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 124 OCTOBER 15, 1996 MIM Notes speaks to and from the viewpoint of the world's oppressed majority, and against the imperialist-patriarchy. Pick it up and wield it in the service of the people. support it, struggle with it and write for it. IN THIS ISSUE: 1. THE PEOPLE FIND NEW BRUNSWICK PIGS GUILTY OF MURDER 2. CIA IMPLEMENTS STRATEGIC NATIONAL OPPRESSION 3. MASSES OPPOSE CIA NARCO-GENOCIDE OPERATIONS 4. LETTERS TO MIM 5. SHAM PEACE PROCESS EXPOSED AS ISRAEL OPENS FIRE ON PALESTINIANS 6. CHINA'S CAPITALIST-ROADERS DANCE WITH AMERIKAN IMPERIALISTS: LEGACY OF THE COUNTER- REVOLUTIONARY COUP 7. UNITY OF AMERIKA WITH ITS ARISTOCRACIES: NO MORE IMMIGRANTS 8. OBITUARY: TUPAC SHAKUR 9. FIRST NATIONS DON'T NEED WHITE NATION COPS 10. IMPERIALISM = SICKNESS, HUNGER, AND DEATH 11. RADICAL VICTORY AS HAWAIIANS SIT OUT BOGUS VOTE 12. INDIGENOUS SELF-DETERMINATION'S A YEAR-ROUND STRUGGLE 13. EVIL TWIN CANDIDATES FOR MASS. SENATE STAGE DEBATE 14. NATION OF ISLAM PUSHES METAPHYSICS, CRYPTO- PACIFISM 15. ORGANIZE AGAINST IMPERIALISM IN THE PHILIPPINES 16. UNABOMBER FOR PRESIDENT? REVIEW OF ANARCHIST NONSENSE 17. AMERIKAN CULTURE: DOLLHOUSE, BOUND, TUSKEGEE AIRMEN 18. UNDER LOCK AND KEY: NEWS FROM PRISONERS AND PRISONS * * * WHAT IS MIM? The Maoist Internationalist Movement (MIM) is a revolutionary communist party that upholds Marxism- Leninism-Maoism, comprising the collection of existing or emerging Maoist internationalist parties in the English-speaking imperialist countries and their English-speaking internal semi- colonies, as well as the existing or emerging Spanish-speaking Maoist internationalist parties of Aztlan, Puerto Rico and other territories of the U.S. Empire. MIM Notes is the newspaper of MIM. Notas Rojas is the newspaper of the Spanish- speaking parties or emerging parties of MIM. MIM is an internationalist organization that works from the vantage point of the Third World proletariat; thus, its members are not Amerikans, but world citizens. MIM struggles to end the oppression of all groups over other groups: classes, genders, nations. MIM knows this is only possible by building public opinion to seize power through armed struggle. Revolution is a reality for North America as the military becomes over-extended in the government's attempts to maintain world hegemony. MIM differs from other communist parties on three main questions: (1) MIM holds that after the proletariat seizes power in socialist revolution, the potential exists for capitalist restoration under the leadership of a new bourgeoisie within the communist party itself. In the case of the USSR, the bourgeoisie seized power after the death of Stalin in 1953; in China, it was after Mao's death and the overthrow of the "Gang of Four" in 1976. (2) MIM upholds the Chinese Cultural Revolution as the farthest advance of communism in human history. (3) MIM believes the North American white-working-class is primarily a non- revolutionary worker-elite at this time; thus, it is not the principal vehicle to advance Maoism in this country. MIM accepts people as members who agree on these basic principles and accept democratic centralism, the system of majority rule, on other questions of party line. "The theory of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin is universally applicable. We should regard it not as dogma, but as a guide to action. Studying it is not merely a matter of learning terms and phrases, but of learning Marxism-Leninism as the science of revolution." -- Mao Zedong, Selected Works, Vol. II, p. 208 * * * THE PEOPLE FIND NEW BRUNSWICK PIGS GUILTY OF MURDER by a RAIL comrade On September 10th, a racist street-gang calling itself the New Brunswick Police Department added yet another victim to its list. Pig James Consalvo fatally shot Carolyn Adams as she allegedly resisted arrest. According to tough-guy Consalvo, she bit him in the hand so hard he "felt faint from the pain", so he shot her. Adams is but the latest in an ongoing trend of brutality and oppression of the residents of New Brunswick. The greedy capitalists in charge of Johnson & Johnson and Rutgers University have been systematically forcing the predominantly poor year- round residents into ghettos in an effort to hide the brutal truth that New Brunswick is not just a "nice old college town". It is sickeningly clear where the dividing line between the college section and the residential section is: one is nice and brightly lit and (aside from drunken frat boys) safe -- while the other is dark, poorly maintained and is effectively under marshall law at night. Overnight, hundreds of flyers were distributed advertising two marches and rallies demanding punishment for the murderers of Carolyn Adams. The flyers were distributed by an organization called the New Brunswick Coalition Against Police Brutality (NBCAPB) -- a primarily non-revolutionary organization doing progressive work against pig oppression. RAIL worked to build awareness of this injustice and activism around this issue within our own communities. Hundreds of people turned out -- and this time the pigs were nervous. This was the masses turning out in anger to mourn one of their own and to put the pigs on notice that their oppressive actions will no longer be tolerated. Chief pig Michael Baltrenena downplayed the murder by publicizing her past as a prostitute. This was an attempt for the agents of repression to wiggle out of responsibility for murdering this womyn. The piggy wiggling only shows further that the cops do not value the lives of wimmin struggling on the streets. The pigs' plan backfired when support for her grew and the masses continued to protest against the murderous pig. The next tactic Baltrenena tried was to single out progressive elements of the NBCAPB, such as Unity & Struggle and Black N.I.A. Force as "outside agitators" with their own hidden agendas. This too, did not work, and the second rally was larger than the first. Finally, the pigs/big business/collaborators decided "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em." They announced their own rally, conveniently excluding the NBCAPB as an official sponsor. Speakers at this rally urged everyone to vote -- as if that would change anything on the streets. This was a far cry from the calls for community organizing and justice heard at the other rallies. RAIL is committed to not letting the memory of Carolyn Adams die -- we are organizing a massive educational campaign. This campaign is focusing on both community organizing and the New Brunswick pigs' history of racism. As the flyer we made states: we are placing the NBPD on notice that we will be watching and we WILL smash their racist oppression! Work with MIM and RAIL to expose pig tactics and put an end to national oppression and police brutality. * * * CIA IMPLEMENTS STRATEGIC NATIONAL OPPRESSION by MC17 In late August, the San Jose Mercury News ran a series of stories exposing the history of the links between the CIA, drug sales and the guns purchased for the Nicaraguan Contras. High-ranking leaders of the CIA's counterrevolutionary proxy army were the source of cocaine for Amerikkka's largest crack dealership and these leaders avoided arrest due to protection from the CIA. Though this is old news, the coverage has brought enough publicity to the case to embarrass the government into pretending to investigate. The Justice Department, the House of Representatives and the CIA are now running to cover their imperialist tails with a facade of independent investigations into the situation. Back in 1988, PBS produced a documentary called Guns, Drugs and the CIA which covers the history of this same California-Nicaragua-CIA connection.(1) The Mercury News stories provided more current information from recently declassified documents. Throughout the 1980s, a San Francisco Area drug ring sold tons of cocaine to the street gangs of South-Central Los Angeles. Millions in drug profits were then funneled to the Contras. Two Nicaraguan cocaine dealers, Danilo Blandon and Norwin Meneses, were leaders of the anti-communist commando group, the Nicaraguan Democratic Force(FDN), which was the Contra army formed and run by the CIA. The Contras were at war with Nicaragua's popular Sandinista government who came to power after overthrowing the U.S.-backed dictator Somoza. These dealers were untouched by the DEA and police for years while they were dealing with and for the CIA. During the early 1980s, federal and local narcotics agents knew that a massive drug ring operated by Nicaraguan Contras was selling large amounts of cocaine "mainly to blacks living in the South- Central Los Angeles area," according to a search- warrant affidavit obtained by the Mercury News. The October 23, 1986 affidavit identifies Blandon as "the highest-ranking member of this organization" and describes a sprawling drug operation. The affidavit of Thomas Gordon, a former Los Angeles County sheriff's narcotics detective, is the first independent corroboration that the Contra army was dealing cocaine to gangs in Los Angeles' Black neighborhoods. IMPERIALISTS ATTACK INNER CITIES WITH DRUGS The drug network was the first pipeline between Colombian cocaine cartels and urban Amerika. It provided money to buy weapons for the Nicaraguan Contras and provided cash for L.A.'s gangs to buy automatic weapons. This drug network added fuel to the fire of inner city youth killing one another: with drugs and with guns. Blandon is now an undercover informant for the DEA. He recently admitted in court that his biggest customer was "Freeway" Rick Ross, a South-Central dealer who exploded the market in poor communities, starting in L.A. and moving across the country, by dealing in cheap crack and targeting gangs like the Crips and Bloods. According to White House records, President Reagan gave the CIA authorization to begin covert paramilitary operations against the Sandinista government on December 1, 1981, giving them $19.9 million to spend. But this was far too little to challenge the Sandinistas. Shortly after this order, Meneses and Blandon started raising money for the Contras through their quickly expanding drug trade. "There is a saying that the ends justify the means," Blandon testified during a recent cocaine trafficking trial in San Diego. "And that's what Mr. Bermudez (the CIA agent who commanded the FDN) told us in Honduras, OK? So we started raising money for the Contra revolution." Blandon testified at this trial as a full-time informant for the DEA -- a job he was given after the U.S. Department of Justice got him out of prison in 1994. He was in prison for drug trafficking charges that would have put him away for life but the Justice Department let him out after 28 months and since his release they have paid him more than $166,000. INVESTIGATIONS FOILED AT EVERY TURN In 1992, Norwin Menses was put on trial for cocaine trafficking after he was arrested in Nicaragua with a 750-kilo shipment of cocaine. The main witness against Meneses was Enrique Miranda, a relative and former Nicaraguan military intelligence officer who had been Meneses' emissary to the cocain cartel in Columbia. Miranda got a reduced sentence in exchange for his testimony against Meneses. Miranda exposed much of the history of this drug operation in a written statement. This statement helped get Meneses a 30 year sentence, but leading the charmed life of a CIA drug dealer, he too was scheduled to be paroled this summer. Miranda was being held in a Nicaraguan jail since 1992 where the Mercury News sent a correspondent to interview him. The correspondent arrived to find that Miranda had "failed to return" to the Nicaraguan jail while out on a routine weekend furlough. His jailers didn't call the police until the Mercury News correspondent showed up and discovered he was gone about a year ago. In a similar act of disappearing evidence, Sandra Smith, a San Francisco DEA agent uncovered evidence of the link between cocaine and the CIA-backed Contras in 1981. She was investigating Meneses drug connections and the rumors that he was sending weapons down to Central America. Smith was taken off the case and the investigation was terminated shortly after she started making progress. She was instead sent off to investigate motorcycle gangs in Oakland. When she finally left the DEA in 1984 she offered her files on this CIA- contras-cocaine connection to her superiors but they were not interested. DISPROPORTIONATE SENTENCING WINS CIA VICTORY IN WAR AGAINST BLACKS This story illustrates how the CIA uses whatever means it wants to raise money for whichever cause it supports and that CIA operatives will be protected from prosecution. The beauty (in the eyes of the Amerikan government) of this cocaine for guns operation was the effect it had on the inner cities in Amerika. Already hit hardest by poverty, health problems, and unemployment, the inner city population, mostly oppressed nations, have borne the brunt of the funding for the Nicaraguan Contras. Already the target of police lockdown and oppression in every aspect of the system, the government introduced crack and effectively practiced genocide on oppressed nations in Amerika. Deaths from using crack were just the beginning as this drug also afforded gangs with money to buy weapons to use to kill one another in drug fueled violence. And then the government escalated the "War on Drugs" by setting the sentencing for crack at 100 times the sentence for powder cocaine. Recently, the U.S. Sentencing Commission -- a panel of experts created by Congress to be its unbiased adviser in these matters -- tried and failed to find a good reason to explain why powder dealers must sell 100 times more cocaine before they get the same mandatory sentence as crack dealers. The "absence of comprehensive data substantiating this legislative policy is troublesome," it reported last year. In May 1995, the Commission recommended that the cocaine sentencing laws be equalized saying that the disparity is "a primary cause of the growing disparity between sentences for black and white federal defendants." But Congress voted last year to keep the laws the same and on October 30th President Clinton signed the bill. OVERTHROW THE CIA IMPERIALIST DRUG LORDS U.S. government complicity in narcotizing millions -- principally people of the oppressed nations -- then jailing hundreds of thousands of the drug ring's victims and lesser partners, is reason enough for U.S. imperialism to be overthrown. A socialist system -- one which by definition puts the people's interests firsts, instead of putting profits first -- will not tolerate the drug market, and will not cause the great alienation and despair from which so many turn to drugs in North Amerika today. NOTES: 1. MIM recommends this video to anyone looking to publicize the story. It is available for rental from the American Friends Service Committee (who will mail it to you in any city) and probably also from PBS. AFSC can be reached at 617-497-5275. 