MIM Notes ***

MIM Notes 292 · December 1, 2003 · Page 1

MIM Notes

Dec. 1, 2003, Nº 292

The Official Newsletter of the Maoist Internationalist Movement (MIM)

Free

INSIDE: Jessica Lynch * Under Lock & Key * Una Página en Español...

On the web: www.prisoncensorship.info/archive/etext

he number of U$ troops killed in

Iraq since the beginning of the

land war in March topped four

hundred as the Pentagon and CIA began

dropping hints that the U$ position in Iraq

is worsening. Resistance fighters shot

down four Amerikan helicopters in the

first two weeks of November, killing more

than 30 Amerikans. Fighters also killed

18 "coalition" troops in a bomb raid on an

Italian barracks in Nasiriyah (1).

As a result of these developments, a

number of Amerika's allies backed off

of their promises to send troops to Iraq.

Japan announced it would not send any

troops the day before U$ "Secretary of

Defense" Donald Rumsfeld visited the

Tokyo (2). South Korea also said it would

not send any more troops, and Spain and

the Netherlands have recalled their

diplomats (3). This shows that determined

resistance to imperialist aggression in one

country can have global repercussions.

According to Reuters news service, the

number of Amerikan soldiers killed in Iraq

now surpasses the number killed in

Vietnam from 1961 to 1964, namely 392

(4). This figure is somewhat misleading,

as there are more Amerikan troops in

harm's way in Iraq than in early-sixties'

Vietnam. The population of Iraq is also

larger than south Vietnam's was, so

arguably U$ troops are already spread

more thinly in Iraq. Comparable casualty

rates (per thousand troops, per million

population, per year) are .18 for Iraq and

.49 for Vietnam in '61 to '64 (see table

on page 5).

These casualty rates may be different

because the Vietnamese had a number

of political and military advantages that

the Iraqi resistance in 2003 does not. The

Vietnamese national liberation movement

was united behind a Communist party

committed to revolutionary land reform

and anti-imperialism. The Communists

and their allies had decades of experience

in guerrilla war, first against the Japanese

and then against the French. The southern

Vietnamese had the support of their

comrades in the north, who controlled

their own economy and had a strong

regular army (5). The Chinese

Communists and Soviet Social-

Imperialists also aided the Vietnamese.

However, if we consider the population

of Vietnam as a whole--justifiable,

considering the people of the north also

participated in the struggle against U$

U$ COURT

HOUNDS

PALESTINIAN

ACTIVIST OUT

OF COUNTRY

We run this timely article by The Amer

Jubran Defense Committee (a mass

organization not affiliated with MIM)

because it exposes the Amerikan

government's legal harassment of

immigrants--especially those who are

politically active anti-imperialists. It

shows that the Amerikan government

is not willing to grant non-citizens the

rights its own Founding Fathers

struggled to attain.

Boston

oday's proceeding--the long-

delayed and final hearing in the

case of Amer Jubran--saw the

complete collapse of all pretenses to

fairness, justice and objectivity. Despite

the government's insistence to the

contrary, this case has always been an

effort to silence voices that speak out for

Palestinian liberation and against the

policies of the United States and its client

state Israel. Nothing about today's

proceedings has succeeded in silencing

those voices.

After being denied adequate time to

review 50 pages of government

documents submitted a week before his

final trial (and four months after the June

24 deadline for disclosing evidence), after

being denied his fundamental right to be

represented by effective counsel, and

after being compelled to testify without

any legal representation at all, after

realizing there is no possibility for due

process in this court, Amer decided to

request of the court that he be granted

"voluntary departure" from the United

States. In March 2004, unless the

government continues its persecution of

him, he will return to his home in Jordan.

Amer was offered three choices at

today's trial: proceeding with a lawyer

that he did not trust to represent him,

representing himself despite his lack of

legal expertise, or submitting to direct

questions from the judge without any legal

Mounting U$ casualties

scare off allies

Matrix Revolutions
2003

Matrix Revolutions is packed with kung

fu fights, machine gun battles, computer

generated special effects, and pop

philosophy that made the first two

installments of the trilogy box-office hits.

Yet Revolutions spends little time

developing what was perhaps the most

interesting aspect of The Matrix and

Matrix Reloaded: the matrix itself.

In the original Matrix we learn that

almost all humynity is unknowingly

participating in a virtual reality simulation,

called the matrix, in order to keep their

brains busy while their bodies are used

as a heat source to power the machines

that have taken over the planet. Morpheus

and Trinity are among the small

percentage of humyns, headquartered in

the underground city of Zion, who have

managed to break free from the matrix.

They free Neo, who they believe will be

Continued on page 4...

"the One" to finally give them victory in

the war against the machines.

In the sequel we discover that it is not

only humyns, and machine-controlled

agents like Agent Smith, who inhabit the

matrix. It also contains programs that

rebelled instead of performing their

intended function, such as the Keymaker

and the Oracle. These exiled programs

look and act like humyns, raising the

question of whether they have somehow

gained self-awareness.

Will Neo save the billions of humyns

connected to the Matrix and free them

from the enslavement of the machines?

Are the exiled programs somehow alive,

and will they too be liberated from the

matrix? Unfortunately the Matrix

Revolutions does not give decisive

answers to these questions. Instead, Neo

and company seem only to be concerned

with defending Zion. Even after the matrix

Self-centered Revolutions

ignores majority of humanity

Continued on page 8...

Continued on page 5...

As Amerikan casualties mount, U.$. Commander Tommy Franks visits a wounded G.I who

took one for the home(wrecking) team..

MIM Notes 292 · December 1, 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: Some slave masters wear robes

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

Notes is the official Party voice; more complete statements are published in our journal,
MIM Theory. Material in MIM Notes is the Party's position unless noted. MIM Notes
accepts submissions and critiques from anyone. The editors reserve the right to edit
submissions unless permission is specifically denied by the author; submissions are
published anonymously unless authors insist on identification (prisoners are never
identified by name). MIM is an underground party that does not publish the names of its
comrades in order to avoid the state surveillance and repression that have historically
been directed at communist parties and anti-imperialist movements. MCs, MIM comrades,
are members of the Party. The Revolutionary Anti-Imperialist League (RAIL) is an anti-
imperialist mass organization led by MIM (RCs are RAIL Comrades). MIM's ten-point
program is available to anyone who sends in a SASE.

The paper is free to all prisoners, as long as they write to us every 90 days to confirm

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Most back issues of MIM Notes are available free on our web site. The web site con-

tains thousands of documents, with ordering information for many more.

MIM grants explicit permission to copy all or part of this newspaper for any reason, as

long as we are credited.

For general correspondence, contact:

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P.O. Box 29670

Los Angeles, CA 90029-0670

eMail: <mim@mim.org>

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

To MIM:

In MIM Theory 6, The Stalin Issue [see

advertisement on page 6], the section on

pre-scientific intelligentsia really caught

my attention. Especially since so many

of my people are being oppressed by

these slave masters dressed in "robes". I

was doing some research and I ran across

this in "Revolution in Central America"

by Daniel Fogel.

"The catholic church eagerly

participated in and profited from the

Spanish colonial campaign of genocide,

enslavement and land expropriation of the

indigenous peoples of `Latin' America.

In today's capitalist world, the Vatican has

become a modern capitalist/imperialist

institution, cleverly blending a

kaleidoscope of bourgeois ideology

including liberal humanitarianism and

pacifism with its old feudal ideology of

the corporate self-owner. The Vatican

maintains and works to expand its

financial, landowning empire, through its

transnational bank and its well-heeled

church holding companies around the

world. Small wonder that its leading

propagandists, the cardinals and

archbishops, robed `chairmen of the

board' of the holy capitalist corporation,

tend to uphold the established social order

and oppose the new heresy, liberation

theology. But the Vatican no longer has

its own military arm and judicial network

of prisons, torture chambers, inquisition

chambers and execution plazas to

enforce its reactionary ideas. In this

respect it has stepped aside to make room

for the secular institutions of modern

imperialism, centered in Washington and

Wall Street. This has bought a big moral

advantage to the Vatican: It's hands are

no longer directly covered with the blood

of the hundreds of thousands of oppressed

people slaughtered by the empire of

propertied wealth. The death squads and

counterinsurgent armies of El Salvador

and Guatemala are not under the

command of the Vatican, but of local

ruling cliques supervised by the Pentagon,

the CIA, Chase Manhattan Bank of

America. So the Vatican can posture as

an `independent' spiritual force `rising

above' the fierce struggle between

imperialist reaction and the people's

revolution. Preaching `universal' love,

disarmament, and a purely spiritual

`revolution' on the basis of the existing

social order, the Vatican serves the aims

of imperialism in urging the insurgent

masses to lay down their arms and submit

once against to the tyranny of their

rulers."

-- a California prisoner, july 2003

MIM adds: Of course, Catholicism is

not the only Christian denomination

waving incense over the stinking crimes

of the oppressors. The bizarre Amerikan

blend of Protestantism and hyper-

individualism props up the patriarchy,

especially the oppression of children (see

article on page 3). Nor is Christianity

solely to blame. The Hindu Ghandi

effectively sanctioned the everyday

violence in capitalist India (including some

of the worst famines in 20th century

history) by scolding Indian workers and

peasants for taking up arms against the

capitalists and landlords.

