*What it's like successfully working with MIM in infrastructure
*What should I do? (Agitation section of web page)
*Read the What's New section to keep posted regularly on new things MIM is doing and asking others to do
*How to learn useful skills

MIM's "central task" or "principal task" is to "create public opinion and the independent institutions of the oppressed to seize power." For the individual this has two components: 1) Half is what the comrade wants to do, likes doing and can do steadily. 2) Half is learning new things and becoming good at doing them. Over the long run, the second half is much more important than the first.

The party has some ideas about the second half, but each individual must try hard to figure out what it is they already like to do for the revolution. The best situation for MIM is someone who already has an idea what our central task means and can insert him or herself into MIM affiliated action with no MIM leadership at all. The reason is that MIM is itself desperately short of leadership material.

I am a regular Dick or Jane and nothing comes to mind on what I can do.

Everybody in the Central Committee distributes the newspaper. You can too. Send a chunk of money to show us you're serious and take it upon yourself to make sure everyone in your neighborhood or nearest populace gets a chance to read the MIM Notes. We'll send you a few hundred papers.

1) Colleges 2) Bookstores 3)Music stores 4) Laundromats 5) Individual store owners are just a few places. Write to mim@mim.org or MIM, PO Box 29670, Los Angeles, CA 90029-0670

It may be the newspaper that you distribute that sparks the next Mao--even if you are a regular Dick or Jane yourself.

Plus, even while we use the paper to build for the revolution, in the meantime, the more widely read the MIM Notes gets, the higher the cost is to the mainstream media for spreading crude anti-communist propaganda. When MIM Notes gets to a circulation of a million, it will be very punishing indeed for the bourgeois media to launch ignorant propaganda and the oppressed and exploited will have a rock-solid ally in their camp.

I am comfortable, well-off. Don't make me get too upset.

If you are middle-class or higher and have a work or profession routine to support yourself, then you are much better off than the rest of the international proletariat, and your international strength is that you can give money to the cause. Instead of full-time paid staff, what MIM has is people in leadership with the honor of paying the most money for the operation of MIM out of their own pockets. Pay serious dues to MIM, because maybe you are good at making money more than other things. Consider a few hundred a month or maybe even a thousand if you are upper-middle class. Just send it to MIM, PO Box 29670, Los Angeles, CA 90029-0670 and use an anonymous money order for your own security. Write to mim3@mim.org to let me know.

I am a millionaire or a billionaire and I would like to see MIM ramp up its product.

Contact, mim3@mim.org. It would be easy for you to fund a staff, increase our circulation, pay for newspaper coin/free boxes, support our legal struggles for prisoners, pay for advertisements for our political events and help us do our internationalist obligations.

I am a student, intellectual or regular Dick or Jane with typing, reading and web skills.

MIM encourages almost everyone to participate in the MIM "public opinion" part of the "central task." There are three ways: 1) Writing MIM Theory articles--articles about timeless subjects that require the most hard work and prior background. MIM requires the Maoist line for MIM Theory, so it is not true that any professor can write for it, while it is true that many teens and prisoners do discuss things there. 2) Writing MIM Notes--articles on current events with the MIM angle and with MIM style also explained in this FAQ. This is also difficult.

3) Easiest of all is just using your vocal cords or typing skills to attack the enemy. If you can read well, use search engines on the web, follow a Usenet discussion or any other web discussion, cut-and-paste FAQ or other MIM web site material, you can attack the enemy in public opinion work and sign with a reference to www.prisoncensorship.info/archive/etext. (Just don't call yourselves MIM. Write to me at mim3@mim.org and we'll work out an affiliation for you if you want or just go "a la carte" by yourself with your own organization, picking and choosing what you want to do with MIM material in public opinion work. Affiliation with MIM is only for those who accept MIM's leadership, which means not working with other so-called Marxist, Leninist or Maoist organizations unless MIM recognizes those organizations as fraternal ones. We repeat: we will work with anyone a la carte, but we only people following MIM leadership can say they are affiliated in some organization or another connected to MIM--RAIL, MSG, PIRAO, SLALA etc.

The fact is that more people read MIM material on the Internet than anywhere else. By going out and attacking the enemy in alt.fan.rush-limbaugh or talk.politics.china or any other discussion group you distribute our material and change public opinion, which is what our central task says.

As time goes on, you may find it easier to write MIM Notes and MIM Theory articles. Not to worry if you never do, because there is more than enough refutation of reactionaries work to go around.

To attack the reactionaries on the Internet or spread MIM goodwill by cutting and pasting MIM Notes articles, you need a web connection and Usenet access or your choice of discussion forum. It would be best to use an anonymous server, maybe even from a public computer station if you can (and not your own at home).

If you can take the legal masochism of the new user agreement, use www.my-deja.com at Google. Get an account and then you will have Usenet access. A slower but also free and less legally complicated website for Usenet is www.news.interbulletin.com .

You will find that the enemy says the same ignorant things over and over again. Just posting MIM faq responses to the USENET in response to anti-communist and other reactionary propaganda could occupy hundreds of people full-time sitting in the Library of Congress getting facts on all the stupid things being said and then posting them to the Internet. If this is something you would enjoy, consider doing it.

