MIM Notes ***

MIM Notes 291 · November 15, 2003 · Page 1

MIM Notes

Nov. 15, 2003, Nº 291

The Official Newsletter of the Maoist Internationalist Movement (MIM)

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INSIDE: Under Lock & Key * Kobe rape case * Una Página en Español...

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MIM RAISES THE

COMMUNIST

BANNER AT SAN

FRANCISCO,

WASHINGTON

D.C. RALLIES

San Francisco, October 25

housands of people rallied today

to demand an end to the war in

Iraq, calling for the troops to be

brought home. Activists estimate more

than 15,000 people attended the rally and

marched from the Civic Center to

Jefferson Square Park. Rally literature

and many speakers echoed the theme of

self-determination for the people of Iraq.

For MIM this point is fundamental. The

Iraqi people do not need a better or kinder

occupation force as some people suggest

(i.e. bringing in the United Nations). The

Iraqi people need the right to run their

own country.

The Iraqi people do not see the

Amerikan invasion force as their saviors.

This is why the people of Iraq continue

to attack Amerikan troops in spite of

tremendously inferior forces and possibly

lack of clear leadership and organization.

People have a strong will to fight for their

freedom and self-determination. It is very

clear to the Iraqi people that there will be

even less freedom under Amerikan

occupation than under the Amerikan-

financed puppet Saddam Hussein.

At this rally MIM observed an older

crowd, overall, than at previous anti- war

rallies. This un-scientific estimate survey

of the attendees suggests that young

people, who were drawn into activism

Widow of Chiang

Kai-shek dies at 105

Masses will not mourn loss

of Nationalist party leader

Soong Meiling, a.k.a. Madame

Chiang, died October 22 at age 105 in

her home in Manhattan. She was the

widow of Chiang Kai-shek, the

Nationalist Party (Kuomintang) leader

and former dictator of China. Madame

Chiang actively supported her husband.

She is famous in the United $tates as

And the "Well, duh!" award goes to...

Days after the I$raeli army destroyed

hundreds of Palestinian homes in the Gaza

strip and left thousands homeless, the

chief of staff of the I$raeli armed forces

said I$raeli "military tactics against the

Palestinian population were too

repressive and were fomenting explosive

levels of `hatred and terrorism' that might

become impossible to control."(1)

"Lt. Gen. Moshe Yaalon, chief of staff

of the Israeli armed forces, said that

crackdowns, curfews and roadblocks in

the West Bank and Gaza Strip were

crippling the lives of innocent Palestinians

and that the military's tactics were now

threatening Israel's own interests."(1)

Yaalon's comments remind us of the

split between the German army command

and Hitler over the invasion of the Soviet

Union--as well as the split between some

Amerikan military commanders and

politicians like Secretary of State Robert

McNamara ever Vietnam. The technical

expertise and school-of-really-hard-

knocks materialism of generals

HELICOPTER

ATTACK KILLS

FIFTEEN

AMERIKAN

SOLDIERS

`Tough week' just

the tip of the

iceberg for

occupying army

ifteen Amerikans died and another

score were wounded when

resistance fighters shot down their

helicopter on 2 November. It was the

deadliest single attack since the start of

the ground war and capped what U.$.

occupation chief Paul Bremer called a

"tough week."(1)

News reports said the fifteen

Amerikans killed were soldiers on their

way out of the country on leave. Chances

are they were young, perhaps lured into

the army with promises of easy money,

perhaps too naïve to understand that the

reality of army life is very different from

the hip bravado of recruiting

advertisements. Likely they knew little of

the history of the people they were sent

to conquer and occupy and could not

understand Iraqis' hostility towards

Amerikans. In this sense they were

victims of U.$. imperialism like the

hundreds of thousands of Iraqis killed in

Amerika's decade-long war on Iraq.

Those who talk of "supporting our

troops" would do well to listen to what

one Fallujah resident said to the

Associated Press after the helicopter was

shot down: "This was a new lesson from

the resistance, a lesson to the greedy

aggressors. They'll never be safe until

they get out of our country."(1) Many

Amerikan soldiers have gotten the

message, evidenced by reports of low

morale and low re-enlistment rates.

Earlier in the week, Amerikan soldiers

fired on protestors in a suburb of Baghdad,

killing two and wounding seventeen. The

protest started after the Amerikans tried

to shut down a marketplace (see sidebar

on page 7 for the thoughts of "Founding

Father" John Adams on the effectiveness

of occupying troops as peacekeepers).

In response, the Amerikans now require

residents to carry identification papers

with them at all times and restrict their

Thousands march

against Iraq occupation

I$rael rattles Amerikan-made saber

Tough tactics divide reactionary camp

sf.indymedia.org

sometimes gives

them a better

understanding of

the limitations of

military force

than civilian

p o l i t i c i a n s .

However, this

rarely develops

beyond tactical

disagreements,

as Yaalon himself clarified in comments

to an I$raeli journalist: "In our tactical

decisions, we are operating contrary to

our strategic interests."

There are of course kernels of truth in

Yaalon's statements that we've

emphasized since 911. Oppression breeds

Continued on page 6...

WASHINGTON, DC RALLY:

See page 7

Continued on page 8...

Continued on page 9...

Continued on page 7...

MIM Notes 291 · November 15, 2003 · Page 2

What is MIM?

The Maoist Internationalist Movement (MIM) is 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 Maoist Internationalist
parties in Belgium, France and Quebec and the existing or emerging Spanish-speaking
Maoist Internationalist parties of Aztlan, Puerto Rico and other territories of the U.$. Empire.

MIM Notes is the newspaper of MIM. Notas Rojas is the newspaper of the Spanish-speaking
parties or emerging parties of MIM. MIM upholds the revolutionary communist ideology
of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism and is an internationalist organization that works from the

vantage point of the Third World proletariat. MIM struggles to end the oppression of all
groups over other groups: classes, genders, nations. MIM knows this is only possibly 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 humyn history. (3) As Marx, Engels and Lenin formulated and MIM has
reiterated through materialist analysis, imperialism extracts super-profits from the Third

World and in part uses this wealth to buy off whole populations of oppressor nation so-
called workers. These so-called workers bought off by imperialism form a new petty-
bourgeoisie called the labor aristocracy. These classes are not the principal vehicles to

advance Maoism within those countries because their standards of living depend on
imperialism. At this time, imperialist super-profits create this situation in the Canada, Quebec,
the United $tates, England, France, Belgium, Germany, Japan, Italy, Switzerland,

Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Israel, Sweden and Denmark. 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.

Editor, MC206; Production, MC12

Letters

MIM Notes

The Official Newsletter of The Maoist Internationalist Movement

ISSN 1540-8817

MIM Notes is the bi-weekly newsletter of the Maoist Internationalist Movement. MIM

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WWW: <http//www.prisoncensorship.info/archive/etext>

Lives saved and lost:
communism vs.
capitalism

Dear Comrades:

I am engaged in a public dispute with

local Capitalists and Fascists who are

seeking to vilify Communism by inflating

the execution tolls of Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot,

et al. Their figures probably derive

originally from the now repudiated Black

Book of Communism, though tracing the

figures to their sources has been difficult.

I am trying to find accurate, evidence-

based statistics for the execution tolls of

Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot.

In your December 1994 note

"Exaggerations against Stalin," you write:

"One of the most maligned periods of

history in the Soviet Union is the so-called

Great Terror from 1934 to 1941. This

period is also marked by the so-called

Purge Trials of the mid-1930s. According

to Anton Antonov- Ovseyenko, Stalin's

"terror" in that period resulted in 19 million

dead....

"Fewer than 25 million died from all

causes from 1935 to 1941....

"So to arrive at 19 million deaths to

blame on Stalin, there had to be fewer

than 6 million deaths from normal causes

between 1935 and 1941. Again to round

off in our critics' favor, let's assume that

to be 900,000 deaths a year for seven

years as the deaths from normal causes.

So for example, in 1936, that would mean

a crude death rate from normal causes

of less than 5 per 1000 a year, based on a

population of 180.2 million people in the

Soviet Union.

"That's impossible and the death rate

has never been that low in the Soviet

Union, Stalin or no Stalin, not even in 1982,

when the crude death rate was 10.1. In

fact, the crude death rate has never been

below 5 per 1000 a year in U.S. history

either. A more realistic death rate from

natural causes would be around 20. It was

20.3 in 1926, which according to almost

all historians, was before Stalin started

his repression, since he had only just

assumed leadership in 1924."

Unfortunately, this analysis does not

resolve the historical question of the

actual number of people executed by

Stalin during the period 1935-1941. Your

analysis is consistent with an enormous

range of possible figures for the execution

toll. Do there exist any reputable and

accurate estimates of this execution toll?

In your March 1990 note "Myths About

Maoism," you write:

"Western scholars have estimated that

between 16.4 million and 29.5 million

people died in the Great Leap Forward...

"Mao did claim government

responsibility for 800,000 executions

between 1949 and 1954....

"Mao's enemies in China were more

realistic than the Western propagandists.

They directly blamed Mao and his

followers, the so-called Gang of Four, for

a total of 34,000 executions or deaths

caused by other means of repression

during the ten years of the Cultural

Revolution."

The huge disparity between the

estimates of 16.4 million and 29.5 million

deaths alone casts doubt on their validity.

There are various reasons Mao may have

overstated or understated the execution

toll from 1949-1954. Is there any other

corroboration of the 800,000 execution

figure? And if we take 800,000 and

34,000 as reasonable estimates of the

execution tolls for 1949-1954 and 1966-

1976, what about the remainder of the

period of Chinese Communist rule?

I will be grateful for any further

information you can provide concerning

the execution tolls of Stalin and Mao. (This

historical question is separate from the

moral question of balancing lives saved

against lives lost.)

--A supporter in Missouri, August 16,

2003

MIM responds: Accurate estimates of

executions are a difficult question to

address on a large scale because

numbers from the capitalists are not to

be trusted, but reactionaries are not likely

to believe numbers that come from the

communists themselves. We at MIM try

to steer people away from taking numbers

in the millions referenced in regard to

Stalin and Mao too literally.

In reality, the question of accuracy is

not as important as consistency of method

used. The Great Leap estimates from

critics of Maoism stem from social

assumptions about the birth rate during

the Great Leap. There is no list of people

who died and there was no attempt to

individually count the births by those

bourgeois scholars carrying out these

estimates. Since we wrote that article,

bourgeois academic estimates have even

increased beyond 30 million into the 40

million plus range. It does not mean they

are "inaccurate," even though there is

evidence to build a case that even fewer

than 10 million died from Great Leap

difficulties.

None of these estimates had any

concrete detail that the public is

accustomed to thinking of in say murder

cases. The trouble usually comes when

journalists take academic estimates and

use them to say Mao "killed" 43 million

people. This leaves the public with the

impression that there were the equivalent

of 43 million OJ/Nicole murder cases that

someone tried to cover up. That's not

what it really means and we see a very

similar issue debated in regard to

intelligence estimates of Saddam

Hussein's weapons before the

intensification of war in Iraq in 2003.

Academics and intelligence officers wrote

detailed and arcane reports that politicians

in England and the United $tates

excerpted and spun. Sometimes that's

what the intelligence officers expected,

but sometimes people deeply involved in

the details later have much difficulty

reconciling what they said with what

appears in the media.

There are many situations where the

truth is more closely approximated by

such a method as estimating a birth rate

rather than by relying on lists of people

that may or may not have been done

correctly. To this day in the United $tates,

there is a legal argument over whether

the Census Bureau can accurately count

every persyn within U.$. borders or

whether an assumption-laden approach

would actually be more truthful. From

what we have seen, most believe the truth

would be improved by using assumptions

in the U.$. population count/estimate, but

the law says every head must be counted

in persyn. In countries like China, where

Mao took charge of an illiterate people

Continued on page 9...