2. All sources for this article came from the 3- part San Jose Mercury News series by Gary Webbwhich ran August 18-20, 1996. This series can be found with sidebars and documentary evidence at http://www.sjmercury.com/drugs. * * * MASSES OPPOSE CIA NARCO-GENOCIDE OPERATIONS ***The San Jose Mercury News investigation of the CIA/Crack/Contra connection continues to uncover new facts daily. Every new piece of information about the government selling crack to the inner cities to buy guns for the Contras enrages the masses even more. The Mercury News has done a great job investigating and publicizing this story and they have also covered many of the protests spurred by their stories.*** On September 29th, a Nation of Islam lawyer announced plans to file a class action lawsuit against the government on the grounds that the CIA deliberately introduced crack into black communities. "You can go to jail for conspiracy. But this is not just a conspiracy theory -- this is reality," lawyer Arif Muhammad told delegates to the National African-American Leadership Summit. Muhammad urged Blacks to make lists of people who had been adversely affected by crack cocaine. While class action lawsuits against the government are not winnable in the white man's courts, this could be a very useful tool to expose Amerikan imperialism. In Virginia, an activist was arrested for roping off CIA headquarters with police tape to mark it as a crime scene. "There is evidence inside those buildings that confirms that the CIA helped to destroy black folks," Dick Gregory said in a speech in San Francisco where he announced that he will continue to rope off the CIA headquarters weekly until they answer to these charges. He has also vowed not to eat solid food until an investigation is conducted into the CIA activities. "We're not going to let this rest," he told the crowd. "A whole lot of people are going to jail after we're through." While MIM agrees with the sentiments of activists opposing the CIA, sending a handful of people in the CIA to jail will not eradicate the national oppression of Amerika's internal colonies. For justice to be done in this case and generally, revolution is necessary. The imperialists' injustice system will never arrest enough of their own to stop their narco-genocide operations. Only the people can stop imperialist oppression, and only when the people have organized themselves to the point where they have the three key weapons: a revolutionary party, an army, and a united front. MIM does not lead an army yet, but we look forward to the day when the CIA druglords will be subjected to the people's justice. Meanwhile the imperialists continue to create the facade that they will clean up the CIA. On September 26th, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) provided a list of questions stemming from the Mercury News series to U.S. Department of Justice Inspector General Michael R. Bromwich. This so- called progressive senator is just helping disguise the contradictions within imperialism and cover the oppressive tactics used to benefit the United $tates of Amerika. We cannot be fooled by their half-hearted attempt to look self-critical. Members of oppressed nations who have died in inner cities from the deluge of crack and guns from the CIA and from the pigs' war on crack financed the contra war with their lives. The masses will not forget this history as the imperialists scamper to cover their butts. Larger protests have also been held in response to this expose. On September 28, over 2,000 South- Central residents attended a rally in Los Angeles condemning the CIA's role in the crack epidemic. In another attempt to distance the Amerikan government from the CIA scandal, a Democratic representative in Los Angeles, Maxine Waters, attended the rally co-sponsored by the Congressional Black Caucus, stating that "People in high places, knowing about it, winking, blinking, and in South-Central Los Angeles, our children were dying." Further prettying the face of the government and the CIA, in response to a request by Black congressional leaders, the CIA has promised an independent investigation of the allegations. MIM will continue to publicize stories like this one linking the CIA to drugs and gun running. But we understand that this story is only new and unusual in the sense that it is unusual for so much damaging information to become public at once. People who are familiar with the respective histories of the CIA, imperialism, and domestic colonialism should not be surprised to learn of a link between the imperialist CIA and chemical warfare (narco-genocide) against the Black nation. We continue to educate people about the truth of Amerikan imperialism while organizing people to oppose this imperialist system in the only effective way possible: through Maoist revolution. NOTE: All sources for this article came from the 3- part San Jose Mercury News series by Gary Webbwhich ran August 18-20, 1996. This series can be found with sidebars and documentary evidence at http://www.sjmercury.com/drugs. * * * LETTERS TO MIM "DON'T VOTE" MOTTO GOES HOW FAR? Dear MIM:I would like to address briefly an issue which in an election year is of some importance. I understand and agree with MIM's position against voting for bourgeois candidates at either the local or national level. The practice of the CPUSA of repeatedly endorsing Democrats is one of several factors that drove me away from that party. Thanks to a recent article in MIM Notes, I also understand MIM's opposition to voting for Ralph Nader or Monica Moorehad or other alternative candidates. There is, however, another form of voting that MIM has not addressed (at least not recently). In some states (Arizona and California among others), initiative and referendum petitions are allowed. That is, with a certain number of valid signatures, new laws can be placed on the ballot for the voters to decide, instead of the legislature (initiative petitions) or laws that have been passed by the legislature can be placed before the voters for review (referendum petitions). In many cases these laws have a bearing on working- class people. For example, in the 1988 general election in Arizona, there was an initiative petition sponsoring English Only to make English the official language of the state and ban use of other languages by state officials conducting official business. I considered that if this passed, it would cause undue hardship on the Chicano people and other non-English speaking oppressed nationalities in Arizona, so I went to the polls and voted against it. In the end the measure won, but by a fairly narrow margin (52% to 48% if I recall correctly). The narrow margin suggests that this was a winnable struggle--that if more of the oppressed nationalities had gone to the polls, things might have ended differently. What is MIM's line on initiative and referendum petition voting? Was I in error to have voted on this measure? --Arizona Voter September 2, 1996 MIM REPLIES: The people who voted against the English-only laws or abstained are the progressive people we look to. Though we would not propose a ballot question, we would not rule out voting referendum style if a truly progressive option were available and had a chance of winning. If that sounds a little wishy-washy, it is because ballot initiatives are generally stacked against us, and we would have to analyze an exceptional case to see if it is worth prioritizing. Generally, the possibilities of progressive outcomes from such initiatives are small for two reasons. First, the imperialists dominate the media. According to a liberal, reformist group that focuses on money in politics, CPPAX, it takes at least a million dollars to win a ballot question. That is not an average, but a minimum requirement for a decent shot. On one initiative in Maine in 1994 to limit campaign spending, the opposition spent $7 million on television ads (and they won). Hence, we have to build up our own media or find other ways to offset millions of dollars of imperialist media coverage or we can't expect to win. This first aspect shows that the people vote without much choice and their minds stupefied by imperialist media. This will be the case until we reach the stage of armed struggle when people who have progressive interests will start to choose political stands without so many fears of repression. However, we also need to look critically at the mass base of any vote we try to win in an imperialist state. MIM places its focus on the international proletariat, recognizing that a solid majority of Amerikans are bought-off. Very local initiatives have a better shot because those with progressive interests -- a minority in the U$A -- might be concentrated there. Since we have no delusions that the Amerikan masses are going to burst forth with progressive measures before the international proletariat compels them to, we normally aim for a majority of the world population and not a given state. A-APRP RESPONDS TO MIM'S ANALYSIS OF IT MIM, "It is wrong to believe that one culture possesses alone all the moral, spiritual, social, or intellectual values which exist. To believe that truth only exists in ones own racial or cultural milieu is utopian. Human discoveries, intellectual powers and the development of knowledge aren't restricted to anyone in particular. They are the result of a chain of universal discoveries...and developments..." --Ahmet Seku Ture It is incorrect to say that the All-African People's Revolutionary Party "upholds a pseudo- socialist ideology (MIM Notes 118 July 15. 1996). What is Marxism-Leninism-Maoism? It speaks to working people's conditions as seen by Marx, Lenin (Euros) and Chairman Mao (Asian). African people are survivors of colonialism and chattel slavery. Along with class exploits people of color must deal with white supremacy and racism. Nkrumahist-Tureist Pan-Africanism in short is the ideology necessary for African people to deal with the conditions unique to African people. Africa began civilization. Present in that civilization was communalism, which communism is based on. We are happy to see people embrace these ideasto fit the cultural contexts of every land mass and people world wide. We are scientific socialists. We are comrades in the worldwide struggle to end exploitation of one person by another person. Ready for the Revolution. -- Party Militant, August, 1996 MIM REPLIES: This letter denies the universal aspects of Maoism: the necessity of revolutionary armed struggle, the theory of Protracted People's War in semi-feudal and semi-colonial countries, and the continuation of class struggle under socialism. This only corroborates MIM's assessment of the A- APRP in MIM Notes 118, which criticized the A-APRP for cheerleading for all sorts of revisionist and non-revolutionary movements, such as the state- capitalist regimes in the USSR and Cuba and Yasser Arafat's PLO.(1) Revolutionary anti-imperialist movements which do not fully understand the necessity of armed struggle run the risk of capitulating to the enemy like the PLO or FMLN. National liberation movements which do not understand the necessity of continuous revolution and the development of socialism run the risk of becoming neocolonies (this is a particularly pressing question in the case of Eritrea.) Socialist movements which do not understand that class struggle continues under socialism run the risk of capitalist restoration, which can lead to state capitalism (as in the USSR and China) or neo- colonial domination (as in the case of Cuba during the 70s and 80s).