To learn how MIM does it so far, go to www.my-deja.com. Use the Advanced Google search and search for "Maoist Internationalist Movement" as a phrase or just "mim3@mim.org". Read the articles by MIM but also the original Usenet articles that produced the rebuttals. The most important thing is to find the material most relevant to what is being discussed. Being well-read in MIM literature and good with search engines helps.

You may feel there are only certain Usenet groups that interest you for now. That is great too. MIM would love to hand off bits of turf to people to work on.

I am an artist.

Can you produce timely graphics for the newspaper? Can you make web art? Give us some progressive or Maoist MP3s? Some people are making web movies and one persyn has made a Maoist documentary. That is also building an independent institution for the oppressed and exploited.

Also, see the MIM art page , including the suggestions for cartoons to do if you have the skill.

What else can I do?

We stress going out to meet the enemy in public opinion combat, talking with other people, raising money, distributing papers, setting up business, legal and medical practices to help the oppressed and exploited. However, one of the first things someone should do is study. Join the RAIL study group. Write to rail@mim.org .

The ruling class is composed of very powerful individuals. They want us to believe politics is all relative, just opinion, because then we will cancel each other out and not be able to overthrow the ruling class. In fact though, once someone makes the subjective decision to fight homelessness, hunger, war-profiteering, pollution for profit etc., then the revolution becomes entirely a scientific matter. There is more and less effective revolutionary struggle. The more we study, the more effective we should become.

I can't do any of the above.

So you say you have no Internet connection, no job, no money, no people in your area who have a way of picking up MIM Notes even if you left them out for free. Well, then, MIM has a suggestion: move somewhere else, probably a big city. Till that time, send a letter to MIM, PO Box 29670, Los Angeles, CA 90029-0670 with some bucks to buy some books to study.

Sometimes people cannot do anything with MIM at all because they need to focus on other things first. Skills that are useful in the revolution include reading, writing, math, translation and computer user skills. Whenever somebody says they "can't" do something for the revolution, that somebody should halt right there and consider why. Do they need to work on skills? Do they need to move? Are they just depressed by the system? (If so it is better to be angry than depressed and moving to more politically advanced locales may help.) If someone says they cannot afford to give money to get a few hundred papers a month or study books, then the first problem is to make money or raise it. All problems in making the revolution are like that. It always means "grasping the principal contradiction" and solving it first before progress can be made.

I can do all of the above and I'm already getting bored with this message.

If you have experience doing all the above things, then consider that you might be leadership material already. Try to figure out your precise differences with MIM. This is also good for all people to do first thing. Go to our discussion of "cardinal principles." Tell us what your cardinal principles are or study the MIM web site until you get some ideas about it. You will not be inducted into leadership until after years of proven struggle, but you should not lower the bar for yourself just because of that.

No, I mean I can't see what you are doing.

Many people get the feeling working with MIM that they are missing something concrete and by this they mean they want to work on reform struggles. MIM is not engaged in armed struggle, and this creates a big advantage for the imperialists, because as a result, MIM attracts people who think MIM is especially radical psychiatry or a possible new consumer lifestyle. This is false, largely because we have a shortage of comrades to remold individuals one at a time. If you would like to join us to do just that, please do so, but we ourselves just do not have an excess of leaders.

Another problem with many radicals and revolutionaries is that we meet people expecting exact plans of action to be given out. Yet, MIM may not have the comrades necessary to always hand out exact directions of what to do. Connected to this is often our belief that much of leadership is not really leadership but a trick of the capitalist class to justify its rule. MIM can teach principles of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, that can be used in many circumstances, and over and over again, but we cannot give out hand-holding instructions as often as we would like. If you feel you are in this position, then please work on studying everthing in the MIM literature, because everyone can do that. Then work on getting skills so that you may intersect with MIM somehow. Figure out what you can do on your own that you would like to do and is effective and do it in a self-reliant way.

No, I mean I think I want to see your charity and reform work. That's what I mean by action.

MIM is working on coming up with lists of middle-class activists that MIM considers friendly. What charity and reform work MIM does can be found in the MIM Notes. If you are able to support your own project, MIM may or may not be interested in it, if MIM feels that a Maoist party should be leading or contributing to your project.

I still don't get it.

Check out MIM's organization for beginners following MIM leadership. That may be another place to get ideas or just to go to events.

MIM is not a consumer lifestyle or religion and we do not even concern ourselves with individuals very much, so we are not surprised if you feel you did not connect with us. We are sorry to disappoint. You probably lack any reference points to understand us. Perhaps you should start by getting some regular bourgeois education in history, politics etc.

Alternatively, we will offer you the following idea. To connect to individuals, try reading biographies and writings of revolutionary leaders. Often it's easier to start with a biography before the writings themselves!
1. China--Mao Zedong
2. Russia--V.I. Lenin
3. France--Herbert Marcuse
4. United $tates--Huey Newton
There are many, many others. Maybe if you tell us about yourself, even in the least admirable regards, we can suggest a biography of someone you may relate to.