MIM Notes 291 · November 15, 2003 · Page 3

by MC5, October 2003

The quasi-revolutionary opportunity of

2003 in England brings to mind the

difference between revolutionary tactics

in the imperialist countries (excluding

Russia and others where the majority is

exploited) and oppressed nations. Roughly

speaking, this difference in tactics flows

from the class structure itself and

corresponding strategies, where in one

situation, the majority of the population is

exploiters and in the other, exploited.

On the difference in tactics in imperialist and oppressed nations:

England in 2003

Lenin, Stalin and Mao taught us at

length about the stages of revolution

corresponding to the class structures and

modes of production of certain countries,

especially those where exploited

majorities predominated. Following from

Lenin, we at MIM say that the case of

the United $tates, England, France,

Germany etc. develops out of what Lenin

said for the imperialist country situation.

Namely, in advanced capitalist

countries, the first task is not to eliminate

survivals of semi-feudalism to install

bourgeois democracy or new

democracy. The task is to go straight to

proletarian revolution, likely through a

stage of civil war brought on by imperialist

war as in World War I and Russia or by

the victory of numerous People's Wars

as explained by Lin Biao and sanctioned

by Mao.

Our tactics in a situation where the

majority is imperialist petty-bourgeois

differ from the tactics utilized in Russia

and China where the majority was peasant

petty-bourgeois. The most important

difference is that the proletarian banner

is pretty much at all times in danger of

falling to the ground in the imperialist

countries (excluding Russia). The task is

more or less to stand out and away from

the petty-bourgeois crowd. In the

oppressed nations, the proletariat can fight

to win over the petty-bourgeoisie, but in

the exploiter- majority countries, only a

very fine line prevents the exploiters from

winning over the would-be proletarian.

In contrast, countries with exploited

majorities will see the red flag hoisted

again and again, despite repression. The

task there is patiently to educate the

Quasi-revolutionary
opportunity arises in England

Umph for revolution lacking in
British anti-war movement

The complete version of this article ran in the last

issue of MIM Notes (number 290, 1 Nov 2003). We

reprint these excerpts to remind readers of the

political and military context in 2003 England.

Few have noticed (including those in the international

communist movement), but since the Iraq War started,

England has pushed itself to the brink of a revolutionary

opportunity. The number of troops currently left "at

home" to defend against a revolutionary movement is

minuscule.

One officer in England said, "`we have not only taken

everything out of the cupboards, we've stripped all the

shelves bare.'"(1) In one move in early 2003, the British

sent over a quarter of the Army to the Gulf. Another

19,000 troops were covering for the fire department

workers on strike, a fact that gives the fire workers'

strike an objectively revolutionary character. [...]

Here is how the British military is still talking about

the situation. "Defence Analyst Garth Whitty, a former

Lieutenant Colonel in the British Army and weapons

inspector in Iraq in 1992, says it may be all that the

Army had to offer in the wake of their recent efforts in

Afghanistan and Iraq.

"GARTH WHITTY: I think the British Armed Forces

are probably already overstretched, but the reality is

there is no alternative but to maintain a presence until

such time as Iraq is stabilized and that could take as

long as five years."(3) [...]

The British troop deployments and shortages faced

by U.$. and British imperialism show that the Third

World does have strength in unity. The imperialists cannot

send enough troops to keep the whole exploited and

oppressed world down. If the oppressed nations put aside

their own conflicts and follow proletarian leaders, they

can turn the world upside-down.

We can say there was a revolutionary opportunity in

England in 2003, but there was no revolutionary situation.

That means that physically the government was

stretched thin, but subjectively the population of

England--which benefits from the super-exploitation of

the Third World by British imperialism--did not want

any revolutionary upsurge. It's not just that it let itself

be robbed and had to learn political tactics. The

population of England is predominantly petty-bourgeois.

[...]

In England, most of those calling themselves

"communist" are some kind of Trotskyist or another.

They believe their "workers" are among the most

advanced in the world, the way all national chauvinists

do. They had their chance for revolution in 2003. Where

is it? The answer to this question lies in economics, not

political leadership and military factors. The majority of

England is petty-bourgeois. When given the chance for

revolution it does not want it. A determined proletarian

minority must form its own pole, fly its own banner and

give the petty-bourgeoisie another option to vacillate

toward.

Dishonest Broker: The U.S. Role in Israel and
Palestine
by Nasser Aruri
South End Press
Cambridge MA, 2003, 265 pp.

This book is about the so-called "peace process" in

the Middle East since 1967. It is a revised and updated

version of an earlier book, "The Obstruction of Peace:

The United States, Israel, and Palestine," and includes

material right up to the end of 2002. As such it is very

useful not only as an introduction to the topic--especially

for readers too young to remember Gerald Ford,

Zbigniew Brzezinski, Alexander Haig etc.--but also as

a guide to current events. Lenin mocked idealist

philosophers of his day for muddling the issues by putting

new window-dressing on 300-year-old failed ideas. We

can say the same about every one of the U.$.-backed

"peace" initiatives, from Carter's Camp David to Bush's

Road Map. Watching the evening news after reading

Dishonest Broker can lead to some serious deja vu.

As its name implies, Dishonest Broker debunks the

pretense that the United $tates acts as an independent,

neutral peacemaker in the Middle East. In fact, United

$tates' leaders have publicly admitted they support I$rael

as a defender of Amerikan interests in the region.

"[Israel] is a force in the Middle East that actually is a

benefit to us," then-President Ronald Reagan said in

1981. "If there were not Israel there with that force,

we'd have to supply that with our own, so this isn't just

altruism on our part" (p. 39). Reagan was just reiterating

the strategy laid down in the Nixon-Kissinger Doctrine

(ca. 1970), which placed the Amerikan "hose and water"

in the hands of I$raeli "fireman" (p. 20). Or, as a

spokesman for the I$raeli foreign office smugly put it:

"The United States has come to the conclusion that it

can no longer respond to every incident around the world,

that it must rely on a local power, the deterrent of a

friendly power as a first line of defense to stave off

New book exposes

sham `peace process'

by MC5

It was non-stop Kobe Bryant coverage after a judge

ruled that Kobe must face trial for an alleged rape in

Colorado. At all four different public places this reporter

visited in 12 hours, the TV was talking only about the

Kobe case--this in the midst of the Iraq War and U.$.

negotiations with Korea about nuclear weapons. MIM

itself is not about to send someone to investigate the

Kobe case, so we offer our opinion that this case should

not have gone forward only if the assumptions of fact

we make below are true in this or any other case.

Our opinion should be seen as a statement of principle

more than a definitive investigation of the Kobe case

facts. Both accused and accuser are exploited by for-

profit media and interpreted in stereotyped ways by

detectives and lawyers seeking to pigeonhole the case.

The result is often far from accurate public information.

We advise the public to move away from judging matters

via the TV newscasts, tabloids or Hollywood movies.

If it is true that the accuser flirted with Kobe, went

his hotel room, willingly kissed him and let him touch

her on the breasts and buttocks before saying "no" when

he began petting her vaginal area,(1,2) we at MIM are

opposed to seeing this case go forward. Although the

law says that the right to consent extends to going to a

man's hotel room, kissing him, letting him touch you and

then accusing him of rape, it should not.

Wimmin in both public and private places should be

free of attack and kidnappings, but in the current legal

system, wimmin should not have the right to prevail just

based on their word in date rape cases where there are

no immediate witnesses. Taking the accuser's word as

"proof beyond a reasonable doubt" makes marginalized

men less than equal before the law.

We fully admit that this means wimmin lose some

freedom. More accurately, we acknowledge that they

and others already do not have freedom to go to men's

hotel rooms without occasionally disastrous

consequences. For every Kobe case that goes to trial

there are probably at least two where the womyn

wanted to go to trial for the same or worse and did not.

Yet if we change the law or interpretation of the law

to prevent "he said/she said" cases from going to court,

it is not adult wimmin who lose the most. If heterosexual

wimmin are afraid of going to private places on dates,

because of a change in the law or its interpretation, then

it stands to reason that heterosexual men will lose some

chances to persuade or cajole wimmin into sex. Hence,

men's sexual access will also decrease if wimmin know

that they cannot win a rape case in a private context.

The clear winners if we take away the right to go to

private places and accuse men of rape later--aside from

clarity and the public's intelligence, currently damaged

by sensational sex stories taking up all the news hours--

are children losing fathers to the injustice system and

marginalized social groups which the legal system

convicts disproportionately, such as oppressed

Opinion: Kobe case should not have gone forward

Continued on page 5...

Continued on page 8...

Continued on next page...

MIM Notes 291 · November 15, 2003 · Page 4

nationalities.

In our opinion, if no other important

interests are affected and it can be proved

with videotape when the accused says

there was consent and there was not,

then we should uphold consent. However,

we at MIM believe that the bourgeois law

system is an inefficient and disastrous

substitute for socialism when it comes to

solving the rape problem. We'd rather see

the idea of consent and enforcement of

all other crimes taken down a notch by

making it impossible to convict someone

based on the victim's word about what

happened in a private place--except

when a crime in a private place followed

a kidnapping from a public place.

Whether it is marijuana or date rape, an

unproductive prison system is too much

involved in people's lives right now

especially in the United $tates where the

imprisonment rate is the highest in the

world. We need to make other social

adjustments to reduce that dependence

on the prison system.

Even if Kobe had been white, so that

the accuser and accused were the same

race or, even better, the same cultural

background, the interests of any child

involved (3) should take precedence in

date and marital rape. In Colorado, Kobe

could face life in prison for conviction;

yet there is no sentence that would not

harm Kobe's child in this capitalist society

where we still expect both parents to raise

a child and do it often without even the

benefit of day-care and other supports

that should exist for those raising children.

At MIM, we regard adults in the

United $tates as mostly gender

oppressors. Kobe and his accuser are old

enough to enjoy sex. The bulk of gender

oppression occurs in the United $tates

when that fun occurs at the expense of

children and others.

Consent between such adults is not the

only issue involved in combating

patriarchy. It is a mistake to believe that

it is easy to separate male and female

interests even in a rape case. For one,

63.3% of Black men accused of rape are

Case should not have gone forward

accused by white wimmin.(4) Black

wimmin's interests are adversely affected

when whites throw Blacks in prison by

giving a weak interpretation of "equality

before the law" and "proof beyond a

reasonable doubt." Many problems stem

from a shortage of Black men available

to heterosexual Black wimmin and more

importantly, their children. Secondly,

children are of both male and female

biology and all male date and marital

rapists also have mothers and sometimes

wives. Throwing away all those social ties

by putting a man into prison because

someone says he was allowed to put his

hand on her breast but not his penis in

her vagina--that's too much given the

other problems that also need solution in

this society. It should be made impossible

to bring "he said/she said" cases to

court--probably just by a strict

interpretation of "equality before the law."

Under the dictatorship of the proletariat,

the profit-motive will be gone. There will

be no open pornography for profit and no

pornography masquerading as news

media for profit. There will be no public

images allowed that pretend to offer a

stylish, stereotyped and flippant view of

all wimmin's sexual attitudes. Without

entertainment for profit, the whole

"groupie" phenomenon will disappear

along with the corresponding attitudes.

Under socialism, MIM will insist that

whatever diversity there is in wimmin's

sexual attitudes, that it be put forward

accurately by public cultural and political

authorities.

Notes:
1. http://www.cnn.com/2003/LAW/10/20/
bryant.hearing/index.html The CNN website
alone has at least 49 stories on the Kobe case as
of October 24th, 2003.
2. http://www.vaildaily.com/apps/pbcs.dll/
article? AID=/20031009/BREAKING/
310090151
3. Kobe has a young daughter with his wife.
http://www.cnn.com/2003/LAW/10/15/
bryant.hearing/index.html
4. National Crime Survey, 1983. ASI 6066-3,
Table 45.

Continued from previous page...

