Finally, to figure out the rates, we used the government's middle-range estimates of future population growth, which predict population at five-year intervals, up to 255 million whites and 45 million Blacks in the country in 2020.(4) STOP THIS GENOCIDAL OPPRESSION MIM repeats: This is not inevitable! This is the course the government has set for incarcerating almost 10% of the entire Black population - meaning in practice closer to 20% of Black men in particular - by the year 2020. Even if current rates did not increase, the government itself estimates that 28.5% of Black men born today will be incarcerated in a prison at some point in his life, compared to 16% of "Hispanics" and only 4.4.% of whites.(3) Already, as of 1994 1 in 3 Black men ages 18-34 were under "correctional supervision" on any given day.(5) So the total reach of the injustice system is much further than just those incarcerated. If they get to having 10% actually behind bars, the numbers on probation, parole, house arrest, electronic monitoring, chemical castration, and so on will be all that much higher. Get involved with RAIL or MIM today to put a stop to the imperialist plan with the best tool the oppressed have at their disposal: a vanguard party leading a national liberation struggle toward proletarian and feminist revolution. NOTES. 1. U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics Bulletin, "Prison and Jail Inmates at Midyear 1996". Jan. 1997, NCJ 162843. 2. Seteven R. Danziger (ed.), The Real War on Crime: The Report of the National Criminal Justice Commission. Harper Perennial: New York, 1996. 3. U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Special Report, "Lifetime Likelihood of Going to State or Federal Prison". March, 1997, NCJ-160092. 4. 1994 Statistical Abstract of the United States. 5. Danziger, op cit., p. 35. 6. * * * LETTERS To MIM: The article by MC5 in MN134 "Amerikans: a People on Psychological Drugs Rotting Their Minds" sounds more like an indictment against people claiming child abuse then it does an article exposing the decadence of psychology. I agree that yes, the majority of the bought off Amerikan populace will lie in order to deny social responsibility, scapegoat social inequalities onto the oppressed and to be able to steal more superprofits from the Third World. But this article is making more excuses for a patriarchal society and child abuse then anything else. Wasn't Freud's initial reasons for psychology to prove that children, especially wimmin, were making up the sexual abuse from their fathers and families? I think that your point of trying to show that whites lie about Black "crime" gets lost in using the psychology industries own "studies" to prove that people make stuff up. The study itself could fall right in line with Freud initial reasoning. I assume that the use of "arithmetic puzzles" in early childhood education is an example of objective learning- but how long does math stay objective and how far are we going to imitate the "scientific" intelligentsia of today who do this already? Puzzles and the objective learning early on ultimately have to be put into some sort of practice that can't just be justified by early "puzzle learning". Also, why can't we be angry?? Yeah the culture raises selfish individuals, but they are still thinking breathing humyn beings who ultimately make a choice-collect a lot of stuff and oppress the majority of the world, or fight for a sustainable existence. Most here choose the first. To say that they don't know any better I think is a lame excuse for the White working class's actions and chosen ignorance. No country, government or oppressor can exist without their bought off followers. --a RAIL Comrade MIM RESPONDS: This RAIL comrade's criticisms raise the important issue of how difficult it is to navigate our way between contradictions in the world. For instance, Freud's reactionary claim that wimmin and children make up stories about abuse sounds like it falls right in line with the recent studies from the psychiatry industry that say people are making up these stories. But this alone is not enough reason to reject these studies and MIM tries not to shrink away from the truth, even when it is complex and requires some careful explanation. While MIM does recognize that wimmin and children are raped and abused in very large numbers, we can't allow this to stop us from fighting against the criminal injustice system when it pretends to get on the bandwagon in order to put more people in prison. And when the psychology industry gets on the same bandwagon to expand its parasitic influence by "helping" people remember things that happened to them so that they can pay the psychologists more money to "help" them deal with it, we can not ignore our duty to protest. Discussion of studies such as the one reviewed in MIM Notes must be put in careful context: in this case the point was to attack the criminal injustice industry and the psychology industry for attempting to produce a society of complacent supporters of national oppression. In fact, most of the article is devoted to attacking the psychology industry for attempting to help people feel good about patriarchal imperialism. We agree with the letter writer that we must put our "objective learning" into some practice which serves the people. But this does not change the fact that 2+2=4, whether a decadent, imperialist mathematician says it or a proletarian revolutionary says it. People need to differentiate between truth and opinion or status. In a situation where several people give different answers to arithmetic problems, students will have to decide which answer is right. Is it the one the teacher gives, the one the popular kid gives, or the answer 4? Such exercises help youth grasp the importance of objective truth. Finally, we agree with the letter writer that we should get angry, that was the point of the article attacking feel-goodist culture. MIM believes we need to re-educate people about when to be angry and when to be happy because what we have learned in this parasitical imperialist culture is all wrong. We should be angry that the majority of the people in this country choose complacency and parasitism on the backs of the majority of the world's people who suffer and die so that Amerikans can live a comfy life. The article merely intended to point out that this parasitic Amerikan culture has created such a maize of justifications and feel-good fictions to hide the reality of imperialist life that many Amerikans have successfully achieved oblivion to the world around them. This was only possible because of their wealth and position of privilege and it is this which we fight to dismantle. * * * DEAR MIM, A late October 1996 edition of the San Francisco Chronicle published a special report. This report charged the recalcitrant California State Department of Corrections with collusion in a conspiratorial attempt to suppress internal reports of racist prison guards staging deadly fights among inmates at the Corcoran Correctional Facility. They participated in this cover-up in order to justify the department demands for billions of the taxpayers' dollars to construct more death camps. The shocking report of the escalating prison violence and mass human rights violations perpetrated against inmates at Corcoran is a microcosm of the vulturistic multi-billion dollar U.S. Prison-Industrial Complex. This complex uses politicians, the courts, the so-called law enforcement agencies and the mass media to deceive the public as legal cover to abuse, oppress and perform genocide on prisoners with impunity. Consequently, to effectively fight and reduce the proliferation of state-sponsored violence on prisoners in the current pro-capitalistic political pretext, demand a much broader public scrutiny of the national prison system that must include as a minimum: 1. Free and complete access of the bourgeois Black and mass media to the prisons. This could help expose and prevent abuse. 2. Independent Prison Oversight Commission empowered to investigate inter-related issues of penal policies that promote racial violence among inmates. And continue to work along with MIM, the Nation of Islam and other grass-roots revolutionary individuals, groups and organizations, who work inside and outside the system in order to politicize the mass atrocities committed against Blacks, Latinos and other victims of domestic and foreign Amerikan imperialism. Respectfully submitted, --Brother for Change, 4 February 1997 P.S. Your Prison Program is one of the most organized, effective and far-reaching. Therefore, please accept my very humble $1.00 contribution toward those efforts. Please keep up the revolutionary activities. MIM REPLIES: Thank you for writing, brother, and for your donation to MIM's prison work. MIM's Prison Program can always use such donations to help cover postage costs. Protracted legal struggle like building independent media is our central task at this time, since the current balance of forces rules out armed struggle. So prison reform does have its place. However, the reforms which should be prioritized are those which help to build the independent power of the oppressed, as opposed to those which merely build the power of the bourgeois media, bourgeois courts, bourgeois legislatures, or bourgeois-controlled oversight committees. So rather than trying to use the bourgeois media against the bourgeois prisons, why not: #Distribute MIM Notes and Notas Rojas? #Work with MIM on a project aimed at funding MIM's work? #Fight prison censorship of MIM materials? #Work more closely with MIM to build public opinion against the criminal injustice system and for anti- imperialist revolution? As for your other demand, our protracted legal work should indeed have as a goal the formation of a prison oversight commission which is truly independent of the imperialist bourgeoisie. This can only come as a result of protracted public- opinion and institution-building. Ultimately, the best the best way to support prisoners is to struggle with, work with, and finance MIM and MIM-led organizations, like RAIL. History has shown that the overthrow of the system under which capitalists profit from the exploitation of prisoners requires the leadership of a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist party. Regarding the Black bourgeoisie in general and the Nation of Islam (NOI) in particular: We see the national bourgeoisie of the oppressed nations as a progressive if vacillating ally at this time. Included in this category are the Black press (particularly the more independent Black press) and the NOI. But while the NOI is principally an ally at this time, we do not consider it to be a revolutionary organization. The NOI portrays itself as a militant Black nationalist organization, but instead of calling for the masses to make revolution, it calls for the masses to passively await the wrath of "God". We can ally with the NOI and with the Black press, but it would be a mistake to put one's efforts into building up these institutions of the national bourgeoisie when proletarian institutions exist and need your support. * * * SORRY CLINTON, APOLOGY NOT ENOUGH FOR BLACK NATION by a comrade In a cowardice cover-up and gloss-over, President Clinton announced that he would formally apologize to the Black men used as human guinea pigs for forty years in Tuskeegee Alabama. The government knowingly left 400 Black men untreated for syphilis to study them without their consent. Now if you have but one cynical bone in your body or materially understand the history of settler colonialism, you should understand that an apology is not sufficient and that the Amerikan settler colonialist should not be forgiven or absolved of the responsibility for slowly torturing and murdering these men as they withheld the necessary treatment. On April 13th, the National Black United Front in St. Louis showed "The Deadly Deception" which details the government's experimentation on Black men in a small rural town in Macon county Alabama. The government promised free treatment for Bad Blood, the euphemism for syphilis and other diseases. In the 1920s and 1930s the rates of syphilis increased drastically and the government allegedly set out to end the disease. The numbers infected reached an epidemic rate among Black males in Macon county. 