(2) But the letter goes even further than just denying the correctness of Maoism; it implies that because Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Stalin were european and Mao was Chinese, they have nothing to say to Black revolutionaries, African revolutionaries, Mohawk revolutionaries, or Mexican revolutionaries. This is an unscientific standpoint which judges what is said by who is saying it. The hydrogen atom has one electron, regardless of whether Margaret Thatcher or Kwame Nkrumah says so. The science of revolution demands that we investigate the content of what is said and test it against reality before accepting or rejecting it -- we cannot afford the luxury of making ad hominum arguments. The letter's flippant dismissal of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism as the narrow view of a few individuals is a sign of laziness and lack of investigation. For one thing, Mao himself went to great lengths to explain that the universal aspects of theory have to be creatively applied to concrete reality of every society, e.g. it wouldn't do just to copy the Bolsheviks tactics in the Chinese countryside. MIM has written extensively about this, and reprints an anti-dogmatist quote from Mao on page two of every MIM Notes. Furthermore: the proof of the pudding is in the eating. Marxist-Leninists and Maoists led the two most successful struggles for socialism the world has seen so far and at one point led more than one- third of all the people on the planet towards communism. The experience of the Chinese revolution alone encompassed several nationalities and many different concrete situations, from land reform and guerrilla warfare in the countryside to strikes and rebellion in the cities. Revolutionaries in India, Azania, Vietnam, Eritrea, Turkey, Peru, and the Philippines have studied and used Mao Zedong's theories to lead successful anti- imperialist struggles. The combined practice and thought of these revolutionaries from many societies assure that Marxism-Leninism-Maoism is indeed not the property of one "racial" or cultural milieu (that is, cultural atmosphere). MIM has more unity with the Ture quote at the beginning of the letter than with the letter writer. Ture recognizes that scientific truth exists, and encourages people to learn from other cultures in order to master it. The letter writer turns Ture on his head and essentially argues that African revolutionaries cannot learn from "euros" or "Asians." NOTES: 1. "African Liberation Day 1995" pamphlet, published by the A-APRP. 2. See MIM Theory #4 for a review of how Soviet social imperialism came to dominate Cuba and see MIM Theory #10 for an essay describing how the Soviet social imperialists used the Cuban military as a tool to strengthen their control of Angola. * * * SHAM PEACE PROCESS EXPOSED AS ISRAEL OPENS FIRE ON PALESTINIANS by MC12 September 30 -- Palestinian national rage exploded at the end of September, as the Israeli government added aggressive insult to neo-colonial injury. In two days of violent clashes that followed the Israelis' opening of the Western Wall Tunnel on September 23rd, 76 Palestinians and 14 Israelis were killed -- most of the Palestinians were civilians and the most Israelis were soldiers. Another 1,100 Palestinians and 62 Israelis were injured.(1) The Israelis' aggression in opening the tunnel, and their extreme military reaction to the protests that followed, revealed the true bankruptcy of the "peace" process through which Israel and Amerika have hoped to pacify Palestinian national ambitions. Israel moved all over so-called "Palestinian autonomous" territory, using tanks and helicopters among other heavy weapons. By September 29th, they completely sealed off all West Bank towns, blocking even medical supplies and doctors from entering. Tanks and armored personnel carriers were placed at all entrances to West Bank villages and the Gaza Strip, and Israeli sharp shooters were positioned at 'tense points' in the territories.(1) After the clampdown, the Israeli military issued an order banning all journalists from entering Palestinian areas.(2) So much for "autonomy." The violence began when Israeli soldiers attacked protesters opposed to the opening of the tunnel, which runs alongside the third-most holy Islamic site, Haram al-Sharif. At the first protest, eight people were hospitalized, including the Minister of Religious Affairs for the Palestinian National Authority. Palestinian students were among the leaders of the protests. In Ramallah, about one- third of those treated at the hospital were students from Birziet University. Other students protesting were from Bethlehem University.(1) ISRAEL BRUTALLY ATTACKS PALESTINIANS On September 25th, Israeli soldiers entered supposedly Palestinian-controlled territory in pursuit of demonstrators and Palestinian Authority (PA) police, firing live ammunition. In Jerusalem, injured Palestinians included the PA finance minister, the minister of religious affairs, and council members. On September 26th, PA President Yasser Arafat said publicly that PA police should only fire in self-defense or to protect civilians.(1) And there was a lot of defending to do. In Ramallah, where PA police fired on Israeli troops, Israel launched helicopter raids into PA territory. Helicopters fired machine guns into crowds of demonstrators and onlookers. That afternoon, Israel sent tanks and armored cars. By that point PA police started trying to hold back demonstrators in an apparent attempt to limit their casualties.(1) In the attacks, the director of the Union of Palestinian Medical Relief Committees, Dr. Mustafa Barghouthi, was shot three times by Israeli snipers while administering first aid.(1) Two international medical relief agencies, Doctors of the World and Medicins du Monde-Suisse, accused the Zionists' army of attacking and harassing its medical personnel.(3) In Jeruslaem, a Palestine Human Rights Information Committee employee was clubbed and suffered a fractured elbow as he was transporting a critically injured person on a stretcher to a waiting ambulance.(4) PA Executive Committee member Faisal Husseini was also clubbed and hospitalized in intensive care. Israeli soldiers fired on a Palestinian Broadcasting Corp. car, which overturned causing three injuries.(1) In Gaza, PA police fired on Israeli soldiers who were trying to enter the supposedly autonomous area, and Israeli helicopters fired at civilians apparently at random.(1) PROTESTS SPREAD AGAINST ISRAELI AGGRESSION More than 500 Christians also protested the opening of the tunnel, but Israeli police kept Palestinian protesters from joining them.(5) Students in Cairo, Egypt and Amman, Jordan, held large protests in solidarity with the Palestinian protesters.(3) Thousands of Palestinians demonstrated in refugee camps across Lebanon to protest the killing of Palestinians.(6) In Gaza City about 5,000 high school students chanted "Death to the criminal [Prime Minister Binyamin] Netanyahu," and burned an Israeli flag.(7) While the demonstrations were aimed at Israel and its aggression, MIM was glad to see the comment from the Khartoum-based Popular Arab and Islamic Conference, which said: "The United States bears the biggest blame and responsibility because, if not for its political and military backing and its strategic pact, Israel would not have perpetrated the massacres."(3) MIM has long argued that without imperialist backing Zionism would be a much less harmful movement. Israeli government officials blamed all the violence on Palestinian incitement. Arafat called for demonstrations and a strike in response to the tunnel opening, but it's clear the Israeli government was itching for a fight, which they knew the tunnel opening would provoke. The government tried to use the violence as evidence that Palestinians are to blame for the collapse of the "peace" process, as the Mayor of Jerusalem told Nightline that "they [Palestinians] have to stop shooting innocent people" before negotiations could resume.(8) That matched the comment of Occupation commander Maj.-Gen. Uzi Dayan, who said, "We are doing our utmost to restore calm to the area."(7) Those comments were at stark odds with the facts, even as reported by one Washington Post reporter in Gaza: "With no warning and in the absence of any apparent threat from the young men gathered in a sandy alley -- without visible weapons of involvement in the exchange of gunfire -- the [Israeli] helicopter opened fire ... a young man several feet away clutched his forehead with both hand and fell to his knees, his face a mask of crimson."(9) PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY CAUGHT IN THE MIDDLE Under Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organization, the PA has been trying to establish real neocolonialism in Israel's occupied territories. But now even the slim trappings of symbolic "self"- rule are exposed as a sham. To their credit, PA police stood up for Palestinians against the Israelis in many incidents, and they seem to have won some prestige from that effort. But the futility of a "peace" process that has required almost total Palestinian surrender was made clear for all to see. Nothing made this more clear than word that Arafat would crawl to Washington to talk "peace" even as Israel extended its military occupation to its highest levels in decades, affecting a complete closure under martial law and restricting all movement. President Clinton called for a top-level meeting to get the "peace" process back on track. Some Palestinian leaders claim to believe the process will lead to an independent Palestinian state, which has never appeared likely. But even if it did, a state born out of compromise from a position of weakness -- and under the direction of Amerikan imperialism and the agents of the international banking agencies -- would offer not national liberation but the continuation of colonial domination in only slightly altered form. These incidents have shown the continued Palestinian determination to achieve national liberation, even as they exposed the sham of their neocolonial leaders' efforts on their behalf. NOTES: 1. Hanan Elmasu (Asst. Director, Birzeit University Continuing Education Department), "Overview of the Developments, Wednesday 25th - Sunday 29th September 1996." (See http://www.birziet.edu) 2. Alternative Information Center press release, Sept. 30, 1996. (See http://www.aic.org) 3. Al Akhbar Muslim World News, Sept. 29, 1996. (See http://www.iap.org) 4. Palestine Human Rights Information Committee "Appeal," Sept. 27, 1996. 5. Al Akhbar Muslim World News, Sept. 30, 1996. (See http://www.iap.org) 6. Al Akhbar Muslim World News, Sept. 28, 1996. (See http://www.iap.org) 7. Jerusalem Post, Sept. 27, 1996. 8. ABC News Nightline Sept. 26, 1996. 9. Washington Post, Sept. 28, 1996, p. A1. * * * CHINA'S CAPITALIST-ROADERS DANCE WITH AMERIKAN IMPERIALISTS: LEGACY OF THE COUNTER-REVOLUTIONARY COUP by MC45 On the 20-year anniversary of the counter- revolutionary coup which installed the revisionist government still in power in China today, MIM Notes recalls the nature of and the reasons for this coup and takes a brief look at evidence of and effects of this coup in China in October 1996. News about China in the past month has centered on meetings between representatives of the Chinese foreign ministry and the Amerikan state department. China's Vice-Premier Qian Qichen has been having frequent meetings with Amerikan Secretary of State Warren Christopher, in search of an agreement with the United Snakes that will include renewing China's Most Favored Nation (MFN) trade status with the United Snakes.(1) To win MFN status from Amerika, China has to conduct talks with Amerikan officials and submit to Amerikan scrutiny of internal Chinese policies. The Amerikan agenda with China in these talks includes three main demands: that China release political prisoners; give non-Chinese officials access to China's prisons and improve conditions in Tibet.(1) The United Snakes has also accused China of exporting nuclear weapons to Pakistan, in violation of non-nuclear proliferation agreements. The Chinese Foreign Minister denied publicly that China had supplied missiles to Pakistan.(1) Qian also said that the issue of Chinese aid to Pakistan was resolved.(2) MIM does not support the revisionist Chinese regime's practices in regard to prisoners. We do not defend the state capitalists against Amerikan interference because the phony socialists are in league with Amerikan imperialism, not subject to it. We do cry out against U.S. imperialism in China as it oppresses the Chinese people, and we point to the extent of Amerikan involvement in Chinese affairs as a demonstration of the corrupt nature of the Chinese regime. Concern with economic favors from the United Snakes and a lack of concern with Chinese self-sufficiency characterize Chinese revisionism, which cares more about the supposed expediency of trade than about building a healthy national economy. MIM does not share the priorities of the Free Tibet movement in Amerika and internationally, as this movement is calling for reinstallation of the Dalai Lama-chief religious feudal figure and exploiter of the Tibetan masses prior to 1950. MIM recognizes the advances made in Tibetan economy and culture since the beginning of feudal reform in 1951 and the abolition of serfdom in Tibet in 1959. So while we do not support the Deng Xiaoping regime's oppression of Tibetans, it would be naïve and reactionary to support the return of feudalism under the Dalai Lama as a means of liberating Tibet.(4) The counter-revolutionary coup was the capitalist roaders' climactic blow in the two-line struggle between socialism and revisionism that formed the center of China's Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. The principal objective of the Cultural Revolution was to encourage and train the masses of Chinese people to seize political power and leadership and to become the masters of Chinese politics and economy. Those who opposed this did so for the purpose of retaining their own positions of power. This was the crux of the two-line struggle in Cultural Revolution China. We must understand the coup in light of this struggle or risk making liberal errors in the face of revisionism. It is very important to understand the coup as the outgrowth of two-line struggle, because this is the only Communist explanation of what happened in China following Mao's death. Maoism teaches us that under socialism, a new bourgeoisie will arise within the Communist party on the basis of this class's relationship to the means of production under socialism. This bourgeoisie can then use the political apparatus of the Communist party and the socialist state to protect its class position. For example, some early Red Guards in China were children of high party officials, and would direct their political campaigns in such a way as to shield their parents from criticism.