By PC5 and MC5

As in our other articles on the Kobe

Bryant case, we take the reported

details of the encounter between Kobe

and his accuser as fact, to make an

ideological point. We have done no

investigation on our own and doubt

that extensive investigation could

reveal what went on in that Colorado

hotel room beyond the "he said - she

said" level.

The details of the Kobe case as they

have appeared in the media, whether true

or not, remind one of something Sartre

said about anti-Semitism: "Anti-Semitic

women often have a mixture of sexual

repulsion and attraction toward Jews.

One woman I knew had intimate relations

with a Polish Jew. She would often go to

bed with him and allow him to caress her

breasts and shoulders, but nothing more.

She enjoyed feeling him respectful and

submissive, divining his violently frustrated

and humiliated desire. She afterward had

normal sexual intercourse with other

men."(1)

Wimmin are so used to trading sex for

money and other things that it is not

surprising to hear an anti-Semite use her

body to carry out a power game. It's

obvious that so much sex goes on for

reasons having nothing to do with the sex

itself. Going on an anti-Semitic power trip

is just one more extrinsic reason

seemingly no worse than any other.

There is after all no law against

degrading men sexually the way the

womyn Sartre discussed did, but there

would be a law against the Polish Jew if

he attempted intercourse. This is the sort

of thing that goes around in a vicious circle.

Where people struggle to be respectable

economically and socially, wimmin often

mingle sex and power as a matter of

culture, through no individual's fault.

However, as a result of hearing about "get

a job" and "pay the bills" too much, Black

men talk about all Black wimmin as

whores in the most popular rap music.

Some misogyny arises from an honest

understanding of the condition of wimmin

today, including the lack of intrinsic sexual

desire that many wimmin have while going

through the motions of wanting sex. This

anger needs channeling toward those

conditions instead of the individual wimmin

themselves.

Although former Colorado prosecutor

Mark Silverstein says prosecution of the

Kobe case never should have been

attempted, "Norm Early, the former

district attorney of Denver, thought the

session was most damaging to Bryant.

He said the quick encounter with the

woman left little impression of a mutually

agreeable tryst."(2) We have to ask Early

if he has ever heard of groupies before

and does he know what happens on a

rock band's bus after the show? Has he

ever stopped to wonder why wimmin line

up outside certain hotels and hotel doors?

We'd suggest he collect statistical

evidence on the average length of a

groupie tryst.

By the U.$. legal system, Kobe is

supposed to face trial by his peers,

obviously not guys like Early who do not

know what a groupie is. Kobe's jury

should be Black millionaire entertainer

stars who have had white groupies.

People disgusted by that thought should

take their anger out on entertainment for

profit that creates these stars along with

millions of disempowered fans. The legal

system requires a jury of one's peers and

that system has its merits in bourgeois

context. It should not be abused by those

who disagree with what our current

culture allows of its entertainment stars.

If people want a law against groupie-ism,

they can pass one, but that is separate

from this individual rape case and others

like it.

MIM rather tires of Early's sort of point

especially in bourgeois legal context. The

implication is that had Kobe been willing

to extend his visits with the accuser over

days or weeks or months, that sex would

have been OK. In other words, we can

all imagine that the accuser might have

been trying to have a prolonged affair.

Oh, and by the way, a man is supposed to

go to prison for life, because of the

"credibility" of a womyn who admits to

allowing a married man with a child kiss

her and grope her breasts and buttocks--

all in the good name of her profession as

hotel hospitality extender. Then stupid

media outlets like CNN defend the court

system's handling cases like this based

on the accuser's "credibility."

Now the former Denver prosecutor is

trying to say the accuser is not so "fast."

This is nothing but the reverse of the

argument that is now legally disallowed

in court that the accuser is loose and

probably consented to sex. Yet this kind

of question is bound to come up whether

legally allowed or not (and it's there in a

former prosecutor's mind as we see from

this quote), because courts are involved

in judging the credibility of individuals. If

courts got out of that business and people

sought their solutions to group-level

problems through revolutionary or

reformist means, such questions would

not come up.

Wimmin have a right to consent as a

group. That is an ideological and group-

level statement. It's not the same thing

as saying that individual wimmin can

prove just based on their word "beyond a

reasonable doubt" that they did not

consent.

Kobe's accuser is what we at MIM

call "gender aristocracy." What she has

done in her leisure-time--her little game

with a married Black man with a child--

is hurting a wife and more importantly, a

Black child now faced with having a

father in prison for life. This demonstrates

the accuser's power, gets her the TV

attention she reportedly craved as an

aspiring singer and, no matter what

happens, will end with million-dollar offers

from Playboy magazine to pose nude.

Kobe is even more of a plaything--a

successful one and a leader of leisure-

time society. One basketball club owner

Mark Cuban has already remarked that

the case increases media attention for

basketball. Others pointed out that Kobe

may sell more shoes this way among

young men seeking a tough image and

embittered by issues of crime and gender

in this society. We do not have to find

either the accused or the accuser credible

to know that Blacks have been degraded

by this accusation as if sex with Kobe

involved so much suffering. The laws and

attitudes need to change to account for

more than just individual consent.

The ones who pay the price for playtime

are the poorest wimmin and the youngest

people--children: "More than half of all

African-American women and a third of

Hispanic-American women now find

themselves struggling to raise children

alone, although usually not from choice

and usually with disastrous

consequences."(3) To hell with both the

accuser and accused. Fine Kobe; seize

any money the accuser makes posing for

Playboy or selling her story to a cheesy

TV docudrama; put the money into

daycare for the poor who are absorbing

all these bad leisure-time messages.

Notes:

1. Jean-Paul Sartre, Anti-Semite and

Jew (NY: Grove Press, 1960), p. 48.

2. http://www.usatoday.com/sports/

basketball/nba/2003-10-09-detective-

details_x.htm

3. Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, Feminism

Is Not the Story of My Life (NY: Anchor

Books, 1996), p. 176.

The national aspects of the Kobe case

MIM Notes 291 · November 15, 2003 · Page 5

exploited in class consciousness and to

aim the struggle toward clarifying political

events. For example, Stalin made a point

of having the communists in Baku stand

at the forefront of the oil workers'

struggles--literally at marches for

instance. More often than not, any conflict

with people that the communists face in

nations with exploited majorities will

involve a contradiction among the people.

The most dangerous events to the

imperialists and their local lackeys in that

situation are clarifying political events

connected to economic struggles. The

most dangerous event that faces

imperialists in their homelands is the link-

up of the population with struggles of the

oppressed nations abroad.

In the case of imperialist countries

excluding Russia, if we do not live in

fascist conditions but liberal parliamentary

conditions, we must do the utmost to

attack the enemy line seeking to drown

out the proletarian voice. There is no point

in waiting for gathering forces to

undertake bold agitation attacking the

enemy. They may never gather, because

the majority is exploiter. There must be

no fear of alienating anyone in countries

with exploiter majorities. More often than

not, the exploiters alienate themselves

from the proletarian camp, both because

of imperialist domination of the

superstructure and because of real short-

term economic interests. Anyone afraid

of "alienating" the population in the

imperialist countries on questions of

principle must be cut down politically as

counter-revolutionary. Any true

representative of the exploited should be

expected to alienate the exploiters at least

sometimes, those times when the

exploiters are paying attention.

In fascist conditions, Mao instructed us

that armed struggle is the only hope in

the imperialist countries and the stage of

long legal struggles must end. At that time,

the proletarian forces must think of

themselves as isolated agents behind

enemy lines seeking to do the most

damage to the fascist machine. In that

situation, communists who think of

gathering their small numbers on a street

corner to launch a coup are wasting their

effectiveness in countries with exploiter

majorities. The communists in that

situation must think of themselves as

specialized detachments of the military

forces sent by the world's exploited

majority to deal with imperialism in its

homeland.

In contrast, in countries with exploited

majorities, fascism more or less prevails

at any time and the conditions for armed

struggle and united front to bring down

the whole government are more or less

in existence. Downplaying struggle to

arrive at false unity is often merely "right

opportunism" in that circumstance when

the same line applied in exploiter-majority

situations is downright counter-

revolutionary paving the way for fascism.

Throughout the world, the bourgeoisie

Did you know?

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Politics/MIM

On the difference in tactics in imperialist and oppressed nations

dominates the superstructure, but in

populations with exploiter majorities the

intensity of class conflict declines through

the lack of proletarian strength while the

pervasiveness of enemy attacks

increases. The occasional proletarian

voice is drowned out by the various voices

of exploiter unity acting in conjunction

with the media, but also through the petty-

bourgeoisie's contact with its own daily

life. We must be absolutely clear that the

dependent bourgeoisie of the oppressed

nations has virtually nothing to offer its

petty- bourgeois masses exploited by

foreign exploiters, while the imperialists

do offer substantial benefits and super-

profit sharing to the petty- bourgeoisie of

the homeland. Pushing for the petty-

bourgeoisie's economic demands in the

oppressed nations is often objectively

revolutionary. In the exploiter-majority

countries, such a movement gives the

imperialists a chance to give in and appear

munificent.

The proletarian line will not fail in

imperialist countries just because the

internal majority is exploiter. Imperialism

only succeeds in displacing its gravedigger

geographically, but it creates that

gravedigger proletariat faster than ever

before. The Nazis seemed like an

unstoppable juggernaut, but in fact

German imperialism created its

multinational enemy that stomped out

Nazism at the source. It was wrong for

the German communists in the 1940s to

believe they could stage a revolution on

their own or modify the ideology of the

Nazi Party. Their work was best suited

toward sabotaging the enemy and having

confidence in the eventual victory of the

international proletariat.

In MIM, we face challenges from time

to time from our lumpen base in particular

that believes that fascism has already

arrived in the exploiter-majority countries.

We disagree and continue building

aggressive public opinion campaigns, not

armed struggles. Around this question

there could be errors of "right opportunist"

and "left opportunist" nature.

As Lenin told us, the last and most

stupid thing that imperialist country

communists could ever do is defend the

fatherland. Conversely, we must prepare

minds for the fact that an alternative view

of the world may come from the

oppressed nations with exploited

majorities. We must offer this picture of

a sharp contrast and alternative to

capitalism without watering it down to

become another petty-bourgeois revenue

sharing plan. When we downplay struggle

to advance unity with the imperialist

country petty-bourgeoisie, we proceed

immediately into a counter-revolutionary

line in the exploiter-majority countries. In

the best of circumstances, it is unrealistic

to expect the imperialist petty-bourgeoisie

to rally to our side immediately. However,

if we lay down a sharp contrast of

principles, the petty-bourgeoisie can keep

that alternative in mind in future political

crises. The petty-bourgeoisie may even

vacillate toward the proletariat by

accident in the imperialist countries--if

only there is a proletarian pole to vacillate

towards.

The task in the oppressed nations is

different. There they must work out unity

among themselves and not let ancient

conflicts get in the way of anti-imperialist

unity. Where the national question is at

stake, as in most countries oppressed by

U.$. imperialism, the petty-bourgeoisie is

in fact held back by imperialist exploiters.

An overly populist comrade would be

guilty of right opportunism in such a

circumstance, but not outright revisionism

and liquidationism.

In the exploiter-majority countries there

is absolutely no room for communists to

operate to their right on questions of unity

and struggle and their relative importance.

There is no time to patiently await opinion

to develop before putting forward the

correct line, because the population is

predominantly petty-bourgeois and allied

with imperialism. No national question

drives the population forward and brings

about unity against the tiny exploiter class.

In that circumstance, it is a mechanical

and nationalist counter-revolutionary line

to apply Mao and his line for China to the

exploiter-majority population directly, just

as Mao himself warned.

The only meaning that "left" and "right"

opportunism have in the exploiter-majority

populations does not concern the level of

unity with the population and intensity of

struggle but rather the form of struggle

connected to the balance of forces.