35% were infected. The government stated that it wanted to cure 10,000. To start with, it only treated 1,400 and did not even treat these people completely with the necessary dosages and follow-ups. In 1931, the government abandoned the program it had only started in 1930 allegedly because it did not have enough funding, but of course funding decisions are political and poor Black sharecroppers were expendable so funding for these programs was a low priority. Soon after, doctors interested in studying syphilis looked at Macon County as a "natural laboratory." The white doctors needed the Tuskeegee Institute to carry out research, so the Department of Public Health asked the institute founded by Booker T. Washington to recruit Black men for study in order to continue receiving its public funding. The institute recruited 400 men in the later stages of syphilis through the local churches and schools. The movie points out that historically the burden of human experimentation has rested on the oppressed. In the case of the men in Macon county, it was without their "consent" or knowledge. The men were forced to participate by employers who threatened them with lose of their jobs if they did not return for follow-up visits. The men were told that having a spinal tap was part of the treatment and following the initial "treatment" doctors said that the men had to return annually for further treatment at which time they were studied further and given placebo pills. Despite the fact that syphilis attacks the brain, internal organs and joints and causes neurological damage, heart disease, blindness and early death, the government continued to withhold treatment for the men for forty years. Even after the development of penicillin and FDR's public heath programs after the depression, the men were denied treatment. This study was not confusing or completely hidden from the public eye. In fact, reports of the study were printed in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) and given to Congress. The medical profession and the politicians banded together in order to retain the ability to experiment, counting the Black men as expendable. During FDR's programs to eradicate syphilis across the united snakes, men in the experiment were specifically excluded and were refused treatment even outside of Macon county. Later in San Francisco, one of the doctors who tried to treat one of the men was severely reprimanded by the government. For men not treated between the ages of 25 through 50, life expectancy is reduced by 20%, yet in 1969 the Center for Disease Control convened a panel to review the study and decided to carry it on justifying this by saying that the treatment would not help so late anyway and that they did not want to make the Black men angry. Finally in 1972, the government stopped the study. A lawsuit filed was settled out of court for a measly $38,000 for each of the handful of the survivors. In addition to the 400 men who went untreated, any of the 200 men who served as the control for the experiment and contracted syphilis were also refused treatment. The torture and complicity in murder is not compensated by a mere pittance and is certainly not forgotten because of an apology by the current commando in chief. The Black nation and all oppressed nations have MIM's support in the struggle for real reparations and for true national liberation. Not only will the settler white nation pay for the men of Macon county, it will also pay for the years of slavery, destruction of history and culture, murder of revolutionary nationalists, imprisonment of 51% of the Black nation in the gulags and continued exploitation and oppression. After the showing of the movie, the organizer said that the Black nation needs to look at its history. Another person said that they needed to use what Mao did in China as an example for liberation for the Black nation. The organizer criticized the audience for not fighting hard enough to stop the closure of the Homer G Philips hospital which was the last public hospital in St. Louis. People said that the apology is bullshit and that "Power is not given it is taken!" Finally the organizers said that "Power is the People!" and that the liberation and justice for the Black nation is not up to the Amerikan government, but up to the people in the communities. ***For more on medical experimentation on the oppressed see MN130.*** * * * CAPITALISM MEANS WORSE HEALTH CARE by MC17 In yet another example of why capitalism does not work, a pharmaceutical company sponsored study which demonstrated that the company's drug was no better than less expensive generic versions, is finally being published in the Journal of the American Medical Association after the company spent years blocking the publication and campaigning to discredit the work of the researchers. Capitalism is supposedly based on the principal of free competition. But this system of competition makes it profitable to suppress research which could save lives and money. This case is not unusual, in fact there is much useful health research that never gets out to the public: for many years the tobacco industry was a prime example of capitalism's failure to serve the people's health needs. In this case, the pharmaceutical company, Knoll, realized that publishing a study that showed their drug was no more effective than cheaper brands would lead to a big loss in profits. So naturally they did not want it published. And since the researcher, Dr. Dong of the University of California at San Francisco, had signed standard agreement with Knoll that said she would not publish anything without the company's permission, the company was in a good position to keep these findings quiet. After several years of fighting with Knoll, the researcher finally got a paper accepted to the JAMA in 1995. But it was not only the pharmaceutical company that blocked the publication of these results which could mean tremendous savings for patients with thyroid problems whose doctors prescribe the more expensive drug. The night before this paper was to be published, the University of California called Dr. Dong and ordered her to withdraw the paper. The University was worried about how much money might be lost if they went against the pharmaceutical company. The Public Citizen's Health Research Group estimates that almost $800 million has been spent on the more expensive thyroid drug as a result of the suppression of this research which shows that the generic brand is just as effective. A researcher employed by Knoll took Dr. Dong's data and reanalyzed it in a different way to reach the opposite conclusion and these findings were published in mid-1995. If capitalism really worked, different interpretations of data collected in such studies would be published together for the public to review. Instead, profits take precedence over the health of the people and even in this wealthy country where the majority of the people are benefiting from imperialism, capitalism proves itself a failure. NOTE: New York Times, 16 April 1997. p.A1. * * * NORTH DAKOTA SIDESTEPS HEALTH CARE AND ADVANCES REPRESSION by MC45 As of April 10, it is now legal for any "police officer, firefighter, emergency medical technician, health care worker, or medical patient, who believes another person has 'significantly' exposed them to blood to obtain a state court order to detain that person -- without criminal charges or a hearing -- for up to five days, during which a judge can force the detainee to have a blood test for HIV." The new law, which promises to randomly expose individuals' HIV+ status, says nothing about care for individuals tested and found positive, or about maintaining their privacy after their status is discovered. The law is designed to deprive HIV+ people of their privacy without doing anything for them in return. The national director of the ACLU AIDS Project pointed out that while testing people under arrest and medical patients, this law has nothing to say about the HIV status of the individual who demands the test. It's one thing to know if you've been potentially exposed, but closing the book on one instance of exposure doesn't confirm a person's status. MIM does not worship the right to privacy as it is supposedly guaranteed under Amerikan law and ideology. In the long-term, under socialism and then communism, we support the state's and society's right to intervene in the individual's life for the benefit either of that individual or for society. In revolutionary China landlords were deprived of their so-called private property because even though this property was protected by law and ideology, it had been gained at the expense of the peasants and was maintained as part of a system of continuing to oppress the peasants. Under socialism and then communism we will see interventions in individuals' private lives for the good of the society. Part of the intervention under the dictatorship of the proletariat enables the people's institutions to treat, cure and eradicate deadly disease. This new North Dakota law is not framed in terms of social benefits, instead it pits individuals against each other and decides that individuals in the custody of the state are less deserving of privacy than the individuals who put them there. NOTE: http://www.qrd.org/incoming/.Copyright/970413.q407 * * * MEXICAN PUPPET RULE MURDERS ZAPATISTAS by Otis On Friday, March 14th, the small community of San Pedro Nichtalucum, Mexico, was the site of escalated violence involving members of the PRI (the ruling political party) and the PRD (a political party opposed to the PRI), as well as members of the Zapatistas. As with all interactions between the imperialists and the indigenous, everything went against the oppressed; they were blamed for everything, arrested, beaten and killed for their "crimes." Of course, there are two stories about the state murder, but MIM will use only the expressions of the Zapatistas, as the Mexican government has a material interest in upholding lies. "[O]n Thursday, March 13th, members of the Union of Indigenous Communities of the North of Chiapas (Uncizon)--an organization whose members support the PRD and are allied with the EZLN [the Zapatistas] in the