MIM Notes ***

MIM Notes 293 · December 15, 2003 · Page 1

MIM Notes

Dec 15, 2003, Nº 2993

The Official Newsletter of the Maoist Internationalist Movement (MIM)

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November 20

housands of protesters took to the

streets in Miami, Florida to protest

the Free Trade Area of the

Americas (FTAA) ministerial meeting,

decrying the international pact as

dangerous for (Amerikan) workers and

the environment, and opposing what many

called "globalization," a watered down

word for the system of imperialism. MIM

calls for global labor and environmental

standards and a global minimum wage as

we fight to bring down this system of

imperialism, but we don't stand with the

protectionist demands of those who worry

about Amerikan jobs being shipped

abroad.

The police response to the protest was

aggressive and brutal. The police used

armored vehicles and helicopters to shut

down the city. Thousands of cops in riot

gear attacked protesters with tear gas,

pepper spray, rubber bullets and various

other projectiles, leading to countless

injuries and hospitalizations. Many

demonstrators reported that police

ordered groups of demonstrators to

disperse while circling the protesters,

making it impossible for them to escape.

Police then arrested these people for

failure to obey a police order. Several of

those arrested were brutalized in jail,

Blacks and Latinos bearing the brunt of

the abuse.

The National Lawyers Guild sent 60

legal observers to the protest and they

report that eight observers were arrested

and four were beaten. Police arrested one

NLG observer riding his bicycle alone,

responding to a call on his cell phone that

a van carrying demonstrators' puppets

was stopped. He stopped at a corner, by

himself, to call for directions when a group

of bicycle cops rode up. He was

handcuffed and arrested, and his tape

recorder, which was recording at the time,

was taken by cops and never returned:

"They snapped my cellphone in half

before talking to me, and put me down

on the ground" (1).

Police also rounded up many reporters

in the protests. A producer of the

Democracy Now! radio show wrote a

statement while sitting in jail in Miami. "I

was arrested because I had not

embedded myself with the Police Dept

before doing my job of covering the

protests for the nationally syndicated

Miami cops attack protestors

Anti-FTAA politics are mixed bag

Photos from http://FTAAIMC.org.

On November 18 the Massachusetts

Supreme Judicial Court ruled that the

state constitution guarantees gay couples

the right to marry. The court gave the

state legislature six months to rewrite its

marriage laws to comply with the ruling.

While marriage is an institution of

patriarchal society, this is an easy issue

for MIM: there should be nothing stopping

any couple from enjoying the legal rights

of marriage if that couple wants to get

married.

We may not have the institution of

marriage under the distant-future system

of communism, when gender, class and

national oppression will have been

eliminated. But right now, under

capitalism, marriage confers economic

and legal benefits on a couple. Denying

those benefits to some people because

of who they choose to spend their lives

with is no better than any other form of

discrimination. Legalization of gay

marriage in the United $tates would be

progress towards eliminating gender

oppression.

The Massachusetts court ruling led to

renewed calls from across the

mainstream political spectrum for a

constitutional amendment to ban gay

marriage. President Bush took time out

from his visit to London to make a

statement declaring, "Marriage is a

sacred institution between a man and a

woman." Bush said he will "work with

congressional leaders and others to do

what is legally necessary to defend the

sanctity of marriage" (1).

Pundits predict this will be a big issue

in the 2004 presidential election,

particularly because a majority of

Amerikans still says they oppose gay

marriage (2). Howard Dean, governor of

Vermont and a leading Democratic

candidate for

P r e s i d e n t ,

signed a law

giving gay

couples the right

to legally unite in

a civil union

equivalent to

Gay marriage

battle in Amerika

Continued on

page 7...

Celebrate

Mao's Birthday,

December 26

by MC44

n December 26, MIM celebrates

Mao Zedong's birthday by

continuing the struggle against

imperialism and applying the lessons of

the Chinese revolution to our work in the

imperialist countries. Part of MIM's task

is to provide communist leadership and

education to a generation of youth today

who became politically aware after the

collapse of the former Soviet Union, and

who have been educated about socialism

and China entirely by the bourgeoisie.

Even 27 years after Mao's death--110

after his birth in 1893--MIM monitors the

portrayal of the Chinese revolution by the

hegemonic bourgeois forces of

academics, journalists, and policy-makers.

To wage our own continued struggle

against U$ imperialism, we need to

understand the dominant culture's view

of Mao and China so that we can

undermine it and build the people's

independent culture and worldview.

Toward the end of his life, Mao made

one of his greatest contributions to the

advancement of the human condition

when he helped launch the Great

Proletarian Cultural Revolution (GPCR)

in 1966. The Chinese revolution had made

great advances since the people's victory

in 1949, and Mao recognized the need for

continued revolution within the communist

Continued on page 8...

Continued on page 4...

MIM Notes 193 · December 15, 2003 · Page 2

What is MIM?

The Maoist Internationalist Movement (MIM) is the collection of existing or emerging

Maoist internationalist parties in the English-speaking imperialist countries and their English-

speaking internal semi-colonies, as well as the existing or emerging Maoist Internationalist
parties in Belgium, France and Quebec and the existing or emerging Spanish-speaking
Maoist Internationalist parties of Aztlan, Puerto Rico and other territories of the U.$. Empire.

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

vantage point of the Third World proletariat. MIM struggles to end the oppression of all
groups over other groups: classes, genders, nations. MIM knows this is only possibly by
building public opinion to seize power through armed struggle. Revolution is a reality for

North America as the military becomes over-extended in the government's attempts to
maintain world hegemony. MIM differs from other communist parties on three main
questions: (1) MIM holds that after the proletariat seizes power in socialist revolution, the

potential exists for capitalist restoration under the leadership of a new bourgeoisie within
the communist party itself. In the case of the USSR, the bourgeoisie seized power after the
death of Stalin in 1953; in China, it was after Mao's death and the overthrow of the "Gang

of Four" in 1976. (2) MIM upholds the Chinese Cultural Revolution as the farthest advance
of communism in humyn history. (3) As Marx, Engels and Lenin formulated and MIM has
reiterated through materialist analysis, imperialism extracts super-profits from the Third

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

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

Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Israel, Sweden and Denmark. MIM accepts people as
members who agree on these basic principles and accept democratic centralism, the system
of majority rule, on other questions of party line.

"The theory of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin is universally applicable. We should

regard it not as dogma, but as a guide to action. Studying it is not merely a matter of
learning terms and phrases, but of learning Marxism-Leninism as the science of revolution."

- Mao Zedong, Selected Works, Vol. II, p. 208.

Editor, MC206; Production, MC12

Letters

MIM Notes

The Official Newsletter of The Maoist Internationalist Movement

ISSN 1540-8817

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

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.

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British comrade
agrees with MIM on
white working class

Dear MIM,

Although I have been aware of MIM's

existence for some time, I haven't always

agreed with MIM's line on a number of

issues. However, my experience with

"left" political groups in Britain has

gradually brought me closer to the MIM

line up to the point where I now agree

with all three of MIM's cardinal

principles.

Acceptance of the first two points

required some historical reading and

reading-between-the-lines. But the third

cardinal proved to be a MAJOR obstacle

for me. While it is really unpalatable to

be told that you are bribed by your

employer, bribed by the state, bribed with

consumer goods and that the value of

those bribes has been extracted from third

world labour and natural resources--I'm

afraid that it IS true. Britain consumes a

great deal, produces very little and uses

military power and trade tariffs to maintain

this state of affairs. I accept that now.

I have some questions regarding the

MIM line on various issues:

1. While the third cardinal is true today,

it will not always be true. As imperialism

unravels and superprofits dry up, how will

MIM respond to this in terms of cardinal

principle?

2. When the dictatorship of the

proletariat comes to those nations that are

currently imperialist, will the uneven

development of these countries cause

revolution in the weaker powers or will

defeated imperialist powers build

socialism under occupation? Which

scenario is more likely?

3. Recently there have been heavy

losses of non-productive sector jobs in the

poorer districts of Britain. The work of

call centres, market research and telesales

is moving to countries like India. Is this

evidence of an emerging labour

aristocracy in Asia?

4. If imperialist-nation tenants

organised effectively against their private

landlords, would this affect the extraction

of super-profit from the third world, either

way? What is MIM's attitude to such

activism?

5. Why does MIM assert that "all sex

is rape under imperialism"? Is this to do

with the prevailing conditions of

patriarchy? What about same-sex

consensual relationships? If you

REALLY believed this line--doesn't that

effectively condemn ALL heterosexuals

as rapists under imperialism? If ALL sex

is rape under imperialism, isn't that like

equating bonded slavery with wage

slavery? Or bourgeois democracy with

outright fascism?

I know you must be busy, so I don't

expect a reply right away. Thank you for

your time.

--A British Comrade

International Minister replies for

MIM: Comrade, we are glad to hear that

you are moving toward the MIM line. We

take your comments in a spirit of struggle

and unity.

With regard to your first question, we

believe that Germany in World War II is

the most relevant model. The labor

aristocracy can receive devastating blows

and endure a ruined economy, yet still

stand with Hitler. Concretely the subject

came up whether Stalin should wait for

the Germans or occupy Germany. He

occupied Germany, and we believe this

kind of question is always implicit in the

imperialist countries--the danger of

taking a soft line on parasitism always

lurking.

It took generations of parasitism

combined with bourgeois democracy to

build the kind of habits and public opinion

we see now in the Western imperialist

countries. A short-term economic

disaster will open eyes, but it will not create

a socialist superstructure overnight. That

is why we say there must now be a whole

historical stage of time in which the

parasitic classes of the imperialist

countries must adjust to life without super-

profits and the political injustices that went

with them in the forms of national

chauvinism, racism, patriarchy etc.

With regard to your second question,

again we regard Nazi Germany as the

example of what will happen in the

imperialist countries. Upon the fall of

Nazism from power it is important to note

that neither the Red Army nor the

German communists declared that

eastern Germany proceeded immediately

to build socialism. In practice, de-

Nazifying meant not giving "socialist"

credit to people who were Nazis the day

before. An illusory wish for a quick

turnabout from imperialist marauder to

socialist constructor paves the way for a

return to power of the former rulers under

new names. It will be important to take a

"hard line" against the bourgeoisified

classes while not accepting them at face

value when they say they have adopted

"socialism" upon the collapse of the

imperialist regimes.

