This is an archive of the former website of the Maoist Internationalist Movement, which was run by the now defunct Maoist Internationalist Party - Amerika. The MIM now consists of many independent cells, many of which have their own indendendent organs both online and off. MIM(Prisons) serves these documents as a service to and reference for the anti-imperialist movement worldwide.
People for the West!
PO Box 4345
Pueblo, CO 81003

reviewed by MC5 of the Maoist Internationalist Movement, PO Box 3576,
Ann Arbor, MI 48106-3576

People for the West! (PftW) is a reactionary anti-Green publication. We
reviewed the September, 1994 issue and have the impression it's something
the mining corporations have funded to fight against preservationists and
others that prevent them from raping the land for profit.

There is no doubt that the People for the West! is a very Amerikan
publication defending as it boasts on the cover, "Miners, Ranchers,
Loggers, Oilmen and Sportsmen." Many European imperialist countries can't
have substantial contingents of ranchers and loggers, so in this sense,
this publication is especially Amerikan.

The conflict between the Greens and the People of the West! is a conflict
between ineffectual people with good ideals on the one hand and
representatives of backward classes on the other. People for the West!
characterizes it this way: "When the Green utopia collides with the
reality of working men and women." (p. 2)

Instead of arguing for retraining and jobs programs for workers caught in
occupations dangerous to the environment, People for the West! argues nakedly
for pursuit of profit wherever it can be found: environment be damned if
need be. In Amerika, where the "workers" in general do not face
starvation, MIM does not have any sympathy for the People of the West!
position.

Rather, it is proof of a certain kind of pro-capitalist position
which is obviously destructive. These hard-core believers of Adam
Smith type capitalism believe if something is profitable, it must
be good to produce.

Whatever the Greens are for, the PftW is generally against. PftW helped
delay ratification of the Biodiversity Treaty on August 8th in the Senate.
(p. 7) It opposed cutbacks in the federal Forest Service timber sale. (p.
6) It pissed on GM with its "Bull Chip Award" for giving $1 million to the
National Fish & Wildlife Foundation." On the other hand, it supports
Congressperson Billy Tauzin (D-LA) who has proposed "Property Bill of
Rights, HR-3875, a measure that would make government compensate owners
whose property values decline by 50 percent or more because of federal
regulations. The bill already has 156 cosponsors." (p. 14) This article
called "Property Bill of Rights for landowners" alone is a real political
education for environmentalists on why they have to be communists.

A front page story on byzantine wrangling in Congress over mining
demonstrates that People for the West! believes Amerikans should have the
right to destroy other people's health in the pursuit of profit and "free
enterprise"--something conservative Liberals like Reagan support against
"environmentalists." According to PftW: "Water quality standards have been
hotly contested" in the mining legislation before Congress. PftW also
unwittingly revealed capitalism's failure with the following discussion of
the mining issue in Congress: "Operation & reclamation standards: While
the CM [a proposal up for negotiation--MC5] stresses that the Interior
Secretary's 'discretion' be limited by the BTCA (Best Technology Currently
Available = the concepts of economic feasibility and practicality) the
House deleted the requirement that BTCA be 'economically' feasible." (p.
2) The PftW complains that the House is too Green and should take into
account the economic "feasibility."

This is the nonsense that special interests can pull under capitalism.
They can lobby for watered down environmental standards in the name of
defending jobs (not to mention profits). This would not be permissible
under socialism because production would be oriented toward rational
pursuit of human needs, not profit. If some workers have to leave an
occupation under socialism, get retraining and get a new job, it is going
to happen and there won't be any fooling with environmental standards to
avoid using the "Best Technology Currently Available." The workers will
support this themselves because it is their environment and health and
because they know the socialist government will organize the economy for
jobs.

Another article in PftW also demonstrates the kind of conservative
Liberal thinking that is especially prevalent in settler capitalism,
where settlers have had the illusion of "making it on their own." Chair and
President of the National Coalition for Public Lands & Natural Resources,
Ralph Noyes puts it this way: "We must make sure these words of
Thomas Jefferson are still held valid in our country: 'I know no
safe depository of the ultimate powers of our society but the
people enlightened enough to exercise their control with a
wholesome direction, the remedy is not to take it from them, but
to inform their discretion.'

"Yet taking the power of the people away from them is precisely
what some political appointees are doing. In general, most
regulations American's [sic.] live under today are not voted
on by the people but 'regulated' by political appointees." (p. 5)
Page 5 of this publication is dedicated to developing this point and
trashing Bruce Babbitt.

This is a typical rhetorical defense of the anarchy of capitalist
production. It's something that white workers, Third World workers,
indeed--nobody except those wishing to get rich from raping the
Earth--benefits from. Only the millionaire miners are willing to
give up a little of their own life expectancy in return for milking
the rest of us.

The anti-regulation fools live in the 1700s. Perhaps they would like to
eat meat that is not inspected by public health authorities. They can
drink water from public reservoirs that is not monitored by a public
authority for poison. Like the anti-communists of the 1950s, they thought
it was a communist plot by public officials to put fluoride in the water
anyway. And MIM invites these fools to try out medications without a
public authority looking to make sure that they are what they say they are.
The sooner these kinds of ultra-Reagan Liberals go to live in the wild
without government regulation, the sooner they'll die without their servants
and the sooner the rest of us can enjoy a healthy planet.

The rest of the public is already more "enlightened" than these
"laissez-faire" types. It wants people with medical expertise to regulate
drugs. People who know about water should be watching the water. Cancer
researchers should be telling us what carcinogens not to come in contact
with. We don't want to be privately responsible for the tons of detail and
scientific knowledge that entails and we don't want to rely on private
interests--special interests--like the PftW to provide us that
information. We want public interest authorities instead--people paid for
by the public, not special interests. The profit system only works when
everyone is Godly knowledgeable or close to it. Right now it only assumes
the ignorance of the consumer and abuses that consumer by selling the
consumer things s/he doesn't know about. Under socialism, that won't
be possible.

While the conservative Liberals like Reagan and PftW! are obviously
throw-backs to an era where production was so small it needed no
government regulation, MIM suspects there are those on the "Left" who
also defend "workers' jobs" in a similar fashion. Organizations like the
CPUSA or the Workers World that speak vaguely about creating jobs
play into this kind of trap. Where do they stand on the environment
when it comes to preserving jobs is the challenge MIM throws down and
how is the PftW! any different from the countless "Left" groups that
defend the class interests of the New Deal industrial workers, now
overpaid and conservative allies of imperialism. We know that CPUSA and
Workers World among others take anti-Third World stands like opposing
NAFTA "to keep jobs in this country." Do they take an equally narrow
stand on the environment or do they figure that the middle-class majority
they cater to won't stand for it?

MIM exposes the anarchy of capitalist production because it does
harm almost everyone through the environment and war. Whenever the
middle-classes weigh another reactionary campaign against immigrants
or support repression in the Third World, they should also weigh
the costs of their beloved system. We don't expect to shake up
the bought-off working class, but the youth who must live in this
environment without war for a long time will come around to our position.