zone--took over the offices of a municipal agency in San Pedro, demanding to know where the government resources allocated to the community were actually going. They held four local PRI authorities as prisoners inside." Later that night, a group of drunk PRI's started a fight with Uncizon. The next morning, a group of PRIstas [members of PRI] kidnapped, tied and beat six Zapatistas who were not aware of the conflict. In order to have their comrades returned freely, the Zapatistas kidnapped four members of the PRI and offered a 'prisoner exchange.' "The response was clear: 'No, we aren't in agreement, what we're in agreement with is killing your Zapatista friends. We'll take care of all of them right here.'" "Then came the public security forces and the judicial police. First, they went to where the six Zapatistas were being held and beaten, and promptly arrested them, supposedly for the kidnapping of the PRI's militants." What's that? The state arrested who? Why, of course they arrested the beaten Zapatistas. When capitalists control the state, "justice" is merely a sorry joke. The Zapatistas set up a roadblock to prevent the police from leaving with their comrades. The Zapatistas approached the police unarmed, seeking to negotiate the liberation of the prisoners. The police opened fire "and in a matter of minutes, the Mexican Army arrived with a convoy of troops." "When it was all over, according to women from the community who gave their testimony to La Jornada journalist Hermann Bellinghausen, the army had entered every house in the community signalled out as 'Zapatista', and destroyed it. All the civilian supporters of the EZLN, the PRD, or the Uncizon who didn't manage to escape into the surrounding hills or fields, were either killed or taken prisoner." MIM recognizes that such brutality is nothing new. U.$. imperialism has controlled Mexico for years and funds the lackey Mexican government in its unending war against the people who refuse to accept imperialist exploitation and oppression. Since 1994, Amerika has aided the Mexican government's attempts to destroy the just uprising of the indigenous people of Chiapas. Under amerikan hegemony, terror will reign down on the majority of the world's people. It is only through revolutionary national liberation struggles that we will successfully bring about the overthrow of imperialism. NOTE: http://kafka.uvic.ca/~vipirg/SISIS/emerg/chiapas.ht ml * * * ACTIVISTS STRUGGLE TO CLOSE THE SCHOOL OF THE ASSASSINS by a comrade As MIM Notes goes to press, activists are waging a ten-day fast on the steps of the Amerikan "Capitol" to protest the School of the Americas in Fort Benning, Georgia. The School of the Assassins (SOA) got its more appropriate name as activists supporting human rights and justice in Latin American countries started to uncover the voluminous evidence that this military base has trained close to 60,000 of the individuals responsible for murder, rape, massacres and military domination in the Latin American dictatorships propped-up by the Amerikan government. SOA exists as one of the tools that has enabled Amerikan imperialism to repress and exploit the masses of many Latin American countries for the last 50 years. This training ground equips the leaders and the soldiers of military dictatorships with military strategy needed to fight against guerrilla warfare; teaches tactics of torture, both physical and psychological; teaches commando operations and interrogation techniques. The molding of puppets within the walls of the School of the Assassins allows the Amerikan imperialist beast to sit fat within North America reaping the super-profits and protecting the interests of multi-national corporations without sending numerous Amerikan troops to fight a direct war in the countryside of Latin America. Instead, the beast trains those from the Third World who will ride in the tail of imperialist profit to slaughter the toiling masses of the soil and the exploited Latin American workers. Closing the School of the Assassins will in no way put an end to imperialism. Death to imperialism will only come through the victorious struggles for national liberation of the oppressed through armed struggle and the overthrow of imperialism. However, exposing the direct hand of Amerikan imperialism in the blood of the masses is a progressive result of the push to close SOA. And closing the SOA would be a progressive step in organizing the Amerikan masses to take up internationalism and close all institutions which perpetuate imperialism. On April 6th, Fr. Roy Bourgeois spoke in Ann Arbor after showing "School of Assassins" which documents a touch of the atrocities committed by the Latin American criminals trained by the Amerikan criminal government. Bourgeois is the founder of the School of the Americas Watch which monitors and reports on SOA activity. Bourgeois pointed out that "This issue is a serious one, about suffering and death" and called for support for the protesters fasting between April 19th and 29th. He also called for activists to promote HR611 which calls for the closing of the SOA. Rep. Kennedy has tried to pass similar bills twice. Both attempts were opposed with the patriotic rhetoric that the SOA is necessary to promote and extend democracy. The second bill failed by a smaller margin and the activists at the SOA Watch see the passing of 611 as a higher possibility. MIM supports this campaign as one of the more progressive reformist attempts to end oppression while we continue to fight against the extension of imperialism by building for revolution in this country and supporting revolutionary struggles around the world. The Latin American Training Center-Ground Division was started in 1946 in the Panama Canal Zone. This became the School of the Americas in 1963. In 1984, the school suspended its operations in compliance with the 1977 Panama Canal Treaty. Three months later it reopened in Ft. Benning, Georgia. Since then, the trail of massacres, murders and torture of rebels continued to trace back to the SOA. Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer's book, School of the Assassins details the number of leaders and soldiers trained at the SOA and involved in specific murders and tortures. This book includes a number of stories which reached the mainstream in the 1980s telling of massacres in which the majority of the soldiers and leaders involved were trained in Amerika: The murder of the Jesuit priests, the assassination of Romero, the massacre at El Mozote, and over two- thirds of the soldiers responsible for the worst atrocities in El Salvador. The list continues. School of the Assassins does a good job at connecting the history of the need to extract super-profits to expand Amerikan imperialism to the legacy of torture and murder. Though there are some points of analysis and perspective that MIM disagrees with, the book explains well the strategy of Low Intensity Conflict and the use of the SOA in this plan to set up the current economic dependence of the Latin American countries through the comprador regimes. "At the present moment dishonesty and deceit, secrecy and lies, deception and treachery flow like tainted blood from the diseased heart of U.S. foreign policy, through the hardened arteries of the School of the Americas, and into the veins of Latin America." Because the imperialist vampires suck on the masses of the Third World, the masses will rise up and stab the beast in its slowly decaying heart. In the imperialist countries, it is our responsibility to struggle against the bloodline and weaken the beast in support of the vast majority of the world's people. NOTE: School of the Americas Watch is an organization exposing the SOA. For more information on SOA, on HR611, on their annual protest at Ft. Benning in November 1997, or to obtain one of their two informational videos on the subject write: P.O. Box 3330, Columbus, GA 31903. * * * CHILEAN YOUTH PROTEST MILITARY BRUTALITY In April, a wave of protests by youth exposed the torture that goes on in the military where service is mandatory for all young men at age 18. College students are granted a study exemption and so most of the men drafted come from poor families. At the rallies youth told of the brutal beatings by officers, pointing out that it was often safer to desert than serve the mandatory term. On December 15 one young man, Pedro Soto, disappeared from his regiment after complaining to his mother about the abuse he was enduring in military training. The military declared him a deserter but on March 15 his body was discovered. It had been dismembered and the organs were removed to speed up decomposition and hinder identification. Chile has become famous for disappearances by the military since General Pinochet took power in a coup that overthrew the very popular elected president Salvador Allende in 1973. Pinochet stepped down in 1990 to allow elections, but the farce of this so-called democracy is revealed by the position that Pinochet holds: he is still commander of the army. The Frei government of Chile is responding to the protests by urging Chileans to have confidence in an investigation of the Soto killing. But the people of Chile have lived under the horror of dictatorship for long enough to see through these lies. Fear of brutal repression has kept many Chileans from taking to the streets after Pinochet massacred all of the Allende supporters and progressive activists he could find after his coup. But the large demonstrations by the youth this month show that a new generation of people who demand true democracy will take the place of those killed and terrorized. It is only a matter of time before Chileans reclaim their country from the dictators and MIM looks forward to the re-growth of Maoist parties leading this struggle. NOTES: New York Times, 16 April 1997. p. A8. * * * HAITIANS BOYCOTT BOGUS ELECTIONS by MCB52 The Haitian people know that elections do not a democracy make. On the election day of April 6, between 85% and 90% of those registered to vote sat out the phony choice-making. When Haitians could believe they had real choices, almost 100% voted-- and voted for populist leader Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Now that the U$ has demonstrated a tighter reign on the "democratic" process, Haitians refuse to vote for imperialism. This is a strong statement against the U$ model of "democracy," where the desires of multinationals are served before those of the people. Basically ignoring the vast majority's boycott, a U$ official claimed "We believe these elections were an important step in the process of consolidating democracy in Haiti."(1) Haiti's ruling puppet, Preval, who throughout his two years if rule has tried to make Haiti a better place for multinationals, also refused to acknowledge the sharp indictment of his government expressed by the mass boycott. He said "This is an important moment. It expresses the will of the nation."(2) The will of what nation, MIM asks. Ever since Haitians won their independence in a slave revolt, imperialists have been striving to get and keep it in their grasp. There are still more than 1000 UN soldiers and police in Haiti, leaving Haiti still basically occupied three years after the most recent U$ invasion.