As Stalin learned in Nazi Germany, top

Nazi leaders offered to switch sides very

quickly and in many cases stayed at their

old posts of Nazi Germany days. To bring

about real change, that sort of thing cannot

be permitted, which means that change

will take more time, a stage of history not

necessary in countries where the majority

of people have a history of being

exploited.

On your third question, as Lenin

explained, the split in the working class is

international and even in Third World

countries there is always at least a small

minority that is bought off and transformed

into a petty-bourgeoisie. Hence, some of

those jobs offered by imperialists in the

Third World or even by local capitalists

will also be labor aristocracy. The

difference is that the petty-bourgeoisie of

such a sort has no chance of numerically

dominating the country in the Third World.

A country must become imperialist as

described by Lenin before the whole

country can be thought of as a candidate

for petty-bourgeoisie.

With regard to tenant struggles in the

Western imperialist countries, such battles

are usually intra-bourgeois struggles that

result in gentrification. If tenant struggles

are beneficial, it is usually for young people

thinking about classes for the first time.

In actuality, a tenant struggle for

betterment of housing conditions in the

Western imperialist countries results in a

push by the imperialists for a greater

crackdown on the Third World's

productive labor force for the raw

materials and manufacturing that go into

housing. In the Western imperialist

Continued on page 5...

MIM Notes 293 · December 15, 2003 · Page 3

We constantly update MIM's

coverage of the U.$. war on

our web site, with news and
opinion, agitation materials,
articles in English, Spanish,

French, Chinese and

Russian!

Read and distribute the

newspaper -- and get the

latest:

www.etext.org/ Politics/MIM

A coalition in California hosted a week

of teach-ins in schools followed by a day

of action on November 19, 2003.

Education not Incarceration began last

May with a large demo in the capital,

Sacramento, to make its demands heard

(www.may8.org). Students met with state

assembly members to voice their

concerns.

MIM and RAIL were two of the

numerous organizations and individuals

working around prison issues that were

invited to give presentations to classes

during the week of teach-ins. We had the

opportunity to work with a number of high

school classes in Oakland, where the

students were engaged and positive when

discussing the relevance of the prison

system.

Many students were quick to respond

to statistics on imprisonment based on

nationality in the united $tates with

responses like "that shows the

government is racist" and "Blacks and

Latinos are in there because of

oppression." The local legacy of the

Black Panther Party for Self-Defense is

also well known by many of the students.

One RAIL comrade made this historical

link by explaining the prison boom

following the break up of organizations

of the oppressed like the BPP, and the

subsequent creation of the Security

RAIL participates in `Education not Incarceration' week

Housing Units (SHUs)-- prisons within

prisons-- to combat organizing behind

bars.

In California, MIM and RAIL have

been waging a protracted battle to shut

down the SHUs, which represent some

of the most torturous conditions in prisons

across the united $tates. We focused on

this topic in our teach-ins, giving the

students first hand accounts of the

sensory deprivation and abuse that

prisoners in the SHU go through. Many

understood that such conditions are in not

in the general interest when people in the

SHU are going to be released back onto

the streets.

In discussing the allegations of `gang

affiliations' that send people to the SHU,

students were able to draw parallels to

their own lives. One student mentioned

having three people on a corner wearing

the same color is enough to get trouble

from the police. Many others had stories

to share about Oakland Police using

excessive force, such putting guns to their

heads. A speaker at the later rally

reiterated this point, talking about

Oakland's anti-loitering and vagrancy

laws. The speaker said these laws

parallel the state's reaction to the freeing

of African slaves, which created an

often-unwanted work force in this

country. One high-schooler talked about

how her history of political outspokenness

has led to unjust punishment by the school.

She also reminded everyone that the

school district brought in the Secret

Service last school year when a couple

of students said that Bush is whack.

From the teach-ins and rallies that we

attended we can say that this week was

a worthwhile step. We stand behind the

oppressed-nation youth of California as

they demand that money being spent to

incarcerate them is used to educate them

instead. As we noted on our report from

the forum on education in Oakland this

July, "The revolutionary content of such

a campaign is inherent in the class content

of those involved. We are asking for

money to be taken out of repression and

put into basic needs" (1).

In our last article we also wrote, "The

main thrust of such a campaign will be

strong only to the extent that our organizing

efforts to get the money allocated

differently will in turn allow us to decide

how that money is used." Most of the over

200 people in attendance at the November

19th rally at Oakland City Hall were from

two small autonomous schools: Street

Academy and the School for Social

Justice. These schools exist within the

public school system but have the

independence in structure and curriculum

similar to a charter school. While staying

within the system, these schools seem to

be a source of progressive and productive

outlets for Oakland students. We do not

have too much knowledge of their

programs, but the students in attendance,

especially those that spoke on stage, were

able to spend their school day speaking

out about police brutality, the prison

system and even Oakland public schools.

The student leaders of this movement

clearly see the links between the prison

system and capitalism and hundreds of

years of oppression and the majority of

the students we interacted with had a

negative opinion of the prison system. But

when asked to come up with alternative

solutions to violent crimes they were at a

loss. Most of the students felt that people

are going to continue to murder and rape

each other and that's just how it is. This

seems to be the biggest obstacle to cross

to unleash a powerful movement of young

people to change society. Once the Black

Panthers showed people that they could

change things, their support in the

community increased greatly. We must

learn from their example and organize

people by serving the people within a

larger framework of changing the whole

system.

Notes: 1. MIM Notes 286, 1 September 2003.

As states around the country face

massive budget shortfalls, it unfortunately

comes as no surprise that prisoners will

pay disproportionately for the problem.

MIM has received numerous letters from

Texas prisoners exposing two basic areas

that the state has viciously targeted for

cost savings: food and medical care.

According to one Texas prison activist,

"some facilities are serving only two meals

daily, while other prisons reduce portion

size and calorie content of the prisoners'

daily fare." A prisoner writes, "Since my

last missive to you, circumstances have

changed for the worse. ... As of now,

here at TDCJ, they are cutting back on

food tremendously. This was a rumor

before, now it's reality. They have cut

back on desserts, three times a week, and

they are making their own syrup. Yuck.

Plus, we are receiving Johnnies for

breakfast (paper sack meals). ...

"The most diabolical scheme they

(TDCJ) have mastered so far is the

violation of religious rights, because of

budget cuts, they are not allowing

inmates to be `pork free.' If you are a

Muslim, or an individual who just doesn't

eat pork, you will not be allowed to

substitute other items for pork (beans,

cheese, bread, etc.). What's on the

general population menu will apply to

everyone. Their slogan is, `If you don't

like it, don't eat it.'"

On another unit, a comrade reports

that, "the chow hall is very filthy here. I

am not from the Health Department but

I would grade the chow hall

unsatisfactory. When you walk in the

chow hall there are puddles of standing

water. The walls are covered with dead

insects. Water leaks out of the cracks in

the wall. They don't give us our 20

minutes to eat.... The plastic-ware that

is provided for us is dirty; food is dried

between the sporks. Food is still on the

trays and the line where food is served

has food from 2 or 3 days ago still on it

-- still sitting in the same place. They

always run out of food, the chow hall

does not ever have ice...."

At the same time that prisoners are

going hungry (there has been no cutback

of the amount of work they're forced to

do, for no pay), guards are living high on

hog. The Texas activist writes: "Hunger

never visits the officers' dining rooms

[ODRs]. There is never a shortage of

soups, salads, eggs, meats, condiments, ice

cream, cakes, pies and other desserts

served continuously and in unlimited

quantities and varieties -- at no extra

charge -- to the 40,000 employees of the

Texas Department of Criminal Justice."

Since the Officers Dining Rooms are open

365 days a year, "some guards visit [them]

for a free meal on their days off rather

than pay for a meal in a local restaurant

or cook a meal at home."

And it turns out that differential meals

in the ODRs, compared with those served

to the prison population, constitute a

violation of state law. The Texas activist

writes: "Section 13 provides that the

TDCJ may provide food items to

employee dining facilities only after the

food requirements of prisoners are met.

Because prisoners never see the types of

varieties of food served in the ODRs, the

prisoners' food requirements are scarcely

met. Guards and staff are served the best

of everything. Prisoners are served

leftovers and scraps. Section 13 goes on

to provide that the food served to prisoners

shall be the same as the food served to

employees. Prison officials, who have

always seen themselves as being above

the law, ignore this provision of section

13."

Our Texas prison comrades have also

written to tell us about cuts in medical

services as a result of the budget situation.

One writes, "They have gotten rid of some

of the medical staff. They do not have a

Texas prisons withhold food, medical care

lab tech anymore. So it will be a long time

before inmates will receive blood tests to

discover if they have HIV/AIDS, hepatitis

and other blood related analysis. ... I am

currently waiting to have a blood test to

determine if I have an ulcer or not. It has

been three weeks, and they have yet to

take the test. ... Brother, this place is going

to the dawgs; actually it already went,

but now the dawg is shitting it out."

It does not surprise prison activists that

state budget cuts are being directed at

the state's most disenfranchised

population, but it should outrage everyone.

MIM urges our readers to get involved in

our ongoing campaigns against injustice

in the U$ prison system.

MIM Notes 193 · December 15, 2003 · Page 4

Miami cops attack protestors

Anti-FTAA politics are mixed bag

public radio and TV program Democracy

Now! Instead, I was swept up late Friday

afternoon with about 70 others as we tried

to obey an order to disperse from an

`unlawful' jail solidarity rally." She went

on to explain that police arrested four

other independent reporters with her, and

she knew of several other arrested

reporters including an Independent Media

Center reporter--police smashed his

camera and charged him with two

felonies (2).

"Free Trade" and Amerikan

chauvinism

Because of significant opposition by

Latin American countries, the FTAA

meeting failed to produce a

comprehensive trade agreement. Instead

it scaled back the agreement to a

statement that countries can make

whatever trade commitments they want

(now called "FTAA lite"), basically

meaning that trade agreements must be

negotiated between countries. This

outcome represented a scaled-back plan

from the pan-Amerikan common market

the U.$. wants. That open market would

include the North American Free Trade

Agreement enacted 10 years ago

between the U.$., Canada and Mexico.

