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.

Tree, Critical Mass, Shoot the Hostages play RAIL benefit



On February 27th RAIL hosted a benefit concert at Boston University to help fund the Massachusetts RAIL contingent to the Jericho '98 march and RAIL teach-in in Washington DC. The concert featured rockin music from local bands Tree and Shoot the Hostages and the New Jersey group Critical Mass. Jericho '98 is a march to free prisoners incarcerated for their political views and activism. RAIL is sending a contingent to this march (March 27th) and hosting a teach-in on the criminal injustice system the next day (March 28th).

Shoot the Hostages lead off with a hardcore anti-authoritarian set. RAIL had not heard their music before so we can't offer a commentary on the politics of Shoot the Hostages but we encourage our readers to check them out since they were willing to play for a fundraiser to help fight the criminal injustice system.

In between performances we had an open mic. RAIL members read letters from prisoners and offered commentary on the nature of the criminal injustice system as well as the larger issues of how and why we need to fight imperialism with communist leadership. Other folks performed poetry and read essays or made announcements about upcoming events.

The second act was Critical Mass (see review in MIM Notes #156). They performed some excellent political hip hop that focused on the criminal injustice system and the evils of capitalism. Critical Mass is touring the country promoting the Jericho march and RAIL has hosted a few concerts with them. Most of the audience came to see the local bands but many people were drawn in by the compelling music and politics of Critical Mass who had a large crowd shouting "Off the fucking Pigs" while the cop (who the university requires at all concerts on campus) stood outside to "keep the peace". Da Wizard, one of the members of CM, made a point of making the cop uncomfortable because "when cops are near me they make me uncomfortable so let's make sure he knows he is not welcome here."

Critical Mass promotes anarchism as the solution to imperialism. RAIL disagrees that this is an effective position: only with military force will we be able to keep the imperialists from coming back to power after they have been overthrown. But even with our disagreement with their anarchist positions, the overwhelming majority of Critical Mass' music has an excellent political message and our unity in fighting the criminal injustice system made Critical Mass' performance an excellent addition to the concert.

Headlining the concert was Tree, a popular Massachusetts band with 3 CDs out and a large following. Tree is also promoting the Jericho march and played the benefit to help with our efforts to fund the RAIL contingent to the march. Tree does a lot of environmentalist work and also features some good anti-imperialist politics.

In their song "Homefront" they say "I raise my fist for Justice/I feel unmade/Ifeel betrayed/in the U.S.A." This song salutes the I.W.W. and Tree seems to go along with the pro-white working class line that white folks in this country are, on the whole, exploited by the capitalists. RAIL doesn't buy this when we can see that even though white workers make less than their bosses they still earn quite enough to be bought off and supporting imperialism as a group. Tree's song "X-Communicated" features lyrics attacking religion as an opiate of the masses: "Reaching for the bible/like a junkie for the needle/Fucked up fundamentally, you're fucked up/Leaning on your church/like a cripple on a crutch/There's a white devil among us." They go on to point out the connection between religion and capitalist authority of the white nation: "I hold all you right wing christians in suspicion/There's a white devil among us/There's a white devil in office/Devouring all the stupid fucks."

A lot of the youth who came to see Tree were not into the music for the politics. But this provides an excellent opportunity to influence youth and we salute Tree for keeping the politics in their music and hammering on the messages. RAIL made sure to insert a strong political theme into the show and we challenged all the youth to check out our literature, find out the facts about the system for themselves and take seriously the task of changing society for the better.

The benefit was a big success: we raised over $500 and everyone who attended seemed to enjoy the show. And, of course, we made sure they all got copies of MIM and RAIL literature.

Pix from Jericho '98


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