(3) The bourgeois press tells the story of that invasion as a democratic process. For example one wire service gives the background in an article about the elections like this: "U.S. military intervention in 1994 marked the return of democracy with Aristide returning from exile after being ousted by the military in 1991."(3) MIM knows the real history. Haitians had a more free election in 1991. They voted in Aristide, the leader of a populist movement called Lavalas that promised land reform and justice. A CIA-trained goon then led a coup, which oppressed the people desperately. In order to keep the oppressed from rising up and taking power from the goons, Amerika reinstalled Aristide--just a few months before his term ended anyway--but with many conditions. Amerika rewrote the Haitian constitution to be friendly to multinationals, and patrolled the streets militarily. It has since made sure that its policy of having people vote as long as its not against Amerika stays entrenched. Aristide now criticizes his successor, and has started his own faction of Lavalas called Fanmi Lavalas. He pointed out: "Democracy is not just (about) voting, but also (about) bread and human rights."(3) He criticizes the privatization plans of Preval, and speaks out against the multinationals. Ultimately, however, Aristide cannot provide a solution to his people. As progressive as his ideas are, he still has not recognized that in order for those nice words to translate into actions, there needs to be a means to defend a newly non-colonial state from the imperialists. If Haiti says "no" to their ventures, as it did under Aristide, the imperialists will attack either overtly or through covert operations. Without assuring the masses that he has dealt with this problem, he will not gain their support to make the same mistake twice. Only a people's war can defend a just state from imperialism. NOTES: 1. Reuters North American Wire, 7 April 1997. 2. Reuters World Service, 7 April 1997. 3. Deutche Presse-Agentur, 7 April 1997. * * * "CAPITALISM RESTS ON RESERVE ARMY OF THE UNEMPLOYED," SAY BIG WIG AMERIKAN FINANCE CAPITALISTS by MC45 In a not-so-stunning move in late March, the finance capitalists' finance capitalists--the men who run the Amerikan Federal Reserve Bank--declared that the health of capitalism relies on restrained economic growth and a substantial pool of unemployed workers. When the Federal Reserve Board announced that it was raising interest rates, a spokesperson for the bank explained that this rate increase was necessary to prevent inflation since unemployment is low in Amerika right now and the economy has been growing quickly. Since this announcement and the subsequent rate increases, bourgeois economists have been speculating on the extent to which the Fed's motivations really are what the Fed says they are. All this speculation doesn't mean much to MIM because we are more concerned with the bigger picture of international capital and imperialism. MIM takes this opportunity to elaborate on Marx's theory of the reserve army of the unemployed under capitalism. Amerikan unemployment doesn't mean much to this economy which thrives on exploitation and superexploitation of the international proletariat while the majority of working people within U.$. borders live at a very high standard. But this event, in which the chief finance capitalists in the imperialist economy have made such bald-faced admissions that capital is inherently at odds with full employment, is a good symbolic example of why capitalism is doomed. The U.$. Federal Reserve Board, also known as the Fed, is the central bank of the Amerikan government which sets interest rates for Amerikan loans. This includes bank loans, credit card loans, car loans, and money coming from all other lending agencies which are regulated by Amerikan law. As such, the Fed can in effect allow the Amerikan economy to speed up, or slow it down by doing what it did in March: making it more expensive to take out loans, and making people more reluctant to spend money. Communists must point out this contradiction of capitalism and drown out the laissez faire capitalists who only want freer competition. The Fed's existence says that competition does not work as a long-term motivator for production. The anarchy of capitalist production, in which one producer does not know what the other is doing, means that capitalism is constantly plagued with crises of overproduction and will be until it is replaced by the more rational planning economic system of socialism. This latest interest rate increase does not mean Amerika has just seen such a crisis, but it affirms the fact that such regulation is always necessary under capitalism-- either to prevent crises or to make them less severe. Today in Amerika, the purpose of financial regulation is to sustain capitalism, and to stall proletarian revolution. While the majority in Amerika will not be revolutionized by unemployment or inflation, keeping the U.$. economy strong means sustaining imperialist activity abroad and continuing efforts to squelch proletarian politics internationally. Tomorrow under socialism, the government will still control the economy because following capitalist anarchy of production it will be necessary to have the economy grow in a controlled setting. But this controlled growth will take place in the context of guaranteed employment and basic human necessities for the masses. * * * FEDERAL COURT STRIKES BLOW TO CHIPPEWA FISHING RIGHTS On 9 April, the Eighth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals postponed until June a ruling on Chippewa netting and spearfishing on Lake Mille Lacs. This is a blow to the Chippewa, whose claims to the fish in that lake not only pre-date the Amerikan settlers but whose rights to the fish were preserved in an 1837 treaty. This year's Chippewa fish harvest must be postponed until the court rules. The Chippewa shouldn't have to go to the white man's courts to decide these disputes. Legally speaking, the only courts with jurisdiction would be international courts. The Federal government can not impartially decide cases between non-citizens (the First Nations) and the Federal government, state governments or Amerikkkan citizens. NOTE: Star Tribune (Minneapolis, MN) 11 April 1997, p. 7B. * * * ORGANIZE AGAINST IMPERIALISM OPPOSE MORE CAMPUS COPS At the UMass Amherst, both candidates for the office of president of the Student Government Association ran on platforms of more lights and call boxes. Call boxes are special phones designed to be used to call the police if you are being chased by a strange attacker. The campuses are way- over policed and yet somehow the students are still scared. About the only thing that could be safer than most college campuses would be the inside of their suburban homes. The winning candidate went so far as to say "There are places around Haigis Mall where there are no lights or call boxes. The escort service is inadequate. By the time you get to [the escort service], you might as well have gotten mugged." RAIL finds that First World students have an irrational view of their physical safety. To hear some of them talk, you would think that these students lived in the Warsaw ghetto and were being abducted or shot down by fascist stormtroopers regularly. Not only is this not the case, but the opposite of the Warsaw ghetto -- we see the students cementing an alliance with the government. Unlike the paternalist "women's centers" on college campuses which tell men to cross to the other side of the street to avoid scaring women, RAIL argues for a more rational approach regarding risk. RAIL isn't arguing that assaults on strangers don't happen on college campuses; just that they are very rare. More importantly, college students are a lot safer than most people in the world. We'd certainly not equate fear of a hypothetical attack with the actual attack as the SGA candidate did. The patriarchy wants wimmin, especially young white wimmin, to be scared. This helps control them and allows the pigs to build support for their agenda of military control. The police love it when students demand that cops play a more active role. It increases their control over the campus and their flexibility to carry out their real purpose: the repression of the internal colonies. Many white students will doubt the above assertion. We suggest they try this simple test: Ask five white students and five Black or Latino students how often they get pulled over on campus. You'll find that the white students are pulled over very rarely. The escort service consists of security guards who drive students around at night. It's popular partially for the convenience (why walk when you can be chauffeured) and partially as a result of the irrational fear of Black men in bushes. In fact, if you look at the statistics for escort service usage, you will find a big upsurge around October 1992, when Black students were holding a series of outdoor, evening rallies against the beating of a Haitian Resident Assistant. About a year ago as a result of other political discussions RAIL remembered overhearing numerous white women at the time talking about their fears of "rampaging Black students" and their increased reliance on the escort service. These recollection inspired RAIL to get the statistics for escort service usage, which backed up an admittedly informal survey by eavesdrop. NOTE: Massachusetts Daily Collegian 26 March 1997, p. 1. * * * FORMER DEALER OF CIA CRACK SAYS: "I DO NOT EVER WANT TO BE A PIG AGAIN." ***"On 20 December 1994, before the public knew that much of the cocaine dealt in Los Angeles was supplied by smugglers connected to the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)'s Nicaraguan Contra army, the Los Angeles Times printed a 2,400-word article portraying Ricky Ross as central to the spread of crack cocaine. The headline read, "Deposed King of Crack; Now Free After 5 Years in Prison, This Master Marketer Was Key to the Drug's Spread in L.A." "If there was an eye to the storm," it began, "if there was a criminal mastermind behind crack's decade-long reign, if there was one outlaw capitalist most responsible for flooding Los Angeles' streets with mass- marketed cocaine, his name was Freeway Rick....Ross did more than anyone else to democratize it, boosting volume, slashing prices and spreading disease on a scale never before conceived." The article called Ross "South- Central's first millionaire crack lord," and said that "While most other dealers toiled at the bottom rungs of the market, his coast- to-coast conglomerate was selling more than 500,000 rocks a day, a staggering turnover that put the drug within reach of anyone with a few dollars." Once it became publicly known that CIA-connected counterrevolutionaries were Ross' cocaine suppliers, the same reporter did an about-face. On the front page of the 20 October 1996 Los Angeles Times, he wrote that Ross was one of many "interchangeable characters," and that he were "dwarfed" by other dealers. "How the crack epidemic reached that extreme, on some level, had nothing to do with Ross," he said, without explanation of the inconsistencies in his reporting. ("Snow Job," Extra! magazine, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), Jan 1997) The LA Times' willingness to ignore CIA involvement in the drug trade when it was convenient to do so shows the hypocrisy of the bourgeois media and its links to the Amerikan state. Ricky Ross sent the following letter to MIM in January. We normally avoid running letters with bylines because of the security concerns of our comrades. But this case has gotten a fair bit of media play, and Ross' side of the story has been little heard. MIM's response follows.