With the failure of FTAA negotiations,

the Amerikan government now must push

for aggressive bilateral trade agreements

with individual countries.

While some are pleased that the

outcome of the talks failed to produce a

comprehensive trade agreement that

could force Western hemisphere

countries to give large corporations free

reign across borders, the United $tates

still holds the power in the region: power

backed by both guns and money. And the

United $tates can force its Latin

American lackeys to do whatever

Amerika wants. Some analysts see these

bilateral agreements as potentially even

more dangerous to the economies of Latin

American countries.

Some activists at the protests (and

around the world) recognize the

economic and environmental destruction

that imperialism wreaks on Third World

countries where regulations are few and

labor is cheap. Amerikan corporations

can make great profits exploiting their

cheap labor, stealing their natural

resources, and avoiding expensive

environmental protections. But it would

be wrong to pretend that this

environmental destruction will be avoided

if these large trade agreements like the

FTAA are stopped. U.$. corporations

have already devastated the economies

and environments of countries across the

Western Hemisphere with the help of

trade agreements negotiated between the

U.$. and individual countries. It is not the

trade agreements that cause these

problems; it is the system of imperialism.

By focusing on trade agreements activists

are misleading people away from the

problem. "Globalization" is not a new

phenomenon--it's the same old global

system of imperialism that has been

oppressing and exploiting the world's

people for decades.

Amerikan activists frequently argue that

the FTAA means that jobs will be lost to

the Third World. This is why many labor

unions are joining in the anti-FTAA

protests. These protesters display blatant

Amerika-first chauvinism and are the

same people who favor keeping the

Amerikan borders closed to keep out

immigrant labor which might compete for

jobs which they feel are an Amerikan's

god-given right.

At the Miami protests the AFL-CIO

set up a program in the Amphitheater and

held a march through the city with 20,000

people. A large contingent of

steelworkers union members led the

march with t-shirts reading "FTAA

Sucks" as the marchers chanted "FTAA,

Don't Take Our Jobs Away."(2)

An AFL-CIO statement from

November 20 explained their opposition

to the FTAA: "If approved, the FTAA

would eliminate tariffs from 34 countries

with a combined population of more than

800 million and accelerate the staggering

job loss and environmental damage

experienced under the North American

Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). U.S.

workers lost 879,280 jobs and real wages

in Mexico have fallen as a result of

NAFTA in the past 10 years, according

to the nonprofit Economic Policy

Institute." This statement is correct about

the environmental damage, and wages in

Mexico, but MIM finds any focus on

Amerikan jobs being given to Third World

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?

workers as barely disguised chauvinism.

Some individual union members quoted

in this statement were even more

blatantly chauvinist: "We need to write

every senator and representative and let

them know that this is a big issue--we

don't want to give away our jobs."(3)

The real solution is Mao's solution of

socialism to end unemployment and

hunger, thus doubling the life expectancy

of his people. We in the imperialist

countries may have food on the table, but

the masses in Third World do not. Maoists

in the Third World do not want to see

their countries enslaved to U.$. monopoly

capital and they have every reason to

have faith in their own people to organize

their countries for full employment and

economic development.

Notes:

1. Miami Herald, Nov 20, 2003

2. FTAAIMC.org, November 23, 2003

3. aflcio.org, Nov 20, 2003 statement

Undercover cops

infiltrated the crowd

and sezied several

protestors, one of

whom was dragged

away, according to

witnesses. (http://

FTAAIMC.org)

MIM Notes 293 · December 15, 2003 · Page 5

We often hear corporate shills

promoting agreements like NAFTA,

GATT, and now the Free Trade Area of

the Americas (FTAA) complain about

barriers to the free movement of

investments and profits. But we rarely

hear them complain about barriers to the

free movement of labor (i.e. people).

This is because monopoly corporations

-- and the privilege enjoyed by First

World countries generally -- depend on

the depressed wages in Third World

countries. Workers in the Third World

earn an average of $0.48 an hour, while

U.$. workers earn $16.40.(1) How is this

possible? Those Third World workers live

under death-squad governments, which

use force to set wage rates and attack

union organizers.

Those regimes that do not use military

force are competing against those that

do--and they face the threat of covert

and overt military aggression. Witness

U.$. sponsored coups or invasions in Iran,

Guatemala, Vietnam, Chile, etc.

So if the big capitalists are going to

clamor for a WTO to protect their "free

market" -- never mind that the "free

market" is dominated by First World

monopolies and the WTO is controlled

by a few bullies like the united $tates --

we should demand WTO-like protections

on a global, free, fair labor market.

Professor Voradvidh from Thailand has

it right: "`We need a GATT on labor

conditions and on the minimum wage, we

need a standard on the minimum

conditions for work and a higher standard

for children.'"(2) Countries that use death

squads against union organizers should

face severe trade penalties. Unions

seeking to obtain wages higher than

minimum wage should get to go before a

WTO-like body.

Of course, a global minimum wage and

other guarantees for a "free and fair"

labor market are reforms within a

capitalist system, currently dominated by

big monopoly capital from the First World,

a.k.a. imperialism. The Maoist

Internationalist Movement believes a

revolutionary struggle for socialism --

where people's needs are placed first and

individual profit comes last or never -- is

a necessary step to eliminate exploitation

and the related evils of poverty, disease,

and starvation that kill millions every year.

Anti-imperialist struggle with a socialist

perspective in Third World countries can

remove those countries from the dictates

of First World monopoly capital and all

its institutions: the IMF, World Bank,

WTO, etc. The best thing we can do here

is prepare to topple Amerikan imperialism

when the time is right--and make sure it

never arises again.

That said, global regulations on labor

conditions are a progressive reform

countries, it fits in the category of "no

good deed goes unpunished," as with so

many things under capitalism.

On the last point, we ask people to read

Engels on the nature of the patriarchy and

particularly to note those passages where

he equates marriage with prostitution

under capitalism. For example, a passage

in the "Communist Manifesto" says that

capitalism turns family relations into

monetary ones. From this we gather that

Marx and Engels did not think gender

oppression was a question of lifestyle

choices, the line undergirding sexual

Liberalism. At our party Congresses we

have wrestled with the line that "all sex

is prostitution" in the spirit of Engels and

consequently that "all rape is like theft"

and we consciously chose to deny these

lines for reasons we will get into.

Since the day of Engels, the bourgeois

system has attempted--as Marx and

Engels predicted--to put more and more

customs and culture (including sexual

ones) on a contract basis with its attendant

ideology. In Engels's day, there was no

such thing in law and culture as "rape in

marriage." Now there is that in addition

to rape of prostitutes and "date rape."

The notion of freely given consent in

individual contracts is the essence of

bourgeois ideology and does in fact

represent an advance in many aspects

of culture that oppress wimmin. The

Letters

whole idea of "marital rape" is an example

of how the bourgeois culture aims at

making every moment of every

relationship consensual on an individual

basis, no matter the inequality of the

underlying groups of people making those

agreements. We do not believe it should

be the role of the communists to disagree

with the evolution of sexual mores within

capitalism--especially when we can see

that that evolution in expanding the

concept of rape was attempting to handle

some kind of oppression which also

existed before capitalism.

Rather it is the job of the communists

to attack reformism and individualism. It

is our job to show how capitalism cannot

ever fully eliminate gender oppression

despite expanding the bourgeoisie's

influence through ideas like marital rape

or date rape. Looking at this evolution

since the days of Engels, MIM concluded

that lifestyle Liberals are dividing the

gender oppressed with their concepts of

rape and sexual harassment and that not

all gender oppression is ultimately about

money. For that reason we adopted the

line that "all sex is rape" and not "all sex

is prostitution" as our means of opposing

sexual Liberalism connected to bourgeois

society. We recognize the "all sex is

prostitution"-because-of-economic-

inequality approach as opposing sexual

Liberalism, but we believe it does not fully

reflect our times and misses fundamental

aspects of gender oppression rooted in

leisure time dynamics.

MIAMI: Trade Agreements are not the problem

struggle. For hundreds of millions of

toilers a wage hike can mean the

difference between life and death. And,

although global labor-market regulations

are consistent with capitalism, they

undermine the principal prop of modern

capitalism: the super-profits sucked out

of the Third World.

MIM does not raise the call "Stop the

Free Trade Area of the Americas," for

several reasons. MIM opposes

imperialism generally. Many of the

problems opponents of the FTAA,

NAFTA, neoliberalism, and privatization

point out are in fact symptoms of

imperialism. The commodification of

labor, depressed wages, and destruction

of the environment predated these

policies. Overturning them might mean a

shift in the balance of forces and a return

to a "new deal" type of social democracy

in Amerika--but super-exploitation and

other problems built into the capitalist

system like monumental waste would

continue.

Because of the current political

climate, raising economic nationalism in

Amerika is bound to reinforce "Amerika-

first" chauvinism. The main reason for

this is that it's not just a few fat cat

millionaires who benefit from imperialist

exploitation. Amerikans generally benefit,

through cheap prices on imported goods

or relatively inflated wages. The

campaign against NAFTA fed the usual

(incorrect) grousing about "them" stealing

"our jobs."

It is no longer progressive to fight for

"30 for 40" in the imperialist countries,

because those workers are not exploited.

However, demands for a global minimum

wage or international labor rights are still

entirely progressive and do not increase

the existing world war by encouraging

imperialist country nationalism.

Notes:

1. Section C.6., Imperialism and its

Class Structure in 1997, http://

www.prisoncensorship.info/archive/etext/mt/imp97/

2. William Greider, One World Ready

or Not: The Manic Logic of Global

Capitalism, NY:Simon and Schuster, 1997.

Continued from page 2...

MIM supports a global minimum wage, which would benefit workers like these, who

work on banana plantations in the Philippines (MIM photo).

MIM Notes 193 · December 15, 2003 · Page 6

leadership itself to consolidate and further

advance the construction of socialism in

China. A key policy within the GPCR

promoted the movement of urban Chinese

youth to the countryside to labor alongside

the peasants, sharing their own technical

expertise and at the same time being

reeducated in class orientation by the

peasants.