"Left" and "right" errors occur in

connection to whether armed struggle

should occur or whether long legal

struggle should occur. That is strictly a

matter of timing in coordination with

international events. However, there is no

such thing as even a mere right deviation

on the question of working with the

demands of the imperialist petty-

bourgeoisie. Any slacking in the struggle

against the imperialist petty-bourgeoisie's

demands amounts to favoring the system

of super-exploitation by imperialism.

Since the CIO union struggle of the

1930s, the communists of the exploiter-

majority countries have served bread-and-

butter economic demands only at the cost

of dropping the red flag to the ground.

The positive lessons for struggle derive

from the Vietnam War, which is so

relevant to the anti-war movement in

England now.

The true advances in the Vietnam War

occurred when the anti-war movement

developed a section that identified with

the Vietnamese fighters opposing U.$.

troops. This included being able to

distinguish petty-bourgeois and

proletarian internationalist reasons for

opposing the war. Likewise, with millions

demonstrating against war in England, the

real task was not to downplay disunity

with the petty-bourgeoisie but to develop

a proletarian internationalist portion of the

anti-war movement.

In the 1960s in the United $tates this

came out as a question of the candle-

bearers versus the helmet-wearers. The

Weatherman was strategically and

tactically out of whack according to MIM,

but what it was doing was correct in the

overall sense of trying to find a way to

ally with the Vietnamese fighters. In many

ways it was a crude birth for proletarian

internationalism in the oppressor nation.

The Weatherman fought physically to be

on the Vietnamese side and caught a

vastly disproportionate share of Nixon's

attention. The petty-bourgeoisie begged

Democrats to change their minds. The

Weatherman and chauvinist petty-

bourgeoisie often marched together, but

they knew their differences. At first, the

Weatherman thought of themselves as

people appearing on the scene of a crime

and getting physically involved rather than

letting a murder happen. In England, the

portion of the anti-war movement

wondering how a vast movement could

fail as it did in 2003 is ready for the next

step. It should not be sidetracked into the

petty-bourgeoisie's demands. On the

contrary, we should explain to that section

of the anti-war movement why it failed

and what is necessary to win. Identifying

with the murder victims (the Iraqi people)

and siding with the freedom fighters is

the first step in separating from petty-

bourgeois thinking.

Continued from page 3...

MIM Notes 291 · November 15, 2003 · Page 6

Militarism is war-mongering or the

advocacy of war or actual carrying out

of war or its preparations.

While true pacifists condemn all

violence as equally repugnant, we

Maoists do not consider self-defense

or the violence of oppressed nations

against imperialism to be militarism.

Militarism is mostly caused by

imperialism at this time. Imperialism

is the highest stage of capitalism--

seen in countries like the United

$tates, England and France.

Under capitalism, capitalists often

profit from war or its preparations.

Yet, it is the proletariat that does the

dying in the wars. The proletariat

wants a system in which people do not

have self-interest on the side of war-

profiteering or war for imperialism.

Militarism is one of the most

important reasons to overthrow

capitalism. It even infects oppressed

nations and causes them to fight each

other.

It is important not to let capitalists

risk our lives in their ideas about war

and peace or the environment. They

have already had two world wars

admitted by themselves in the last 100

years and they are conducting a third

right now against the Third World.

Even a one percent annual chance of

nuclear war destruction caused by

capitalist aggressiveness or "greed" as

the people call it should not be tolerated

by the proletariat. After playing

Russian Roulette (in which the bullet

chamber is different each time and not

related at all to the one that came up in

previous spins) with 100 chambers and

one bullet, the chance of survival is

only 60.5% after 50 turns. In other

words, a seemingly small one percent

annual chance of world war means

eventual doom. After 100 years or turns

of Russian Roulette, the chances of

survival are only 36.6%. After 200

years, survival has only a 13.4%

chance.

What is militarism?

*Support internationalism as necessary

for long-run species survival.

*Overcome complacency in the peace

movement.

*Only support wars that address causes

of violence.

*The cause of the war is the economic

system.

*Weapons proliferation (including

weapons of mass destruction) is inevitable

under capitalism. The existence of

capitalist rulers who justify war based on

weapons proliferation proves that war is

also inevitable under capitalism.

1. Only internationalism can bring global

peace. Many people already know that

the u.$. war will only create more

terrorism and war. Each country must put

itself in the shoes of the other country.

For every action of imperialism, we must

ask, "what if every country decided to do

that? What would happen?" What if every

country decided to get rich by taking

slaves, killing off the indigenous people

and then making war for natural

resources?

What if every country justified a war

to "support our troops" on the border of

some other country? It is clear that this

sort of thinking leads to global disaster

quickly, but Amerikkkans are the last to

figure it out, because they have received

too many economic benefits from

previous wars.

2. The peace movement has failed and

needs to steer away from complacency

by raising its political consciousness and

studying political power struggles in similar

circumstances. The apathy of others is

not a reason for the peace movement to

get "tired." It could be our own lack of

political consciousness that failed to

MIM's position on Iraq: a brief summary

convince the apathetic.

People in the peace movement should

re-arrange their lives to give a portion of

their daily resources to the cause of

justice. That too is a matter of the quality

of the movement. A movement that

merely holds candles and marches can

never win.

3. MIM opposes the war whether the

united $tates "wins" in a day or whether

Iraqis kill a six digit figure of Amerikkkans

and British. We only favor wars that

address the causes of violence, such as

the U.S. Civil War. This war does not

address the causes of the problems and

only makes them worse.

4. Nations making war to free

themselves from oppression and

economic exploitation are only doing what

is natural. The united $tates is an

imperialist country, a country with an

economic system that exploits the whole

world and cannot stand still within itself.

The humyn will to be free of oppression

and exploitation is a given and permanent.

Economic systems on the other hand have

changed many times. It's time to change

again.

5. Stuck within their system, the

imperialists have succeeded in forcing

people to ask whether Iraq has weapons

of mass destruction, instead of asking

whether it is possible in general to stop

arms proliferation. The spread of weapons

of mass destruction is inevitable in a

capitalist world. The rulers blame northern

Korea for supposedly not being capitalist

and at the same time they panic in public

that the Koreans might sell nuclear

weapons for money: welcome to

capitalism.

19 Mar 2003

during the peak of the Amerikan invasion

of Iraq, did not have the staying power of

older activists. This is unfortunate, as the

anti-imperialist movement needs youth to

carry it forward and fight dogmatic

tendencies.

We also noticed a large number of rally

attendees wearing Howard Dean and

Dennis Kucinich paraphernalia promoting

their respective presidential candidates.

This was mostly among the older

attendees. It is good that these people,

supporting imperialist presidential

candidates with the Democratic Party, still

oppose the war in Iraq--if only because

bickering among reactionaries over

tactics exposes imperialist machinations

to the public. (See MIM's review of

Howard Dean in MIM Notes 290 and

our review of Dennis Kucinich in MIM

Notes 288). Backers of the Democratic

Party clearly haven't made the connection

between the Amerikan invasion of Iraq

and Amerikan imperialism. It is not

enough just to demand the end to one

imperialist war, possibly because you

don't like seeing Amerikan soldiers come

home in body bags. We must be against

all imperialist wars because of the millions

of people around the world who die at

the hands of Amerikan imperialism--not

just by bombs, but also by starvation and

disease.

MIM had a conversation with one

Kucinich supporter who asked what our

position is on Kucinich. We put him in the

imperialist camp with a foreign policy

that's no better than the rest of the

imperialists. This man agreed but went

on to say Kucinich is still the best

candidate out there. If Kucinich doesn't

get on the ballot he said he will vote for

an independent candidate. This is an

example of someone who is pretty clear

at recognizing imperialism in the

Thousands march against Iraq occupation

international arena, but is still willing to

support an imperialist candidate for

president if it means he might see a more

even distribution of the superprofits stolen

from the Third World here at home. As

we wrote in the review of Kucinich's

proposed domestic policies: "This is just

the first glimpse of Kucinich's Amerika-

first plan: a glorious Amerika that provides

for its citizens with its bountiful wealth.

Wealth Kucinich seems to think is a god-

given right of the country rather than

something stolen from the oppressed

people of the world."

MIM found a receptive audience for

our literature table at this rally, with

particular interest in The Stalin Issue of

our MIM Theory journal. We only brought

along 4 issues of our theory journal and

we sold them all before the end of the

event along with our "What is MIM?"

pamphlet. This is a good sign as it

suggests people are taking theory seriously

and are looking for information to study

at political events. A few people asked

about how MIM differs from the "RCP-

U$A" since they also claim Maoism in

North Amerika. Comrades were able to

point them to the latest debates where

MIM discredits the "RCP-U$A" claims

that a majority of Amerikans are

proletarian. One persyn bought MIM

Theory 10 on the Labor Aristocracy in

imperialist countries.

This is why it is so important for

communists to attend political rallies not

just to support the demands but also to

distribute literature. Even without theory

journals, handing out MIM Notes gives

people a chance to see some of our

political line and a link to our web page

for more in depth analysis.

Continued from page 1...

MIM Notes 291 · November 15, 2003 · Page 7

movements.

Adding to the blessings of liberation, the

Amerikans have begun wholesale arrests

of male villagers. According to the

Associated Press, Amerikan troops

arrested all male inhabitants of the village

of Habbariyah over the age of 13. The

Amerikan Army claimed the raid was to

stop the movement of "terrorists" from

Saudi Arabia into Iraq, but the Army

admitted it had no such "terrorists" in

custody. A month after the raid all but

two of the 79 captives remained in

detention. One of those released said he

was never even questioned by the

Amerikans.(3)

We encourage readers to apply the

"cockroach rule" to the reports of violence

in Iraq, whether by Iraqis against

Amerikan soldiers or vice versa. If you

see one, there must be many more you

can't see. The incident at My Lai is

perhaps the only Amerikan massacre of

Vietnamese civilians familiar to most

Amerikans, yet such acts were

commonplace. Being a foot soldier in an

occupying army is stressful business,

whether you are shooting or getting shot

at. Take Amerikan soldiers' dropping

morale as a gauge for the scale and

injustice of the violence--violence that is

built into this occupation in the name of

Amerikan imperial interests.

Notes:

1. Associated Press, 2 Nov 2003.

2. The Army's own newspaper, Stars

and Stripes, published one survey showing

low morale, contrary to White House

claims.

3. Associated Press, 23 Oct 2003.

`Tough week' just

the tip of the

iceberg for

occupying army

Continued from page 1...

Once upon a time, the story goes, a

group of revolutionaries from the

hinterlands rose up against colonialism

and aristocracy under the banner of

freedom and happiness for all peoples.

Now their descendants openly colonize

Iraq and elect presidents who defend

flying the pro-slavery Confederate flag

in government buildings. Thanks to that

wonderful modern technology called

"books" we don't have to imagine what

the "Founding Fathers" would have to say

about current events.

Here's what George Mason, "Father

of the Bill of Rights," might have said after

September 11: "As nations cannot be

rewarded or punished in the next world

they must be in this. By an inevitable

chain of causes and effects Providence

punishes national sins by national

calamities."

Present-day Amerikans should take

notice: George has a pretty good track

record on this issue. The national sin he

had in mind was slavery, which he said

would bring "the judgment of heaven on

the United States." Sure enough, about

eighty years after he said this, more than

600,000 soldiers died before Amerikan

slaveholders conceded defeat.

We read and hear regular reports that

Amerikan soldiers fired on crowds of

Iraqis protesting Amerikan occupation.

Even according Stars and Stripes, the

U.$. Army newspaper, 34% of Amerikan

soldiers in Iraq say their morale is "low"

or "very low," and 40% said they had not

been adequately trained for their

"peacekeeping" tasks.