(3) The individuals who engineered the arrest of the so-called Gang of Four and seized state power in October 1976 were the new bourgeoisie that arose in revolutionary China-capitalist roaders, state capitalists, phony socialists. These people could not win a victory for capitalism over socialism while Mao was still alive, although they did try both before and during the Cultural Revolution. Unable to win sufficient political support for their reactionary policies, they won their victory by force after Mao was dead.(3) Genuine socialists the world over recognize today's Chinese government as an impostor in the name of socialism. The international proletariat is also well aware that this sham government is no friend of the people. True Communists and the international proletariat are looking forward to the day when these phonies building capitalism in China behind a thin veneer of socialism will be knocked from power and a genuine communist party will again seize power in the interests of the people. ***MIM distributes a variety of books on the subjects of revolution and counter-revolution in China, send $2 to the address on page 2 for a literature list.*** NOTES: 1. South China Morning Post 27 September 1996, p. 11. 2. Los Angeles Times 26 September 1996, p. A4. 3. H. Park, The Political Economy of Counter- Revolution in China. (Order a copy of this 200+ page book which covers the heightened division of labor, industry and agriculture, and other important aspects of counter-revolutionary Chinese political economy from the address on page 2 for $10.) 4. MIM Theory 8: The Anarchist Ideal Communist Revolution 1995, p. 92-5. (This and other issues of MIM Theory are available from the address on page 2 for $6.) * * * UNITY OF AMERIKA WITH ITS ARISTOCRACIES: NO MORE IMMIGRANTS Liberal pseudo-feminist Dianne Feinstein Senator from California and former San Francisco mayor criticized President Clinton for not being anti- immigrant enough. She wants a bill passed that allows deportation of legal immigrants if they use more than a year of any government service, including English classes and Medicaid. The same law establishes income guidelines for admission of immigrant families.(1) While Diane Feinstein has the love of the gender aristocracy Senator Ted Kennedy has the love of the labor aristocracy. Organized labor made the difference in his 1994 campaign and now he offers imperialism with a labor aristocracy face. In the last major funding bill of the Congress that passed 370-37, Kennedy found himself "disappointed that Republicans insisted upon softening sanctions on businesses that employ illegal immigrants" in the words of the Boston Globe.(2) Kennedy has put his finger on the lynchpin of the whole system: Amerikan workers are separated from the international proletariat only by the illegality of employing the international proletariat in the united states at going wages. In this way, spokespeople for the labor aristocracy like Kennedy can arouse anti-immigrant chauvinism by appealing to the labor aristocracy's class interests to be kept as first in line at the feeding trough. NOTES: 1. New York Times 27 September, 1996, p. 23. 2. Boston Globe 29 September, 1996, p. 2. * * * OBITUARY: TUPAC SHAKUR by MC49 Rap artist Tupac Shakur (AKA 2Pac) died on August 13th, six days after being shot four times in a car-to-car shooting in Las Vegas. The imperialist press described Shakur as being "known for songs of violence" and wrote that "Shakur often boasted of his 'gangsta' ties and had the words 'Thug Life' tattooed across his abdomen."(1) The Los Angeles Times also ran a sidebar headlined "Rap Violence" next to an article about Shakur.(2) Blaming the victim, imperialist lackey Jesse Jackson said of Shakur, "Sometimes the lure of violent culture is so magnetic that even when one overcomes it with material success, it continues to call. He couldn't break the cycle."(3) Furthermore, the imperialist press is doing its best not to let people know about Shakur's more political statements and lyrics. One quote from Shakur sums up the tension between his lumpen gangster side and his proletarian revolutionary side, while also serving as an answer to the hypocritical rulers and lackeys who point their fingers at imperialism's creations: "I'm a product of this society....You know, I'm a revolutionary. I'm straight thuggin' out here. Thuggin' against society. Thuggin' against the system that made me."(4) MIM does not agree with Shakur's equation of "thuggin'" and revolutionary activism. MIM's enemy, furthermore, is not society. We seek to unite all the elements of society which can be united against imperialism, capitalism, and patriarchy -- principally imperialism at this time. While Shakur had his lumpen "gangsta" side, he also had a self-critical take on his role in it. "'This thug life stuff, it was just ignorance,' Shakur said in an interview last year with Vibe Magazine. 'My intentions was always in the right place...I'm going to show people my true intentions and my true heart. I'm going to show them the man that my mother raised.'"(2) In 1971, Afeni Shakur, Tupac's mother, was one of the "Panther 21" defendants falsely accused of a bombing conspiracy. As a result, Tupac was in literally in prison before he was born.(3) His mother was in prison for years for the crime of being anti-imperialist. The son that his mother raised would be a revolutionary son who would fight imperialism on the side of the oppressed people of the world. The best answers to Shakur's self-righteous critics can be found in his lyrics. In that spirit, some of his best are excerpted here. VIOLENT (1991) They claim that I'm violent Just 'cause I refuse to be silent These hypocrites are having fits 'Cause I'm not buying it, defying it Envious, because I will rebel against Any oppressor, and this is known as self-defense ... I told'em fight back, attack on society If this is violence, then violent's what I gotta be If you investigate, you'll find out where it's coming from Look through our history; Amerika's the violent one Unlock my brain, break the chains of your misery It's time to pay back for evil shit you did to me They call me militant and racist cause I won't resist You wanna censor something? Motherfucker, censor this! My words are weapons, and i'm steppin' to the sirens Waking up the masses But you Claim that i'm violent ... WORDS OF WISDOM (1991) Killing us one by one In one way or another Amerika will find a way to eliminate the problem One by one The problem is the troublesome Black youth of the ghetto And one by one We are being wiped off the face of this earth At an extremely alarming rate And even more alarming is the fact That we are not fighting back ... This is for the masses The lower classes The ones you left out Jobs were given, Better livin' But we were kept out Made to feel inferior But we're superior Break the chains In our brains That made us fear ya' Pledge allegiance to a flag that neglects us Honor a man that refused to respect us Emancipation, proclamation, please! Lincoln just said that to save the nation These are lies that we all accepted "Say no to drugs", But the government's kept it Running through our community, Killing the unity (5) The war on drugs is a war on you and me And yet they say this is "the home of the free" But if you ask me its all about hypocrisy The Constitution, yo, it don't apply to me and Lady Liberty, stupid [sexist epithet deleted -- MIM] lied to me Steady strong nobody's gonna like what I pumpin' But its wrong to keeping someone from learning something So get up, its time to start nation-building I'm fed up, we gotta start teaching children That they can be all that they want to be There's much more to life than just poverty This is definitely words of wisdom I charge you with the crime of rape, murder, and assault For suppressing and punishing my people I charge you with robbery for robbing me of my history I charge you with false imprisonment for keeping me Trapped in the projects And the jury finds you guilty on all accounts And you are to serve the consequences for your evil schemes Prosecutor, do you have any more evidence? ... On with the knowledge of the place we've been No one will ever oppress this race again No Malcolm X in my history text Why is that? 'Cause he tried to educate and liberate all blacks Why is Martin Luther King in my book each week? He told Blacks, if they get smacked, turn the other cheek I don't get it, so many questions went through my mind I get sweated, They act as if asking questions is a crime But forget it, 'cause one day I'm gonna prove them wrong ... The Amerikan dream, though it seems like its attainable They're pulling your sleeve, don't believe 'Cause it will strangle ya' ... Thought they had us beaten when they took out King But the battle ain't over till the Black man sings Words of Wisdom NIGHTMARE--that's what I am Amerika's nightmare I am what you made me The hate and the evil that you gave me I shine of a reminder of what you have done to my people For four hundred plus years You should be scared You should be running You should be trying to silence me But you can not escape fate Well it is my turn to come Just as you rose you shall fall By my hands Amerika, You reap what you sow 2pacalypse--Amerika's Nightmare Ice Cube and Da Lench Mob--Amerika's Nightmare Above the Law--Amerika's Nightmare Paris--Amerika's Nightmare Public Enemy--Amerika's Nightmare Krs-One--Amerika's Nightmare New Afrikan Panthers--Amerika's Nightmare Mutulu Shakur--Amerika's Nightmare Geronimo Pratt--Amerika's Nightmare Assata Shakur--Amerika's Nightmare MIM notes the passing of Tupac Shakur with sadness, and encourages his fans to work with us to follow through on the revolutionary, proletarian aspects of his message. NOTES: 1. Los Angeles Times, 14 September, 1996, pp. A1, A18. Also in Los Angeles Times, 9 September, 1996, p. A1: "the rap star known for the violence in his lyrics and his life". 2. Los Angeles Times, 9 September, 1996, p. A16. 3. Los Angeles Times, 14 September, 1996, p. A18. 4. Spin, date unknown (approx. 1995), p.44. 5. Shakur was completely correct on this point. See MIM Notes article in this issue. * * * FIRST NATIONS DON'T NEED WHITE NATION COPS A Seneca nation gas station has abandoned Mobil Oil as its gasoline wholesaler. As MIM Notes reported before, the usually anti-tax, pro- "free enterprise" Mobil took a different tack with the Senecas by backing up New York State's efforts to tax the Senecas before New York State even had any tax rulings by the courts on its side. The new gasoline distributor does not attempt to collect the New York tax. A local conflict on Onondaga territory appears to have been settled decisively in favor of the chiefs and/or the people backing them up depending on one's perspective. In any case, the gas station that formerly refused to pay taxes to the tribe without "accountability" has been shut down and its buildings and pumps destroyed as evidenced by MIM's recent visit. Whether the action was right or wrong, it shows that the issue can be settled within the Onondaga people and the white man's police force can be held at bay for issues involving considerable property. According to one woman working at a store paying taxes to the tribe that we interviewed "the people shut them down and the chiefs backed them up." According to the Onondaga Nation Council of Chiefs in their June 9, 1994 press release, it is possible that the owners were the ones who burned down the property because the Chiefs had shut down the business and two others for not paying Nation taxes. The same press release says that Kenneth Papineau of the Onondaga sought an alliance with the white man by going to the New York State Supreme Court and federal court where he lost both places. The Justice Dept. filed an amicus brief supporting the Chief's compact with the white man's local police which respected Onondaga rights at least up to this point. If it is true that Papineau went to court claiming he was a New York citizen, MIM does not support him. The Chiefs have also claimed that an Iroquois Businessman's Association Papineau was involved in has a stated goal of overthrowing traditional government to replace it with an elected Bureau of Indian Affairs government with the object of controlling Indian lands. MIM believes that there may well be legitimate gripes that business organizations have with their traditional government, but going to the white man to set up new governments is not the way to go. For further information for the chiefs' side of the story, Onondaga Nation, Council of Chiefs, Box 200, Nedrow, NY 13120 We also interviewed proponents of the other side and we found both sides convincing. It is a difficult struggle, but we had not been aware of these claims about sovereignty by the chiefs before. * * * IMPERIALISM = SICKNESS, HUNGER, AND DEATH by MC206 A World Health Organization (WHO) report released September 25th shows that scientists are developing vaccines which could save the lives of millions of children each year, but the vaccines will be too expensive for children living in oppressed nations.(1) New vaccines for hepatitis B and yellow fever already exist but are not readily available in the Third World. Vaccines for rotavirus, shigella, dengue and meningitis are expected soon.(2) The new vaccines are expected to cost $10 per dose, as compared to $1 per dose for the old vaccines.(1) The "next generation" of vaccines is based on molecular biology technology which is currently controlled by first world pharmaceutical companies -- i.e. capitalists and imperialists. The report also suggests that the vaccines developed in the first world may not be as effective in the third world because the diseases vary from location to location.(2) According to Reuters news agency, 2 million children under the age of 12 die from diseases that could be prevented by existing (cheap) vaccines.