Bourgeois authors blast GPCR

In February 1999, a leading Amerikan

academic journal, the American

Sociological Review, published an article

assessing the later life course of children

who were "sent-down" to rural areas

during the GPCR.(1) [The pornographic

Cultural Revolution "memoir" has also

become a popular literary genre in the

West. Needless to say, publishers are not

shelling out big bucks for manuscripts that

discuss politics or principled service to the

people instead of sex. See e.g. our review

of Ma Bo's memoir "Blood Red Sunset":

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

bookstore/books/china/mabo.html.]

Much of this debate is a well-worn path

for MIM--as we confront the familiar

charges that these youth, along with their

intellectual parents, were "persecuted"

during this time.(2) But the article offered

some new information, and it provides

another opportunity to expose the

bourgeois hypocrisy embedded in

imperialist education, and to celebrate

Celebrate

Mao's Birthday,

December 26

some undeniable truths about the Maoist

experience.

The first problem with the article,

"Children of the Cultural Revolution: the

State and the Life Course in the People's

Republic of China," is that the authors,

Xueguang Zhou and Liren Hou, do not

make a distinction between the

revolutionary government of 1949-1976,

and the reactionary leadership which

seized power in a coup following Mao's

death and restored capitalism to China.

So when the article talks about promises

the government made to youth in the early

1970s -- including employment upon their

return to the cities -- the authors talk

about the betrayal of those promises in

the 1980s as if they were dealing with

the same political leadership. Similarly, the

authors portray changes in China's

educational system under the reactionary

capitalist-roaders, such as the restoration

of "merit" based college entrance exams

in 1977, as a cruel deception by the

revolutionary government instead of the

actions of new and entirely different

regime.(2)

As Maoists, we take responsibility for

mistakes made by Mao and the Chinese

Communist Party, including those that led

to the capitalists' victory. But we make

sure people understand that once the

capitalist roaders took power, they

changed the political, economic and social

development of China. The authors are

right about the period after 1976, and the

worsening conditions they portray only

underscore MIM's support of

revolutionary China under Mao, and our

opposition to the restoration of capitalism

that took place after his death. The

second problem with the ASR article is

that its measurements of well-being later

in life of the sent-down youth -- persynal

income, position in the urban labor force,

age of marriage and bearing children, and

educational attainment -- are fraught

with petty bourgeois individualism. In

recounting the experience of urban youth

in the countryside as it happened and its

later impact on their lives, never do the

scholars wonder about the effect of this

state policy on the well being of the rural

peasants -- the majority of China's

population. Were the peasants better or

worse off during and as a result of this

policy? Like the bourgeois China scholars

before them, they don't care.

Nobel prize committee rewards
service to the people

But the bourgeoisie wants to have it

both ways. In October 1999, an

international organization called Doctors

Without Borders won the Nobel Peace

Prize for its work providing international

emergency medical services -- usually

in the context of a national crisis. Recent

recipients of their help have been in

Turkey following the massive earthquake

in August 1999, and even more recently

in East Timor.

In an acknowledgement (that pretends

to be apolitical) of how rare and unusual

it is for people with lucrative professions

in First World countries to leave their

comfortable lives, go somewhere

dangerous and serve the people, Doctors

Without Borders got a prize worth a

million dollars. At the same time,

academic scholars, policy makers,

journalists, and the rest of the bourgeoisie

continue to vilify China's GPCR for taking

this important principle and making it

mandatory policy affecting millions of

people. [These writers also hypocritically

accept mandatory military or public

service in countries like Germany or

I$rael.]

The press release announcing Doctors

Without Borders' Nobel Prize reads,

"Since its foundation in the early 1970s,

Medecins Sans Frontires [the group's

French name] has adhered to the

fundamental principle that all disaster

victims, whether the disaster is natural or

human in origin, have a right to

professional assistance, given as quickly

and efficiently as possible. National

boundaries and political circumstances or

sympathies must have no influence on

who is to receive humanitarian help."(3)

MIM asks, so why didn't Chinese

peasants have this same right in the 1970s?

If they did -- and we believe they did --

why was it wrong to express this right in

a mandatory state program?

As long as the prize committee wants

to recognize advances in medical care

and service to the masses, they could also

have looked at Mao's China in the 1960s.

"One of many socialist programs

developed in China was the barefoot

doctors, who were peasants trained for a

few months in basic medical care and

then worked in their village to prevent

disease and injury, improve sanitation, and

treat common medical problems."(4)

Neither Mao, nor anyone in the Chinese

government under Mao was ever offered

the Nobel Peace Prize, but the impact of

their work achieved more just in terms of

Continued from page 1...

This month the good news in our report

is that we at MIM set out to put U.$.

prison oppression on the map globally and

the Internet statistics show that is what

we have made great strides toward this

past year. All over the world the State

Department propaganda boasts that the

United $tates is a "free country" bringing

freedom to Iraq, Afghanistan etc. Yet the

united $tates imprisons more people per

capita than any other country and censors

MIM for trying to spread the word.

We also see that the completion of the

FAQ in French and Chinese continues to

bear dividends in Internet readership long

after the work went up on the web page.

The statistics for readers versus pages

taken show that the Russians are the most

serious readers per reader, followed by

the Chinese. The figures also show that

Chinese is now by far the second-most

important language on the MIM web

pages.

With regard to some statistics showing

negative percent changes--the one sad

spot is the art page set back in traffic.

The problem with the megabytes per day

is that we no longer offer the large file

we once did. We are moving toward

DVD use.

Finally, another bright spot is that MIM

Notes circulation set a record in

November. This has come in a process

of changing how we do MIM Notes

distribution. We have shifted increasingly

away from trusting people with distributing

papers unless they are contributing with

large sums of money or providing other

indications of dedication. Resources are

going to the proven successful distributors

who distribute the most papers at the

lowest per paper cost. It is not a case

that newspapers and transport are free

and we only need occasional and

whimsical amateur distributors. For some

people lacking any money or other

distribution-relevant skills or resources,

we can suggest fighting on the Internet

instead, something that many people in

the imperialist countries consider "free."

Others may want to learn about taking

out credit cards or other debts that allow

them to contribute to MIM Notes in one

yearly sum. Still others may need to learn

how to type before they go onto the

Internet. It comes down to skills and

resources, so before saying "I can't," one

should take a materialist approach and

focus on what is in reach. Learning how

to type may be an important contribution,

the most important one one can make at

a given stage of political development. For

each persyn, the situation is different, but

we must all improve our skills and make

it a point of figuring out how to obtain

resources. There is always something we

Summary statistics comparing November 2002 and November 2003

Nov.

2002

2003Change

Different computers MIM served

23,553 44,469*

89%

Avg. MIM pages served per day

2,346

3652

56%

MIM data transferred (Mb/day)

226.6 117.7 -48%

MIM Notes (English) printed copies compared with pre-911=100

200

All language newspapers printed copies compared with pre-911=100

200

Number of top 53 cites of U.$/Kanada receiving at least 1000 MIM Notes** Unknown

MIM prison circulation averaged over two months Jan 2002=100

Number of Art page users

6,442

4,995 -23%

Number of different MIM web page files actively chosen from

4,046

4,517

12%

*This report excludes all art, and most robots and developer hits for 2003 but not 2002.

**Top 50 U.$. cities plus Vancouver, Montreal and Toronto

Number of users 11/02

11/03

Chinese

849

2083

French

612

1297

Russian

236

Spanish

1046

1328

Prisons agitation

138

2421

November 2003 Central Task Report

can do to improve and that means there

is always something we can do for the

proletarian movement.

Continued on page 8...

MIM Notes 293 · December 15, 2003 · Page 7

marriage, after the Vermont Supreme

Court ruled in favor of this in 1999. But

even Dean opposes gay marriages. All

the major Democratic candidates for

President walk a fine line opposing gay

marriage but supporting some form of civil

union (3). This "separate but equal" idea

is just a different spin on the religious

"sanctity of marriage."

Meanwhile, almost three quarters of the

state legislatures in Amerika have adopted

laws or constitutional provisions defining

marriage as a union between a man and

a womyn. And in 1996 President Clinton

signed the federal Defense of Marriage

Act that allows states to refuse to

recognize gay marriages performed in

other states.

There is no such thing as "sanctity of

marriage" outside of a religious context.

Sanctity means holiness and those

advocating reserving marriage for straight

couples are saying there is some special

privilege god wants to give to straight

couples that gay couples should not enjoy.

It is no coincidence that this privilege

Gay marriage battle in Amerika

includes significant economic and legal

benefits, just as it is no coincidence that

the Christian churches have played a

significant hand in exploitation and

oppression of Third World peoples by

allying themselves with fascists and

imperialists for their economic and

political benefit. Religion as an institution

has been based on preserving privilege

for certain groups of people at the expense

of others. The gay marriage issue just

provides further evidence of the failure

of religious-based politics.

While supporting the right of gay and

lesbian couples to marry, we see that this

is not an issue of life and death, but rather

an issue of relative gender privilege within

a country that is already enjoying

significant gender privilege at the expense

of the majority of the world's people. For

instance, Amerikans have access to

cheap and diverse options for birth control

thanks in part to forced testing on Third

World men and wimmin (4).

In Amerika where the vast majority of

the legal population already enjoys a

standard of living financed by the

exploitation and oppression of the Third

World people, there is the luxury to

consider issues like gay marriage. But in

many countries forced into poverty as

servants to imperialism, queer activists

don't have the luxury of emphasizing the

fight for marriage rights. In the Philippines,

the organization ProGay, which is a part

of the national democratic movement,

"links discrimination and homophobia with

the struggle against feudalism and

imperialism." When this group surveyed

gays in the Philippines they found "gays

say the problem is they don't have jobs,

money, housing, money to support their

brothers and sisters...not that they have

a problem finding a date or

discrimination" (5).

In advanced imperialist countries like

Amerika communists have a responsibility

to push for an end to oppression of groups

of people. But while we do this we have

to retain an internationalist perspective

and keep in mind the relative significance

of each battle. The progressive demands

of all queer people world-wide must be

supported. And the vocal queer rights

movement in Amerika needs to take up

the fight against imperialism to challenge

class, nation and gender oppression

world-wide.