MIM Notes 292 · December 1, 2003 · Page 3

MOVEON.ORG

AIRS

JINGOISTIC

AMERIKA-

FIRST AD

by MC12

MoveOn.org, which bills itself as "a

new kind of grassroots involvement,

supporting busy but concerned citizens

in finding their political voice," is airing

a political advertisement on its website

that uses Amerikan chauvinism to

bash Bush and build support for the

Democratic Party. The ad shows

ordinary-looking people suffering the

consequences of Bush's supposed

determination to help Iraq at the

expense of Amerikans. The ominous

announcer says:

"We could have built 10,000 new

schools, or hired almost 2 million new

teachers. We could have rebuilt our

electric grid. We could have insured

more of our children. Instead George

wants to spend that $87 billion in Iraq.

If there's money for Iraq, why isn't

there money for America? The truth

is, we're not being led -- we're being

misled."(1)

After the images of people fade out,

the screen shows nothing but "$87

Billion for Iraq" in big letters, but

turning to a grainy black-and-white

image of Bush.

If Bush were really ITAL giving

END $87 billion to Iraq for

reparations--with no strings attached,

to pay the people of Iraq back for

killing hundreds of thousands of them,

wrecking their infrastructure and

economy, occupying their country and

seizing their oil--MIM would support

them even if it meant not building new

schools in the U.$.A.

But of course that's not what Bush

and Congress (Democrat and

Republican) are doing. Their $87

billion dollar bill (some of which is "for"

Afghanistan, incidentally) is to pay for

the continued occupation of these

countries, and smooth their eventual

transition to neocolonialism.

This kind of chauvinism dressed up

as progressivism may not be unusual,

but it is always bad news for the

oppressed. The plurality of MoveOn

members (44%) voted to endorse

Democrat Howard Dean, with Dennis

Kucinich coming in second at

(24%).(2) As MIM has reported,

many of these supporters oppose the

occupation of Iraq, but it's up to us to

struggle with them and others over the

reasons for this -- and show the

negative consequences of spreading

Amerikan jingoism.

Notes:

1. MoveOn.org website.

2. CNN, 27 June 2003.

Jessica Lynch, the U.$. army private

who was captured in Iraq, recently

denounced the Amerikan military's lies

about her treatment and escape in Iraq.

The Pentagon used her rescue by special

forces to build Amerikan sympathy for

the war on Iraq. In an interview with

ABC news she said about the Pentagon:

"It hurt in a way that people would make

up stories that they had no truth about."(1)

The story got even better in November's

made-for-TV movie "Saving Jessica

Lynch" that dramatized her capture and

rescue. This show began with a

disclaimer that scenes and events were

re-written or completely fabricated for the

sake of the drama.

In reality Lynch's "rescue" is an

example of the Amerikan propaganda

machine, run by the government and

lapped up by the mainstream media

mouthpieces for imperialism.

Lynch was captured in March of 2003

after her company took a wrong turn near

Nasiriya and was ambushed. Eleven

people with her were killed and she was

taken to a local hospital. Initial reports

said she went down fighting, but in truth

her gun jammed and she went down

praying. The Pentagon reported Lynch

was stabbed, shot, and violently

interrogated. Then, again according to the

Pentagon, the Amerikans got a tip about

where Lynch was being held and they

sent in the Army Rangers and Navy Seals

to carry out a daring rescue under fire.

The military filmed her rescue, using the

footage to promote the military operation

in Iraq.

In spite of pervasive media reports to

the contrary, the truth is just as the Iraqi

doctors who treated Lynch reported. She

suffered broken bones to her right arm,

right leg, thighs and ankle and received a

head injury all from a vehicle accident,

before she was taken to the Iraqi hospital.

The Pentagon doctors released this

information only after they had milked her

rescue for all they could.

Two days before her rescue squad

arrived, an Iraqi doctor tried to help Lynch

return to the Army. Dr. Harith al-

Houssona, who cared for Lynch during

her stay at the hospital, put her in an

ambulance and instructed the driver to

go to the Amerikan checkpoint, but when

they got near the soldiers opened fire and

they had to flee back to the hospital.(2)

Further, contrary to Amerikan military

reports, there were no Iraqi military forces

at the hospital and so the filmed "rescue"

was nothing more than a staged event

with the Amerikan commandos

threatening the doctors and patients for

the benefit of film. A carefully edited

version of the film was quickly released

to the media and played over and over to

build support for the brave Amerikan

troops.

Lynch released the biographical book

"I Am a Soldier Too" in November. The

book describes her Iraqi doctors and

nurses as caring and gentle. Lynch was

unconscious for a few hours after the

accident and woke up in an Iraqi military

hospital. The Amerikan media, ever

eager to do their jobs as Pentagon

mouthpieces, seized on the part of her

biography which cites medical records

alleging she suffered broken bones and

was sodomized while in Iraqi hands.(3)

Amerikan media hyped this again as

evidence of Iraqi barbarity and Lynch's

heroism in the days preceding and

following the book release.

This medical report is highly

suspicious. First, Lynch has no memory

of any abuse and it there is only a window

of a few hours when she was

unconscious when it could have

happened, because the rest of the time

she was conscious and suffered no abuse

at the hands of her captors. Second, the

report was only released months after

her return to Amerika in spite of

expansive propaganda work by the

Pentagon to make out her capture to be

dangerous and violent. Third, her Iraqi

doctors, who thoroughly examined her,

found no evidence of sexual assault and

found all of her wounds to be consistent

with her crash. Further, given the

Pentagon's consistent lies about Lynch's

capture and rescue, there is little reason

to believe these medical reports, which

are contrary to reports of the Iraqi doctors

who turned out to be the ones telling the

truth all along.

The Pentagon and the White House

have another reason for wanting to report

the rape of Jessica Lynch: this would

further their campaign to roll back policies

allowing wimmin to serve in the Amerikan

military. Already these reports are being

used to fuel declarations that wimmin

should not be allowed in combat situations.

These chauvinists seem to be unaware

that men can be raped just as easily as

wimmin. But MIM doesn't care to debate

whether wimmin should have the

"privilege" of serving in the imperialist

military. We don't fight for equality to

oppress. But we do say that the

proletarian armies will always rely on the

strength and skills of wimmin warriors

fighting alongside their male comrades.

In the end the treatment of Jessica

Lynch by the Iraqi military should not be

the topic in the news. She was part of an

invading force that continues to kill untold

thousands of Iraqis in an attempt to take

control of their country. Lynch was part

of the military that enforced Amerikan-

imposed sanctions for years, debilitating

the Iraqi economy and devastating the

health of the country. The treatment of

the Iraqi people at the hands of the

Amerikans is what really merits reporting.

But we can't count on the mouthpieces

for imperialism, the Amerikan media, to

do this for us. Lynch's story is another

example of the need for independent

media. MIM can't do it alone: help us with

money, writing, art, distribution or any

other skills you have.

Notes:

1. ABC News Nightline interview with

Jessica Lynch, November 11, 2003.

2. The Guardian, May 15, 2003 3. AP,

Nov 11, 2003

Jessica Lynch story exposes

media and military lies

Jessica Lynch's book, and her accepting an award from Glamour magazine.

MIM Notes 292 · December 1, 2003 · Page 4

representation at all. When Amer was

first arrested and interrogated by the INS

and FBI, he refused to answer any

questions without a lawyer present; today,

he found himself in the same situation. In

fact, this entire proceeding was an

extension of the illegitimate process that

began in November 2002, and, from the

first illegal arrest to today's farcical

hearing, it has had only one motive--to

silence Amer as a political activist and to

intimidate the members of his community.

It has unequivocally failed.

The government has never presented

sufficient evidence to challenge Amer's

immigration status; in fact, for almost a

year, it presented no evidence at all. But

immigration courts are the legal equivalent

of a stacked deck, and cases like this are

not settled on the basis of evidence.

Amer's decision to take voluntary

departure came from his refusal to

facilitate the fundamentally unfair process

through which he was dragged.

Although innocent, he was left with no

options to make a legitimate defense, and

the government made it clear that it was

willing to damage and destroy the lives

of Amer's ex-wife, her family, and even

their former neighbors to pursue its case

against him. Had the trial gone forward,

it would have allowed the government to

prolong the use of these proceedings as

a means of conducting an illegitimate

investigation not only into details of

Amer's life irrelevant to the merits of the

immigration case, but also, more

frighteningly, into the lives of many other

immigrants who are vulnerable to

government harassment.

After Amer's first trial, on July 24th,

the judge remarked that the prosecution

didn't seem to have a case; all but one of

the original charges against Amer had

been dropped, and the government had

no witnesses and no evidence to present.

Since the burden of proof in immigration

cases rests on the defense, not the

prosecution, the government had hoped

that it could intimidate Amer's ex-wife

into refusing to testify, but she appeared

in court, and after a grueling four hours

of testimony, the judge, convinced,

indicated that he was prepared to rule in

Amer's favor. The prosecuting attorney,

however, claimed that his wife was sick

and received a two-month continuance;

a month later, he delayed the trial another

six weeks because, apparently, he had to

drive to a pre-arranged event in Indiana

on the trial date. (Despite this, he was in

his office on the morning of the date in

question.)

Eight days before Amer's final trial on

November 6th, the government gave

Amer's lawyer a 52-page packet of

evidence, comprising 19 separate items

and revealing an extensive (and, until that

point, secret) investigation involving at

least 12 different federal agents. The

packet was intended as a threat, but not

to Amer; page after page of questionable

reports, contradictory testimony, and

incomplete forms clearly showed that the

government had been harassing more

than Amer's ex-wife and her family. As

the judge remarked, the packet didn't

contain anything that cast prior testimony

into doubt, but in order to prepare a

response, Amer instructed his lawyer to

request a continuance, which the judge

refused to grant. Although the

government, with no basis, had delayed

the case for months, Amer was not

allowed a mere two weeks to review new

evidence and prepare a defense against

it. When the motion for a continuance was

denied, Amer's lawyer--without Amer's

consent and against his explicit

instructions--made an arrangement with

the prosecuting attorney and the judge that

would have opened up lines of questioning

about matters unrelated to the marriage

case, including Amer's legitimate political

activities. The judge then intended to grant

the prosecution another continuance,

which would give the government yet

another opportunity to investigate every

possible avenue indicated by the already

irrelevant testimony. In this kind of court,

the original charges are of no importance,

and it does not matter if the defendant

meets the burden of proof; the process

of investigation has no legitimate legal goal

and no limit except the government's

willingness to spend time and money,

terrify innocent people, and ruin lives,

particularly the lives of immigrants and

the poor--the groups of people that their

investigation placed pressure on.