(2) This enraging situation is typical of capitalism, which arranges production and investment according to profit, not need, and imperialism, which drains the resources of oppressed nations to fuel the capitalist economy "at home." Even assuming the $10 per dose cost represents the actual cost (and not the pharmaceutical companies' profit margin), third world nations would be able to afford these vaccines for their children if they were not oppressed by imperialism and could keep the value produced by their workers and use their natural resources to benefit their people. Furthermore, under socialism, scientists would not just study the diseases which effect rich people as often happens under capitalism, since the rich are the ones who can afford to pay for medical treatment. Overall, 14 million children die each year of malnutrition and preventable diseases, such as cholera. Cholera is both cheap to treat and easy to prevent, yet cholera epidemics are still frequent occurrences in oppressed nations. Despite the claims of the u.s.-Ramos regime in the Philippines to be leading the nation to "newly industrialized country" status, a Cholera epidemic recently broke out in Manila, the largest city in the Philippines. Why? Poverty: poor sanitation, crowded living conditions, and fouled water.(3) MIM points to the People's Republic of China under Mao as an example of what socialism and the struggle for communism can do to advance the health of hundreds of millions of people in a short period. The Chinese government was able to invest in a big way in public health measures, unhampered by capitalist considerations of profit. The socialist government of China was also able to mobilize the masses to participate in health campaigns in a way no capitalist government could, since the government truly represented the interests of the broadest masses. As a result, malnutrition, opium addiction, and sexually transmitted diseases, were virtually eliminated, and the expected lifespan doubled within thirty years. NOTES: 1. National Public Radio, "All Things Considered," 25 September, 1996. 2. Reuters, 25 September, 1996. 3. Public Radio International, "The World," 26 September, 1996. * * * RADICAL VICTORY AS HAWAIIANS SIT OUT BOGUS VOTE When confronted by a state-sponsored vote on state- defined sovereignty, sixty per cent of native Hawaiians who were eligible to vote did not do so. This boycott is a victory for the cause of the Hawaiian people, who must frame the debate in their own terms for it to be legitimate. Hawaiians have never been granted the status of a nation by Amerika and instead are considered "wards of the state". For centuries the Hawaiian people have been struggling to regain self-determination. But this state-sponsored pseudo-plebiscite which asked "Shall the Hawaiian people elect delegates to propose a Native Hawaiian government?" is not an avenue to self-determination. Hawaiians were not given the option of setting up their own government without Amerikan imperialist supervision and control, and those opposing the whole vote were not given an alternative to the "yes" or "no" on the ballot. Because of this, activists both in Hawaii and across the united states, carried out a campaign to convince native Hawaiians to abstain from the vote. (See MIM Notes 119, August 1, 1996 for more on the history of this vote and the imperialists role in it). The results of the voting, which ended August 15th, were delayed past their original September 2nd release due to legal challenges from both the right and the left. On the one hand, reactionaries were protesting that Hawaiians should not get to vote as a nation period. These rightists decried a "race- based" vote as unconstitutional conveniently oblivious to the fact that the Hawaiian people are denied any number of things based on their oppressed-nation status. On the other hand, radicals also wanted the vote nullified because the state-sponsored process interferes with the Hawaiians' right to petition the federal government for sovereignty.(1) These activists had been engaged in grassroots campaigning against the bogus vote on many levels, insisting that Hawaiians must frame their own sovereignty debate and urging the people not to validate the state process by participating. The state spent millions of dollars trying to convince native Hawaiians that their choices were boxed into accepting the state scheme for pseudo- sovereignty or rejecting it altogether. Of those who voted, 73% said "yes." Since this represents hardly a quarter of eligible Hawaiian voters, it is certainly not a mandate for the state process.(2) MIM has supported the Hawaiian struggle for real sovereignty not defined or restricted by the state. MIM supports this continuing struggle as the state implements this vote against the will of the Hawaiian people. True self-determination does not come from the imperialist state. This struggle for self- determination by the Hawaiian nation is an important part of the anti-imperialist struggles throughout the stolen territory called the united states. MIM works to tie these struggles together and lead them in a United Front against imperialism. Only by smashing the imperialist state will we be able to achieve self-determination for all oppressed nations and a system of democracy for the oppressed people: socialism. NOTES: 1. Honolulu Star Bulletin, 11 September, 1996. 2. AP 13 September, 1996. * * * INDIGENOUS SELF-DETERMINATION'S A YEAR-ROUND STRUGGLE On September 25, Dr. Cornel Pewewardy spoke at UMass Amherst about racist imagery of indigenous people in the media. His talk discussed, among other issues, how culture appropriation of indigenous culture is a form of racism. For example Pewewardy, who is Komanche and Kiowa, explained how bonnets, or feathered headdresses, used by some sports teams in promotional materials is an insult to the First Nations. These bonnets are a sign of honor that is earned. But to bestow a bonnet on a random sports player is an insult to the meaning of the bonnets. Pewewardy also spoke about how the "tomahawk chop" performed by fans of one sports team also mocked indigenous culture. He also argued that these cultural manifestations of white supremacy cause psychological damage to young First Nation youth. MIM would avoid this terminology, but agree that teaching the oppressed to hate themselves and their culture is a big part of imperialism's job of crushing the ability to resist. On top of the usual reasons to learn and meet people, RAIL went to this event to distribute flyers announcing "Anti-Columbus Week 1996". The purpose of the week's event is to "build public opinion against imperialist genocide in this hemisphere that has been carried out for the last 504 years." The initiating organizations for the events, of which includes MIM and RAIL, also agreed to recognize the need for national liberation struggles against imperialism. RAIL found many students who were eager to take the flyers and expressed interest in coming to the events. The introduction to Pewewardy 's talk by the Director of the Native American Culture Center on campus, however, contained a lengthy criticism of Anti-Columbus Week and its organizers, although they were not mentioned by name. She explained how she deliberately scheduled Pewewardy 's talk for a month other than October or November. She explained that indigenous people are tokenized and only thought of near Columbus Day and Thanksgiving. In reality, RAIL's line and practice has been quite different than that represented by the director of the Native American Culture Center. The idea for the week was proposed by some anti-imperialist individuals in RAIL circles who uphold an ideology they call "indigenism." The week was and is intended to talk about U.S. imperialism, both within it's borders and beyond. Columbus is a thematic tie in, only. The video "Incident at Oglala" will be shown and a talk about mining and damming rivers on First Nation land will be held. If anything shows that the week is not Columbus- reductionist, the week's main event is a talk about how the Peace Corps is a part of U.S. imperialism. RAIL believes it very important to focus on imperialism as a system and its manifestations today and that is our focus, not a silly demand (as has been raised in the recent past here) about changing the name of the day. RAIL has shown both "Incident at Oglala" and done talks in the past about the hydrological rape of First Nation land within Canadian borders and uranium mining on First Nations land in the Four Corners region within U.S. borders. With the talks especially, we have had a hard time getting people to come to the events despite extensive advertising. If putting the events into a theme week is what it takes to get people to come out and then hopefully get involved (as it appears to be), then so be it. Getting people in the door at the events is progress. Also it should be made clear that this director was invited to participate in the planning of this week soon after the idea was born. She declined to participate or was unable to. We don't know because we didn't hear a response to our letter. To criticize how we went about organizing anti- imperialist activities, when the alternative was no events at all, especially when you were invited to participate, is not progressive at all. * * * EVIL TWIN CANDIDATES FOR MASS. SENATE STAGE DEBATE On September 23, Massachusetts Senator John Kerry (D) debated Governor William Weld (R) in front of 400 suburban high school students. This race for Massachusetts Senate is particularly interesting to MIM because there is even less difference between the candidates than usual, despite the millions being spent in their campaigns to discredit one another. Both men are wealthy former prosecutors and former Ivy league debaters. Their stances on crime is further example that neither candidate is a correct choice for the oppressed. In Massachusetts, MIM and RAIL's campaign against the '96 elections has emphasized the similarity between these two candidates on crime as an example of why there is no real choice in bourgeois elections. At the debate, Kerry explained his "opposition" to the death penalty: "I'm for death by incarceration. ... Throw the key away." Weld responded: "I think death by incarceration is too good for them" referring to those "who commit premeditiated murder." The Boston Globe explained that "Although Weld maintained his signature laid-back campaign style, he seemed perhaps a little less at ease with the audience than did his slimmer opponent. Taxes, crime, welfare and the death penalty are usually not see as easy sells for young audiences." There is good reason for this. Typically, these issues are aimed at getting the settlers riled up before an election. As MIM Notes has explained in other stories, these issues are blown way out of proportion by the settlers and those seeking their votes. For example, the average settler thinks that a very large percentage of the U.S. budget is spent on welfare , whereas a tiny portion is. Within the white nation, it is youth who have the greatest interest in breaking out of imperialist parasitism. Without revolution the great majority of young white people will go on to be like their parents. But as young people they aren't fully tied into the system yet and significant minorities of them can be won over to the proletariat. Of course among 400 hand-picked students for an official government debate is probably one of the last places we would expect to find young people looking to buck the system. Despite the claims of one student quoted in the Globe, MIM would find the exclusive of "urban" students to be significant in controlling their attitude towards the election. An audience more representative of the actual Massachusetts population would have found a number of students, especially from the oppressed nations, that recognize the bankruptcy of trying to decide which identical oppressor you'd like to have. NOTE: Boston Globe 23 September, 1996 p. B1, B4. * * * NATION OF ISLAM PUSHES METAPHYSICS, CRYPTO-PACIFISM CALIFORNIA, 30 September -- Over 30 days later, Louis Farrakhan's prediction has failed to materialize. In mid-August, the leader of the bourgeois nationalist Nation of Islam (NOI) incorrectly predicted that an earthquake would strike California within 30 days and possibly wipe California off the face of the earth. While Farrakhan's statement appears on the surface to be an extreme example of religious metaphysics, Farrakhan was in fact skillfully using metaphysics as a cover for a crypto-pacifist line directed at his followers. Farrakhan's "prediction" was delivered in Inglewood, California by Minister Tony Muhammad, head of NOI's Western region. On August 8, sheriff's deputies evicted NOI officials from NOI's regional headquarters in Inglewood. Said Muhammad, "The wrath of God will show itself in a major earthquake for this attempt to uproot upstanding citizens from their community." Muhammad said the sheriff's deputies roughed up mosque members, removed them from the premises illegally, and arrived as part of a force of 100 pigs, including FBI and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents. Naturally, the largely proletarian NOI rank and file were filled with righteous anger at these government abuses. Since the NOI cultivates an image of itself as a militant Black nationalist organization, the rank and file were doubtless anxious to express their anger in some form of organized protest. But while the national bourgeoisie organizes proletarians under its banner, it hesitates to mobilize the proletariat in a thoroughgoing way against the imperialists. The national bourgeoisie of oppressed nations such as the Black nation is caught in a bind. On the one hand, it wants to exploit its nation's proletariat and in that sense is an enemy of the