Notes:

1. AP Nov 18, 2003.

2. According to a mid-October survey

by the Pew Research Center for The

People & The Press and the Pew Forum

on Religion and Public Life, 59 percent

of Americans said they oppose legalizing

gay marriage.

3. Candidates Kucinich and Sharpton

support gay marriage, and Mosely-Braun

has said "discrimination against same-sex

couples is wrong" but has not specifically

supported gay marriage. See http://

www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/11/11/

national/main583048.shtml

4. Betsy Hartmann's book The Global

Politics of Population Control, particularly

the first version, is a good source for

information on this subject.

5. MIM Notes 245, quotes from Edgar

"Oscar" Atadero, president of ProGay

Philippines.

Continued from page 1...

Queers for Peace

and Justice

speak out

MIM asked Queers for Peace and

Justice, an organization based in the

United $tates and an ally in many anti-

imperialist struggles, what they think

about the gay marriage issue. Their

response follows:

We'd generally agree with our

comrades in ProGay Philippines which we

work closely with and helped organize a

speaking tour of one of their leaders in

2001. We would still oppose any laws that

specifically discriminate against any group

in the society; whether that be women,

people of color, queer people. Currently,

queer people are specifically excluded by

laws that discriminate against them.

Queers suffer disproportionately high

rates of violence aimed at them, etc. ...

Marriage was not the issue many queer

people focused on, but is the issue that is

now on the table in the larger society given

the rabid right-wing that exists here

(check out the website of groups such as

the Family Research Council), it's fine to

critique, it's even better to struggle against

bigotry on all fronts.

The oppression of gays and lesbians

is part of the system of gender

oppression, a system of power relations

between groups. As such, Liberal legal

reform cannot eliminate it, since Liberal

legal principles ignore power

differences between individuals.

However, legal reform can still be

progressive, as the following passage

by Marx' co-worker Frederick Engels

illustrates. The passage addresses the

oppression of wimmin by men, but it

applies to the issue of equal rights for

gays and lesbians.

"In the industrial world, the specific

character of the economic oppression

weighing on the proletariat appears in its

sharpest outlines only after all special

privileges of the capitalist class are

abolished and full legal equality of both

classes is established. A democratic

republic does not abolish the distinction

between the two classes. On the

contrary, it offers the battleground on

which the distinction can be fought out.

Likewise the peculiar character of man's

rule over woman in the modern family,

the necessity and the manner of

accomplishing real social equality between

the two, will appear in broad daylight only

then, when both of them will enjoy

complete legal equality." Frederick

Engels, The Origin of the Family, Private

Property and the State, Chicago: Charles

H. Kerr & Company, 1902, pp. 89-90.

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MIM Notes 193 · December 15, 2003 · Page 8

saving lives and providing medical service

to people than Doctors Without Borders

will ever achieve.

Urban intellectuals in the
countryside

Between 1967-1978, 17 million urban

Chinese youth were sent to the

countryside.(5) The movement began as

a volunteer effort among the Red Guards

in 1967, and the Communist Party soon

endorsed the effort and made it into

policy.(6) Although the bourgeoisie likes

to portray the program as "anarchic," the

authors of the recent ASR study admit

that the government made deliberate and

materialist choices about who was sent.

First, the authors concede students most

likely to be sent down were those that

had completed high school, and that "most

urban youth graduated from secondary

school during the Cultural Revolution."(7)

Second, the authors state that "an

increase in urban employment

opportunities reduced the probability of

being sent to rural areas."(8) And as

every anti-Cultural Revolution scholar

before them, Zhou and Hou criticize

China for making urban youth work "12

hours a day, 7 days a week." There is no

mention of whether the peasants who

they worked alongside had to work those

hours (or more) before, during or after

the program.

As usual, the petit bourgeoisie is

outraged when privileged people have to

live like the great majority -- but they

turn a blind eye to the sufferings in the

countryside, and don't care to

acknowledge the unprecedented

improvements in peasant life during the

Mao years.

The international proletariat measures

the success and failures of the send-down

practice in different terms. We observe

that the practice helped to destroy class

differences by requiring youth of

privileged classes to perform manual labor,

at the same time as it recognized that

educated youth had a lot to learn from

the peasants. We recognize that this

program served the peasants, as students

brought technical and scientific expertise

to remote villages. Of Long Bow village

in 1978, William Hinton writes in The

Great Reversal, a book about the de-

collectivization of Chinese agriculture

under the capitalist regime:

"The educated youth in the village,

ninety strong in 1977, but reduced to a

handful by 1979 as the authorities stopped

sending city dwellers to the countryside,

were evenly divided between young men

and women. ... Their contribution to the

life of the village was deep and many

faceted. There contribution to the life of

the village was deep and many faceted.

There were science majors, musicians,

actors, dancers, artists, and athletes

among them. ... they helped to discover

how to overcome the alkalinity of Long

Bow's soil."(9)

During the GPCR, Hinton explained

how socialism developed and old

oppressive educational ideas were

dismantled in the context of a famous

institute of science and engineering:

"Students now spend as much time in

the factories and on the construction sites

of greater Peking as they do in

classrooms and laboratories, and

professors devote as much energy to

developing liaison with the scores of

factories and enterprises with which the

university is allied as they do to lecturing

and advising students. No longer will

thousands of privileged young men and

women withdraw into the leafy

wonderland of Tsinghua to crack books

until they are too old to laugh. No longer

will they stuff their heads with

mathematical formulas relating to the

outmoded industrial practices of pre-war

Europe and America, sweat through

`surprise attack' exams, and then emerge

after years of isolation from production

and political engagement unable to tell

high-carbon steel from ordinary steel or

a `proletarian revolutionary' from a

`revisionist.'(10)

How does capitalism measure up?

Bourgeois academics continue to insist

that the Cultural Revolution "interrupted"

the education of China's urban youth,

even though they recognize that education

in general was vastly expanded and

improved in China after Liberation in

1949. In 1997, an article in the American

Journal of Sociology about education in

Cultural Revolution, explained: "... the

Chinese government sought to increase

educational opportunity for the children

of workers and peasants by providing

more schools. The number of schools at

each level and the portion of school age

children enrolled in them both increased

continuously from the 1950s through the

1970s. By 1981, primary schools were

three times more numerous than they had

ever been before 1949. The fraction of

children of primary school age enrolled

in school rose from 20% in 1949 to 85%

in 1965 and to 93% in 1981. By 1981

[right before the commune system was

dismantled by the capitalists], almost

every commune had its own lower

secondary school. Also, the number of

tertiary educational institutes in China

increased from 210 in 1950 to 434 in 1965

and to 704 in 1981."(11)

This article too portrays China

seamlessly from the revolutionary

government into the capitalist era in 1981.

But the principal gains made were under

Mao. And what can the United Snakes

count as its contributions to the education

of the international proletariat? That it has

financed and set up reactionary

dictatorships around the world, squelching

the education and well-being of youth

from Soweto to Palestine to South Central

Los Angeles.

MIM finds that the petit bourgeois

propagandists for imperialism keep trying

to have it both ways. A charity project to

help some people in need is considered

nice, and given a small reward and a lot

of press. But they vilify an unprecedented

social revolution intended to eliminate the

basis for the continued suffering and

premature death of millions from similar

causes. The Chinese Revolution, led by

Mao Zedong, shone a light on the

revolutionary path to wiping out starvation,

needless deaths from illness, oppression

and inequality. It is that path that MIM

attempts to travel in the next century.

The original version of this article

originally appeared in the 15 Dec 1999

MIM Notes. MC206 contributed to this

update.

Notes:
1. "Children of the Cultural Revolution: the
State and Life Course in the People's Republic
of China." American Sociological Review.
February 1999, v. 64, no. 1. pp. 12- 36.
2. ASR, p. 15
3. http://www.nobel.se/announcement-99/
peace99_eng.html
4. "Myths About Maoism," from What is

Buy

holiday

gifts for

Mao

Zedong's

Birthday

(December

26th)!

Give the gift of revolution. Order

some of Mao's writings through

MIM's website:

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

MIM/wim/maoworks.html

Other books, as well as music

and movies are reviewed and

available at our website!

Books (various regions and

countries, the environment, gender,

capitalism & communism

generally, the USSR, China etc.):

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

MIM/bookstore/books/index.html

Music (punk, heavy metal, pop,

hip hop etc.):

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

MIM/bookstore/index.html#M

Movies (100s of reviews, from

Battleship Potemkin to The Matrix

Trilogy)"

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

MIM/movies/index.html

Video games (mostly strategy

games):

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

M I M / b o o k s t o r e / v g a m e s /

index.html

Celebrate Mao's Birthday, December 26

MIM.
5. ASR, p. 12.
6. ASR, p. 15.
7. ASR, p. 26.
8. ASR, p. 22.
9. The Great Reversal. by William Hinton. p.
35.
10. The Hundred Day War: The Cultural
Revolution at Tsinghua University. by William
Hinton, available from MIM for $15.
11. "The impact of the cultural revolution on
educational attainment in the People's Republic
of China," Zhong Deng and Donald J. Treiman.
American Journal of Sociology. Sept. 1997, v.
103, n.2. p. 39.

Continued from page 6...

MIM Notes 293 · December 15, 2003 · Page 9

Kid Rock and the
long-haired rednecks'
place in the world

"Kid Rock"
Kid Rock
Atlantic Recording Corporation
2003

reviewed by MC5

November 2003

This album was "classic rock" as soon

as it appeared in 2003 and I mean that by

way of criticism. Here Kid Rock is

claiming to be better than the "Rolling

Stones" and numerous other bands. Yet

his music lacks newness. Listeners will

hear "ZZ Top" and other influences some

of which he mentions, but while he claims

in "I am" that "you'll never put your

finger on me," because he's mastered

southern, country, hip-hop and soul, this

is just old classic rock as soon as it came

out.

The exception might be the one rap

song, "Intro." It's not that he does a bad

job playing classic rock. "Feel Like Makin'

Love" is done well as far as that goes.

It's uncommon for an artist to do a cover

better than the original, and Kid Rock

might claim that he has with this tune.