*** DEAR MIM, [...] I also want to tell you that I just finished my book and will be starting to produce my own movie. I want the public to see how the Amerikkkan government has set me up and used me to sell drugs to the American people, how the government KKK worked with the Contras in Central America to supply drugs to this country for their own selfish greed for money and power. The CIA and NSC worked me for many years as their conduit to the people on the streets of America. This will be my message to the movie-going public. And if you have any thoughts or ideas on this, please feel free to contact me and give me all the information you might have concerning this subject matter as soon as possible. I am open to all suggestions. The book should be ready for sale sometime around March. I will send you the details of this when I have the date confirmed. I want to tell you that all proceeds from my movie and soundtrack thereof will go to a Youth Center in South Central L.A. My reason for this is simple: I do not ever want to be a PIG again. [...] --Ricky Ross, a California prisoner, 27 January 1997 MIM RESPONDS: Thank you for writing. First, we'd like to put your case and CIA-sponsored drug trafficking in context. In the late 60s and early 70s, the u.s. government destroyed the Maoist Black Panther Party (BPP), the Puerto Rican Revolutionary Workers' Organization (PRRWO, formerly Young Lords), and the Brown Berets. It also wreaked havoc on the American Indian Movement (AIM). The "neutralization" of the Black, Latino and First Nations' revolutionary and progressive leadership paved the way for genocidal attacks on the Black, Latino, and First Nations ever since. Since 1970, the u.s. government has used CIA- imported cocaine and heroin as an excuse to wage a "war on drugs" and a "war on crime and gangs." These "wars" and the violence spawned by the CIA- backed drug trade have had a devastating effect on the Black, Latino and First Nations. Drugs also played a part in the destruction of the BPP. BPP leader Huey Newton's political degeneration went hand in hand with his addiction to crack cocaine and other drugs. One suspicious fact raised by Gary Webb's series in the San Jose Mercury (http://www.sjmercury.com/drugs) is that crack cocaine was invented in the San Francisco Bay Area, where Newton lived, no later than 1974. Also suspicious is the fact that the u.s. government would not publish the study which pinpointed the origins of crack (without noting the Panther connection)--even though the researcher who wrote the study worked for the u.s. government at the time. Second, MIM supporters did attend the rally you mentioned. It is a good thing when progressive rallies draw a large turnout. As far as sending a message to the "right people:" The main message we want to send is the message that the masses should make anti-imperialist revolution, and "the right people" we want to send this message to are the masses. We are not concerned with being heard by the imperialist press or politicians. Our highest priority is ideological and political line--that is, summing up the lessons of history in order to know what the most effective revolutionary strategy is. Our supporters attended the rally to encourage its progressive participants to struggle with, work with, finance and join MIM. MIM's central task at this time is to build public opinion and independent people's institutions to prepare the masses to make anti-imperialist revolution. Finally, we hope that you will add to your movie's political value by using the movie to show the connection between the U.S. government's "neutralization" of the Black, Latino, and First Nations' revolutionary and progressive leadership of the 1960s and 1970s, and the U.S. government's subsequent genocidal attacks on the Black, Latino and First Nations. As a matter of collective self- defense, the Black, Latino and First Nations need to organize and prepare to make anti-imperialist revolution. We are glad that you are critical of your past participation in the CIA's genocidal drug trade. It is outrageous that the U.S. government has jailed you but not your CIA-connected suppliers. At the same time, you too have accumulated a debt to the people. Your current illegitimate imprisonment has nothing to do with paying that debt back. Such a debt can only be paid by serving the people. * * * TRIP THROUGH AMERIKKKA ***In March, MIM took a trip through several East Coast states to distribute newspapers. This log reflects some of the sights, sounds and discoveries from the trip.*** DAY 1: RADIO TALK SHOW DISCUSSES PRISON SLAVE LABOR A few hours into the trip, MIM discovered a discussion about prison labor on Jim Hightower's radio program. Hightower is a former Secretary of Agriculture for the state of Texas and now has a radio program and gives lectures supporting the class demands of the labor aristocracy. This particular show was rather progressive, and was a welcome break from the radio psychologists who populate the airwaves. Hightower argued that prison labor was in fact slave labor, because the prisoners do not consent to the jobs. In particular, he argued that the prisons often use the refusal to take a job as a reason to deny the accrual of good time and hence lengthen sentences. Hightower discussed the many companies that use prison labor, and mentioned a few that MIM had not heard of before. Particularly, that Eddie Bauer makes jeans in a Tennessee prison, and that Honda makes car parts in an Ohio prison. Hightower make the surprisingly Maoist-sounding statement that this a "Third World" labor situation within u.s. borders. For moral reasons, he is correct to oppose prison labor as slavery. Where we disagree with Hightower is his arguments against prison labor because it "keeps domestic labor prices down." For many decades, social-democrats and other opportunists have been arguing that the shift of physical production from the white nation to Third World countries is hurting white nation workers as a class. Rather, reality has shown that this class of people have been promoted up from the labor aristocracy into the white collar professions. This reality conflicts with Hightower's assertion that like Third World workers, prison labor depresses the wages of First World (un incarcerated) workers outside the walls. What is really going on is that the super-exploitation of Third World workers and prison labor allows the First World workers to be paid beyond the value of what they produce, and furthermore, funds the employment of tens of millions of paper pushers who produce no value at all. MIM sides with the world's exploited majority, and opposes this parasitic relationship. And unlike Hightower, we don't make subtle calls to boycott one product over another, nor do we campaign to "Buy American". Individual purchases can not change material conditions. MIM opposes slave labor, but if our cadre and supporters stop buying prison-labor produced products (assuming we could identify all of it) that wouldn't change anything. The capitalists are only able to afford to retain the limited number of Amerikkkan production workers--and of the legions of paper pushers--because of the immense profits produced by slave labor, which will continue to be sold regardless of MIM's efforts or those of Hightower. In addition, sparking such a movement would lead directly to fanning the flames of white nationalism; a reactionary proposition that needs no further assistance from MIM. In a few targeted circumstances related to larger proletarian struggles, a boycott can have political utility, but MIM opposes the lifestyle politics line that says that we can reform capitalism by voting with our dollars. That's not a winnable battle. DAY 2: REACTIONARY STUDENTS MOCK MAOIST SOJOURNER The next day MIM discovered on the Livingston campus of Rutgers, the State College of New Jersey, a parody of Maoist Sojourner. Apparently, Maoist Sojourner got sufficiently under the skin of the editors of the weekly Rutgers Review that they dedicated the cover and some of the inside of their 6,000 copy weekly publication to poke fun at the life and death struggles of the oppressed. Entitled "Finast Sojourner" the cover articles attacked the legacy of Chinese revolutionary Jiang Qing by reducing her existence to sex. In another article, the Finast Sojourner mocks the heroic resistance of the anti-fascist fighters in Spain. Maybe the editors of the Rutgers Review think its fun to call each other comrade, or to paste their faces over those of Peruvian martyr Edith Lagos or Filipino revolutionary Jose Maria Sison but MIM doesn't. In a world where 40,000 children die from preventable causes every day (mostly starvation) MIM doesn't find a whole lot of humor. Some people have called our other English-language newspaper "Grim Notes" because it contains information about how "the world sucks and here's why." But instead of depressing we find the portrayal of reality to be uplifting because we are struggling to lead the North American people out of the cesspool of imperialism. In the Third World societies, many of our Maoist comrades have already advanced to the stage of armed struggle. Struggling to liberate their nations from the grip of imperialism, there have been huge advances in the people's livelihood, but also many martyrs. We honor the daily sacrifices of these revolutionaries by helping them in the best ways we can: by organizing for a revolution here, and through printing their words in Maoist Sojourner. DAY 3: AFSCME SUPPORTS PRISONS In Connecticut, the AFSCME union is putting up billboards against cuts in public sector jobs. The first two billboards showed an tipped-over trash can with garbage and rats spilling out. The implication was that if the government makes too many cuts in public spending, the quality of life for Amerikans will go down. MIM doesn't have any problem with adequate sewage and garbage disposal. We think that is a good goal for all people of the world to have. But as the photo essay in the current issue of MIM Theory shows, adequate waste treatment is a rarity in the Third World. Normally, this run of the mill labor aristocracy propaganda wouldn't get a response from MIM, but another billboard in their series has crossed the line to earn a response from MIM. The billboard contains the same message "Do NOT cut public sector jobs" or some similar wording, but the picture was of 3 prisoners being let out of a very small cage. The implication was that if enough guards aren't employed, then prisoners will have to be let go. The size of the cage used in the billboard is indicative of how AFSCME in Connecticut treats the welfare of prisoners. In the past, AFSCME has organized publicly against prisoner rights in the name of advancing the interests of the guards. That AFSCME thinks a small cage is a preferable to a humane way to treat other human beings shows which side of the system this union is on. * * * REMEMBRANCE OF STALIN'S RED ARMY by RC68 ***MIM Notes is proud to take the opportunity of our May 1 issue to honor the memory of the Soviet Red Army and its heroic defeat of fascism 52 years ago, at the end of World War Two.