In light of the arrangement made in his

absence between both lawyers and the

court, it became clear that Amer's lawyer

was acting as an officer of the court and

not in Amer's best interest. After declaring

his intention to seek alternate counsel,

Amer asked for another continuance in

order to seek such counsel, but the judge

denied this request as well, insisting that

Amer would either have to represent

himself (which Amer repeatedly stated

he was unwilling to do) or proceed

forward without legal representation, and

faced with questions not from an

advocate but from the judge himself.

When the prosecution asked for delays,

they were granted no matter the reason,

but when Amer asked for a continuance

on wholly valid grounds, the judge,

ironically, cited Amer's right to a "quick

and speedy trial," as well as the pressure

placed on the court by the defense

committee itself. Faced with this

nightmare logic, coupled with the prospect

of an endless, boundless investigation that

would threaten the vulnerable, Amer felt

that his only choice was to request

voluntary departure.

After more than a decade of fighting

for justice in the United States, Amer is

returning to his home--or at least as

much of a home as a Palestinian refugee

can claim. Even as the media and hate-

peddlers in Washington would like to

convince us otherwise, there are many

advantages to living in the Arab World,

even apart from being closer to family.

This is not the end of his life, but the

beginning of a new part of it. Amer can

return with his head held high knowing

that he did not cave in to the intimidation

tactics of the U.S. government.

Those of us who have stood with Amer

and who have seen the unfairness and

political motivations of this process up

close, believe he made the best possible

decision given the circumstances. During

U$ court hounds Palestinian activist out of country

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?

the Red Scare of the 50's and the political

grand juries of the 70's and 80's, people

of principle who refused to participate in

the government's illegal witchhunt could

invoke their fifth amendment rights to

avoid participating.

The immigration courts allow no such

right, which begins to make it more clear

why the government is targeting

immigrants as it seeks to suppress dissent

at home against its brutal and misguided

policies abroad. The best way Amer could

take a principled stand when the Judge

refused to give him time to secure ethical

legal representation was to seek

voluntary departure. We admire him for

making this principled choice, we admire

him for his fearlessness, and we will each

intensify our own voice and courage so

that the voice for justice in Palestine will

not waver.

We call on all of you to raise your voice

for justice for Palestine and to fight against

the anti-democratic campaign of

repression being carried out by the U.S.

government. We will not be intimidated

and we will not be silent!

--The Amer Jubran Defense

Committee, November 6, 2003

(http://www.amerjubrandefense.org/)

Amer Jubran (photo: www.iacboston.org)

Continued from page 1...

MIM Notes 292 · December 1, 2003 · Page 5

aggression--the casualty rate in Vietnam

from '61 to '64 is .19, about the same as

Iraq, 2003. Considering the political and

military difficulties, this is quite an

accomplishment. The Amerikan

military--which leapt into this adventure

with delusions of easy victory and now

preaches caution--apparently respects

this accomplishment. So do Japan and

south Korea. Furthermore, the efficacy

of the resistance fighters is likely to

increase, as they are still learning the

ropes of guerrilla warfare. If they continue

to fight with such heroic determination,

they may tie down greater numbers of

imperialist troops, creating revolutionary

opportunities elsewhere--even in the

imperialist countries.

As we reported in the last two issues,

the war in Iraq and the "war on terrorism"

left the British military vulnerable at home.

Millions took to the streets against the war

in Iraq at a time when a miniscule

proportion of the imperialists' army was

left "at home," but no revolutionary

situation developed. This is a reflection

of the class realities in imperialist

countries: a majority of the population

there benefits from the imperialists'

exploitation of the Third World and has

no interest in revolution. There is an

analogous phenomenon in the United

$tates. Hundreds of thousands of people

marched against the war before it started

and during the first few weeks of war;

far fewer have marched since George

Bush announced "mission accomplished"

and guerrilla warfare intensified.

The flabbiness of the imperialist-

country petty bourgeoisie makes it

imperative for proletarian internationalists

to speak out boldly and not worry about

alienating the imperialist-country majority.

The imperialists have picked up a rock

and dropped it on their own feet in Iraq,

Afghanistan, the Philippines, and the other

places they've invaded as part of the

"war on terrorism." Or, to mix in another

Marxist metaphor, the imperialists have

created their own gravediggers--

resistance fighters in Iraq and elsewhere.

We can see from the current situation in

England and the situation in Amerika

during the Vietnam War that the

tremendous sacrifices of oppressed

peoples fighting for their liberation can

create revolutionary opportunities in the

imperialist countries.

We cannot waste these hard-won

opportunities by handing them to the

Democrats or other reformers who may

oppose a particular policy but are basically

on board with imperialism. A determined

proletarian minority must form its own

pole, fly its own banner and give the petty-

bourgeoisie another option to vacillate

toward.

Mounting U$ casualties

scare off allies

Notes:

1. The Boston Globe, 15 Nov 2003;

Associated Press, 7 Nov 2003; MIM

Notes 291, 15 Nov 2003; USA Today, 13

Nov 2003.

2. Associated Press, 14 Nov 2003.

3. The McLaughlin Group, 7 Nov 2003;

Washington Post, 17 Nov 2003.

Number of occupying troops killed in recent imperialist wars of aggression

Number of

Population

occupying

Casualty

Country

(millions)

troops

troops killed

rate

Iraq (2003)

131,000

397

0.18

Afghanistan

(1980)

80,000

1484

1.43

South Vietnam

(1965)

185,000

1800

0.65

South Vietnam

(1961-1964)

13,4005

392

0.49

1. Casualties per thousand troops, per million population, per year.
2. U$ troops alone; "coalition partners" not included. Casualties as of 19:30 EST 13 Nov 2003.
3. This refers to the first full year of the social-imperialist Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan.
4. Considering Vietnam as a whole (population: 37 million), the casualty rates in 1965 and 1961-1964 were
0.26 and 0.19, respectively.
5. Averaged over the four-year period.
Sources: Reuters, 13 Nov 2003; Marilyn Young, The Vietnam Wars, New York: HarperCollins, 1991;
www.hunterthinks.com.

"In wars of national liberation

patriotism is applied

internationalism."

--Quotations of Chairman Mao,

chapter 18 or "The Role of the Chinese

Communist Party in the National War,"

October 1938, Selected Works, Vol. II,

p. 196.

There are three reasons that nationalism

still plays a progressive role in the world

in oppressed nations:

(1) super-exploitation,

(2) semi-feudalism,

(3) uniting migrants with the super-

exploited.

When a country is super-exploited by

another through a puppet comprador-

lackey regime, the workers toil more

exploited than ever before, because

fascist regimes coerce the workers to

work for the imperialist country masters

for a pittance compared with the legal

wages in the imperialist countries.

That is in Lenin already.

It is also in Lenin, Stalin (and even

Trotsky counter to today's popular myths)

and others in the 1920s that nationalism

may play a positive role in uniting capitalist

classes and workers against semi-

feudalism. Often it is the imperialists

propping up semi-feudalism and it is the

nationalist masses who want to build their

countries at least in a capitalist way (see

sidebar quote from the COMINTERN).

Finally, nationalism plays a progressive

role when it causes people located inside

4. Reuters, 12 Nov 2003.

5. This is one reason we continue to

support national liberation struggles, as

opposed to recent intellectual trends that

dismiss nation-states as irrelevant. We

recognize that no nation can be

completely liberated from imperialism--

to say nothing of achieving

the imperialist countries to unite with the

people of their native lands that are still

super-exploited.

These three reasons are also the

economic content of principal

contradiction in the world today --the

struggle of the oppressed nations against

imperialism.

When nationalism has no role to play

in uniting people against backward forms

of exploitation, nationalism is reactionary.

That includes all imperialist country cases

of nationalism. The imperialists already

have the most advanced economic system

and their nationalism does not drive their

system forward to socialism. Quite the

opposite, imperialist country nationalism

supports the backwardness of the Third

World and brings about endless war.

Nationalism is also reactionary when

the target is other oppressed nations. The

only revolutionary nationalism targets

imperialism as the enemy and no

oppressed nations.

Continued from page 1...

communism--while encircled by

imperialist countries. But the seizure of

state power gives the proletariat the

ability to do great things for the people in

those countries and support the struggle

of people in others. It also removes those

countries from the imperialists' support

base.

Comintern on

national

liberation

In the colonial countries with an

oppressed native peasant population the

national liberation movement is composed

either of the entire population, as for

example in Turkey, in which case the

struggle of the oppressed peasantry

against the landlords inevitably begins

after the victory of the liberation struggle;

or the feudal landlords are allied with the

imperialist robbers, and in these countries,

for example India, the social struggle of

the oppressed peasants takes place at the

same time as the struggle for national

liberation.

--Jane Degras, ed., The Communist

International: 1919-1943 Documents

London: Frank Cass & Co., Ltd, 1971,

Vol. 1, p. 396.