proletariat. On the other hand, as much as the national bourgeoisie would like to exploit its nation's proletariat, it finds that it is unable to do so, since the imperialists have the upper hand in the competition for access to the labor power of the labor force in question. Thus restricted, the national bourgeoisie seeks to oust the imperialists from its territory or territories. But the national bourgeoisie cannot oust the imperialists without the assistance of other classes. This is why bourgeois nationalist outfits such as the Guomindang in China in its day and like the Nation of Islam in the Black Nation of North America in our day mobilize proletarians under the national banner and against the oppressor nation. At the same time, only the proletariat--the class with nothing to lose but its chains--has an interest in pushing the revolution beyond its national democratic stage into a socialist stage and ultimately toward the stage of communism, a stage of society which marks the end of the domination and oppression of groups by other groups. The national bourgeoisie, in contrast, vacillates in the face of the masses' struggles for justice. It wants to make sure that the masses do not go "too far". Furthermore, the national bourgeoisie is constantly looking to cut a deal with the imperialists. Thus, while the proletariat, through the leadership of its party, should make every effort to bring the national bourgeoisie of the oppressed nation into a united front against imperialism (principally Yankee imperialism, in the North American case), the proletariat and its allies should not be surprised to see the bourgeois nationalist leaders respond to an imperialist attack on the masses with a tall tale about "Allah's (God's) coming vengeance" designed to mislead the angry masses into inaction. This is not the first time that Farrakhan has pulled this crypto-pacifist stunt. When the U.S. war of aggression against the Iraqi people broke out in January 1991, Farrakhan delivered a "warning" about Allah's anger with Amerika, then announced that he was retreating to his mosque. Revolutionary nationalists working with the Nation of Islam should take a close look at the politics of their leadership and work with MIM in the struggle for true liberation of all nations of the world. NOTE: The Los Angeles Times, 17 August, 1996, pp. B3, B8. * * * ORGANIZE AGAINST IMPERIALISM IN THE PHILIPPINES To raise publicity around the revolution in the Philippines and to build support for the campaign against the deportation of Jose Maria Sison, founder of the Communist Party of the Philippines, MIM and RAIL have been holding events about the Philippines in many cities. Some of these events have included showing the movie Green Guerrillas, a documentary about the revolutionary struggle to save the rainforests in Mindinao. In recent months, discussions after this movie have raised questions about the continuing struggle in this region of the Philippines. Made in 1992, the video documents the National Democratic Front's work with the indigenous Moro people of Mindinao to enforce a logging ban on the multinational corporations that are destroying the land and the livelihood of the people. Earlier this year, Nur Misuari, the leader of the Moro National Liberation Front signed an agreement capitulating to the Ramos government in Manila. This peace agreement represented a selling out of the interests of the people of the Philippines because it capitulated to the Ramos-Amerikan terms including agreement to end the armed struggle against imperialism. The MNLF was never a part of the National Democratic Front, the united front led by the Communist Party of the Philippines fighting against imperialism. Misuari is now positioning himself within the Manila government. Meanwhile, the US oil companies are already exploiting the resources of Mindinao and other corporations are positioning themselves to join in the plunder. As Sison made clear in his statement in July of this year, the National Democratic Front will not lay down its guns and armed resistance under their leadership will continue in Mindinao and throughout the Philippines.(1) The NDF entered into peace negotiations with Ramos in 1990, but these negotiations start from principal that the NDF will not lay down its arms and will only be satisfied when imperialism has been dismantled. The NDF declaration regarding the peace talks says a just and liberating peace "can be achieved only through the resolution of the fundamental problems of the Filipino people and their liberation from the plague of imperialism, feudalism and bureaucratic capitalism." The Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) has continued to violate agreements with the NDF over these peace negotiations, arresting CPP negotiators and stalling on proceeding with the talks. On June 16, 1996 these talks began against after the GRP finally released the CPP negotiator. The peace negotiations have been an effective tool for the CPP to expose the reactionary policies of the US-backed GRP while seizing on the masses genuine desire for peace. The attempt to deport Sison back to the Philippines is just one more attempt by the Amerikan government and the GRP to manipulate the peace negotiations by forcing them off of neutral ground while grasping at anything that might weaken the NDF's fight against imperialism. Write to MIM for copies of the petition to grant asylum to Sison and his family and to get involved in this campaign exposing Amerikan imperialism in the Philippines and around the world. NOTES: 1. Jose Maria Sison statement of 17 July, 1996. 2. For more information on the revolution in the Philippines send $2 to order the RAIL pamphlet "Support the National Democratic Front of the Philippines". * * * UNABOMBER FOR PRESIDENT? REVIEW OF ANARCHIST NONSENSE UNAPACK, P.O.Box 120494, Boston, MA 02112 unapack@paranoia.com & NOT Bored!, P.O. Box 1115, Stuyvesant Station, NYC 10009-9998 1-800-707-6398 Two anarchist organizations are running the Unabomber as a write in candidate for president. This campaign is typical of life-style politics anarchists in that it makes putting "life" in our political life" a bigger priority than actually making successful change. The positive side of this campaign is that it is explicitly against the farce of Amerikan elections. Unlike the Workers World party that can't decide whether running candidates "sends a message to the bourgeoisie" or is a realistic way to achieve state power, these anarchists know this won't work. These anarchists recognize that just staying away from the polls is apathy, when what is needed is societal transformation. Therefore, they are running someone(1) who wouldn't serve if elected. In that sense, the Unabomber is the ultimate protest candidate. Anarchists, however, are only interested in talking about a better society. They aren't interested in actually getting there. As Not Bored! writes: "We are confident that others will immediately grasp the humor, irony and appropriateness of casting an absurd protest vote...." While Maoists organize to concretely seize power away from the bourgeoisie, all the anarchists are shooting for is to make an "absurd protest" statement. These anarchists have come up with the perfect plan to escape blame for their failure to end capitalism: Bumper stickers that say "Don't blame me, I voted for the Unabomber." To MIM, that's unacceptable. While MIM isn't promising socialism by November 5, if we don't make progress towards our goals, you sure better blame us. NOTES: 1. For all MIM knows, the Unabomber may or may not be one person. And we certainly don't assume that the person the FBI says is the Unabomber, actually is. Sources from http://www.paranoia.com/unapack, and above campaign addresses. * * * AMERIKAN CULTURE WELCOME TO THE DOLL HOUSE Review by a MIM Comrade This movie is a revealing study of Amerikan adolescence, if not an entirely progressive statement about the oppression of children. The film takes place in a middle-class white suburb somewhere near New York City. The hero, Dawn, is in her first year of junior high school, and she is portrayed as completely oppressed - by her family (in which she is the third favorite out of three children), by her teachers (she gets in trouble when someone else cheats off her test), and by her peers (she is the acknowledged so-called ugliest girl in the school, and is constantly tormented by other students). But the most revealing part of the story is how these oppressive forces combine to pit young people against each other. They all go to the same fascist-type school, which cares not a wit for their real education, they all have the same obnoxious or abusive parents, and so on. And yet the perverse manipulations of the adults lead the kids to torment each other. In one scene, Dawn (known as Weinerdog, from her name Weiner) comes to the aid of a young boy who is being beaten up in the halls. He is charged with being a "faggot". When she comes to his aid, the abused boy tells her to stay away - he would rather take his beating than be associated with her. In the cafeteria, a bunch of other girls come up to Dawn and ask, "Um, we were wondering: Are you a lesbian?" (She is not.) Laughter all around. She denies it, but then the girl across the table stabs her in the back: "Yes she is, she just made a pass at me." Dawn's parents couldn't care less about her. She is sandwiched between her adorable little sister Missy, often seen prancing around the yard in her pink tutu, and her older brother Mark, who has plans to go to college in computer science. When Missy is abducted by a neighbor, who keeps her in the basement, videotaping her naked for a while, Dawn runs away to New York City to find her. After spending the day pounding the pavement and the night sleeping on the street, she calls home, and asks if her parents are upset. "Not really," says Mark. "They found Missy." Her mother can't talk to her because she's in the middle of a TV interview. Presumably to help solve these problems, Dawn wants a boyfriend. She dreams of the studly Steve Rodgers, who's in high school, but she ends up with Brandon, a white trash bully who starts out as her enemy. He pins her against the wall and tells her he'll rape her after school. A custodian interrupts them and the rape is off. But he tells her to show up the next day, and inexplicably, she does. With her at knife-point, they walk to the beat up old mattress he intends to use. But instead of carrying out their consensual rape, they get to talking, and end up in love. That this love is obviously a messed up combination of loneliness, alienation, eroticization of rape, and so on, is a progressive part of the film, ironically. Audiences may want her to get a more "normal" relationship, but in the context of the movie it's clear that the "healthy" relationships are all based on the same things as theirs, even if they are less disturbing. Their relationship is short lived but pivotal. The movie is most effective as a case study in alienation, shot in a fitting, low-budget realistic style. Youth from the oppressor nations are property, playthings for adults, and deposits for genocidal disinformation. When MIM says age is the principal contradiction within the white nation, we mean that young people such as Dawn and her peers are the best bets for revolutionary consciousness, partly because they are not yet dug in to their class, nation and gender positions of privilege, and partly because of the oppressive treatment they receive at the hands of adults. Welcome to the Doll House brings some of this contradiction to light. * * * BOUND produced by Larry and Andy Wachowski The only lesbian film at this years Boston Independent Film Festival provided some excellent examples of gender roles in patriarchy and how they have developed in Amerika. One main character is a butch womyn just out of prison for "redistribution of the wealth" who fixes cars, does plumbing, and has big muscles. The other female lead, Violet, is a delicate, helpless-seeming womyn who is married to a man in the mob. Violet explains early on to Corky that she sees sex with men as a job. Something she does to get what she wants in life, just like Corky used to steal to get what she wanted. We quickly see that the helpless exterior is just an act Violet uses to play the patriarchal game. It works to seduce her new lover, Corky, and it works to get her husband and other men in the Mafia to give her what she wants. That this role playing works on men and wimmin alike speaks to the pervasiveness of the patriarchy in society: lesbian relationships can't escape this. In fact, what men find sexy is often what wimmin find sexy too and the butch/femme role playing is certainly not an escape from the patriarchy, it is just one more manifestation of patriarchal culture. We can't really know what gender will be like without the patriarchy but we can be sure that while we live under the patriarchy no relationship can totally escape it. Because Violet decided she wanted out of the mob life, she shares her intellect and ingenuity with Corky to plot the theft of $2 million from her husband and the rest of the Mafia. And through it all Violet successfully uses her helpless female role to avoid suspicion. This is a great example of patriarchal privilege that goes to wimmin in imperialist countries. Violet is clear that she made the choice to play this role in order to get some things in return: namely wealth. First she did this through her marriage to the mob, then she did it by stealing from the mob. The majority of wimmin in imperialist societies have this kind of choice too. White middle class wimmin often decide to stay in relationships because they are not willing to give up certain privileges that come with the marriage. They could make the choice to go for a straight up career but