*** On May 2, 1945, the heroes of the Soviet Red Army took Berlin and crushed the Nazi German army, breaking the military back of the international fascist movement. Imperialist manueverings over whom the Germans would surrender to followed the military defeat. Germany wanted to surrender to its Western enemies to avoid the harsher penalties the socialist state would hand down to the defeated Nazi power; and England and the United Snakes wanted to accept the German surrender rather than give due credit to Comrade Stalin for defeating Nazism militarily. But as with the World War Two up until the point of Germany's surrender, Stalin's Red Army and the iron will of the Soviet people had addressed and resolved the principal contradiction while the bourgeois propagandists were playing their Public Relations tricks. The Soviets had won the real battle for public opinion and will forever be heroized in the hearts and minds of the international proletariat for their role in the war. The war was over, Hitler was dead and the bright red hammer and sickle flag flew proudly over the German Reichstag. Joseph Stalin had the most correct line on the fascists and the anti-fascist wars of any leader in World War Two. The Soviet Union was the only country to offer any aid to the Spanish left in its fight against Franco. England and Amerika turned their backs (Amerika prevented volunteers from going to fight in Spain by stamping all U.S. passports "NOT VALID FOR TRAVEL IN SPAIN" beginning in March, 1937)(1), even as Hitler's and Mussolini's tanks rolled into Spain and placed Franco in power. The fascists' primary stated objective was to destroy communism, and this position convinced the Western imperialists to stay out of the way of German aggression. Then as Hitler began to build his empire with Amerikan, French and English collaboration, Stalin had no choice but to divert the attention of the fascists and exploit the contradictions among the imperialists through his 1939 pact with Hitler. This was the only way Stalin could maximize the preparation time the Soviet Union would have before the war against the Nazis. In 1939, England and France declared war on Germany, after it had become clear Hitler was not going to spare the West. Hitler's war on the Western front gave Stalin more time to prepare the USSR for war. In June of 1941, Hitler attacked the USSR along with the help of Finland, Romania, Italy, and Spain. For a while it looked as if they might even succeed. But the Soviet people had an iron will. Stalin knew he could not rely on the Western alliance. In 1917, England, Amerika, France, Italy, and Japan had 2,000 troops in Russia fighting against the revolutionary Red Army and trying to save Czarist Russia. Hitler had come to power with the approval and aid of other imperialists. Even after the Allied powers declared war on Germany, Japan and Italy, they refused to attack fascist Spain. Franco's Blue Legion was then actively involved on the Eastern Front helping Hitler in his holy crusade against communism. The western imperialists were not bashful about displaying their real interests--the preservation of the international status quo and the destruction of the world's first people's republic. Despite overwhelming odds and tremendous obstacles, the Soviet Union began to turn the tables. In November, 1942 just when it seemed all was lost, the Soviet Red Army heroically halted the Nazi advance at Stalingrad. This was the beginning of the end for Hitler and all of the fascists. From here out, the Soviets would be on the offensive. In three years the Soviet Red Army heroes destroyed everything that the fascists had done. The Red Army roared across Eastern Europe, trashing all fascist and collaborationist governments between Moscow and Berlin. Stalin now made it plain to the imperialists what his interests were, the total destruction of fascism and imperialism, and the continuation of the world proletarian revolution. By August 1945, communist victory over the fascists had been consolidated in Europe. Now it was time to deal with Japan. The Red Army heroes were ready. With revolutionary sweep, the Red Army smashed the Japanese fascist swine in a number of countries and ensured the survival of several people's liberation movements. The Japanese fascist aggressors were now in the position of a beheaded snake. The world would be terrible place if it had not been for the brilliant leadership of Joseph Stalin, the iron will of the Soviet people, and the selfless sacrifices of the Red Army heroes. Thank you for our lives comrade Stalin. We will never forget the great victories of May and August 1945 when the great powerful tide of proletarian revolution burst the damn of collaboration and the ensuing flood of liberation swept aside and destroyed the fascist enemies of the people. NOTE: 1. MIM Theory 8 "The Anarch ist Ideal and Communist Revolution", p. 28. * * * MARXISM-LENINISM-MAOISM ONLINE SUPREME COURT HEARS COMMUNICATIONS DECENCY ACT ARGUMENTS At the end of March, the Justice Department appealed the constitutionality of the Communications Decency Act (CDA) before the Supreme Court. The CDA, which was ruled an unconstitutional restriction of free speech by a three judge panel last year, intends to make the knowing transmission of "patently offensive or indecent speech" to minors over the Internet illegal. While MIM regards all state censorship as dangerous for progressive and revolutionary forces -- we hope our material is patently offensive to bourgeoisie! -- and we would be happy to see the CDA ruled unconstitutional, we have no illusions about this as a case of free speech. Maoists understand that neither side of this power struggle believes in free and unrestricted speech of the masses, and that their disagreements over how best to maintain bourgeois cultural hegemony are merely tactical. What is interesting about the arguments before the Supreme Court is what both sides agreed on, and also what the potential consequences are for the structure of the Internet, which far exceed the content of any specific "indecent" speech. The Court is due to rule on the case this summer. Both sides agree children should be controlled The Justice Department is arguing that the technological controls at the level of the Internet user -- the functional equivalent to television's V-Chip -- are inadequate to control minors' access to certain portions of or sites on the Internet. The ACLU-led coalition against the CDA argued that these measures are adequate, and that to shift the burden of regulation to the content provider would be to effectively ban certain types of speech that are appropriate among adults -- just because they might be inadvertently accessed by children. So the disagreement, with regard to children, is just whether parents or the government should control them and the information they consume. The coalition of forces opposing the CDA, including the ACLU and the American Library Association, represents some of the companies that provide blocking or filtering software for the Internet, such as "SurfWatch" and so has a direct material interest in maintaining a market for those products. The supremacy of parents was further underscored by an exchange between one of the Justices and Seth Waxman, the attorney for the Justice Department. The Justice asked if parents who allowed their children to use their computers for Internet access, knowing that they might access indecent material, should be considered felons under the CDA. Waxman said no, "because there's a very clear record before Congress that what Congress was concerned about was not protecting children from their parents, but protecting children and their parents from the children getting access to [indecent] material ..."(1) Finally, Justice Breyer asked if the CDA would make high school students across the country felons for discussing sexual experiences online in an indecent manner, which he said they probably do routinely over the telephone, for example. Waxman responded that that was a small price to pay if the alternative is every child in Amerikkka having access to so-called indecent material. ALL AGREE THAT REGULATION IS EXPENSIVE The technology exists for commercial Web sites to provide "adult verification systems" (commonly a form that asks for a credit card number) allowing them to regulate the purchase of their materials by the age of the consumer. But both sides agree and understand that a) not all Web servers have the capability to use forms and b) credit card companies will not provide account verification unless there is a commercial transaction. Therefore, both sides agree that this system is "prohibitively expensive" for anyone other than a rich commercial site. That's why the opponents of the CDA want the burden of regulation to be on the user, and why the upholders of the Act want legislation to be able to criminalize these un- regulatable transmissions of "indecency." CONSEQUENCES OF CDA RULING COULD FAR EXCEED INDECENT "SPEECH" Justice Scalia pointed out that other forms of publishing, such as radio, are subject to so many regulations as to be "prohibitively expensive" to the average person -- and that there is no Constitutional problem with that. So if the Court rules in favor of the Justice Department, and content providers become responsible for making sure they know the ages of their consumers, this will dovetail with existing privatization trends on the Internet that will make the relatively easy and inexpensive communications we now enjoy difficult or impossible.