MIM has explained that one might

even "like" this music while knowing

rationally that there is something wrong

with it, maybe even profoundly wrong and

evil. Being a Maoist means being a

revolutionary scientist and that means

having the ability to question everything

that we like.

It's irritating how every musician has

to tell fans of his or her originality and

synthesis of previous genres. We Maoists

consider this a petty-bourgeois thing--the

belief in individuals above it all. Pop

musicians tend to buy petty-bourgeois

politics with a vengeance. The best part

is that this petty-bourgeois attitude comes

into shape in antagonism toward the

corporations that sell their music. Kid

Rock has gone so far as to produce his

own music before turning it over to

Atlantic. The point is that these artists

know very well that they are under

pressure from monopoly capitalist

corporations.

The down side of this corporations

versus artists conflict is that it carries over

into everything else, as when Kid Rock

sings his own private virtues. If it is artist

versus the corporation, then it pays to

name brand one's self and that's what

Kid Rock does. Such individualism is

corrosive to all class, national and gender

struggle in which the oppressed cannot

win one-on-one fights but must find a path

of unity that leads out of group oppression.

Today Kid Rock might be better known

for his one-time relationship with super-

model Pam Anderson. Like most popular

rock musicians, Kid Rock builds an image

of conquering wimmin. The song "Rock

n' Roll" is about sex with groupies and a

rough attitude. However, even apart from

the self-hyping attitude, MIM would have

a beef with Kid Rock because of his

identity politics. In "Hillbilly Stomp" and

"Son of Detroit," Kid Rock proudly

proclaims he is a long-haired redneck.

Kid Rock probably has good intentions

with this bit about Detroit and being a

redneck. Detroit and rap have an image

of being all-Black. Kid Rock is obviously

making some peace his way. On the other

hand, many whites who accept that whites

have oppressed react in a narrow way.

They stop claiming to be better than

everyone else or having a right to own

slaves, but they build individual identities

of which to be proud.

For MIM, there is no reason to be proud

of being a redneck yet (and the long-

haired bit is irrelevant though some people

who have problems with it are intolerant

of the wrong things in general as Kid

Rock would probably agree). White trash

are reacting to what other people with

other identities are doing when what

needs to be done is for white people to

transform themselves, not stand in pride

in their existing identities or find the details

that they see oppressed groups searching

for in their own history.

The redneck says he or she is not

responsible for his ancestors' being

slaveowners or lynch-mob members.

Many will go so far as to say the United

$tates should not try to be the global cop

as in Iraq right now. Yet if the redneck is

not responsible for the invasion of Iraq,

then no one is. It was not just a handful

of corporate bankers going in there

Rambo-style guns ablazin' and though

national minorities are disproportionately

in the military services, 68% of Blacks

opposed the war before it started while

only 20% of whites did. This means that

2% of rednecks opposed the war once

we exclude the Northern and West Coast

urban professional whites. The whole

world is looking to the Amerikkkan

redneck and wondering when s/he

expects to get along with the rest of

world. The redneck population of the

world is the 10% facing off against the

90%. It stands to reason that the 10%

are going to be at war with the 90% as in

Iraq and that the sooner and more

thoroughly the rednecks go through self-

transformation, the sooner the peace can

come.

ITAL Reviews of other "pop" music

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

bookstore/music/pop/index.html. END

Two sides to Tupac

"Resurrection"
Tupac Shakur
www.2Paclegacy.com
2003

This is the recent Tupac Shakur album

to buy. Although he died in 1996, 2Pac

continues to have albums come out and

blow away most of the competition.

As everyone has pointed out, the Tupac

story seems to center on a thug vs. angel

dynamic. This album's executive producer

is Tupac Shakur's mother Afeni Shakur.

It's not surprising that this album comes

out better than some of the others that

might be more motivated by money.

In this album and "Nu-Mixx Klazzics,"

Tupac Shakur has numerous songs about

his impending death. He was not

"paranoid" despite idiots like the Amazon

reviewer who said he had a "persecution

complex." It just goes to show how stupid

people can be that even after 2Pac saw

friends shot, got shot once and survived

and after being shot dead, people say

2Pac had a persecution complex and not

real persecution. Tupac Shakur had a real

problem. Middle-class people should not

try to lump in everyone else with their

own latest trip to the psychiatrist or pop-

psych reading.

As others have pointed out, the one

down side to this album is the

collaboration with 50 Cent who had a

cameo with 2pac back in the day. Today

50 Cent is the big deal popularity-wise.

However, as others have also pointed out,

this will also feed 2Pac's ongoing fame.

Eminem also produced two of the tracks

and 2Pac borrowed some Phil Collins

with permission.

There are some negative aspects of the

album. "I ain't got time for bitches" is a

repeated lyric in "Bury Me a G." The

context is better for the use of the word

"ho," because he says he has to look out

for his "riches." A repeated theme is that

2Pac does not trust anyone except his

family. He has girlfriends and other

"friends" he does not trust and he named

various individuals as police agents.

Tupac lived on the edge between

revolution and lumpen gangster life. His

lyrics show that he knew that. One thing

we like about 2Pac is that in some

circumstances he was exceptionally anti-

Liberal. He identifies with the man who

has to stand guard at the door with an

AK-47 (a common image of Malcolm X).

At the same time, we don't always see

the best goals from Tupac Shakur. Like

subsequent rap, he is talking about making

a lot of money while also completely

rebelling against the government. The

problem is that rappers like 50 Cent took

only the bourgeois part of 2Pac's lumpen

attitude--not the politics. One has to

wonder whether the mafia's distrust of

the government is the model and not the

Black Panthers. 2Pac answers that with

the song "Panther Power" in this album.

We are not the only reviewer confused

by the "Bury Me a G" song. It says that

he was a thug as a younger teenage man

and tells his mother to bury him a "G."

One unfortunate thing is that "G-Man" is

an FBI man, but it appears from a 1996

interview that 2Pac uses "G" for

gangster.(1) In the same interview he

says he's looking for the perfect womyn,

which might say he does not think all

wimmin are bitches.

At the same time, what 2Pac does is

introduce theory into common language.

For him a "thug life" is an acronym for

the "the hate you gave little infants fucks

up everybody." There's also an acronym

for "niggaz."

"I believe that, I've always discussed

this. I feel like I'm one of them old-

fashioned type of guys, where as soon as

I find a women that doesn't mind the fact

that I want to be in charge and that I

believe that just like with the yin and yang

there's a masculine and feminine. I believe

in that in a relationship. I believe that most

of our problems as black people and as

period, as people in general, is that we've

forgotten our roles. The men have

forgotten their roles as men, therefore,

the women have forgotten their roles.

And that's where we get all this duplicity

in lovemaking and duplicity in sexuality is

because we've forgotten our roles and

we're willing to settle for less. Not that

they're not legitimate with people who

really do like this style, but a lot of it right

now is just, `Niggas ain't shit, so I want

some pussy,' you know what I mean?"(2)

MIM does not agree with that, because

the root problem is the imprisonment rate

and the early death of Black men relative

to wimmin and white men. However, the

quote shows that 2Pac does not intend to

be calling all wimmin bitches.

More hip-hop reviews at http://

w w w . e t e x t . o r g / P o l i t i c s / M I M /

bookstore/music/hiphop/index.html.

Notes:

1. http://www.hitemup.com/tupac/

interviews.html

2. http://

v037182.km0805.kasserver.com/

H i s % 2 0 L i f e / I n t e r v i e w s /

interview%20tupac_on_women.htm ;

also, http://tupac_a_shakur.tripod.com/

id288.htm

MIM Notes 193 · December 15, 2003 · Page 10

MIM on

Prisons & Prisoners

MIM seeks to build public opinion

against Amerika's criminal injustice sys-

tem, and to eventually replace the bour-

geois injustice system with proletarian jus-

tice. The bourgeois injustice system im-

prisons and executes a disproportionately

large and growing number of oppressed

people while letting the biggest mass mur-

derers -- the imperialists and their lack-

eys -- roam free. Imperialism is not op-

posed to murder or theft, it only insists that

these crimes be committed in the interests

of the bourgeoisie.

"All U.S. citizens are criminals--

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

MIM does not advocate that all

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

Under Lock & Key

News from Prisons & Prisoners

Join the fight against
the injustice system

While we fight to end the criminal

injustice system MIM engages in

reformist battles to improve the lives

of prisoners. Below are some of the

campaigns we are currently waging,

and ways people behind the bars and

on the outside can get involved. More

info can be found on our prison web

site: http://www.etext.org/Politics/

MIM/agitation/prisons

Stop Censorship in Prison: Prisons

frequently censor books, newspapers

and magazines coming from MIM's

books for prisoners program. We need

help from lawyers, paralegals and

jailhouse lawyers to fight this

censorship.

Books for Prisoners: This program

focuses on political education of

prisoners. Send donations of books and

money for our Books for Prisoners

program.

End the Three Strikes laws: This

campaign is actively fighting the

repressive California laws, but similar

laws exist in other states. Write to us

to request a petition to collect

signatures. Send articles and

information on three strike laws.

Shut Down the Control Units:

Across the country there are a growing

number of prison control units. These

are permanently designated prisons or

cells in prisons that lock prisoners up

in solitary or small group confinement

for 22 or more hours a day with no

congregate dining, exercise or other

services, and virtually no programs for

prisoners. Prisoners are placed in

control units for extended periods of

time. These units cause both mental

and physical problems for prisoners.

Write to us to request a petition to

collect signatures. Get your

organization to sign the statement

demanding control units be shut down.

Send us information about where there

are control units in your state. Include

the names of the prisons as well as

the number of control unit beds/cells

in each prison if that is known. Send

us anti-control unit artwork.

MIM's Re-Lease on Life Program:

This program provides support for our

comrades who have been recently

released from the prison system, to

help them meet their basic needs and

also continue with their revolutionary

organizing on the outside. We need

funds, housing, and job resources. We

also need prisoner's input on the

following survey questions:

1. What are the biggest challenges

you face being released from prison?

2. How can these problems be

addressed?

3. What are the important elements

of a successful release program?

Pennsylvania
continues censorship

Recently I was sent to another slave

plantation / concentration camp which

happens to be on the complete opposite side
of the state. This plantation is into the exact
same type of censorship as the last one I was

in. [...]