it is often the case that sex pays better than other jobs and marriage provides a cushier life that makes it a worthwhile tradeoff. The fact that wimmin earn less than men for the same work is a gross product of the patriarchy but not an excuse for saying that wimmin are helpless and without options in imperialist countries. The character Violet was probably among the poorer of white wimmin in this country and she was working in a club (it was implied that she was selling sex in some form) before marrying the mob. But she is very clear about this being a choice and that there were other choices open to her. This is true for wimmin in this country and those who champion the cause of wimmin as if they are totally helpless are doing a disservice to the feminist movement. We need to always be clear that the majority of white wimmin in imperialist countries have employment options and choices about what to do with their lives to be self- sufficient. The decision to depend on a relationship is a choice informed by a gross patriarchal culture that encourages wimmin to view themselves as helpless but the feminist movement can not play into this reactionary culture. For the strength of female characters and the well illustrated lessons in patriarchal culture and role playing, this movie provides an important service to the feminist movement. * * * THE TUSKEEGEE AIRMEN Video Review In spite of a trite ending which focuses this film is in an entirely wrong direction, The Tuskeegee Airmen raises some of the more interesting questions about United Snakes politics in World War II. Loosely based on true stories about the only division of Black fighter pilots in the U.S. Army Air Corps during the war, The Tuskeegee Airmen drives consistently at the contradiction Black pilots faced: struggling for acceptance and recognition for their skills and contributions to the war within a national-chauvinist bureaucracy. The Tuskeegee Airmen shows Black pilots being destroyed by the discrimination they face in the army, and there are many references to Blacks being sent to war as infantry, not as elite pilots and officers. One Black cadet tells a story about his grandfather, a brilliant pilot in World War I who was lynched immediately after returning home from the war. At one point in the film, after he and his flying partner have been snubbed by two white men whose lives they just saved, a Black pilot points out that at least he and his partner were successful in their attack on the German forces that day. MIM agrees with this overall assessment of the Black role in World War II: national oppression within U.S. borders and within the U.S. armed forces was strong even during the war, but in the absence of a Black nationalist army capable of winning liberation from Amerika Nazi Germany was correctly identified as the principal enemy of the Black nation at that time. Unfortunately for The Tuskeegee Airmen, it is constrained by the demands of the HBO viewing audience and ends on a joyous note of how well the Black fighter pilots demonstrated their skill and courage to the white people. The film suggests that in the end, the fact of the Black pilots' unimpeachable evidence is somehow good enough. Anyone who was wondering can now rest assured that HBO has a well and true liberal streak. Liberalism fails to address the question of what Amerika will do with this information about the virtues of Black folk. The imperialists use the oppressed nationals as pawns in imperialist domination and destruction. Though the unity against fascist Germany was correctly chosen, it was most importantly chosen by the Amerikan imperialists. Until national liberation and the ability for nations to self- determine for themselves, the imperialists will continue on in their genocidal dominance over it's internal nations. MIM urges a unification between the colonized nationals within Amerika and the Third world proletariat against the common oppressor, Amerikan imperialism. Only with a movement based on the ideologies of the oppressed can the legacies of Amerikan fascism be over come by the power of the masses. * * * UNDER LOCK AND KEY: NEWS FROM PRISONERS AND PRISONS KEEPING COMRADES TOGETHER IN FLORIDA ...All of my energy has gone in to straining to keep the small faction of comrades from splintering here. The psychological tactics of the agents of this repressive agency are wearing a lot of these guys down. I must keep them from giving up completely and that is a task that is never ending, but one I'm up to. I've been dealing with suicides, guys giving up appeals, etc. Added to this is the constant battle with the counter-revolutionary faction for control of how we are to deal with our enemies and manage to evade the electric chair at the same time. The barrage of nonsense is effecting my brothers mentally so any suggestions would be much welcome.... Remaining Strong -- a Florida Prisoner, 13 August, 1996 TEXAS PIGS MURDER PRISONERS ...In Texas last night, the news openly stated that any TDCJ Guard can murder any inmate. In July 1996, on the Robertson Unit, while in the fields, a Hispanic was shot. He was shot in the head, not in the back but in the front. The papers guess, he was running backwards, for that is the only way he could have been shot as he was. Due to the man not having any family in the United Snakes, no action was taken in this case. This week on another unit, inmates refused to continue to work for free for a private unit. The guards shot unarmed inmates. The guards in the TDCJ and all private units now know that an inmate's life is meaningless to the system. Till we stand as one ... we will continue to die on Price Daniel Unit. The Assistant Warden has made it clear that he will allow White Racists to go unpunished, be it guard or inmate. I stand with [the] few who see no place in this life or any place in the world for this to be allowed to continue. Together we stand strong, apart we die one by one. Brothers, learn and accept, not to accept any less than right and justice. -- a Texas Prisoner, 30 August,1996. STUDY GROUP THRIVES IN THE FACE OF BRUTALITY ...As I stated in my last letter, myself and three other prisoners were locked down because of our study group. Because in our study group we were sharing descriptions of the oppressive and inhumane ways of our keepers. I'm very proud to tell you that I've started a new study group, as of now, seven members and I will not stop my study because of my keepers' hate for the truth nor will I stand for inhumane treatment of those in struggle with me.... ...Since Corrections Commissioner Wayne Garner took office in December, inmates have reported a series of attack by guards during sweeps and searches at state prisons. Prison officials have denied any abuse... Incidents include: Jan. 4: Surprise inspection at Central State Prison in Macon Georgia. Jan. 16: Inmates reported they were beaten during a sweep at Scott State prison in Milledgeville, Georgia. Mid-January: Inmate reports he was forced to strip to his underwear and was handcuffed to a fence in the cold for several hours because he refused to address a guard as "sir". A deputy warden was fired in connection with the incident. One could wonder if the warden was under the impression his Commissioner, Wayne Garner, would approve of his action. Jan. 26: Inmate said he was beaten during a sweep at Wayne State prison in Odum, Georgia.... June: Lawsuit accusing officers of abuse at Autry State prison in Pelham is amended to include a complaint of a 58 year old disabled inmate who was locked down for six weeks then forced into a marching program after formally protesting his punishment for failing to walk four miles for his health. July 3: Inmates report they were beaten during a sweep by riot squad at Hayes State Prison in Trion, Georgia. Squad later sent to Walker State prison in Rick Spring, Georgia, where inmates' heads were shaved and others say they were told to remove their clothes, squat and "walk like a duck". July 16: Four escapees from State Prison said guards beat them after they were captured and then paraded them in from of a window so other prisoners could see their injuries. Commissioner Wayne Garner has begun a reign of terror of psychological abuse of prisoners. In a letter to Deval Patrick, head of the agency's Civil Rights Division, John Cole Vodicka of the prison and jail project said Garner had exhibited "maniacal behavior [that] has set a mean-spirited tone through the Georgia prison system". As a result, many prison guards and wardens "believe they have Carte Blanche permission from on high to ignore, mistreat or brutalize inmates". I call out to every person out there to please come together. Many have loved ones in the state prisons in Georgia. Stop this abuse by a crazy man in a high place. Write to the Department of Justice and request an investigation into this abuse in the state prisons in Georgia.... -- A Georgia Prisoner, 17 August, 1996 FEDERAL CENSORSHIP CASE Dear Comrades, Please renew my subscription to MIM Notes. The last issue I received was #118. Though issue 117 and 118 were selectively denied. They only let certain issues reach my cell. The good news is that the Federal courts will rule around October on the constitutionality of this censorship. My attorney stated [that] it's an open and closed case being [that] the prisoncrats have no penological reason to deny the publications. Thus I should get all post denied issues of MIM Notes if the court rules fairly. There's been a lot of restrictive changes within the last month and once the prisoncrats finish doing their modifications, I will send a chronological calendar of events for MIM Notes... In Struggle. -- an Iowa Prisoner, 28 August, 1996 DEATH BY NEGLECT OF VICTOR BARNES This letter concerns a deceased prisoner named Victor Barnes who's death was caused by neglect. Mr. Barnes arrived at TDCJ-ID wearing a leg brace due to an earlier injury. On April 17, 1995 here at the Hughes Unit, Barnes slipped and fell in the inmate chow hall. He landed on his back and knocked himself unconscious. Since the accident Barnes has severe problems walking and eventually he was completely unable to walk. The administration reacted to Barnes' condition by placing him in (LOP) Loss of all Privileges, also known as special cell restriction for thirty days at a time. ...On October 5, 1995, before I was physically forced into the cell with Barnes, who constantly urinated and defecated on himself and the floor, he [Barnes] told Sergeant Crane that he was in pain. Sgt. Crane then called the infirmary. Nurse D. Cooper and a female nurse answered the call. Both nurses and Sgt. Crane went up to Barnes' cell and stood outside of the cell door for only a second because of the rancid odor escaping Barnes' cell. Nurse Cooper firmly declared that there was nothing wrong with Barnes. Sgt. Crane then made an inmate mop up the water, urine and dissolved feces and there were no disinfectants used. After I was physically forced into the cell, Barnes asked me not to hurt him, and I assured him that I would not. Barnes admitted that he had not taken a shower in about 7 weeks and that medical would not do anything for him. Although I had an injured shoulder, I would drag him to the toilet so that he could either urinate, defecate or bath himself. For four days Major Starkey and Captain Erickson gave orders not to open our cell door. I was denied showers and our sack lunches were pushed beneath the cell door into the cell. Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday morning a nurse would walk the runs to take verbal medical complaints. Barnes would tell the nurse he had blood in his urine and that his stomach, chest, back and legs were hurting . The nurses would say, "Barnes there isn't anything wrong with you." If he was given a medical appointment, security would only say that he refused because they all knew he couldn't walk. The medication aides would refuse to give Barnes his medication because he couldn't get up to get it. They wouldn't give it to me so that I could take it to him. So on many occasions I would drag him from his bunk to the cell door so he could get his medication I filed grievances against Ms. Redden and Ms. Cooper on behalf of Barnes. [Another prisoner] also filed grievances on behalf of Barnes. After I was moved from his cell, Barnes smelled so bad that a person could smell the odor two cell doors away. The medical department still neglected to provide any medical care for Barnes. Barnes had told me about a medical appointment he was awaiting. He was sure if he could have gotten to John Sealy Hospital, he would receive medical attention. His appointment was scheduled for a date in November 1995. However, during November or mid- December, Barnes was taken away by medical staff and security. No one knows if he went to John Sealy Hospital. I filed a civil lawsuit ... because of the excessive use of force and the unsanitary conditions I was forced to live in for 8 days. I expected Barnes to appear as a witness in this case, but I was told by prisoners that Victor Barnes was dead and his body was taken from the unit infirmary. I'm requesting the support and advice from prisoners, outside comrades and any state and local organizations in my quest to see that justice is brought upon those involved in the death by neglect of Victor Barnes. I am sure TDCJ-ID officials told Barnes' family members something about his death but nothing in reference to the truth. Victor Barnes was from San Antonio, Texas, and maybe one of MIM's readers will see this article and pass it on to the Barnes family.... -- a Texas Prisoner, Aug. 29 ,1996 A CALL TO ORGANIZE AFTER ZYION'S EXECUTION There appears to be an awakening at this particular prison (Michigan City). Just recently they, the Pigs, just used lethal injection on my brother, and now they have placed an