MC5 adds: After Lenin died, simpleton

Trotskyists attempted to blame Stalin and

Mao for all alliances of the proletariat with

the national bourgeoisie. Yet while Lenin

was alive, Trotsky himself signed off on

numerous statements backing alliance

with the national bourgeoisie, and in this

case we see the COMINTERN of Lenin

support alliance even with feudal lords.

Thus to say that Stalin and Mao invented

the alliance with the national bourgeoisie

is a jealous lie by the representatives of

the labor aristocracy who seek to use the

proletariat for their own purposes.

FAQ: Why does MIM say some

nationalism is still progressive?

MIM Notes 292 · December 1, 2003 · Page 6

Human Rights Watch released a report

in October stating that one sixth of

prisoners in the United $tates are mentally

ill (1). Meanwhile, the Correctional

Association of New York put out a very

comprehensive report based on in-person

research in segregation units throughout

New York State that indicates that one

fifth of those prisoners are mentally ill (2).

Both reports indicate that people who are

having trouble dealing with their

conditions mentally are most likely to be

placed in worse conditions, i.e. long term

isolation in Control Unit or Security

Housing Units as they are often called.

To find people in U$ prisons who are

not having negative mental effects from

the conditions that they are in seems a

difficult task. The fact that some people

react worse than others leaves the term

"mental illness" open to interpretation

based on the degree of the problems.

Human Rights Watch blames the high

rates of incarceration of the mentally ill

on the lack of resources for people on

the outside. Without any help they end up

being stuck in prison as a result of their

behavior. This assessment seems

accurate, however we would not join

Human Rights Watch in calling for locking

more people into mental institutions

instead of prisons. The history of abuse

in mental institutions rivals that of prisons.

In fact, the use of the two is often split

along gender lines, with wimmin ending

up in mental institutions and men being

sent to prisons (3).

Both men and wimmin who are being

locked away in institutions are products

of our society. Both mental illness and

petty criminal behavior are common in

our society, but rather than looking at the

source of these behaviors our society

chooses to punish them.

Many people react to this sociological

assessment by turning back to the

individual and saying that you can't just

blame all their problems on society. But

we are not arguing that people don't need

to take responsibility for their actions

because it is society's fault. On the

contrary, if you are able to decide that

you don't like your behavior and that you

think it is a result of the society you grew

up in than it is your responsibility to do

something to change society. MIM has

found that this approach addresses the

problem on both the societal and the

persynal level (3). It is exactly in engaging

one's world and struggling to make it

better that one finds meaning and identity

for oneself.

What are the societal causes of mental

illness? One inherent problem in

capitalism is the alienation of people from

their labor, even people in the United

$tates who can make a lot of money spend

much of their time following someone

else's orders without directly benefiting

from the work they are doing. In a society

where money is plentiful, consumerism

has been encouraged as a way to find

self-worth. These economic conditions

encourage our individualist lifestyles that

lack the sense of community that has kept

other societies functioning much better

than ours. If we turn back to the prison

system we can make the links between

material conditions and mental illness even

more easily.

The Correctional Association of NY

report found that the incidence of suicide

and other harmful behaviors was higher

in Security Housing Units (SHUs) than

in the general (prison) population.

"Between 1998 and 2001, over half of

the system's 48 suicides occurred in 23-

hour lock down, although inmates in these

units comprise less than 10% of the

general population" (2) The report states

that some units function better than others,

including the use of "behavior

modification." While MIM proposes a

prison system based on reform and not

punishment we cannot rely on the current

state to conduct such "behavior

modification" (4). Teaching people to

adjust to an oppressive and exploitative

system only puts off making a better

system, while remaining ineffective in

making the majority of individuals happy.

As for the SHU, we stand by our line

that you cannot reform torture units (5).

One of the Correctional Association of

NY's recommendations in its report is to

"institute a suicide prevention program in

every 23-hour lock down unit, including

keeplock. A properly administered suicide

prevention program could mean the

difference between life and death for

inmates in 23-hour lock down." (2) Their

own statistics show that there are higher

rates of suicide in these units. Then they

talk about how these prisoners in these

units are ripe for abuse by guards and

administration. So why would we count

on them to prevent suicides? Clearly the

SHUs and other isolation units need to

be abolished as they are cruel and unusual

punishment, often for petty misbehavior

as both reports point out.

MIM has been building public opinion

to shut down isolation units for years and

we have recently begun to unite a

nationwide movement with our statement

against all such units, which can be found

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MIM reviews some of the most influential anti-Stalin biographies. Anti-

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AAMULEHTI

Table of Contents

Letters

Stalin Biographies

Bibliography

Historical Idealism Rampant in Stalin Biographies

Anna Larina Review (Bukharin's wife)

Barbusse Review

Feuchtwanger Review

The United Front

Sectarian Review

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Prisoners and Mental Illness

online at http://www.etext.org/Politics/

MIM/agitation/prisons/controlunits/

index.html. We encourage those who are

concerned about the well-being of the

mentally ill in prisons to join us in this

campaign.

Notes:

1. United States: Mentally Ill

Mistreated in Prison, More Mentally Ill

in Prison Than in Hospitals. New York,

October 22, 2003. Human Rights Watch

press release. http://www.hrw.org/

reports/2003/usa1003/.

2. LOCKDOWN NEW YORK:

Disciplinary Confinement in New York

State Prisons, October 2003. Correctional

Association of New York http://

www.correctionalassociation.org/.

3. MIM Theory 9: Psychology and

Imperialism.

4. See "An Alternative to the SHU"

by MIM, also in this issue.

5. "Torture Can't Be Reformed." MIM

Notes 289, 15 October 2003.

MIM Notes 292 · December 1, 2003 · Page 7

While campaigning to abolish Security

Housing Units in prisons, people

frequently ask us, "What's your

alternative?" This question usually comes

from people who know that there is a lot

of violence in prisons. So they argue that

the SHU provides security to help avoid

petty confrontations.

In practice however, it is the prison

system and the correctional officers who

promote and even create violent situations

rather than preventing them. This is the

product of a system that is set up to be

every man for himself, where snitching

is rewarded and violence is promoted as

the way to solve problems. It's the same

old divide-and-conquer technique. When

the people in an institution are there against

their will, facing repression and inhumane

conditions, the minority running the

institution doesn't want them organizing

against their captors.

When addressing the question of

abolishing the SHU we have to make it

clear that MIM is not a reformist

organization. We are fighting this

campaign within the context of

overthrowing the whole system and

replacing the current criminal injustice

system with justice for the people. Our

goal is to transform society to eliminate

the social causes of crime. Our long-term

answer to the question of what to do with

violent criminals is to build a system of

re-education, reform, and reintroduction

to society for those who previously posed

a threat to society.

In the short term we must fight to limit

the oppression of the current system and

abolishing the SHU is part of that fight.

We know that the SHU is used for

political repression. We know that

everyone in the SHU suffers mentally and

physically regardless of why they are in

there. Therefore we often point out to

those who are reluctant to sign our petition

to abolish the SHU that these people are

usually going to get out of prison some

day and will only be more maladjusted

than when they entered as a result of the

isolation and torture they faced. Prisons

can be made safer under the current

system, but this goes counter to the

interests of the prison administration to

keep power over the imprisoned.

Therefore until the proletariat decides

who goes to prison and how the prison

system is used there will be torture and

violence in prisons.

When it does come time to build a new

justice system in the interests of the

people, we look toward the model of the

prison system in socialist China (i.e. China

under Mao). People who were

successfully reformed through that

system include two Amerikan students

(Allyn and Adele Rickett) and the last

Emperor of the Manchu dynasty, Pu Yi.

All three of them have written about their

experiences and provide some great

insights into the socialist prison system.

In our review of the Ricketts' book,

Prisoners of Liberation, we wrote, "a

psychological approach to antisocial

behavior takes agency away from the

individual and the masses, and has as its

goal teaching people to learn to adjust to

their oppressive conditions (or their role

as an oppressor) rather than struggling

for political change."(3) Individualism

leads bourgeois society to use psychology

to explain and then treat crime rather than

the sociological viewpoint of class

struggle. By focusing on the societal roots

of humyn problems we can actually

eliminate their source.

The difference between our plan for

prisons and the current prison system is

that we see prisons as a means of re-

education not punishment. When we bring

up re-education under socialism suddenly

liberals get indignant. This violates their

individualist value system that considers

people static rather than ever-changing

products of society and their own

experience. Because re-educating people

to interact better with other people is taboo

in Amerika, we are left with the option of

punishment to deal with those who don't

play the game or who aren't allowed to

play.

Curiously, isolation and physical torture

do not provoke the same indignation from

many liberals as any mention of `re-

education' does. This can largely be

explained by the fact that it is oppressed

nations who are disproportionately

suffering at the hand of the current

punitive system. Especially in extreme

instances of repression like the SHU we

see the targeting of Black nationalists,

Spanish speakers, members of lumpen

organizations like B.L.O.O.D. or

ALKQN, or others whose behavior is

outside the norm set by white society.

Meanwhile the biggest criminals in the

world are living it up within U.$. borders

with no fear of reprisal by the current

system. To talk about replacing this

system with one that re-educates people

to work together in a socialist economy

turns the tables, making white Amerikans

the biggest target. While the Black man

selling rock on the street will be quick to

give it up for a means of supporting

himself by building his community rather

than destroying it, the white man making

millions by allowing that product to enter

the country in the first place will be a lot

more reluctant to change his ways. And

he sure as hell doesn't want the economy

socialized.

"But some people are just crazy"

We often hear this line on the streets.