After an initial complaint was made about

the censorship in [my former prison], the

prisoncrats began to relent a little, you know,
spoon-feeding me the Notes, so as not to
draw my full wrath. But when I contacted my

Sister- Queen and told her of the situation,
the issue of censorship--due to the fact that
it started to affect other mail that was sent to

me also not to mention outgoing mail as
well--she blew a fuse in her mental brain
computer.

The prisoncrats' way of responding to this

situation was to lie to her and put me under
close observation. If you don't know what

that means I'll put it in simple terms... they
temporarily locked me down, then transferred
me. [...]

[The prisoncrats] fear the mental revolution

that MIM and the Notes can initiate.

A luta continua...

--A Pennsylvania prisoner

Voting won't end the
injustice system

I would like my fellow comrades to know

how thousands of inmates in the
Pennsylvania State prison system were
politically manipulated and deceived by a man

named Ernie Preate. Ernie Preate is a former
Attorney General of Pennsylvania. He lost
his job and was sentenced to a minor prison

term because he was caught stealing money.
Now Mr. Preate is a so-called left-wing activist
for prisoners rights. He came to this prison

and many other state prisons in Pennsylvania
and made speeches. At this time, Ed Rendell
was running for governor. Ernie Preate

informed us that if Ed Rendell got into office,
he would give us "good time / earned time."

Pennsylvania gives out very harsh prison

sentences. And the "good time / earned time"
package that the reactionary scum Ernie
Preate was talking about would have

dramatically reduced the sentences of a lot of
state prisoners. So naturally, the inmates
wanted Ed Rendell to become governor. I

personally know many inmates who got their
family members on the outside to vote for Ed
Rendell. I however did not; neither I nor my

family members believe in voting. I just
wanted to shed light on how these scumbags
will manipulate prisoners and attempt to suck

votes out of their family members.

Me and my friends stay informed on

political and judicial matters taking place in

this state, and we have not heard any concrete
proof that such a bill (a "good time / earned
time" bill) is even being considered.

[MIM searched for "Ed Rendell" and

"Department of Corrections" on the internet
and found no sites referring to "earned time"

reforms. However, we did learn that Ed Rendell

kept the veteran Secretary of Corrections from

the previous governor, Jeffrey Beard.
Governor Rendell also opposes any
moratorium on the death penalty, claiming the

death penalty as implemented is fair. This
should not be too surprising, as Rendell sent
24 people to death row while he was District

Attorney in Philadelphia. 21 of the 24 were
black (http://citypaper.net/articles/2003-05-
01/cb.shtml).]

It is evident to me that we were lied to.

When are we gonna stand up and stop going
for this? We should refuse to attend any

speeches given by politicians.

--A Pennsylvania prisoner, October 2003

Fight the system, not
each other

I encourage all prisoners to stop fighting

amongst each other. We know who our real
enemies are, don't we?

If your food is cold--put a grievance in. If

a pig even looks at you wrong-- put a
grievance in. Put a grievance in for anything.

Make them do paperwork, le them know we
are against everything they stand for.

In most cases, there is only a small band of

inmates who are truly revolutionary, who will
step up to the plate and attempt to get things
done for all of our fellow prisoners. I know

first hand how hard it is to organize and pass
out information behind these walls, but I also
know that it is possible.

Let people that you know and trust read

your MIM Notes, give them a different
perspective to view our situation from.

Keep the revolution alive, maintain your

composure and hold your heads up
comrades!

--A Pennsylvania prisoner, October 2003

Three-Strikes law
is a sham

I am writing in the hope that the information

I am providing you with will help you fight
against the 3 Strikes Law. And that at the
same time we can bring to the Public's

attention that the Department of Parole and
Community Services, a Division of the
California Department of Corrections, has for

years been failing to provide parolees with
the programs that are necessary to assist them
in their transition between imprisonment and

discharge, thereby ensuring a continuingly
growing prison population.

The Three-Strikes Law is a sham, it is one

of the biggest frauds that has ever been
committed in the State of California, if not the
entire United $tates. The reason I say this is

very simple, the entire passing of the Three-
Strikes Law hinges on one well-publicized
case in which the public wanted to know how

a criminal with such an extensive criminal
history had been released from prison so
soon. And that is where the deception

occurred as the District Attorneys of
California, the parole officers, the Director of
Corrections, the CCPOA, and the Governor

all pointed to the Laws and said they were
not tough enough. But never once did

anyone bring up the fact that the District
Attorneys were not following the laws when

they were giving plea-bargains to criminals
with long criminal histories or when they were
giving plea bargains to people charged with

serious, or violent felonies. And all this can
easily be proven by checking strikers prior
case files, and transcripts, of the proceedings.

To see just how often District Attorney did
adhere to the laws of California, during their
prosecution of the above named cases. (The

Penal Codes they violated are Penal Code 667,
667.75, 1192.7, subd (a).

But not only were the district Attorneys

negligent in their handling of the above named
cases, but so was and still is the Department
of Parole and Community Services, a Division

of the California Department of Corrections
when they failed to place parolees in
educational, vocational, family, and personal

counseling necessary to assist parolees in
the transition between imprisonment and
discharge these programs are to be provided

by the State of California and the Counties of
the State of California (Penal code 3000, subd.
(a)(1), 3074.)

The CDC created the recidivism problem

MIM Notes 293 · December 15, 2003 · Page 11

Facts on U$ imprisonment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

and is making the problem worse by its failure
to follow law. Instead of helping parolees

reintegrate, they just look for any excuse to
revoke parole.

The California Department of Corrections

fails to follow California laws that mandate
they will provide programs to parolees upon
their release (see Penal Codes 3000, subd.

(a)(1), 3068, 3070, 3074.) The Department of
Corrections does make it almost impossible
for a parolee to find. (I know, I had to use a

CDC 602 to learn anything of importance. And
the Parole Office didn't even answer my
letters.) So it is very hard to learn what help is

to actually provided. The Pre-release Class
and Education Department do what they can,
but their information is out of date, or limited

so that most parolees do not know about these
programs, or do not receive them.

Nor do they provide parolees with a list of

these specific programs to parolees for their
counties, or of counties they can be
transferred to, so that they can receive these

programs and other programs and resources
provided specifically to parolees.

Parolees often abscond just to get out of

the state, because they know that they have
very little, if no chance of living free in
California. Absconders can find employment,

avoid harassment, and remain free from the
threat of petty parole revocation s if they are
outside of the State of California.

The parole Hearings Division has for many

years simply been revoking the Parole of
California Parolees who have absconded from

parole in California to other states without
ever considering that they have two other
options. In CCR Title 15, Div. 3, Article 16,

sec 3901.31.2, subd (c) Absconde Locate, (2)
Parole Hearings Division Action, (B) Located
Out of California, (1) which clearly states,

"Shall determine whether the parolee should
be discharged, referred for supervision in the
other jurisdiction or scheduled for revocation

proceedings as provided in this subsection."
Thereby creating a larger prison population
then it would otherwise have. Under Penal

Code 3074 "The Legislature finds and
declares that the period immediately following
incarceration is critical to successful

reintegration of the offender into society and
to positive citizenship."

If an ex-offender has reintegrated into

society and obtained positive citizenship in
another jurisdiction, then it is a travesty of
justice to return that parolee to California. But

it does not stop there; the California Code of
Regulations, Title 15, Article 15, section
3901.29.5 State and National Warrant Systems

(b) National Warrant System (1) Criteria for
Entering Warrant in the National System.

(G) Is likely to have absconded to another

state

(H) Might be accepted for supervision in

another state

(I) The parole hearings division shall

consider any other relevant information

including the expense of returning a parolee
to California

And (b)(4) Purging Warrants. "If the

warrant has not been executed eighteen
months after entering it in the NCIC, the parole

hearings division shall review the case." And
in most cases remove the warrant.

Parolees who have absconded to another

state, and have reintegrated into society, and
have positive citizenship should be allowed
to remain in that State without having the

constant threat of parole revocation hanging
over their head.

-- a California prisoner, September 2003

Join the Three Strike
Backlash Campaign

The National Plantation Psychosis

Awareness Committee (NPPAC) invites all

prisoners throughout California to join us in
this progressive statewide 3- strike Backlash
Campaign which calls upon each and every

one of you to strategically, legally, and
collectively resist CDCs illegal practice of
FORCED double celling. The only thing that

makes California's race/class based 3-strike
lynch clause and no parole policy for 7 to
lifers physically and economically possible

is our own willingness to accept a cellmate
and/or be double celled.

NPPAC contends that when CDC and its

states Governor wake up one morning to
discover its prison yards, dayrooms,
classrooms, etc. bursting at its seams with

illegal tents, sleeping bags and cots, and in
an immediate need for 50,000 (plus)
unavailable cells as a direct result of us simply

but strategically, collectively and legally
resisting CDC's arbitrary practice of FORCED
double celling, then and only then will we

have established an effective platform
capable of politically and economically
challenging and abolishing this draconian 3-

strike lynch clause and no parole policy for
seven to lifers.

This 3-strike backlash campaign strategy

effectively supercedes all forms of prison
resistance, including hunger strikes, work
strikes, riots, etc. and will legally, strategically,

and completely shut down CDC indefinitely
and force the states hand to abolish its
draconian laws and policies that deliberately

and systematically target people of color in
general and Black males in particular.

It is therefore incumbent upon all groups

and/or individuals who are propagating and
actively mobilizing, organizing and
participating in this statewide 3-strike

Backlash Campaign in your respective
prisons, yards and/or buildings to submit
articles of notification and updates in that we

may continue to monitor our growth
throughout the state and better propagate
and facilitate our agenda to set the captives

free.

We of the National Plantation Psychosis

Awareness Committee (NPPAC) would also

like to share this small but significant victory
and development with you. On July 31, 2003,
CDC found the Minister of Defense (MOD)

for NPPAC not guilty of all charges of
"Inciting to Disrupt the normal operations of
CDC."

These charges stemmed from our on-going

state-wide and progressive 3-strike Backlash
Campaign to resist CDC's illegal practice of

forced double celling, after it was discovered
that we were soliciting the main stream media
to publicize this campaign/demonstration.