entire prison on lockdown, until they decide what to do next. Because they already know this comrade was one of the Revolutionary brothers who stood for change, which means the same for the others who may also follow that path. As it stands, nothing is guaranteed, with various new laws which extend prison sentences, 3 strikes, etc. I feel at this point that a discussion should address how do we come about organizing our communication system, by small radio, small TV, as so forth, to establish a link. {This is] to get prepared and ready for our battle, at that breaking point where people are straight up tired of everything, ... about Capitalist running government,... -- a Michigan Prisoner, 16 August, 1996 NATIONAL OPPRESSION IN WISCONSIN Revolutionary Salutes My Comrades I answer your call from the belly of Wisconsin's KKKoncentration KKKamp. I would like to thank our for pushing my brother, Khalfani Khaldun's case to the forefront. I know how oppressive the state of Indiana is and I thought that no state compares to its blatant oppressive ways until I was captured and kidnapped in the state of Wisconsin. This place is truly a large plantation for the poor to till the land. Master Tommy Thompson is a true snake with 2 heads. We have no rights in this KKKamp. The KKKamp has a majority of New Afrikans [prisoners], but there are 4 New Afrikans employed here and they are trained well. If you openly disagree with the system, you are placed in the dungeon. The hearings here are a joke, our so-called rights are trampled upon daily. The sad part is that 98.9% of the population refuse to do anything constructive or anything at all about the conditions here. Brothers complain but refuse to sacrifice. For example, I was in a Afrikan Heritage Group, where our sponsor, a staff member of Afrikan heritage, but not Afrikan ideas. [He] relayed to our group of 25 brothers that the complaint officer stated that she does not waste her time on complaints by New Afrikans about racism because we use that as an excuse. He told us this directly. Me and another brother in the group asked a New Afrikan brother who was well versed in the law to assist us in filing a compliant to the Department of Corrections, which he did. This brother is a solid brother who has received numerous checks from his lawsuits against this racist state. Once the pigs found out about the complaint, which is legal according to the DOC's rules, they asked us who told us that she made this statement. We refused to tell because we didn't have to. The pigs issued a conduct report for lying on staff and disrespect. The so called investigation was so weak. The pigs asked the accused if they made the statement and of course they denied making them. That was the end of the investigation. The New Afrikan staff member who told us even denied he made such a statement. What hurt me is that the Afrikan Heritage Group stated that we should have expected him to deny it and that they couldn't do anything. They refused to stand up for this brother knowing it was wrong. I asked how do you expect for anyone to be a coward? I quit the group and a truly righteous comrade got 90 days segregation. This place is very passive and these brothers are all about gym shoes and being macks, which is about nothing. I long for the day to return to my hometown, to be around my solid comrades. -- a Wisconsin Prisoner, 24 August, 1996 RCG1 Responds: This letter clearly demonstrates how prison officials will use groups, such as the Afrikan Heritage Group, to keep prisoners oppressed. If this study group is led by a prisoncrat staff, then it is not intended to empower people, but control them. That pig staff made that statement about the complaint officer in order to see how prisoners would react. This way he saw who was progressive and set them up to get punished and segregation. The focus should be on examining the oppressive forces of the pigs and how to organize the masses. Not all prisoners are just interested in gym shoes. The solid comrades have to help lead, organize and educate. They must work against the oppressive pig forces and start study groups, letter writing campaigns etc. 30 September, 1996 ARIZONA GOVERNOR AND DOC DIRECTOR ARE THE REAL CRIMINALS ...I would like to update you on the problems we are experiencing in ADOC [Arizona Department of Corrections], but to complain is redundant and prisoners all across the nation are experiencing the oppression of prison authorities. I will talk about the indictment of Fife Symington, the governor of the state of Arizona. As you probably know, he was hit with a twenty-three count indictment by the federal government. I an curious to see how he will fair. The sheep of Arizona have not even risen up to get him out of office. I know back home, I am from Washington D.C., the people don't take that shit. I know you are probably thinking, "What about Marion Berry?". The average person does not know that Mr. Berry was the greatest mayor D.C. ever had. Before he got into office the first time, the city and the poor were suffering drastically. I know there are still problems but no one did it better than him. Getting back to Fife, the feds have charged him using his governor ship to pressure banks into deals that benefit him, lying to the feds in bankruptcy hearings, and the theft of 25 million dollars. He still is in office. There has been a feeble effort to have a recall vote, but they need 200,000 some odd signatures within 120 days. The interesting part of this story is Fife is a staunch advocate on get tough on so-called criminals. Shit he is the biggest criminal of them all. He also was one of the leading advocates of the state's rights issue. Last year his crony, Sam Lewis, the former director of the Department of Corrections, was found in contempt by q federal judge concerning payment to a special master. The special master was appointed to be a liaison between the prisoners and the ADOC.. Lewis and Fife conspired to introduce and push a bill in the state legislature which made it imperative that the state legislature approve any moneys Arizona had to pay the federal government pursuant to fines and the like. As you can imagine the feds shat bricks over that shit and swift action was taken to negate the state's action. After the contempt charge, he resigned a month later. Anyway, I know the feds have not forgotten Fife's enthusiasm for state's rights. I do not want to see anyone go to prison, but Fife is an exception. He has made life in this DOC a living hell. like he promised. There has been numerous uprisings behind the policies he and his cronies have implemented. They don't want the public to know, usually it was leaked to the press that it was racial tension that caused the uprisings, but most of the times that was not the case. Fife has used the incarcerated as his whipping boys and treated us like shit. I guess he never knew he might be facing prison one day. That is the problem with the average Joe on the street. Any person is just an arrest away from being sent to prison, unless you have money. Then you can just about get out of anything. Unfortunately, Fife is not coming to ADOC. The feds got him. The state did not have the balls to get him even though the writing was on the wall. Hopefully the feds will remember the song and dance Fife gave the public concerning state's rights and send his add to a fed penitentiary of FCI [Federal Corrections Institution]. But knowing the system, he will probably go to camp for a few months. Don't get me wrong,, I hold no torch for the feds.. They can kiss my ass too.. But people like Fife need a taste of the medicine he has concocted. Please continue the good work your organization is doing. Please keep me apprised of your work and the positive work of others by keeping me on your mailing list. Thank you. -- an Arizona Prisoner, 9 August, 1996 MICHIGAN DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS CORRUPTION The Michigan Department of Corrections (MDOC) has been rocked with some scandals of Corrections Officers' (C.O.) questionable conduct. In the month of July 1996, MDOC, C.O. Giles, (a black female pig) was accused of shooting her gun at another MDOC employee off duty. This was regarding another female MDOC employee (who works with Ms. Giles at the E.C. Brooks Correctional Facility in Muskegon, Michigan) for allegedly having an affair with her "man" (who is also an employee for the MDOC and who works at the same facility.) As of this writing Ms. Giles is laid off work, pending investigation. On August 4, 11996, C.O. Vines (a black female pig) was caught in the room of another prisoner with her pants down. A fellow "white" employee, C.O. Anderson , is the one who discovered this incident. C.O. Vine was taken up to the Control Center and off the prison grounds. The prisoner was subsequently taken to the "hole". It has been reported that other incidents have taken place at this facility, since it opened in 1989. Example: an officer was forcing prisoners to allow him to perform oral sex on them, or he would write them major misconduct reports. Eventually this officer was caught and fired, and all the misconduct reports the officer had written were pulled. Also, officers at this facility have been busted bringing drugs into prisoners and also fired. The corruption that takes place within the MDOC is widespread and often covered up and shielded from the general public's ears. The MDOC is very powerful and has a lot of pull with local news agencies whereby the news of their acts aren't readily reported. The recent events will be monitored and reported as more information is gathered. In the trenches... -- a Michigan Prisoner, 14 August, 1996 KANSAS CENSORS MIM NOTES I received the first paper that you [sent]. It was refreshing! Unfortunately the second wasn't allowed in. They'll refuse each and every one. The reason, part of it was written in a language other then English. While I know this isn't the real reason, the military penal system is far worse than the normal, and has unlimited resources! Continue to carry forth the word to the masses and I wish you the best in your endeavors. -- a Kansas Prisoner, 9 August, 1996. ***WHAT NON-PRISONERS CAN DO TO SUPPORT PRISONERS*** *1. Struggle with, work with, finance and join MIM. The best way to support prisoners is to overthrow the system under which capitalists profit from the exploitation of prisoners. History shows that the best way to do this is to build a Marxist-Leninist- Maoist party. The oppressors will not give up their power without a fight. *2. Finance MIM's prison work. Our biggest bill each month is postage. Most of the prison comrades who read MIM Notes have no way of paying for it. So if you have money, send what you can afford. Every cent helps, and stamps are as good as cash to us. *3. Distribute MIM Notes and Notas Rojas. Bring the voices of prisoners and their supporters to as large and wide an audience of people as possible. Contact MIM for bulk rates and distribution tips. *4. Start or join a prison support group. MIM can provide advice and resources to help you build public opinion for prisoners and their struggles. *5. Fight censorship, beatings, torture and other fascist outrages. Under Lock and Key often features the addresses of prisoners' friends and enemies. Work with the friends and let the enemies know you're watching. (Don't expect to win the fascists to the side of humanity, however. See #1 in this list). *6. Stay in touch. Keep us informed of pro-prisoner work you do. Our readers might find it educational or inspirational. ***WHAT PRISONERS CAN DO TO BUILD MIM*** *1. Start a study group. This is the best way to share materials and ideas. In groups, prisoners can better benefit from the limited resources MIM has. *2. Get MIM Notes and MIM Theory into your library. This allows one copy of the paper to be seen by many comrades. *3. Contact people on the outside. MIM needs comrades and allies everywhere. Maybe you know people on the outside who want to subscribe to MIM Notes or distribute it. *4. Share materials. If MIM sends books or periodicals, please make sure that as many people as possible get a chance to read them. *5. Write MIM at least every three months. Otherwise, you will be dropped from our mailing list. There are many cases where your keepers throw out MIM Notes, so we need to know that you actually get it. Also, comrades are moved around a lot, especially those who are known to be political. Please let us know of any address changes as soon as you know them. *6. Make MIM Distributors an official distributor. Many prisons require registration before MIM can send books or other materials. Usually we can comply with these bogus rules. It helps immensely to have someone there do the reasearch and send us the proper forms. *7. Send money or stamps. Our biggest bill each month is postage. Most of the prison comrades who read MIM Notes have no way of paying for it. So if you have money, send what you can afford. Every cent helps, and stamps are as good as cash to us. Please make all checks payable to "MIM Distributors." *8. Write for MIM Notes or Notas Rojas. Prisoners write almost all of Under Lock & Key. We don't care if you know how to spell or write good English or Spanish. Write on any topic you like, it does not have to be a prison story. *9. Translate. If you can read and write English and another language fluently, let us know. Any translation work you do will help us make Maoist ideas accessible to more people. *10. Fight censorship. When you know of censorship of books or newspapers, investigate. Write to MIM to confirm what has happened, then see what you can do about it. *11. Keep in touch after your release. Many comrades stop doing political work after their release. Write to MIM as soon as you know where you'll be so we can hook you up with comrades on the outside.