Certainly it is prevalent in the bourgeois

media. It may be true that some mentally

ill people commit crimes because of their

illness. But to quote the band Propagandhi,

"Ordinary people do fucked up things

when fucked up things become ordinary."

In other words, behavior is relative to the

material conditions of a society.

We can say with certainty that the vast

majority of people who have committed

crimes against other people are not

"crazy" and can be reformed. And some

number of people who are mentally ill

(even seriously ill) can also be reformed.

Evidence that crime can be largely

eliminated can be seen in a comparison

of violent crimes committed in the world

today. Amerikans are willing to accept

the idea that there are all these

"incorrigible crazies" out there because

our society has succeeded in creating

excessive violence in individuals and the

media turns around and feeds that to the

populace as a scare tactic. A quick glance

at an Amerikan prison yard will tell you

something is not right when the vast

majority of the people are not white, while

white people still make up a majority of

the U$ population. Unless one is a racist

then one must admit that there are social

factors involved in who goes to prison.

The same individualism that leads

people to be more concerned about some

static idea of identity than about physical

abuse and mental torture is what allows

people to act against the norms and

interests of the society that they live in.

Communists favor class struggle over the

psychological approach. For example,

"Rather than giving moralizing sermons,

China strove to create in individuals a

social conscience."(3) In this way we can

combat all sorts of social ills, from drug

addiction and eating disorders to violence

and other neuroses. Rather than brushing

these problems under the rug, by trying

to lock their victims up in prison and

isolate them, we can involve those people

in building a better society so that they

understand the importance of their lives

and the negative effects of their former

behaviors.(4)

A prerequisite to eliminating antisocial

behavior is to accept that we do live in a

society that sets norms for how we

behave. In fact, much of what is labeled

`antisocial behavior' in our society today

is actually encouraged by our society; it

does not exist because of some innate

humyn characteristics. Amerikans look

at how they think and see that their

friends think the same. They've all been

taught by the same school system, the

same media, the same culture. And then

they assume that that is how all people

behave at all times. As Mao said, "what

[petty-bourgeois intellectuals] call human

nature is nothing but bourgeois

individualism."(5)

So for all who want to know what our

alternative to the SHU is, it is building a

communist society where no one has

power over other people, where people

see their importance as a part of a society

rather than seeing every persyn as an

island, and where social problems are

addressed and reconciled rather than

repressed and locked away to fester.

Notes:

1. MIM Theory 9: Psychology and

Imperialism, p. 39

2. MT9, p.48

3. MT9, p.36

4. For more on this read "Psychological

Practice in the Chinese Revolution" in

MT9

5. Mao Zedong, "Yenan Forum on Art

and Literature," in Selected Works, op.

cit., Volume 4, p.90

An Alternative to the SHU

MIM Notes 292 · December 1, 2003 · Page 8

What questions do YOU have?

Wasn't Mao a butcher? Why do you spell it "Amerika"? Shouldn't
you try non-violence first? What is internationalism? Isn't hating white

people reverse racism? Why don't you leftists work together? Why
don't you tone it down? What is a cardinal principle? What is your
program? What is necessary to join MIM? What concrete actions can I

take? How do I write articles for MIM? What is your copyright policy?

Go to http://www.prisoncensorship.info/archive/etext/faq

and get real answers to these and other questions.

is taken over by Agent Smith, there is no

hint of how this transformation affected

those humyns who were still plugged into

the matrix. If not for seeing the previous

two Matrix films, the viewer would not

even know that there are other humyns

besides those living in Zion.

The complete focus on the 1% of

humynity based in Zion, ignoring the

overwhelming majority still trapped in the

matrix, echoes the extreme self-

centeredness of the imperialist nations of

today's world. Thousands in the Third

World die every day of starvation, and

millions more lack basic food, clothing,

Self-centered Revolutions ignores majority

of humanity

shelter, and health care. Yet their needs

are all but ignored by citizens of the United

$tates and other first world countries, who

have become rich by exploiting the natural

resources and labor power of the rest of

the planet.

Neo was once a prisoner of the matrix

himself. Shouldn't this make him even

more determined to release everyone else

trapped in that condition? On the contrary,

his motivation seems to be saving those

humyns who are closest to him, without

regard for what is best for humynity as a

whole. Following this line of thinking, is it

entirely plausible that the inhabitants of

Zion, should they win the war against the

machines, would not even free those still

jacked into the matrix. They could

continue to use those bodies as an energy

source, just as the machines had done.

This would follow the pattern repeated in

every era of our own history, of the strong

exploiting the weak. In the first Matrix

film, Neo appeared to be on the path to

Continued from page 1...

by MC5 and PC5

On October 22nd, a psychiatric

examination conducted for a court found

a 24-year-old womyn named Naomi

Gaines fit to stand trial for the July 4th

murder of one of her sons in St. Paul

Minnesota.(1) She threw both her sons

off the Wabasha Street Bridge into the

Mississippi River and then jumped herself,

but she survived while one of her sons

did not. The names of the children were

"Supreme Knowledge Allah" and

"Sincere Understanding Allah."(1)

On September 23rd, a Las Vegas

womyn named Sylvia Ewing bought a

baseball bat and killed her 8-year-old son

and 4- year-old daughter before jumping

in front of a tractor-trailer. Originally,

authorities did not release many details,(2)

but on October 9th a court sent her to a

mental health institution as unfit for trial.

She had been witnessed saying "Jesus is

coming" and her suicide note said, "Jesus

loves the kids. . . Jesus is coming soon."

A psychiatrist said she heard commands

in her head from Jesus.(3)

On July 10th, 2000 a mother drove

herself and her three children off a bridge

into the Missouri River, killing all four

people. She left a suicide note citing

problems in her failing marriage. This

Christian bitch also cited God in the

suicide note: "Your children will be in

God's hands now."(4)

This October also, at Texas A&M

Commerce (a university), students are

putting on a play(5) about Andrea Yates'

drowning of her five children ages 2 to 7.

She also appeared as a "good Christian"

in Houston, Texas.(6) "A psychiatrist

testified . . . that Andrea Yates believed

she was saving her five children from an

eternity in hell when she drowned them

in her bathtub"(7)--to which MIM says

if it's true, then execute Yates and her

pastor. People allowed to exploit the

Satan image for money--whether

through exorcisms, fiction (religious)

books or TV need to be censored by hard-

line socialist censors so that the

intelligence of people like Andrea Yates

will improve.

In 1994, in a famous case, Susan Smith

rolled her car into a lake to kill her two

sons aged 3 and 14 months. When the

children were missing, she blamed Black

men who supposedly kidnapped her kids.

She wanted to be rid of the kids to join a

new well-off extramarital lover. In other

words, this is a crime of what MIM calls

the gender aristocracy putting its leisure

life above the life of children.

We condemn this view of children as

property for the entertainment (including

religious) of their parents. It arises

because the state takes too small a role

in fostering community involvement in

child-care. Instead Amerikkkan culture

glorifies its settler past where every family

unit stole its own piece of land and saw

to its own economic livelihood. Socialism

has more cooperative economics and

moderates the individualism of the past.

All who say children should not have a

choice to be atheist or disagree with their

parents' religion are also to blame for this

stupid fatalist outcome. If one mother

wants to meet God sooner than natural,

OK, but a secular state backed by a

communist movement must interfere so

that all are clear that children have their

own lives apart from being playthings of

parents.

These incidents are also proof of MIM's

line that it is adults generally in imperialist

countries--not just men--who are gender

oppressors.(8) The word "patriarchy"

includes the ownership of children

fostered in class society. There is a

growing awareness of the line pointed out

in MIM Theory2/3 that gender oppression

is not just based on differences in genitalia

but on their development through age. For

example, Elizabeth Fox-Genovese has

brought the following to the public in a

popular paperback book: "More often

than not, feminists advance statistics

about violence against women to promote

a perception of women as the bloodied

victims of men's war of conquest against

them. . . . Scholars claim women and men

now engage in domestic violence in about

equal numbers. . . and although men are

more likely than women to molest

children, women commit more than half

of all child murders."(9)

Most people in the world would consider

themselves lucky to raise their children

in Amerikkka. The crime of killing

children when their living standard would

be high even on welfare or in a foster

Killers of children most often adult wimmin

Religious nuts take their children to heaven

home is peculiarly Amerikkkan--a hellish

brew of religious fatalism and

individualism. The people opposing public

daycare for the poor and a generally

enlarged social role in the raising of

children are responsible for these horrific

murders that degrade the whole U.$.

culture. Mothers should see both

ideologically and practically that they are

only one facet of a child's life. The sooner

that comes true, the sooner these murders

will stop.

Notes:

1. http://www.startribune.com/stories/

462/4170138.html

2. http://www.rgj.com/news/stories/

h t m l / 2 0 0 3 / 0 9 / 2 4 /

52503.php?sp1=rgj&sp2=News&sp3=Local+News&sp5=RGJ.com&sp6=news&sp7=local_news

3. http://www.reviewjournal.com/

lvrj_home/2003/Oct-10-Fri-2003/news/

22340782.html

4. http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/

DailyNews/suicide000712.html

5. http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/news/

101703_APlocal_yates.html

6. http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/06/27/

fike.cnna/

7. http://www.cnn.com/2002/LAW/03/

01/yates.trial/

8. To see MIM's theoretical approach

to the nature of gender and gender

oppression, read, http://www.etext.org/

Politics/MIM/wim/cong/gender98b.html

9. Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, Feminism

Is Not the Story of My Life (NY: Anchor

Books, 1996), pp. 163-4.

breaking that cycle, as "the One" who

would be the champion of the entire

humyn race. Sadly, Matrix Revolutions

does not bring the epic to such a

conclusion, as the fate of those humyns

still connected to the matrix, and the

programs exiled there, still remains

uncertain.