(2) And clearly, anyone engaged in anti-imperialist agitation over the Internet should be concerned about the phrase "patently offensive" which is left to the subjective whim of courts to interpret. The Justice Department is arguing that the reason "parental control software programs" are ineffective is due to the volume of Web sites (and the speed at which that is increasing); the diffuse and decentralized nature of other Internet communications (including e-mail, Usenet, listservs, chat rooms, etc.); and the availability of the Internet outside the home and the sphere of parental control (in schools, libraries, community centers, etc.) If the Supreme Court rules in their favor, these other forms of Internet communications could be seriously threatened -- not just in terms of the content that is transmitted, but in terms of the relatively decentralized structure itself. The ACLU, et al argues that so much "indecent" speech comes from countries in which the United States has no jurisdiction. The billion dollar a year pornography industry will be protected by their budgets and their ability to comply with laws like the CDA. And the bourgeois media columnists insist that such a situation makes legislation like the CDA moot. But MIM understands that something which is difficult to enforce "across the board" is still easy to enforce selectively as an excuse to target political opponents of capitalism, imperialism and patriarchy. NOTES: 1. Transcript of ACLU vs. Reno. 2. Internet privatization trends include the ability of cable companies to enter the Internet provider market, as part of the 1996 Telecommunications Act. * * * WORLD WIDE WEB REVIEWS Aztlan Hoy www.aztlanhoy.com Letter to MIM: I picked up your newsprint and enjoyed it. I will look for it again. In the meantime I would like to introduce you to Aztlan Hoy. Aztlan Hoy is an on-line newsletter concerned with bringing harmony amongst the various ethnic American communities, in particular the Black and Hispanic communities. The Internet address for Aztlan Hoy is www.aztlanhoy.com which is available without a password. I have provided our description sheet that provides further details. You may be interested in use of the Free Web Page or the Calendar Listing. If you like Aztlan Hoy, maybe you would give us a write up in your On-Line column. I hope to hear from you soon. MIM RESPONDS: Thanks for writing to MIM to alert us to your site. First, MIM believes that genuine unity among the Black, Latino, Asian and First Nations in Amerikkka (which we do not regard as "ethnic American communities" but oppressed nations deserving of full self-determination from Amerika) will be best forged in their struggle against the white oppressor nation and imperialism. As Maoists, MIM supports that struggle as part of the socialist revolution. The April issue of Altzan Hoy has a good focus on anti-prison agitation, and correctly argues that greater incarceration does nothing to change the crime rate and that oppressed peoples are imprisoned at alarming rates for "crimes" that whites commit with impunity. As communists, MIM disagrees with Aztlan Hoy's support of electoral reform, including Ralph Nader and Tom Hayden as progressive electoral candidates, believing instead that the total overthrow of imperialism and the construction of socialism is necessary to end oppression -- not just the changing of a few of imperialism's faces. * * * PRO-LESBIGAYTRANS LOBBYISTS: CORRECT ON PROP 209, OPPORTUNIST ON STRATEGY by MC45 The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF) came out strongly against the decision of the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco to uphold Proposition 209 which legally bars affirmative action in California. NGLTF is a self- described "progressive organization that has supported grassroots organizing and pioneered in national advocacy since 1973."(1) MIM agrees with NGLTF that "so long as there are forces at work in this country trying to dismantle policies geared toward remedying continued discrimination against women and people of color, we cannot expect recognition of the human dignity and civil rights of gays."(1) It is important to recognize that struggles against oppression are contingent on each other if we are to have any hope of eliminating oppression altogether. We also agree with NGLTF's basic goal of eliminating the gender differential between the sexual orientations, and we see this step as part of the struggle against gender inequality overall. But we disagree sharply with NGLTF's approach to discrimination and with its priorities. As part of its mission statement, NGLTF states: "In all its efforts, NGLTF helps to strengthen the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender movement at the state level while connecting these activities to a national vision for change."(1) In a press release on American Airlines' sponsorship of gay pride events and gay organizations, NGLTF congratulates American and "urges activists around the country to stand up for the American way."(2) This is an excellent example of NGLTF's liberal lobbying group strategy. NGLTF wants to achieve its goals by convincing the state and capital that the activists share imperialism's goals. By contrast, the litmus test for all of MIM's efforts is that they be anti-imperialist, and this is the root of our opposition to Prop 209. In keeping with Lenin's and Mao's analyses of the era of imperialism, MIM understands that the principal contradiction in the world today is between imperialism and the oppressed nations. In practice this means that successful national liberation struggles of the oppressed against imperialism will do the most to unravel the fabric of oppression of groups of people over other groups. For this reason we must prioritize national liberation of the oppressed above gender struggles at this time. NOTES: 1. NGLTF Press Release "Task Force Disappointed at California Proposition 209 Decision," on the World Wide Web at http://www.ngltf.org/press/209.html 2. NGLTF Press Release "National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Commends Airline for Commitment to the American Way," on the Web at http://www.ngltf.org/press/AACOMM.HTML * * * UNDER LOCK AND KEY: NEWS FROM PRISONERS AND PRISONS THE DEATH PENALTY IN AMERIKKKA GOVERNMENT APPROVED MURDER by a South Carolina prisoner Capital Punishment has been around since the 18th Century in the United States. Movements to abolish it have been around just as long. There once were Public Executions where a whole town could watch a person be killed. But the reformers saw this type of public murder as being too cruel. So they fought for the end of Public Executions, a battle which they won. The executions were transferred from local to state authorities, in the attempt to institute what they considered a more efficient and somehow more humane method of execution. They limited the death penalty to murder in the first degree (i.e., premeditated murder or murder committed during the perpetration of a felony.) The government approved murders had been on the decline since the early 1930s. Litigation was put forth by the NAACP, which were submitting that the Peoples' right to "due process" and "equal protection" were being denied. Because nearly all those government approved murders were racially biased against Black People. These lawsuits brought the death penalty to a halt in 1968. But four years later the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that capital punishment was not in itself unconstitutional. Or as to say that it wasn't barbarically cruel and unusual punishment. But that the way it was being carried out was wrong. Because it was discriminatory, capricious and the fashion in which it was enacted was arbitrary. So all State and Federal capital punishment laws were struck down. The states that had government approved murder laws before 1972 quickly enacted new ones to satisfy the courts requirements that the murders be administered in a regular and equitable manner. The government approved murders were reinstated in 1976 and the murders were resumed in 1977. Since 1977, there have been approximately 358 government approved murders in the U.S. (Not including the arcane government approved murders.) And it will steadily rise. There are 38 states, including the Federal government and military service that now have government approved murder laws. Of the states only, there are 19 authorized murders by lethal injection, 14 by electrocution, 7 by lethal gas, 2 by hanging and 1 by firing squad. In 1995 there were 56 government approved murders. Reason being because the prisoners appeal process was shortened. But in 1996 the number of government approved murders had declined to 45. This was because the prisoners filed litigation that held up the murders in Texas for most of the year. Texas led the nation in government approved murders in 1995 with 19, but in 1996 there were only 3 prisoners murdered [in Texas] with the government's approval. The prisoners lawsuits challenged a 1995 law that shortened the appeals process for death row prisoners. But the fascists in the States Supreme Court of Appeals upheld the law in late December, clearing the way for resumption of Texas government approved murders in 1997. Or in other words the Amerikan Auschwitz is now being resumed in Texas. (For those who don't know what Auschwitz is, it the largest Nazi death camp.) Any and everyone who cares for that simple yet complex thing we call life, they should strive to become politically and socially conscious. So you can become aware of the unscrupulousness of the government approved murders. Then you can help fight against it. Because in the next 2 years we're looking at maybe 175 to 200 prisoners being murdered by these fascists. So not yesterday, not tomorrow, but Today is the time to start learning about this fascist government so YOU can join the struggle against it. Because if not now, then when? Fight the Power Structure! THE ROLE COLLABORATORS IN THE MURDER OF COMRADE AJAMU NASSOR ***More information about the execution of Comarde Ajamu Nassor can be found in Under Lock & Key in MIM Notes 121.*** On December 8, 1994, the State of Indiana brutally murdered comrade Ajamu Nassor (s/n Gregory Resnover). Prior to Ajamu's murder, a prosecuting attorney admitted that certain pertinent facts were not brought out in his appeal process due to ineffective appellate counselors. But, the attorney general, Pan Carter (a black collaborator with the system), stated that the omission of facts didn't matter. When has it ever mattered that a black man or woman got any justice in america? The reason why this collaborator could make such an illogical statement without any conscious guilt is because she's a part [of] that Black petty bourgeoisie who has opted to sell out their people for key positions inside this illegitimate system. Black people like her easily forget the enslavement of our ancestors. They forget the numbers of innocent lives of our people who died horrible deaths aboard slave ships, how many were sold on auction blocks like cattle, how many were tortured and raped for mere kicks, how many children were snatched from their mothers' arms, and placed on other plantations without ever being heard from again. If you black collaborators are so concerned about right and wrong, why aren't you crying out toward the injustices that were done to our foreparents during slavery, and the injustices that are still heaped upon Black America as a whole? Why weren't any white people give the death penalty for the atrocities committed on black people and Native Americans as a whole? Are you so forgiving that you would expel their deeds of the past, and be so ready to give one of your own over to the executioner? How can you as black people be so ready to give one of your own over to the executioner? How can you as black people feel comfortable in supporting a system that was founded on injustice? These are the same people who annihilate nations of Native Americans in the name of freedom. They don't have any right to sit in judgment of any black man or woman. If anyone is a victim we are. Historically, america has revealed its attitude toward non-whites. And today, when you take into consideration that black men only make up six percent of the nations population, but make up around forty-six percent of the prison population and forty percent of those currently on death row, one can notice a paradox occurring in america. Are we to honestly believe that half of the crimes committed in this country, are being committed by black males? I think not. But, if we listen to 60 Minutes, the night news, or some lofty speech by a political candidate, you would think