John Adams, who eventually led the

drive to declare independence from

England, certainly would have had

something to say on the subject of

occupying armies. He was defense

lawyer for the soldiers who fired on a

crowd of (possibly armed) hecklers in the

famous "Boston Massacre." Adams'

defense was double-edged: in acquitting

the soldiers, he indicted the occupying

army. "Soldiers quartered in a

populous town will always occasion

two mobs where they prevent one. They

are wretched conservators of the

peace."

To some extent Amerikan soldiers in

Iraq are ground up by the machinery of

colonialism. As we wrote at the beginning

of the latest Amerikan ground invasion

of Iraq, "We also mourn those of the U.$.

troops who are too young and foolish to

understand world affairs and why they

die in Iraq... However, unlike the Iraqis,

we can say that the u.$. troops did at least

have a chance to avoid their fate.

Whether they were watching too much

nakednews.com (which is the leading

news website in the male 18-34 age

group) to pay attention to political matters

or whether they read too many romantic

tales of military adventure, the U.$. troops

had the economic opportunity to educate

themselves better and push their country

away from aggression, but they failed."

You said it, Daddy-o

Washington, DC, Oct. 25--Counter-

demonstrators made their most concerted

effort yet at a rally against the war in

Iraq. A couple dozen from the "Free

Republic" organization attended the anti-

war rally with carefully prepared placards.

After the placard-bearers waved their

menacing signs at demonstrators, a

womyn with a megaphone was sure to

Washington, DC, Oct. 25--MIM

handed out 1000 copies of the November

1 MIM Notes to the rally which numbered

from between 10 and 100,000 people,

with police observors saying 10 or 20,000

and organizers saying 100,000.

Our biggest problem was that a number

of people thought we supported Dean for

president with our November 1 headline.

One cursed us loudly, because Dean

attacked medical marijuana he said.

Others also would not allow a word in

edge-wise. However, there were very

few Dean supporters evident. About 20%

DC rally: Counter-demonstrators try harder

tell all the marchers that they were

marching in support of a "communist"

named Larry Holmes leading the

speakers. The megaphone user correctly

identified Larry Holmes with the Workers

World Party.

In response, one passing demonstrator

said, "and Rush Limbaugh is a coke

addict," shrugging his shoulders. The point

is that the effort to discredit a particular

speaker can never substitute for

addressing the issue itself. In fact, in both

pro- and anti-war camps there will always

be those easily discredited in mainstream

eyes. That has nothing to do with whether

the war is right or wrong. In fact, as

Buddhists said during the Vietnam War,

if the resistance to the war is communist-

led like the propagandists say, then it's

proper to give credit to the communists.

Likewise, MIM says of the non-

communists: whatever reasoning process

they used, if they concluded the war on

Iraq is wrong, then we give them credit.

of demonstrators were wearing campaign

stickers for Kucinich, many of whom

raised an eyebrow against our headline.

We had to explain that MIM opposes both

Dean and Kucinich.

We will give credit to speaker and

Democratic Party presidential candidate

Rev. Al Sharpton. He argued against

troops' staying in Iraq until a tidy

withdrawl "with dignity" could be

achieved. "You lost your dignity when you

went in in the first place," he said.

Attending the rally was Redstockings

leader Kathie Sarachild who is working

MIM tables at DC rally

on a new book. She is famous for

pioneering the radical feminist movement

in the 1960s.

The people came forward to MIM to

donate money and express opinions. One

said that he did not know about our line

on the Soviet Union and China, but he

thought it was obvious that MIM was

correct about the white working class

being bought off. One young man said,

"I'm so glad about the whole resurgence

of the MIM."

We also sold MIM Theory magazines

and the writings of Mao.

George Mason (left) and John Adams

might have had something to say to today's

occupying army: British troops take

incoming stones in Basra, Iraq.

We constantly update MIM's

coverage of the U.$. war on

our web site, with news and
opinion, agitation materials,

articles in English, Spanish,

French, Chinese and

Russian!

Read and distribute the

newspaper -- and get the

latest:

www.etext.org/ Politics/MIM

MIM Notes 291 · November 15, 2003 · Page 8

American intervention. Israel feels it fits

this definition" (p. 19).

Because of its support for I$rael as a

proxy force against independent Arab

nationalist forces, the United $tates has

continually sided with I$rael on

fundamental issues. A partial list:

* Despite occasional mutterings from

the White House that new I$raeli

settlements on Palestinian territory are

"not helpful," the United $tates has

encouraged continued settlement. The

settler population has doubled since the

beginning of Oslo "peace process," while

the U.$. government relaxed restrictions

on Amerikan aid going to building

settlements and did nothing about tax-

exempt private subsidies (p.xiii).

* Despite rhetoric of "evenhandedness"

and "reciprocity," the United $tates

hypocritically upholds I$rael's "right to

self-defense" while denying the

Palestinians the same right (much the

same way it applies this double standard

to itself, reserving the right to pre-emptive

strike while justifying the invasion of

Iraq--or the bombing of a

pharmaceutical plant in Sudan etc.--on

the grounds that others are thinking about

maybe producing some weapons long

standard in the Amerikan arsenal). While

I$rael received $80-$90 billion in U.$. aid

from 1948 to 2000, and continues to

receive more than $5 billion yearly--

much of it in the form of Apache

helicopters and jet technology used to

bomb heavily populated civilian areas--

the Wye River Agreement (to take one

example) placed restrictions on Palestinian

"possession, manufacture, or importing of

weapons" (p.121; see also MIM Notes

252). While I$rael supplies settlers with

arms then used in provocative attacks

against Palestinians--clearly violating

numerous U.$.-brokered agreements but

eliciting no response from the United

$tates--I$rael has repeatedly occupied

and razed towns in the West Bank and

Gaza Strip on the pretext that the

Palestinian Authority has not cracked

down on "terrorists" (pp.119-122).

* Despite claims that the Oslo "peace

process" put off "final status issues" such

as the sovereignty of Jerusalem, no

challenge to the status quo of I$raeli

domination can survive long in the

Amerikan political scene. When the elder

George Bush said Jerusalem would be

included in a settlement ban (1990), which

was consistent with official U.$. policy,

Republicans and Democrats (1)

denounced Bush, accusing him of

undermining the "peace process."

Congress passed a resolution stating that

"Jerusalem is and should remain the

capital of Israel [and] must remain an

undivided city" (pp. 128-135).

Aruri correctly argues throughout the

book that the reason for setting aside

fundamental "final status issues" was to

ensure their de facto resolution in favor

of I$rael. He quotes an advisor to I$raeli

Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin: "The

New book exposes sham `peace process'

intention all along was for the interim

agreement to be very near the final

settlement" (p. xv).

As mentioned above, reading

Dishonest Broker sheds light on a lot of

contemporary "reporting" and "debate"

in the bourgeois press. We'll close this

review by highlighting two examples.

"Blame it on Arafat." Apologists for

Zionist colonialism often excuse I$rael of

any culpability for Palestinian suffering

by pointing to Arab leaders' own duplicity,

vacillation, thuggishness, etc. "Jordan

illegally annexed portions of the West

Bank in 1949," they say (as did I$rael, a

fact these blowhards never mention).

"Arab states do not grant resident

Palestinians their rights" (ignoring why

so many Palestinians are in exile).

"Arafat is corrupt and anti-democratic."

Aside from the fact that the sins of Arab

leaders do not absolve I$rael, which bears

principal responsibility for Palestinian

dispossession, these "arguments" ignore

I$raeli and Amerikan complicity in

keeping this kind of sell-out, neocolonial

leadership in power. So you say there's

no secular opposition in Arab countries,

Mr. State Department Intellectual? You

should have thought of that when you

backed the Shah of Iran, the Saudi

Monarchy, Egypt's Sadat, etc.

Arafat is a clear, almost farcical

example of this. From the beginning of

the Oslo "Peace Process," Arafat and

the Palestinian Authority have been

dependent on the United $tates and I$rael

for power and international prestige. Aruri

points out that before Oslo, "Arafat had

become, together with his organization,

increasingly irrelevant... The stark choice

before him was either to be involved in

the `peace process' or to risk being

bypassed altogether" (p. 84). The

Palestinian Authority has no real authority

to control its own economy or security. It

has at best the trappings of statehood--

and often not even those, as it cannot issue

its own passports or currency (pp. 95-

96).

This situation took a particularly

ridiculous turn in the younger Bush's

much-heralded June 2002 speech on

Palestine. "Bush's speech called on the

Palestinians, who were trapped in their

homes for weeks and months under

prolonged [I$rael-imposed] curfews, to

change their leaders and `build a

practicing democracy,' & to conduct

`multiparty elections by the end of the

year' & and of course to stop terrorism.

Even the New York Times remarked on

June 25, 2002: `How the Palestinians can

be expected to carry out elections or

reform themselves while in a total

lockdown by the Israeli military remains

something of a mystery'" (p. 207).

Throughout the book, Aruri makes the

correct point that the United $tates and

I$rael have consistently undermined

internationalist forces in the Middle East

while promoting narrow nationalists (see

e.g. pp. 51-59).

The United $tates and I$rael after

the cold war. The common wisdom after

the collapse of the Soviet Union was that

I$rael would be less important to the

United $tates' geopolitical plans. Aruri

shows that this has proven empirically

incorrect: I$rael and the United $tates are

as close if not closer than before. He

gives several important reason why: first,

the United $tates interests in the region

have not fundamentally changed; second,

I$rael has continued to do an effective

job of selling itself to do Amerika's dirty

work. This includes serving as a

laboratory for Amerikan "anti-terror"

tactics (p. 47).

The kernel of truth in the common

wisdom is that there is nothing unique

about I$rael marketing itself as a thug--

contrary to anti-Semitic demagogues who

say I$rael runs the U.$. government.

Pakistan for example is angling to trade

its help fighting Al Qaeda for U.$. support

in its conflict with India.(2) This is a

problem built in to imperialism: major

powers look to defend their interests by

any means necessary, while bourgeois

nationalists from smaller countries look

to cut deals with the major powers to

their benefit and to the detriment of their

neighbors.

Notes:

1. Including George Mitchell, later chair

of the "evenhanded" Mitchell

Commission (pp. 181-184).

2. MIM Notes 260, 15 June 2002.

resistance (which Yaalon has to call

"hatred and terrorism" for propaganda

purposes). A police-minded, repression-

based approach to security will fail.

However, Yaalon fails to see that I$rael's

strategic interests are inherently

contradictory. I$rael cannot live in peace

as long as it occupies Palestinian land and

denies Palestinian national rights.

The I$raeli military claimed the goal of

the recent raid in the Gaza strip was to

destroy tunnels used by Palestinians to

bring weapons in from Egypt. Even

assuming such tunnels existed this is a

hypocritical justification. It shows that

I$rael denies the Palestinians basic

bourgeois-national rights that I$rael

enjoys. I$rael can import billions of dollars

worth of military machines including from

the United $tates, but the Palestinians

cannot import small arms from Egypt?

Readers will be forgiven for thinking that

the Palestinians could import such

weapons from I$rael or the United

$tates--provided they accepted the

important political strings attached.

Of course, there is little reason to take

the I$raeli military at its word. Such

tunnels may not exist--or may have an

entirely different function. The BBC

documentary "The Killing Zone," for

I$rael rattles Amerikan-made saber

Tough tactics divide reactionary camp

example, shows house-to-house tunnels

the Palestinians made to avoid incessant

I$raeli sniper fire, which kills scores every

year. The I$raeli military's press office

claims those killed were either

combatants or dangerously close to

combatants, when it comments at all. A

closer examination of the facts in most

cases shows this to be a lie.

For example, during the recent invasion

of the Gaza strip, I$raeli missiles killed

eight and wounded seventy. The I$raeli

military said the attack was a "targeted

killing" (their words) aimed at a few

militants in one car. It claimed it did not

fire into a crowd--a story not consistent

with the number of casualties.