(See MIM Notes, No 271, ULK article entitled
"Fighting the 3-strike law in California.")

Nonetheless, all charges were dismissed

against the MOD on the grounds that our 3-
strike backlash campaign is functioning within
the guidelines of NPPAC's first amendment

right to freedom of speech under the United
States constitution.

NPPAC has solicited Attorney Catherine

Campbell, who is the Johnny Cocran for CDC
PPOWs to represent us on a class action suit
challenging CDCs illegal practice of forced

double celling. We realize that the courts can
not legislate manhood or courage into the
PPOWs, however if we can get the courts to

spell out to them in explicit language that
CDCs practice of forced double celling is
illegal then these PPOWs will be more readily

inclined to resist CDCs illegal practices and
support this statewide 3-strike backlash
Campaign of resistance.

Thus it is incumbent upon every PPOW

who has ever received a CDC 115 (RVR) for
refusing a cellmate, or for a mutual combat or

assault on a cellmate to immediately send a
final copy of these CDC 115s to:

Attorney Catherine Campbell

PO Box 4470
Fresno, CA 93744
In re: Imara Rafiki, et. al., v. CDC Director

--a California prisoner, October 2003

Censorship in
Vacaville California

I am writing to let you know that I received

your mailing today, unopened and un-
searched. Looks like your [censorship
protest] letter did the trick. Now that it has

been demonstrated that my mail is indeed
being censored, I cannot help but wonder
what else has been sent to me and refused by

the institution's mailroom. I receive several
newsletters which tend to arrive somewhat
less than regularly... I have also been waiting

for many months to hear from the publishers
of material which could arguably be described
as subversive; by extension I must now

assume that there are other cases of this
prison's arbitrary censorship policies
depriving me of literature which I legally have

the right to receive.

I was not notified of the refusal of your

earlier mailing to me so I can expect that this

was not the first instance [of censorship.] I
am very pleased that your tenacity and sense
of justice enabled me to become apprised of

the mailroom situation here at this facility. I
am willing to fight my own legal battles but I
need a place to start; I can't very well combat

censorship unless and until I can discern what
is being censored from what has merely failed
to arrive for other reasons. Hopefully, working

together, we can effect a change in the
repressive conditions extant at this facility.

--a California prisoner, Vacaville,

November 2003

MIM adds: This prisoner is referring to the

protest letter we sent to the mailroom and

warden of California Medical Facility in
Vacaville after the Prison returned the
standard introductory form letter we sent to

this prisoner, stamped "refused/unapproved
mail." As a part of our Prisoners Legal Clinic
we provide our comrades behind bars with

the tools to fight censorship and other
repression in the legal system. This prisoner
was sent our guide to fighting censorship in

prison. A jailhouse lawyer in California
recently put together a guide to fighting
censorship in California prisons which we will

be distributing in that state.

These battles can be won, but they require

lots of hard work from behind the bars filing

out all the needed paperwork and following
the administrative and legal steps. At the
same time we need people on the outside to

write letters of protest and call the prison to
put pressure on them to stop the censorship.
We still have not received a response from

the warden so we can not assume the
censorship has ended. Protest letters can be
sent to:

Warden Teresa A. Schwartz
PO Box 2000
Vacaville, CA 95696

Mail problems at
Pelican Bay, CA

We are still experiencing major delays with

our mail, and anything coming from the

streets. As of right now we are in the process
of trying to rectify the problem through the
appeal process. However, as you may know,

this whole appeal process is a joke. They claim
to be understaffed in the mail department due
to the budget crisis. But we know for a fact

that Gray Davis restructured a new contract
for CDC in order to give everyone a pay raise.
One of the comrades here has already

exhausted this bogus appeal process. He has
already filed a write of habeus corpus with
the court. We are supposed to get a response

by November 10, 2003.

By the way, we were recently granted a

decision in our favor by the courts! We are

no longer required to have an "Address Label
Form" attached to our book orders. To most
this may seem a bit insignificant. Because they

used that "Address Label Form" to discourage
us from trying to order books. In order to
keep us uneducated and blind to all the

injustice.

--a California prisoner, Pelican Bay,

November 2003

MIM Notes 193 · December 15, 2003 · Page 12

Notas Rojas

dec 15, 2003, Nº 293 Fragmento del Periodico Oficial del Movimiento Internacionalista Maoista

Gratis

¿Que es el MIM?

El Movimiento Internacionalista Maoísta (MIM) es un partido revolucionario

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

El lío en torno a las armas de

destrucción masiva en Irak: una
revelación para luchadores que llevan

las de perder.

Traducido por Células de Estudio

para la Liberación de Aztlán y América

Latina.

A menudo oímos la aserción que la

lucha política es inútil porque cada año el

Tío Sam gasta miles de millones de

dólares con el fin de espiar a todo el mundo
a través de satélites y submarinos. Los

medios de comunicación árabes dijeron

que el Tío Sam sabía de qué color era la
ropa interior de Saddam Hussein. Hace

poco el sitio de Internet "marxists.org"

(1) dijo que era posible identificar cada
computadora por medio de equipo

colocado en servidores remotos.

Semejantes argumentos apuntan a la idea
de que cualquier tipo de lucha contra el

Tío Sam es futil y que, por lo tanto, hay

que unirnos a la lucha propagada por el
Tío Sam y respetar sus reglas del juego;

sin embargo, el lío en torno a las armas

de destrucción masiva (ADM) revela el
fallo de asumir una actitud liberal hacia

el tema de la lucha y seguridad.

Diez meses antes del discurso

equivocado sobre el Estado de la Unión

en el que George Bush citaba pruebas

falsas sobre la supuesta venta de uranio

por parte de Níger a Irak, la CIA le dijo a
Bush que dicha información era falsa.

Aparte de la CIA, un embajador también

informó a la administración Bush que
esta información no era cierta. Esto

significa que hasta la posesión de

información correcta no garantiza el uso
de la misma. (2) La administración Bush

ha emitido un sinfín de otras declaraciones

falsas sobre la naturaleza y la justificación
de la guerra contra Irak. (3) Basándose

en fuentes de información

estadounidenses, Tony Blair declaró que
Saddam Hussein estaba listo para utilizar

ADM 45 minutos después de un aviso-

algo que jamás sucedió. (4)

Los estudiantes probélicos y los que

asumieron una postura neutral

desconocían el hecho de que el archivo
de inteligencia compuesto y utilizado por

el gobierno británico con el fin de justificar

la guerra contra Irak, provenía en gran
parte de un trabajo no citado de un

estudiante estadounidense disponible para

el público. (5) En nuestro periódico MIM
Notes 274, criticamos a un estudiante

quien asumió la típica postura monárquica

que justifica la apatía y la falta de lucha
contra la guerra. Según el estudiante,

"Basamos nuestras opiniones sobre la

política externa e interna en la información

que recibimos de coberturas parciales de
medios de comunicación, opiniones de

nuestros amigos y preguntas de nuestros

profesores. Bush basa sus opiniones en
datos secretos de inteligencia obtenidos

a través de múltiples fuentes, estimaciones

nacionales de altos funcionarios de
servicios de inteligencia y consejos de

expertos. Si ni siquiera él tiene la

información completa, nuestro
entendimiento de la situación equivale a

una pieza insignificante del

rompecabezas". Resulta que a alguien le
entraron ganas de tomarle el pelo a la

administración Bush mediante una

falsificación de documentos sobre los
programas de armas nucleares de Irak;

éstos fueron utilizados por Bush con el

fin de promover su plan bélico contra Irak
diseñado antes del año 2000. Resulta, por

lo tanto, que la posesión de inteligencia

secreta fue un impedimento más que una
ventaja. La mera posesión de la

información "completa" no garantiza el

uso correcto de la misma.

Los luchadores por la justicia que llevan

las de perder deberían tener en cuenta

que un acceso a todas las fuentes de
información no garantiza el uso de las

mismas por parte de los que los que están

en el poder. De hecho, el capitalismo
corrompe toda la producción del

conocimiento, desde el conocimiento de

medicinas cuyas ventas se someten a
fines lucrativos hasta los análisis de la

eficacia de sistemas de armas adquiridas

por el Pentágono. Como ya hemos
mencionado en la sección sobre la

seguridad en nuestra página web: "El

imperialismo estadounidense de ninguna

manera se puede permitir el lujo de filtrar
la información correcta y separarla de la

falsa." En este sentido, el MIM ha

señalado que la acumulación de
información proveniente de una fuente no

garantiza que el propósito de dicha fuente

so sea el de desviar información.

Los imperialistas buscan un

conocimiento que les otorgue ganancias

individuales. Como consecuencia, los
imperialistas jamás podrán alcanzar la

capacidad que tiene el proletariado para

encontrar la verdad. Aunque los gastos
monetarios de los imperialistas en

servicios de inteligencia sobrepasen los

del proletariado, los imperialistas son
incapaces de usar la información

obtenida, y si la llegan a usar, entran en

conflicto con otros imperialistas cuyos
intereses de propiedad y agendas

políticas son distintos. Por esta razón,

cualquier tipo de lucha que dificulte el
espionaje de los oprimidos y explotados

por parte de los imperialistas es siempre

justificado. Como ya hemos mencionado
en nuestra reseña del sitio marxists.org,

"Hay múltiples razones para no

someterse: 1) Existe la posibilidad de
aumentar el costo del enemigo ya que

cualquier forma de espionaje correcto

cuesta. 2) Una vez que se obtenga
información, el enemigo tiene que separar

la información correcta de la falsa. 3)

Puede que el enemigo no haga nada. "

Fuentes consultadas:

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

links/marxistsorg.html

2.http://abcnews.go.com/sections/wnt/

World/iraq030616_uranium.html; también
véase http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/

story/0,12956,972651,00.html

3. Véase por ejemplo http://

www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/

articles/A43615-2003Jun11.html

4. Para leer el testimonio de un

exoficial de la CIA véase: http://

w w w . f o x n e w s . c o m / s t o r y /

0,2933,89923,00.html; véase también
http://www.foxnews.com/story/

0,2933,89649,00.html

5. http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/

story/0,12956,970035,00.html

El Tío Sam no siempre sabe