MIM Notes 292 · December 1, 2003 · Page 9

Dead Prez
Turn Off the Radio--The Mix
Tape Vol. 1
Holla Black Records
2002

The long awaited follow up to Dead

Prez' (DP) freshman hit Let's Get Free

is not quite ready yet. So this most recent

release is something to tide fans over.

Since 2000 they have appeared in

collaborations with the Coup, Tahir of

Hedrush and the Unbound Allstars with

the Mumia 911 project. This release

compiles some of that work. This is not a

full-length album, rather it is a mix tape.

The songs have mainstream appeal and

the revolutionary spirit remains.

One theme of this project is taking over

culture and the media that disseminates

it. The fact that hip hop has been

appropriated by corporations is a common

complaint. In the title track DP says,

"When you bringin' it real/ you don't get

rotation / `less you take over the station."

In No Love, one of many hit songs off of

Tahir's Homecoming album, we see

participants in real hip hop culture being

turned down, harassed, arrested and

charged way too much money to take part

in so-called hip hop events run by greedy

corporations. The solution? Well, just like

the revolution will take back the wealth

stolen from the people by force, we need

to take back our culture by force so that

it serves the interests of the oppressed.

In rap music, sampling is common and

not usually used to improve the message

of popular songs, but to benefit financially

from the popularity of those songs. But

sampling is a legitimate form of artistic

expression in hip hop as well as all culture.

Taking a popular beat that has been used

to promote individualist romance culture,

for example, and infusing it with a

revolutionary message (as done on this

work with the beats of Black Rob,

Notorious B.I.G., Busta Rhymes and

other major label lackies) is a political

statement in and of itself. While the

producers of the original work used it as

a means to make money while promoting

backwards ideas, we're saying we're

gonna take that popularity that you have

spent so much money on to promote and

use it to encourage the overthrow of the

same system you support. Or in the case

of DP's remake of KRS-One's Black

Cop, you can take an already popular

progressive song and turn it up a notch

(see the Cop Shot single out on Raptivism

Records).

While the well-developed ideas of Let's

Get Free aren't as common on this mix

tape, DP's revolutionary message is still

there. Perhaps the clearest example is

the song title We Need a Revolution. This

song is powerful in taking responsibility

for what we can achieve in our society if

we just take control of our own lives and

of our communities. For example, "I can

stop these cops from killing / I can feed

these hungry children / I can stop racism

/ a product of capitalism / I can unpack

the prisons and turn religion back to we

livin'." The demands put forth in Food,

Clothes + Shelter pt. 2 are also clearly

revolutionary, putting basic needs above

all else. The current system puts rights

such as freedom of religion, private

property and the freedom to exploit other

people above survival needs.

Track 10 is entitled Know Your Enemy,

and DP does. "You want to stop terrorists

/ start with the U$ imperialists." And be

sure that George Bush is way worse than

Bin Laden is. By recognizing the number

one enemy of the people and then spelling

out the only way to deal with that enemy,

Dead Prez continues to provide

ideological leadership towards a better

world through their music.

The one thing on this album that is not

one bit progressive is the use of misogynist

language. If I had a dollar for every dick-

sucking reference on this CD I'd have at

least enough money to buy another copy.

Language that treats the female-gendered

role in sexual activities as demeaning

promotes power differences between

genders and serves to silence wimmin.

Examples of this on this album are

frequent implications of "I don't care

about you or I hate you so you can suck

my dick." Similarly, our pornographic

culture promotes the idea that men fuck

and wimmin get fucked. And we all know

getting fucked is bad. We also must

oppose all language that insinuates

homosexuality is bad, like in the intro to

No Love that dedicates the song to

faggot-ass bouncers.

On Let's Get Free, DP complained that

the wimmin don't never get respected.

Yet in Soulja Life Mentality, we see a

misogynist attitude towards white girls

that "can't never be no friend to me / I

just get my dick sucked / nut in they mouth

instantly / they ain't nothin' but freak

shows." In his book Black Skin, White

Mask, Franz Fanon explores the role of

power in sexual desires and attitudes

between Blacks and whites. Just as the

white man covets the Black womyn as a

forbidden treat and a show of dominance

(ditto white wimmin and Black men), the

ability to be with a white womyn is a show

of power for the Black man. With or

without this national character, such

displays of power over wimmin are flat

out wrong. Despite the fact that white

wimmin still have power over Black men

in our society, misogynist attitudes against

the oppressor nation are not progressive.

One other small complaint about the

content of this album is the religious

references in It Was Written. "Did you

know that destruction of the flesh is not

the ending to life / is not based in reality?"

It is these ideas that lead people to try to

prepare for some after-life rather than

changing the real conditions around us.

In summary, Turn Off the Radio is

highly recommended for all interested in

some revolutionary hip hop. We hope A

Single Spark will be able to revisit some

of these issues with DP in the future and

with the release of their upcoming album.

Get Free or Die Tryin (Turn Off
the Radio Mixtape Vol. 2)
Dead Prez/RBG/People Army
Boss Up/Landspeed Records
2003

This album starts out and ends strong

with a mellow feel throughout musically

and a more personal touch lyrically then

previous Dead Prez (DP) stuff. This is

the second mix tape they've put out and

this one is actually put out as a dead prez/

RBG/People Army release, indicating

more contributions from other artists than

the last mix tape.

The intro to this album gets it started

with a revolutionary internationalist

perspective. In response to his comrade

talking about leaving the struggle one

character in the skit replies, "You done

been around the world and seen it's the

same struggle, where ya gonna go?...

What you gonna tell your kids? You

punked out? You ain't amerikan dreamin

is ya?" This brings up the important idea

of strategic confidence. There are people

from South Africa to Washington DC

supporting this struggle, in fact the

majority of the people in the world are on

our side. For the worldwide majority,

overthrowing imperialism is the only

chance for freedom. Living in the United

$tates, however, we are in greater danger

of selling out. A comfortable life is

actually possible here, thanks to wealth

stolen from the Third World. Even

oppressed nationals within U$ borders

have this temptation in their face every

day.

The first track, "Fuck the Law," is the

most bouncing track on this album with

some revolutionary but gangsta lyrics like,

"bomb the precinct, burn the prisons, stick

the banks up, smash the cameras."

Another militant and powerful track is a

collaboration between DP and ONYX

called, "Last Days Reloaded." Lyrics

include, "see how they send troops to war

fo' their country / niggers worldwide need

an army of one / It's revolution to the

fullest / put the bullets in the gun."

"When Mamma Cries" and "Window

to My Soul" take a personal perspective

and tie it back into the revolutionary

struggle. The latter song is by Stic (DP)

about his brother who had struggles with

rock cocaine. As he addresses the bigger

picture he recognizes the source of the

problem, "tell me who profits / it's obvious

/ and it's going too good for them to stop

it." The song ends with, "we don't own

no boats / we don't own no planes / we

don't make no cellophane." Meanwhile

he asserts that it's up to the victims to

change things: "i blame it on the system /

but the problem is ours / it's not a question

of religion / it's a question of power." Stic

appears alone on this album a few times,

including the song O.G. (Original Garvey).

This song hits on the powerful potential

of uniting lumpen organizations against

the real enemy. It ties in the Pan

Africanism of Garvey and applies it to

the struggle of the BLOODs, CRIPs and

others.

The insert of this album and the CD

itself lets us know that the delayed RBG

full album by DP is on its way. The insert

also has a note reading, "All Y'all

wannabe down white people must support

and demand reparations from your

government for the stolen wealth, power,

resources, and freedom of the Black,

Brown, and Red people!" MIM

wholeheartedly agrees, and it's good to

see DP including reparations for all

oppressed people in this statement. In a

pamphlet entitled, "The Revolutionary

Anti-Imperialist League (RAIL)

Demands Reparations For the

Oppressed!" a RAIL comrade warned,

"A lot of organizations base their

calculations on the white/non-white wage

differential, which leads to the incorrect

position that reparations should include the

difference between wages. The problem

with this is that it does not take into

account the super-exploitation of the third

world and in practice seeks to raise the

internal semi-colonies to the same

material conditions as the white nation,

which would effectively strengthen the

exploitation of the third world." (1)

That pamphlet also states, "The

luxurious lifestyles led by the

bourgeoisified working classes in the

imperialist nations (also called the labor

aristocracy) are a definite result of the

super- exploitations of the Third World

proletariat and peasantry. Thus, the only

true road to peace is a road that includes

reparations for the oppressed nations of

the world. Therefore the struggle is

intimately connected with the struggle for

national liberation and self- determinations

for all oppressed nations."

As usual we can strongly represent this

latest release from DPz. When "RBG"

officially hits the stores you can bet it'll

be getting the MIM stamp of approval as

well.

Notes:

1. http://www.prisoncensorship.info/archive/etext/

philly/repar.html

This is a Take-Over not a Make-Over

MIM Notes 292 · December 1, 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

OR prisoner locked
down/fined for not
making bed

I have currently signed up for your MIM

Notes. But due to my recent transfer to
another "Correctional Facility" I am delayed
in my response back to you. Fortune has it
that another comrade is on my tier to help me
out.

He read to me from your latest edition about

Control Units, SHU, IMU, DSU, and AD-SEG.
I am currently serving 16 years (190 mo) under
mandatory minimum sentencing guidelines
(Measure 11) and have spent 7 years in DSU
and IMU. I have not even stabbed anyone or
killed a cop and yet Oregon Dept of
Corruptions has kept me consistently locked
down for not lining my shoes up under my
bunk, hanging too many shirts on my clothing
hooks, and various disobediences of order
and disrespect.