Eyewitnesses say I$raeli helicopters fired

two missiles. After the first missile hit the

car, a crowd gathered. Then the second

missile struck, causing most of the

casualties.(2) This is consistent with

separate incidents described in "The

Killing Zone." In one case, according to

international observers protecting

Palestinian children on their way to school,

I$raeli sharpshooters would shoot a child

in the leg. Then, when the observers left

to take the child to the hospital, they

would shoot the next child in the head.

Notes:

1. Washington Post, 30 Oct 2003.

2. Associated Press, 23 Oct 2003.

Continued from page 1...

Continued from page 3...

Naseer Aruri.

MIM Notes 291 · November 15, 2003 · Page 9

and county level officials would often be

variously educated peasants, there is

some reason to doubt that they could do

a job even as well as the U.S. Census

Bureau.

For this reason, we at MIM do not

completely discount our critics using this

sort of method. We only ask that they

remember to use the same one when

estimating capitalist deaths. Moreover, if

our critics would say Mao "killed" tens

of millions, then we want to hear how

many millions they say Clinton "killed"

also. For these reasons, MIM has focused

on refuting the ridiculous anti-communist

propaganda of the bourgeoisie while

viewing with a more tolerant eye the

people wanting to estimate various causes

of death.

For us there is no line to be drawn that

defines the correct number of executions.

We cannot say, for instance, that if fewer

than 1 million people were executed in

Communist China the revolution was good

but more than 1 million is bad. Instead

we need to look at the whole period of

Chinese Communist rule, including the

executions, and determine if it was overall

correct and revolutionary or not. We can

study information about the executions in

China to learn that they were carried out

against a small minority of reactionaries,

including a number of landlords who were

killed after public trials by the peasants

who had suffered rape, murder, torture

and starvation at their hands prior to the

revolution. But we can also state that even

Mao admitted some people were killed

who should not have been. And we can

look at the context of these executions to

see the tremendous advances the Chinese

people were making during this period,

including in the area of criminal justice

and building a society of revolutionary

participation by the masses.

The bottom line is that it is not possible

to separate the historical question of

numbers of people executed from the

moral question of balancing lives saved

against lives lost, as you put it. Executions

are carried out in a political context. If

the United $tates only executes a handful

of people each year this does not make

these executions morally or politically

correct. The imperialist murderers (a.k.a.

capitalists) are in no position to be

carrying out any executions.

Further, when debating reactionaries on

these questions we have to force them to

address the questions on our terms. If they

want to talk about blame for numbers of

deaths they should be forced to address

the deaths caused by imperialism around

the world (see http://www.etext.org/

Politics/MIM/impkills.html).

Letters

Continued from page 2...

the international spokespersyn for the

Nationalist regime during World War II.

She is arguably more famous in China

for her virulent anti-communism.

Many Amerikan obituaries praised

Madame Chiang, but a large number of

them also criticized her as a dictator who

loved power and money. Some even

admitted the Communists were an

improvement for China over Chiang Kai-

shek's nationalist government. These

obituaries did not fully acknowledge the

United $tates' role in propping up the

corrupt Kuomintang regime, however.

The Amerikans viewed the Chiang

regime as an alternative to the growing

Communist forces. In 1938 Time

Magazine named the Chiangs man and

womyn of the year. President Bush issued

a statement upon learning of her death:

"Madame Chiang was a close friend of

the United States throughout her life, and

especially during the defining struggles of

the last century."(1)

Chiang Kai-shek ruled most of China

from the mid-twenties to 1949, when the

Communist-led revolution drove the

nationalist regime from the mainland to

exile on Taiwan. Madam Chiang was

fluent in English--she went to school in

Amerika--and served as her husband's

envoy to the United $tates. She helped

persuade the U.$. Congress to give the

Kuomintang money to fight against Japan

during World War II. The Nationalists

used some of this money to fight the

communists, and leaders expropriated

much of it for persynal use. This is no

surprise; Amerika has a long history of

backing mass murderers, military

dictators and thieves in government.

After 1949, the United $tates

maintained strong ties with the

Nationalists' "Republic of China" on

Taiwan. The United $tates denied the

mainland People's Republic of China

membership in the United Nations until

1971 and delayed formal recognition until

1979. On Taiwan the Nationalists ruled

with a notorious iron fist. After her

husband died in 1975 Madam Chiang

moved to New York City.

Born to a wealthy family in China,

Soong Meiling was the daughter of a

Christian Missionary. Her husband,

Chiang, converted to her religion. Both

used Christianity in their anti-Communist

propaganda. Many obituaries in the

western press discussed Madam Chiang's

religion as if it was a progressive force in

China. An NPR interview asked whether

her Christianity was a democratizing

influence in China--a laughable question,

typical of bourgeois media that dismiss

the class struggle.

Soong Meiling was the youngest of

three daughters in her family. Her middle

sister, Soong Ching-Ling, married Sun

Yat-Sen, leader of the revolution that

overthrew China's last emperor. Her

oldest sister, Ai-Ling, married into a

wealthy banking family. There is a saying

in China about the Soong sisters: One

loved money, one loved power, and one

loved China. Soong Meiling (Madame

Chiang) was the one who loved power.

Soong Ching-Ling, who split from the

family to side with the Communists, was

known as the sister who loved China. This

saying makes it clear where the Chinese

masses' sentiments lie.

In 1943 Madam Chiang addressed the

U.$. Congress and received a standing

ovation in response to her appeal for

support in the fight against the Japanese.

At a dinner at the White House with

President Roosevelt and his wife Eleanor

she was asked her how she would handle

a strike by coal miners. She drew a

fingernail across her neck to indicate her

severe and violent response to

opposition.(2)

Under the Chiang government the

Chinese people suffered poverty and

repression. Chiang Kai-shek himself is

known for earning millions from the opium

trade and selling U.$.-supplied materials

intended for the fight against the

Japanese. President Truman estimated

Chiang and his cronies filched $750 million

of the aid provided by the United $tates.

It was the corruption of the Nationalists

that led millions of Chinese people to join

the Communist party, or at least support

their revolutionary struggle. Even the

Chinese petty bourgeoisie proclaimed that

the Communists had to be better than the

Nationalists.

The people in every town the

Communists passed through affirmed the

Communists' reputation for impeccable

conduct. By the time the Communists ran

the Nationalists out of Shanghai it was a

nearly bloodless battle; the Communist

forces swept across the remainder of

Widow of Chiang Kai-shek dies at 105

Continued from page 1...

country to take power. The Communists

quickly stabilized the currency, eliminated

corruption, and put an end to prostitution

and drug addiction.

Notes:

1. Taipei Times, October 26, 2003

2. Straits Times, October 25, 2003

MIM Notes 291 · November 15, 2003 · Page 10

MIM on

Prisons & Prisoners

MIM seeks to build public opinion

against Amerika's criminal injustice sys-

tem, and to eventually replace the bour-

geois injustice system with proletarian jus-

tice. The bourgeois injustice system im-

prisons and executes a disproportionately

large and growing number of oppressed

people while letting the biggest mass mur-

derers -- the imperialists and their lack-

eys -- roam free. Imperialism is not op-

posed to murder or theft, it only insists that

these crimes be committed in the interests

of the bourgeoisie.

"All U.S. citizens are criminals--

accomplices and accessories to the crimes
of U.$. oppression globally until the day
U.$. imperialism is overcome. All U.S.
citizens should start from the point of view
that they are reforming criminals."

MIM does not advocate that all

prisoners go free today; we have a
more effective program for fighting
crime as was demonstrated in China
prior to the restoration of capitalism
there in 1976. We say that all prisoners
are political prisoners because under
the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, all
imprisonment is substantively
political. It is our responsibility to
exert revolutionary leadership and
conduct political agitation and
organization among prisoners --
whose material conditions make them
an overwhelmingly revolutionary
group. Some prisoners should and will
work on self-criticism under a future
dictatorship of the proletariat in those
cases in which prisoners really did do
something wrong by proletarian
standards.

Under Lock & Key

News from Prisons & Prisoners

Oregon good time
threatened for
revolutionaries

Some of your written materials have recently

been shown to me by a fellow inmate here at

[this prison]. Your letter asks for feedback so
I thought I might write to you with some
thoughts, ideas and opinions.

First of all, I'd like to applaud your efforts

at organizing and implementing real change.
When I was first incarcerated I was surprised

that I didn't see more groups like yours with
good information and ways to implement them
at a time when it is most needed. We do indeed

face significant opposition in organizing
people behind bars. In Oregon, inmate-to-
inmate correspondence is allowed but is more

closely monitored than regular mail. I don't
know if California is different but I am guessing
it is.

At this facility our security have a zero

tolerance for what they consider to be
"unauthorized organization" and it seems a

regular meeting of USW leaders/supporters
would definitely fit their definition of one. I
believe this is unfair and oppressive at best,

however very little can be done to change
operational rules from the inside.

Myself being one of the people who receive

good time/earned time credit am reluctant to
lose that. As such I do everything I can to
work within the system when possible. I may

have a chance at early release as well, in 12
months. If I don't get let out then, my next
date is in 32 months. And finally, should I

lose all my good time, my maximum date is in
41 months. I'm not trying to spend one more
second locked up then I have to. I think this

may be one of the problems you guys will
find in attaining more members. People like
myself don't want to or can't afford to attract

attention to themselves. Maybe this is no
excuse not to get involved but I have a family
who needs me. I think a lot of people get

caught in the trap of how much time they
have left. People who are short don't want to
become involved because they are leaving

soon and lifers are depressed and unwilling
to put effort into prison reform. Maybe I am
making over-generalizations but that seems

to be a problem to me.

Your list of short term goals seems to be

reasonable and well thought out. Your long

term goal will require more effort and man
power as well as financial support.

I do agree with you whole-heartedly that

censorship is one of our primary enemies in
the struggle for true prison reform. We need
access to real information besides what

prisons are required by law to give us. Many
useful books and publications are denied to
us under the guise of being a "threat to the

safety and security of the institution," I hope
to see that change.

Perhaps this letter isn't exactly helpful, but

I hope it provides some insight for you guys.

Sincerely,
-- an Oregon prisoner, October 2003

MIM responds: We have received your

letter with feedback on MIM's efforts to
organize in prisons. We have not added you

to our mailing list since you are wary of being
associated with MIM. But we are sending
you this response, and if you would like to

receive a free subscription to MIM Notes just
let us know.

The points you bring up are very relevant,

and important for our comrades behind bars
to be thinking about. We will continue to
organize in prisons, where we find significant

support for our revolutionary program within

u$ borders. The contradiction of the u$ prison

system is that it is the blunt repression of
oppressed nations that both makes it hard to
organize in prisons while making prisoners

more interested in organizing against the
system. So we must work with the one to
struggle against the other, for in the end the

masses have the power, not the imperialists.

That said the power exerted over prisoners

within u$ prisons is obviously real and

limiting. This power comes in the use of the
carrot and the stick. As you point out, people
are rewarded for staying in line with good

time. One can also gain favor from prison
guards by snitching on others who aren't
staying in line. The use of the stick is at least

as strong through tools like the Security
Housing Units to straight up beatings and
abuse that guards can get away with in the

confines of these isolated societies in prisons.

For revolutionaries behind bars, you must

weigh your options. You are much more

valuable and will likely be much happier on
the outside, if you can stay active once you
get out. If putting off open political work for a

year means you can get out and do work on
the outside at the end of the year instead of
waiting 4 years then you could probably

justify staying low key for a year.

Organizing in prisons is a challenge and

involves taking risks. It is up to each of us to

weigh the risks and rewards of our options
and do what will best serve the cause and the
interests of the people.

Georgia prisoner
remembers Safiya
Bukhari

Former political prisoner, leader of the Black

Liberation Movement, founder of the New

York City Free Mumia Abu Jamal Coalition
and Co-Chair of the Jericho movement, Safiya
Bukhari died from heart failure on August 24,

2003 in New York City. Safiya was 53 years
old. She was herself a former political prisoner.