that crime is a disease peculiar to the socio-economic and socio- political stratum where only the black, brown and poor dwell. Through these mediums the public is influenced into believing that crime is a normal behavior characteristic among certain classes of people. It was easy for the state to murder Ajamu since he was black and considered by them a cancer to everyone he came into contact with. After all, seventy-five percent of public opinion in the U.S. was on their side. Plus, they had a black attorney general stamping her approval by saying, "He deserves what he is getting." And last but not least, they had a black warden who would give the order to pull the switch on the electric chair. To you the collaborators of the state, when retribution is being handed out against the enemies of the people, your participation in the murder of this comrade will not be forgotten. Uhuru Sasa! -- An Illinois Prisoner, 3 December 1996 TEXAS THE LAND PLENTY - THE REALITY OF PRISONER TRANSFERS MASSACHUSETTS PRISONER IN TEXAS EXPOSES GOVERNOR WELD'S REPRESSION Dear Friends: I have recently received my MASS RAIL and was elated to see both the front page article "Weld's Plan: MA pigs can change prison rules at will" and pg 4 "Massachusetts prisoners still stuck in Texas." I am also glad that your publication is not censored here. At this point I wish to ask a question or two and add to these article. First I'll add: For the uninformed the "rules" of which your article refers are CMR's (Code of Mass Regulations), the purpose of which are to restrain the establishment from violating human, civil, and legally mandated rights. These rights, albeit cursory in nature, aid the incarcerated in presenting grievances and set a minimum standard by which the establishment must operate. Although they seem restrictive to the "ruling class", they were hard won victories in the struggle for the basic necessities in an incarceration situation (lest we forget the riots of the 70s). These were what brought about change. And for a while the changes they made actually were better than what we had. Now we have a tyrant who had made his career in oppression, at the helm and he is bound by his campaign rhetoric to avenge (allegedly) the "moral" majority. If Weld and his henchmen are allowed to replace the C.M.R.s with "prison rules" greater atrocity will occur to a much larger number. "We need a champion!" As your front page article aptly pointed out, Regulations are public documents and require a public hearing in order to be changed, but these public hearings must be foretold far enough in advance so to allow all concerned parties to attend and give testimony. The public sees so many legal notices in the newspaper that when they run across one (in the last page or two) they disregard it as more b.s. and don't even read them. This is such the case when, in June of 95, a public hearing on 103 CMR 420 was held and the changes that allowed the D.O.C. to transfer 299 prison captives to Dallas. This C.M.R. deals directly with classification. The old C.M.R. gave the right for an inmate to be present at his classification board and to actively present information which would either move him/her to a lower security level, or not to be moved to a higher one. We here in Dallas, Texas are classified "in absentia" and submissions as to reasons why we should be brought back to Massachusetts and our families is largely ignored, making this C.M.R. an insult to the system of which it is a part. Further, the new wording allows the establishment to move prisoners to a higher security (out of state) without giving a reason or charging him/her with an infraction of their rules or without a hearing until after the transfers. Now for the questions: What is being done to combat the establishments attempts to do away with the C.M.R's? Weld announced that our stay in Texas is extended 8 more months. This is the end of the original contract with Dallas. Is the contract going to be renewed? Are we in for a longer stay? On another matter: Have you heard anything on the state trying to adopt a new law which would allow for individuals to be civilly committed after they finish their sentences? It was brought to my attention that Washington state has already adopted such legislation which has already reincarcerated people who completed their bids years earlier. It is speculated that some states are waiting on the federal court in Tennessee to make a determination on the matter before they propose this bid of legislation to their own lawmakers. Have you been following the developments on this topic? Any information you can provide me on the above inquiries will be greatly appreciated. Again thank you for your well written articles and your constant endeavor to persevere! Eternally yours, -- A Massachusetts prisoner. RAIL RESPONDS: Thanks for the additional information on the C.M.R.s. In response to your questions about what is being done to combat the establishment's attempts to do away with them, we continue with our protests, education and other agitation around the Massachusetts criminal injustice system, putting pressure on the administration to repeal or avoid passing further reactionary legislation. We know that the system cannot be changed through reform and so we always put our reform work in the context of the need to overthrow this unjust imperialist system. We do not have any information to offer you regarding the new law about being civilly committed but we are printing your letter in our newspaper in the hopes that folks with information will share it with us. Please stay in touch and continue to send us news and information about what's going on in Texas. HUNDREDS OF MISSOURI PRISONERS SHIPPED TO TEXAS SOME RETURNED RECEIVE A NIGHTMARE WELCOME ***The following letter is re-printed from Cry Justice Journal, a quarterly newspaper published by the New Life Evangelistic Center.*** As of last summer, 508 Missouri prisoners had been kidnapped (usually in the middle of the night) and sent to Texas prisons in Pearsall and Crystal City. This past September, they kidnapped 300 more, warehousing them in Brazoria County Detention Center in Angleton, Texas. Apparently, some prisoners were transferred back to Missouri. This letter describes their "welcome home": "When the inmates in Crystal City were told we were all being returned to Missouri we were overjoyed, with the exception of a few high security inmates who were being sent to a maximum security detention center in Angleton, Texas. We thought our nightmares of being kidnapped against our will and the inhumane conditions we had endured were finally over. "The real nightmare began at 8:30 p.m. on September 16th when about 20 guards, along with the warden carrying a long black jack, came into N-Tank and told several inmates to grab their property and follow. I watched from M-Tank as inmate X told them he still had some property left in his tank and a guard pushed him in the back of the head out of the door. Y in my tank said, "Hey, that's not necessary." A guard wearing an eye patch named Murphy said, "We will be back to get you in a minute." They handcuffed X and then put legcuffs on him, at which point they jerked the chain on the legcuffs, making X's feet come out from beneath him. All inmates in M-Tank could see all the guards and warden kicking and stomping him. "At 9:00 p.m. they came back to M-Tank and the warden pointed at Y and said, "That's the big S.O.B. right there." Several guards grabbed Y and slammed his head against the cement wall and cuffed him behind his back. They then led him out of the tank and cuffed his legs, at which point he was jerked by his legcuffs off his feet, his face hit the cement and the guards started kicking and stomping him. We were told that this was our going away party. We were put on buses September 17th, early in the morning, and we arrived in Missouri at around 11:00 a.m. "After arriving here I learned that a whole lot of inmates had been beaten at Crystal City by the warden and his goon squad. You wouldn't believe how many black eyes and bruises there are on the inmates. This is just the beginning of the night- mare. A day after we got here on September 18th in the tank next to the one I'm in, the deputy sheriff's squad which runs this jail, rushed into the 20 man tank, because inmates were smoking cigarettes. "They started screaming for everyone to lay on the floor, then made them crawl on their bellies on the floor out of the door and down the hall in front of our tank. As they crawled through the doorway they were shocking inmates with zappers. Also, they had a large German Shepherd dog which they allowed to bite a few inmates. As this was going on they were all laughing and saying, "This is your welcome to our county jail." "On September 20th they dragged an inmate out of a tank down the hall and knocked him to the floor. Then, they started kicking him in the face. It was September 22 before we got our property or were given any state clothing. You wouldn't believe what it is like to go six days without being able to wash your hair or put on deodorant with 20 other men right next to you. "This is a maximum security county jail and is locked down. Most of us here are low security inmates and should not even be in this place. For breakfast here they serve coffee, if you don't drink coffee, too bad. Lunch is a cold sandwich and a piece of fruit, nothing to drink, this is everyday! No salt or pepper with any meals, powdered milk for cereal, no real milk at all. By the Interstate Compact Agreement, I'm guaranteed the same privileges as Missouri inmates. Please alert the officials in Missouri in my behalf and let them know what has been happening to us here. -- A Missori Prisoner in Texas Cry Justice Journal, New Live Evangelistic Center, P.O. Box 2525, New Bloomfield. MO 65063 ***WHAT NON-PRISONERS CAN DO TO SUPPORT PRISONERS*** *1. Struggle with, work with, finance and join MIM. The best way to support prisoners is to overthrow the system under which capitalists profit from the exploitation of prisoners. History shows that the best way to do this is to build a Marxist-Leninist- Maoist party. The oppressors will not give up their power without a fight. *2. Finance MIM's prison work. Our biggest bill each month is postage. Most of the prison comrades who read MIM Notes have no way of paying for it. So if you have money, send what you can afford. Every cent helps, and stamps are as good as cash to us. *3. Distribute MIM Notes and Notas Rojas. Bring the voices of prisoners and their supporters to as large and wide an audience of people as possible. Contact MIM for bulk rates and distribution tips. *4. Start or join a prison support group. MIM can provide advice and resources to help you build public opinion for prisoners and their struggles. *5. Fight censorship, beatings, torture and other fascist outrages. Under Lock and Key often features the addresses of prisoners' friends and enemies. Work with the friends and let the enemies know you're watching. (Don't expect to win the fascists to the side of humanity, however. See #1 in this list). *6. Stay in touch. Keep us informed of pro-prisoner work you do. Our readers might find it educational or inspirational.
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