As your article alluded to, I have lost a

good deal of my long range and medium range
vision. And because the ODOC doesn't
provide toothpaste, only baking soda, my
teeth are rotting out of my mouth due to lack
of Flouride and breaking because baking soda
is an abrasive which strips tooth enamel,
making the teeth susceptible to cracking and
breaking.

It's not like providing inmates with

toothpaste would break the bank. DOC
confiscates inmate money for every and all
rule violations. I recently got fined $75.00 for
not making my bed in a timely and fashionable
manner. Times this by 20,000 inmates a week
and "Inmate Welfare fund" has the money
for basic elements of hygiene.

--an Oregon prisoner, October 2003

MIM represents the
oppressed in u$

Again, I am asking you to continue to send

m MIM Notes because I find your publication
to be not only interesting and educational,
but as you already know that your newspaper
to me seems to be the best publication and a
voice for inmates across the country and it
even shocks me to see that inmates right here
in NY write to your newspaper that's
distributed across the country. I am an inmate
who has a 5.4 reading level, telling you that I
am not that good at reading and to be honest
with you, I don't do a lot of reading. I would
assume because I don't have anything
interesting to read that captures my attention
enough to motivate me to make me want to
read but for some reason or the other I don't
have any problems reading MIM Notes. I do
get other publications and I don't find them
to be as interesting as MIM Notes. I get one
publication from NY named "Workers world"
and they do not print stories or articles about
people suffering in prisons in the USA but
they print articles about people suffering in
other countries. At this moment what's
happening in other countries is of no interest
to me. I wrote to Workers World and I told
them about your newspaper and I told them
that they should print articles that their
readers (prisoners) can feel or digest. They
print stories about Wars and protest but they
failed to mention anything about the war
that's happening right here in this country.

"War on Drugs or War on non-whites" People
of color being warehoused in prisons,
crammed up in cages like animals in the name
of war on drugs or the Rockefeller Drug Law,
a law that both the public and politicians agree
is not only wrong, but racist. The war on drugs
to me is nothing but modern day slavery.
Slavery that has shifted place from the cotton
fields to prison camps over flowing with the
offspring of the former slaves who were
tricked into believing that slavery was over
with.

Both the Republicans and Democrats are

guilty of running modern day slave camps.
They both are guilty of not only mailing
money by incarcerating people of color but
are also guilty because their greed for money
also destroys families again of non-whites
because when a man is finally released from
prison, he or she is scarred for life, a scar that
makes it hard for an ex-con to find a job and
survive. Ex-cons in New York can't even vote,
in some states FOR LIFE. African-Americans
and Latinos comprise about 93% of the drug
offenders in New York State Prisons, even
though a government study shows that the
majority of people who use and sell drugs are
white. The Rockefeller Drug Laws
disproportionately affect poor people of color.

What is the connection between the Drug

laws and voters registration? In conjunction
with New York State laws that deny felony
offenders the right to vote (felon
disenfranchisement), the Rockefeller Drug
Laws have led to the disenfranchisement of
poor Afro-Americans and Latino people and
the draining of political power from poor
communities of color. Not only in New York
but throughout the entire country called the
United States of America.

--a NY Prisoner, October 2003
MIM adds: Our readers will know that we

also spend plenty of space covering what's
going on outside the u$, for we try to
represent the interests of the international
proletariat, not just the oppressed within u$
borders. But many other papers based in the
imperialist countries that claim to represent
Marxism/socialism/communism/etc are really
speaking for the interests of imperialist nation
people. That is what differentiates MIM
Notes: we don't pretend that the struggle for
more money for white people is connected to
the struggle for basic necessities in the Third
World. We hope this comrade will broaden
his perspective and see the international
relevance of our struggle. For without the
alliance of the majority of the world's people
we can not win.

Advice from a NY
leader

My proposal would be to influence

brothers to utilize the grievance committees,
Inspector General, the Commissioner of
Corrections Glenn Goard (in NYS) and the

Claims Court system to bring justice to all
unprofessional conduct violated by officers
instead of acting out in arrogance and catching
assault charges and misbehavior reports
which will further deprive them of their liberty
of law and protection of due respect and equal
treatment.

#2 To have strong brothers realize that the

oppressor sends in his little devil worshippers
to cause confusion amongst us and start
addressing these individuals with a supreme
knowledge which would destroy their
attempts to cause us to stumble and fall in
feud against each other. Conduct more
constructive conversations and check all
negative input. Play constructive educational
games like jeopardy, chess, or even bingo
cause idle time is the devils workshop. And
keep record of the progress and report it to
MIM as a group leaders' contribution to
USW. Cause if we continue to let the negative
mentalities run wild it will eventually destroy
us. ... I will put together some resources on
the Serve the People Prisoner Release on Life
Program. Here are a couple now to start:

Inside Journal
PO Box 17429
Washington DC 20041

The writer could ask for a book entitled

"Shortimer," if they are soon to be released it
provides resources for jobs, medical help,
housing, etc. and the book is for free.

Cega
PO Box 81826
Lincoln, NE 68501-1826

A referral program that helps prisoners and

their families establish themselves after
prisoners are released. Cega does not directly
contact people on your behalf. Their job is to
identify appropriate resources to help you in
your relocation. For a standard fee of $15 a
city, Cega can provide you with information
on housing, employment, financial
management, education, support programs,
drug and alcohol counseling- just about
anything you need for relocation after release.
They need to contact Cega four to six months
before their release.

MIM responds: For all you censors out

there who try to prevent us from reaching our
comrades behind bars under the guise that
we promote violence, please note that we
wholeheartedly agree with this comrades first
suggestion. Yes, we promote and support the
combating abuse and rights violations in
prisons. We do not advocate physical
confrontations.

We would also like to second this comrades

call to other leaders to be sending reports to
MIM so that we can better work together.

Letter Delivery takes
7 months in NY

Revolutionary Greetings,
I'd like to inform you that the very 1st letter

you've sent me back in March 2003,
apparently the facility Media Review center
held it til early October 2003. For some strange
reason the 18 pages pertaining to ALKQN, I
did not receive. Per NYS Dept of Corrections
Directive #4572 I'm allowed to receive your
publications, literature, etc.

--a NY Prisoner, October 2003

CO's set up divisions
in NY prisons

As far as the prison system, it's a lot of

institutional racism. Corrections Officers are
setting us up with razors, drugs if they see
you trying to unite the comrades that's here.
There is no real education here if you don't
take it upon yourself to study you will remain
a dead planet. The teachers are interested in
furthering our education. They feed us cheap

MIM Notes 292 · December 1, 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.

nasty food. Every thing we do that's
organized is gang activities to them. They
oppress us on all levels and everything them
true comrades in Attica rioted for, they are
taking it back little by little. And they also
make those that's not conscious go to war
with each other so we can kill and fight each
other instead of fighting them for true justice
and a fair system. They use their own divide
and conquer techniques.

--a NY prisoner, October 2003

California prisoners
continue to expose
Control Unit brutality

Join MIM in protest of the torturous SHU

units. Hundreds of thousands of prisoner are
being held in conditions of Sensory
Deprivation. If you don't know what that is
then imagine being in a concrete/steel cell
and being denied all five basic human senses
(sight, sound, smell, touch, and taste) for
years. Being denied any social contact. If you
can imagine this then you get an idea of what
MIM is trying to bring to the attention of the
masses.

Sensory Deprivation is a form of physical,

social and psychological torture, and it pushes
many self respecting people to acts of
desperation and to the most extreme points
of paranoia. What also magnifies this is the
fact that you can be double celled/housed.
On an average morning there are loud noises
emanating from the ventilation system, the
tray slots/ports in which your food is served
are used routinely by guards to irritate
everyone there because they slam them very
hard and the sound echoes. This is every
morning at 6am. Sound is a well known tactic
in both psychological warfare and torture,
from the sound of dripping water to the sound
of blasting music. The Waco massacre is a
perfect example. The U..S. used sound warfare
against David an his followers. This tactic is
being used against us here in the SHU. This
leads to sleep deprivation which germinates
to psychological disorders.

This is not humane treatment. This torture

takes the forms of physical pain, migraines,
stress related illness, suicide, etc. It is the
intention of the CDC to undermine endeavors
to rehabilitate it's captives it seeks only to
economically exploit the New African/Latino/
Mexican communities via poverty and crime.
The evolution of civilization cannot be
discussed without discussing the evolution
of human morality. How could any society
justify the existence of such a brutal and
inhumane practice? How can the Department

of Corrections and society have the audacity
to expect that prisoner remain passive and
docile when to do so is against the very nature
of a human being. The anger one feels/
experiences is akin to slavery. It sets off
emotions that few will every know, short of
being in a hostage situation or in an american
prison.

Let me revisit the word deprivation with a

more insightful perspective. Deprivation
means to deprive someone of something, to
take away. In relation to the senses, that have
just been set forth, to deprive would mean:
Creating the structural setting in which the
senses are cut off from contact with the
natural elements of creation. To prevent the
senses from having contact with the natural
elements would result in depriving the senses
of the necessary stimulant for healthy growth
an development as a human being. The public/
you are being given the impression that
prisons are full of rapists, child molesters,
serial murderers, drug kingpins, etc. However,
if you just take a good look you'll see that the
prisons are full of grown kids (mentally frozen
minds). Who is to say that these minds are
not worth salvaging through progressive
programs? As for the rapists and child
molesters, they have a hard time in prison;
they are beaten and stabbed, slashed
throughout their entire stay, and they are not
the majority.