I was impressed by her sincerity, her

commitment and her burning energy. She was
a descendent of slaves and she inherited the
legacy of neo-slavery. She believed that

struggle was the only way that African people
in America could rid themselves of
oppression. As a Black woman struggling in

America, she experienced the most vicious
forms of racism, sexism, cruelty and
indifference. As a political activist she was

targeted, persecuted, hounded and harassed.

Because of her political activities she

became a political prisoner and spent many

years in prison. But she continued to believe
in freedom, and she continued to fight for it.
In spite of her personal suffering, in spite of

chronic, life threatening illnesses, she
continued to struggle. She gave the best that
she had to give our people. I pray that her

sisters and brothers, who continue to walk
on this planet, will honor her memory by
continuing her work, by continuing her

struggle, and refusing to quit until all
oppressed people and all political prisoners
are free.

--a Georgia prisoner, 8 October 2003

RAIL adds: Safiya joined the Black Panther

Party in 1969 after witnessing a BPP member
being beaten by police for selling the BPP
newspaper on the street. She later joined the

Black Liberation Army (BLA) and spent close
to nine years in prison for activities on behalf
of the BLA. While in prison and after her

release, she continued to fight tirelessly for
the rights of prisoners and the oppressed.
Safiya was a strong ally in the struggle against

the injustice system and against imperialism
as a whole. Having worked together to expose
oppression in u$ prisons we can attest to her

revolutionary spirit and effective organizing
work. RAIL expresses regret at the loss of
this friend of the people.

Notes: http://

www.thejerichomovement.com/bukhari.html

Stamps stolen in NY

Reading pg. 10 of you April 1st issue, It is

true what the inmate said that New York State
prisoners are not allowed to send stamps in

envelopes and for any reason that envelope
happens to come back to the facility, that
inmate will be in a lot of trouble.

-- a New York Prisoner, September 2003

I am writing you to inform you that today I

received your letter stating that you never
received my 30 stamps and my manifestation
about the ALKQN... The mail room clerks at

this facility always censor our mail from
Monday to Friday and they always get away
with it.

I want you to know that these employees

and the CO's here are getting away with
murder by abusing their authority towards

us because we are in the box and every time
we come out our cells to go to recreation they
always put shackles around our waist and

once they do that, that's when an asshole CO
will jump you with other CO's just because
you're Black or Hispanic. In this facility there's

a lot of racist CO's who wake up always on
the wrong side of the bed and then take it out
on us because of what we are, represent'n

revolutionary...

I want the whole world to know that I am a

revolutionary Latin King from the East Coast

NY and every King in New York City and State
knows me by the name King Storm and I'm
not scared to tell the world how proud I am to

represent my holy crown and my beloved
nation to the fullest degree that no outsiders
can't reach. I will refuse to let the united

snakes of amerika break me down physically
and mentally as well as spiritually because
they will never take my crown away from me

because my crown is carried within my heart,
mind, and soul.

So if any Rey's reading this MIM Notes,

please let it be known that we need to stop
fighting among each other and lets bring it
back how it use to be with love and unity so

that everybody doesn't have to look at us as
gangs which we know we not.

Amor de Rey

--King Storm, October 2003

MIM adds: Another new comrade from New

York sent some stamps to support us with his

first letter which came to us opened and
stapled shut with no stamps inside.

California State
Prison on lockdown

I am writing this short letter to let you know

that I just received my first 3 issues of MIM

Notes. Thank you for sending me these
truthful papers, I thought I'd never receive
them because it's been a while since I've heard

anything from you.

I appreciate everything you are doing and

continue to do for prisoners and the truth

and light you're bringing on such a dark
environment (prisons). Keep up the good
work and I'll be a supporter for life.

I have a few things to update you about

the current situation here at CSP SAC prison.
The C-yard I'm on went on lockdown Sept

29, 2003, due to a black man stabbing a
Corrections Office (CO) in the eye and
messing his face up pretty bad. The CO

wasn't well liked and caused a lot of problems
and searched cells just to be doing it even if
your cell already had been searched. The

convict who stabbed the CO was beaten

MIM Notes 291 · November 15, 2003 · Page 11

Facts on U$ imprisonment

The facts about imprisonment in the United $tates are that the United $tates has been the world's leading prison-state per capita for the last

25 years, with a brief exception during Boris Yeltsin's declaration of a state of emergency.(1)

That means that while Reagan was talking about a Soviet "evil empire" he was the head of a state that imprisoned more people per capita.

In supposedly "hard-line" Bulgaria of the Soviet bloc of the 1980s, the imprisonment rate was less than half that of the United $tates.(2,3)

To find a comparison with U.$. imprisonment of Black people, there is no statistic in any country that compares including apartheid South

Africa of the era before Mandela was president. The last situation remotely comparable to the situation today was under Stalin during war
time. The majority of prisoners are non-violent offenders(4) and the U.S. Government now holds about a half million more prisoners than
China; even though China is four times our population.(5)

The rednecks tell MIM that we live in a "free country." They live in an Orwellian 1984 situation where freedom is imprisonment.

Notes: 1. Marc Mauer, "Americans Behind Bars: The International Use of Incarceration 1993," The Prison Sentencing Project, 918 F. St. NW, Suite

501, Washington, DC 20004 (202) 628-0871 Reference: SRI: R8965-2, 1994
2. Ibid., 1992 report.

3. United Nations Development Programme, "Human Development Report 1994,:" Oxford University Press, p. 186.

4. Figure of 51.2 percent for state prisoners there for non-violent offenses. Abstract of the United States 1993, p. 211.
5. Atlantic Monthly December, 1998.

From the MIM "Frequently Asked

Questions" page, http://www.etext.org/
Politics/MIM/faq.

Internationalism is the ethical belief or

scientific approach in which peoples of
different nations are held to be or assumed to
be equal. Internationalism is opposed to
racism and national chauvinism.

We Maoists believe the nationalism of

nations experiencing oppression of
imperialism is "applied internationalism." We
oppose nationalism of oppressed nations
directed at other oppressed nations, because
the economic content of such nationalism is
intra-proletarian conflict. We seek a united
front of oppressed nations led by the
international proletariat against imperialism.

"I must argue, not from the point of view

of `my' country (for that is the argument of a
wretched, stupid, petty-bourgeois nationalist
who does not realize that he is only a plaything
in the hands of the imperialist bourgeoisie),
but from the point of view of my share in the
preparation, in the propaganda, and in the
acceleration of the world proletarian
revolution. That is what internationalism
means, and that is the duty of the
internationalist, of the revolutionary worker,
of the genuine Socialist."

V. I. Lenin, "What Is Internationalism?"

The Proletarian Revolution and the
Renegade Kautsky (Peking: Foreign
Language Press, 1965), p. 80.

What is internationalism?

pretty bad and put into ad-seg. The guard
may not (will not) return to work. However,

every race was placed on lockdown status,
pending cell searches and whatever these
corrupt people want to do. However when

they are done searching all crip prisoners are
supposed to be on lockdown because the
prisoner was alleged to be affiliated with crips.

The conditions here are not getting any

better. They continue to take from us in the
belly of this beast. They took the weights,

the family visits, the camera for taking
pictures, no walking to the chow hall, cell
feeding and food is cold when you get it.

Took tobacco, lighters, blue clothes, now
everyone wears pants and shirts that say CDC
prisoner. Don't want you to have your hair

but 3 inches, no beard, just mustache. Now
they are supposed to be taking packages and
a few other things. These people continue to

take, we will have to struggle and fight for
everything all over. They just recently took
razors too.

-- a California prisoner, October 2003

MIM responds: We remind prisoners on

our mailing list to keep writing to us even
when you don't get MIM Notes for a while.
Sometimes our mailings are delayed due to

financial and logistical problems, but we need
you to keep writing to us so we know if we
are being censored, and so that we can

continue to work together.

California: guards
assault another
prisoner

On October 10 these pigs did a coward move

on a comrade. They been calling him out of
his name for the past month, and doing things
to his food. He's in the hole for a battery on a

pig so they hate that, they want to be the
only ones giving out beatings. Anyway, when
the pigs were bringing him back to his cell

from the shower and the pig said "I'll take the
cuffs off you." The one pig went inside of his
cell and took the cuffs off, I'm not sure but I

think the pig hit the prisoner then the prisoner
put hands on him real proper, he shouldn't
have taken the cuffs off and gone in his cell.

They should have let the prisoner in the

cell, made sure that the door was closed, then
let the prisoner put his hands through the

small hole in the door like they do all the other
prisoners. Anyway, all the other pigs at the
door went in the cell also and started beating

on the prisoner. They cuffed his hands and
feet and put them together, then picked him
up by his hands and feed and took him out of

the unit.

I'm sure when they got in a blind spot they

beat him again with the cuffs on, that's how

they do things around here. When they took
him out of the pod they had his t-shirt over

his head so I couldn't see his face, but I saw
all the blood on the t-shirt. They never

brought him back but I heard they moved
him. I gave him your address a few days before
this, but I'm sure the pigs lost his property

somehow.

-- a California prisoner, October 2003

Exposing the
California SHU
system

I was glad to hear about your work to try

and abolish control and SHU units. As a
person who has spent many years in these

type of units, I know first hand that they serve
no purpose, other than punishing prisoners
severely. The CDC covers themselves by

saying that prisoners conduct that endangers
the safety of others or the security of the
institution shall be housed in a SHU. Of course

this makes sense in the abstract. However,
the criteria is not that rigorous. The
disciplinary process for offenses that warrant

SHU terms is a joke. The hearings are set on a
"preponderance of evidence" standard. These
hearings are a kangaroo court system, and

you can only appeal to the same staff that
has already decided you are guilty.

Moreover, the CDC decides for themselves

which prisoners are a threat to the "safety
and security" of the institution. This term is a
cover-all term and is not defined. They use

this term "safety and security of the
institution," any time they whish to deny any
privilege or right that a prisoner has by law.

The CCR Title 15 allows the CDC to nullify
any legislation, simply by coining this term.
The worst case scenario is when the CDC

gives prisoners indeterminate SHU terms for
being so-called prison gang members. Once
the CDC decides you are a prison gang

member, the only way you can be released
from a SHU unit is by "debriefing." Which in
turn makes that person an informant. In the

prison society informants are despised
second only to child molesters. So in all, if
ten CDC terms you a prison gang member, for

you to be released from the SHU you must
risk your life by informing on other prisoners.
To say nothing of your integrity, or the fact

that you may not even have any information
to de-brief.

Further, the criteria for being a gang member

is far too easily met. Things like "confidential
information." Any inmate could tell staff that
a prisoner is a gang member and that will be

used against that prisoner. Or "association."
For example if I decided to play a game of
chess with a validated gang member, I would

then be deemed a gang member. This is clearly
a method the CDC uses to remove any
prisoner they feel is a threat.

Again...these units are designed strictly for

punishment. Total sensory deprivation.

Furthermore, the rules change in prison
society for prisoners in these units. All

prisoners must follow two sets of rules. One
outlined by the CDC, and secondly, and more
important, are rules set out by other prisoners.

These units condition prisoners to become
more violent, and less forgiving than normal.
When a person is incarcerated, they take an

evolutionary step backwards. A more war like
and less tolerant, almost animal society, and
these are people who may have violent

tendencies to begin with.

For the most part, the units make prisoners

worse. So what purpose do they serve? And

for the benefit of whom? I cannot see a
prisoner that would be able to interact with
people in society at any normal level after

being exposed to long term SHU housing.
When a person becomes powerless over their
own life, that person only has two choices.

One, submit and two, act out. Most people
will not submit, so they act out. Either choice
does no one any good. Not the prison

administration, and certainly not the prisoner.
Common sense would dictate not to kick an
already violent dog.

- a Corcoran prisoner, September 2003

California SHU lacks
health care

I just wanted to let you know of an issue

that's affected me firsthand. My four years in
the SHU I've seen a deficiency in the metal
health programs for us back here in the SHUs.

I know that its frowned upon by fellow

inmates if you are CCCMs, but hey, there is
some need for this program for some

individuals. That's reality. The CDC likes to
hand out "Hot-Meds" like it's Halloween but
refuses to couple medications with psycho-

therapy which plays a tremendous role in
rehabilitation or curing a mental illness. SHUs
have a severe lack of resources in this matter,

and it has a tremendous impact on those
directly involved.

A newspaper articles was just published

on the rash of suicides that have occurred
here in a matter of weeks in between.
Something along the lines of six suicides

within two months. And to add another, my
homeboy just hung himself on 10/2/03. These
foolios didn't, couldn't or wouldn't help him.

SSU did their "little" investigation and told
everyone that it was our fault. That we should
have said something. Like the psych couldn't

realize what was going on inside the guy's
head with all their training and schooling. He
was pulled out of his cell four days in a row to

talk to the psych, to try and get some help.
On the fifth day he was pulled out of his cell
with a rope around his neck...dead.

Somebody from Sacramento came about a

week after that happened and was interviewing
people in our section to, I guess, try and get

an understanding of the circumstances that

led up to my homeboy's suicide. He had
pulled out about four people before four

sergeants hustled him into the office
bombarding him with questions like "who are
you", "what are you doing here," and "who

sent you." So it appears that Sacramento
slipped through without their usual alerting
of someone coming down. And them being

able to prepare for them.

The SHU is no joke. Or even the Ad-segs.

If you're unlucky enough to end up in a SHU

or ad-seg where the cops are "brothers" and
"do things their way" it's like you're up a
creek without a paddle. I mean look, they have

total control over you. They control what you
receive, your mail, food, just about
everything. The only way you can get

something out with no roadblocks is to send
it out with a homeboy who is paroling or take
it "to the hoop" when there's a transfer to

another yard, building or facility.

I've received three copies of MIM Notes. I

think they were my first issues to test the

censors. Well, they made it through. So keep
`em coming, they're being circulated in here.
I'm getting good reviews so far from the guys.

-- A CA prisoner, October 2003

MIM Notes 291 · November 15, 2003 · Page 12

Notas Rojas

nov 15, 2003, Nº 291 Fragmento del Periodico Oficial del Movimiento Internacionalista Maoista

Gratis

¿Que es el MIM?

El Movimiento Internacionalista Maoísta (MIM) es un partido revolucionario

comunista que ejerce el Marxismo-Leninismo-Maoísmo. El MIM es una organización
internacionalista que trabaja desde el punto de vista del proletariado del Tercer Mundo;
es por esto que sus miembros no son amerikanos sino ciudadanos del mundo.

El MIM lucha para acabar con la opresión de todos los grupos sobre cualquier otro,

naciones por naciones, clases por clases, y géneros por géneros. La revolución es una
realidad para los Estados Unidos mientras su ejército continúa extendiendose en su
esfuerzo por asegurar la hegemonía mundial.

El MIM difiere de otros partidos en tres puntos basicos: (1) El MIM sostiene que

después que el proletariado conquiste el poder estatal, existira aún el potencial para una
restauración de tipo capitalista, bajo la dirección de una burguesía nueva dentro del
mismo partido comunista. En el caso de la Unión Soviética, la burguesía se apoderó del
gobierno después de la muerte de Stalin, en 1953; y en China después de la muerte de
Mao y del derrocamiento de la llamada "banda de los cuatro' en 1976. (2) El MIM
sostiene que la Revolución Cultural en China es la fase ms avanzada a la que llegó el
comunismo en la historia. (3) El MIM afirma que la clase trabajadora blanca de los
EE.UU. es primordialmente, una élite trabajadora no revolucionaria en el presente. Es
por esto que no es el principal vehículo para avanzar el Maoísmo en este país.

El MIM acepta como miembro a cualquier individuo que esté de acuerdo con estos

tres puntos basicos, y que acepte al centralismo democrtico, el método de gobierno por
la mayoría en lo que se refiere a cuestiones de línea del partido. El MIM es un partido
clandestino que no publica los nombres de sus miembros para evitar la represión estatal
dirigida históricamente contra los movimientos revolucionarios comunistas, y anti-
imperialistas. Si Ud. desea una suscripción para cualquiera de nuestros periódicos o
libros teóricos, en español o en inglés, por favor mandar dinero en efectivo o un cheque
al nombre de MIM a esta dirección:

MIM · P.O. Box 29670 · Los Angeles CA 90029-0670

El 30 de abril, EE.UU. y sus socios la

Unión Europea, la ONU y Rusia

entregaron a líderes israelíes y palestinos

un nuevo plan de paz "Mapa de Rutas".

Según la publicidad exagerada, este nuevo

plan requerirá iguales concesiones tanto

de parte de Israel como Palestina. De

hecho, el "Mapa de Rutas" reitera las

fallidas propuestas anteriores.

Específicamente, el plan requiere que los

palestinos renuncien incondicionalmente

la lucha armada pasando por alto el simple

hecho de que la presencia de

asentamientos israelíes atestigua el

carácter agresor de este país cuya

superioridad militar es indiscutible.

Algunos neoconservadores y zionistas

creen que el "Mapa de Rutas" es

diferente porque la situación geopolítica

ha cambiado. Según ellos, la reciente

guerra contra Irak ha demostrado al

mundo que cualquier resistencia a

EE.UU. es inútil. Los pueblos oprimidos

como Palestina deberían "tragarse la

pastilla" y aceptar las pocas migas que

el Tío Sam decida otorgarles. Estos

argumentos ponen de relieve el tipo de

"paz" que desean estos promotores

bélicos- una dominación segura por parte

de los opresores sobre los oprimidos. No

se quiere indagar de una manera justa

sobre las causas del conflicto: en este

caso, el derecho no consumido de los

palestinos a una autodeterminación.

La "paz" que dichos promotores bélicos

buscan no es más que una quimera. Al

igual que en el caso de las "exitosas"

operaciones encubiertas en Afganistán

durante los años 80 que llevaron al 11 de

septiembre, y en el caso de las "exitosas"

acciones militares y políticas por parte de

Israel contra la primera Intifada palestina

que dio como resultado el levantamiento

actual, las guerras que se están llevando

a cabo en Afganistán e Irak causarán

más tragedias y guerras. Los americanos

necesitan rechazar a sus líderes ya que

éstos han resultado incapaces de

encontrar una solución justa al problema

de la paz y seguridad. A largo plazo,

semejante rechazo corresponde a los

intereses de los propios americanos, sin

mencionar los intereses de la humanidad

entera.

Como parte de nuestro servicio público

adjuntamos una reseña de la guía de

propaganda publicada por el periódico

proisraelí Wexler Analysis. Mientras que

en privado se reconoce que los

asentamientos israelíes en Palestina son

el "talón de Aquiles" de Israel, la guía

intenta echar la culpa a los palestinos por

el inevitable fallo del "Mapa de Rutas".

La máquina de propaganda
proisraelí: un vistazo más allá de
la cortina.

Hace poco la Intifada Electrónica

publicó una copia del filtrado "manual de

comunicaciones" para los aliados de

Israel en EE.UU. El manual aconseja

mantener vivo a Saddam Hussein como

un títere por lo menos durante un año, así

como expresar simpatía a favor del pueblo

palestino y culpar a la Autoridad Palestina

por la pobreza de la nación. El Wexner

Analysis reconoce además que los

asentamientos israelíes en los territorios

palestinos son el "talón de Aquiles" del

lobby proisraelí sosteniendo que la mala

noticia en cuanto al "Mapa de Rutas" es

que los americanos esperan que Israel, y

no solamente Palestina, cumpla las

disposiciones del "Mapa de Rutas". Las

17 páginas del Wexler Analysis están

disponibles en http://electronicintifada.net/

v2/article1395.shtml. Abajo imprimimos

algunos extractos escogidos seguidos por

nuestras respuestas.

¿Porqué los EE.UU. sigue
necesitando a Israel?

"Dados el sentimiento global

antiamericano y todas las protestas y

manifestaciones, estamos buscando

aliados que compartan el compromiso que

profesamos hacia la seguridad y el fin del

terrorismo y que estén listos para

anunciarlo. Israel es uno de tales

aliados." (pág. 1)

MIM responde: Si EE.UU. de verdad

busca seguridad, debería poner alto a sus

guerras de agresión y adquisición. Una

política bélica contra la mayor parte del

mundo de ninguna manera contribuye al

intento de promover la paz interna.

Sobre Saddam Hussein.

"El día que permitamos que Saddam

asuma su lugar en el basurero de la

historia será el día en que perderemos

nuestra arma más fuerte en la defensa

linguística de Israel" (pág. 4)

MIM responde: En otras palabras,

conservemos la jerga de los tiempos

bélicos como una excusa para seguir con

la ayuda militar americana.

Sobre los asentamientos.

" `La SECURIDAD' vende. La

seguridad se ha convertido en un principio

fundamental para todos los americanos.

La seguridad es el contexto que permite

explicar la necesidad que tiene Israel de

garantías hipotecarias y ayuda militar, y

la razón por la cual le es imposible a Israel

renunciar a la tierra. Los asentamientos

son nuestro "talón de Aquiles", y la mejor

respuesta (que, sin embargo, es bastante

débil) es la necesidad de seguridad

creada por esta salvaguarda". (pág. 3)

MIM responde: Los asentamientos de

la Franja de Gaza y la Rivera Occidental

violan el derecho internacional, así como

una serie de resoluciones de la ONU. Su

presencia y la defensa de los mismos por

parte de las fuerzas armadas israelíes

trasgrede la seguridad del pueblo

palestino. Los palestinos son incapaces

de viajar, trabajar, ir a la escuela, comprar

comida o buscar ayuda médica sin tener

que pasar por los controles israelíes. Un

genocidio de los palestinos sería un precio

demasiado alto que habría que pagar por

la seguridad israelí (y que, de hecho, mina

la seguridad israelí, al igual que las

aventuras militares de EE.UU. que minan

la seguridad estadounidense).

Un servicio falso a los palestinos.

"Hay que hablar sin parar sobre su

entendimiento de la `lucha palestina' y

un compromiso de ayuda. De acuerdo,

esto sí que es un doble estándar (nadie

espera ninguna acción proisraelí de parte

de los palestinos) pero así son las cosas".

(pág. 3)

MIM responde: Israel posee un estado

y unas fuerzas armadas que ayuda a

quitarle al pueblo palestino su propio estado

mediante 3 mil millones de dólares

estadounidenses al año. Encima de esto,

¿Israel busca elogios de parte de un

pueblo cuyos pescuezos pisa?

De todas formas, no es cierto que

"nadie espera nada proesraelí de parte

de Palestina". El gobierno

estadounidense siempre ha insistido en

que los palestinos reconozcan a Israel y

su seguridad antes de que empiecen

negociaciones de paz, sin importar el

hecho de que hace tiempo que sus

lacayos favoritos como Yassir Arafat en

teoría hayan accedido a estas demandas.

Sobre Mahmoud Abbas.

"El surgimiento de Mahmoud Abbas

como el nuevo Primer Ministro palestino

no pudo haberse dado en un peor

momento. Su toma del poder parece

legítima. Es una cara fresca, una cara

bien afeitada, por decirlo así. Habla bien

y usa vestimenta occidental. Quizás hasta

tenga deseos verdaderos de paz." (pág.

13)

MIM responde: Este tipo de aserciones

es la misma habladuría racista que Israel

utiliza para justificar el hecho de que su

propia "seguridad" se mantiene a costa

del pueblo palestino. La verdad es que el

lobby proisraelí no quiere una paz justa

más que el gobierno israelí.

Planes yanquis para Palestina;

Una "ruta" hacia ningún lado