I urge you to join MIM's campaign to

abolish these torture SHU units. Think about
how you'll be heading off further oppression
of millions of defenseless men, who are
serving their sentences and being socially,
mentally, and physically tormented in the
process.

This article has been written and produced

by a California prisoner who has no motivation
to lie about a well kept secret, at least up until
now about the misuse of the space
designated for prisoners to serve out their
sentences, some for the rest of their natural
lives.

--a California prisoner (Corcoran), October

2003

I'm a political prisoner held at Centinella

State Prison on charges of "possession of a
destructive device." I saw your petition to
end control units and I would like my name
added. I've been in and out of various control
units for a year and a half. I'm currently in ad-
seg control unit due to my conflicts with
racist reactionary skinheads and other white
supremacists in prison. I should get out 30-
60 days. I spent 2 months in a SHU type
program before that and a year in county jail
under "total separation." California's control

units are definitely a violation of human
rights. At Corcoran SHU sensory deprivation
is just one small aspect of the brutal injustice
prisoners face. The guards stage fights, race
riots, and rapes. Excessive force by guards is
as normal as getting fed. I could go on about
other control units, but I'm sure you know.

-- a California prisoner (Centinella),

November 2003

I just got through reading my MIM Notes

September 15, 2003 (#289) and I commend you
on putting such an article on control units on
your front page. Exposure is what is needed,
but there are so many media figures and
politicians, and so-called movers and shakers
who structure law and influence public view
and opinion of prisoners and their confined
conditions.

I have served time in the California SHU

program twice for violations that don't warrant
such punishment as SHUs inflict upon the
inmates they house. But please don't
overlook the ASUs (ad-seg units)! These
security administrative units are no different
than a SHU program unit. They house you
for false violations, or in my case, for no
violation report written against me, yet I've
been housed in ASU since June 2003 on an
alleged investigation they claim I jeopardized
the integrity of! Another twist in their endless
act to oppress and stress inmates.

I'm supposed to be housed in a certain

housing, yet these C/Os placed me in a cell
situation that got me assaulted and sexually
abused. These officials know they've fucked
up and know that I've got a legitimate law
suit. The evidence I have is concrete, and
that is only part of it. They ignored the fact
that I took measures to correct their wrong,
but even a call from the inspector general,
which I have proof of, went on deaf ears!

I am in the stage of exhausting my

institutional remedies and filing against
officials here. I am in search of a civil attorney
to litigate for me. I see a nice donation coming
your way at the expense of some stupid cop
who has cost his position and higher officials
above him who also "knew" or "should have
known" where they went wrong.

So still I stand in this pig pen at Salinas

Valley State Prison (where a lot of state and
federal laws are broken and it goes un-noticed
and un-heard by the public and politicians)
as a man who refuses to fall and crumble.
Thanks to your exposure of prison treatment
nation wide, our voices can be heard. I will
always support your views, and ups big time
to all other comrades in the struggle.

--a California prisoner (Salinas Valley),

October 2003

I've been circulating a few of the MIM

Notes to a few mentally equipped people and
they showed interest. I also have a class
action (massive) 602 in on the small food
portions we receive back here in ad-seg. I
believe that the MIM Notes that I circulated
gave folks back here enough inspiration to
partake in the action that I'm putting down
about our food.

-- a California prisoner (Soledad), Nov

2003

They have started programming SHU

inmates in what they call exercise modules.
They are more like dog kennels. Everyone
except sensitive needs (PC) and RM
(reintegrated mited yard) must program in
these dog kennels. The rules they have
written up read like: no touching the fence,
no feet on the toilet, and anything else the
officers in charge can dream up. If they say
no talking I guess you would have to shut
up. I foresee a major problem in the near
future. Ask me it's long overdue, but that's
just me talking as I am affectionately called
by the COs a problem inmate, asshole. Has a
nice ring to it, doesn't it. That's the latest
from POW camp Tehachapi.

-- a California prisoner (Tehachapi),

October 2003

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?

MIM Notes 292 · December 1, 2003 · Page 12

Notas Rojas

dec 1, 2003, Nº 292 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

Congreso del MIM, 2002

El panafricanismo es una ideología que

aboga por la unidad de África. Nkrumah
la declaró necesaria diciendo que las
fuerzas neocoloniales gobernarían en

África a través de una división del pueblo
africano, y que el tamaño y el número
de la población total de África era

comparable al de los países opresores
como EE. UU. Según el pensamiento
panafricano, los africanos pertenecen a

África, y no a tribus o naciones.

Bien se conoce el hecho de que, por

lo menos desde 1917, los imperialistas

británicos han tenido miedo al
panafricanismo por ser éste una fuerza
que dificultaba la división y la conquista

de África. Hoy en día, los Sionistas
siguen adhiriéndose a la mentalidad
colonizadora y están tratando de crear

tensiones entre África del Norte y el
resto del continente, por ejemplo, al
señalar la presencia de esclavistas árabes

en Somalia. Si bien es cierto que la
esclavitud es inexcusable, hay que tener

en cuenta que una oposición a la
esclavitud no implica la necesidad de
hacer amigos con Israel.

El contenido económico del

panafricanismo comprende la unidad de
los explotados en contra de los

explotadores; no importa si los
partidarios o los opositores de dicha
tendencia se dan cuenta de eso o no.

Más del 95% de gente unida por el
panafricanismo es explotada o
superexplotada. Los opresores que usan

divisiones entre los africanos para
atacarlos son el blanco del
panafricanismo.

El MIM considera el panafricanismo

un concepto estratégico semejante al de
"tercermundismo". No merece la pena

dividir las fuerzas comunistas en torno a
conceptos estratégicos. Los camaradas
con buenos principios ideológicos

pueden estar en desacuerdo tanto con
la categorización del balance actual de

las fuerzas mundiales, como con la
evaluación de posibilidades viables para
el progreso. Nosotros pensamos que,

de ser concebido de una forma correcta
por los comunistas, el panafricanismo es
uno de estos conceptos.

Históricamente hablando, el

panafricanismo ha sido el llamado
unificador de las fuerzas progresivas y

revolucionarias de África. Los
opositores del panafricanismo
normalmente se basan en razones

incorrectas y tienden a caer dentro del
campo reaccionario con mayor
frecuencia que los partidarios del mismo.

Particularmente, en África del Sur la

noción del revisionista "Partido
Comunista" de Sudáfrica y el Congreso

Nacional Africano ha enfatizado la
unidad entre los trabajadores blancos y
negros contra el panafricanismo. El MIM

diría que, al contrario de esta visión, entre
la pequeña burguesía blanca
erróneamente denominada

"trabajadores" y los trabajadores negros
cuyos salarios equivalen al 3 o 5% del
salario de los blancos, existe una

diferencia cualitativa.

Si bien la ascensión al poder del

Congreso Nacional Africano (CNA) en

lo que se llama Azania es un logro
positivo en comparación con el
repugnante y reaccionario ex-régimen

del apartheid, está claro que la visión
que tiene el CNA respecto a la
unificación igualitaria con la pequeña

burguesía blanca y los imperialistas ha
limitado su capacidad para acelerar el
progreso en Sudáfrica. Por esta razón,

si bien es cierto que el gobierno del
CNA es más "normal" que el régimen
del apartheid, la fuerza que ha

identificado de una manera correcta la
base del socialismo en Azania y en otros
países africanos ha sido el

panafricanismo. Cualesquiera que sean
las etiquetas que usan los activistas, ya
sea "sindicalistas africanos" o

"panafricanistas", el contenido
económico de su lucha es el mismo.

Una oposición o un respaldo del

panafricanismo no debería ser cuestión
de división al menos que se hable de
posiciones extremas. Por un lado, el

CNA y los seudocomunistas se oponen
al panafricanismo porque creen de

verdad que existe una "clase
trabajadora" unida compuesta por

africanos y colonos blancos cuyos
salarios son 20 veces superiores a los
de los africanos. Estos seudocomunistas

y sus aliados abandonaron la teoría
laboral del valor hace mucho tiempo, de
modo que su oposición al panafricanismo

debería atacarse desde el punto de vista
ideológico. No habrá paz mundial hasta
que todos los pueblos reconozcan el

valor de su labor de una forma correcta.

Por otro lado, el número de

reaccionarios que posan como

panafricanistas es mucho menor que el
número de reaccionarios que se oponen
al panafricanismo por parte de los

explotadores. Desde luego, como en el
caso de cualquier idea, hay gente que
adapta el lema no más para destrozarlo.

Cuando el panafricanismo se vuelve una
etiqueta cultural y entra en conflicto con
la producción de la verdad universal a

través de la ciencia, se convierte
entonces en un ala del postmodernismo
reaccionario.

Por ejemplo, los que saben adaptar

acercamientos simplistas son los
trotskistas que sostienen que cualquier

tipo de nacionalismo es malo, incluyendo
el panafricanismo. Estas personas han
abandonado la teoría laboral del valor

de modo que tienden a igualar a los
colonos blancos y los trabajadores
africanos colocándolos dentro de la

misma clase. Estos trotskistas no saben
nada sobre la aproximación marxista
hacia el problema de la clase y la nación.

Es a los científicos maoístas africanos

a quienes les toca determinar qué tipo
de problemas tribales, nacionales y

panafricanos corresponden a las
condiciones africanas. El MIM no tiene
células en África y, por lo tanto, sólo

plantea preguntas generales de validez
y entendimiento universal. Existe una
larga tradición histórica de

panafricanismo maoísta.

Fuentes: A.M. Babu, African

Socialismo or Socialist Africa? London:

Zed Books, 1981.

Sobre el panafricanismo: resolución