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MIM Notes 307 · September 15-30, 2004 · Page 1

MIM Notes

Sept. 15-30 2004, Nº 307

The Official Newsletter of the Maoist Internationalist Movement (MIM)

Free

INSIDE: Imperialism books * Under Lock & Key * Una Página en Español...

www.prisoncensorship.info/archive/etext

BODY COUNT

MOUNTS:

`DEFEATED'

FIGHTERS KILL 7

SECURITY GUARDS

A car bomb exploded outside the Kabul

office of an Amerikan security company

on Sunday, 29 August, killing at least seven

people, including two Amerikans. The

company, Dyncorp Inc., provides security

for "Afghan President" and U$ puppet

Hamid Karzai.(1) Early reports said the

Taliban claimed responsibility for the

attack.(2) The Taliban ruled Afghanistan

before the U$ invaded after 9/11 and

installed Karzai with the UN's blessing.

This successful attack in a section of

the city populated by Westerners and on

the "President's" Amerikan security force

no less exposes the lie that Amerika's

Afghan escapade has been a smashing

success for imperialism on the cheap.

Secretary of Defense Don Rumsfeld's

idea--apparently shared by John Kerry

based on his stump speeches at the

Democratic National Convention and

beyond--went something like this: send

in a few Special Forces, wave some cash

around, dust off some pro-Western exiles,

have a meeting in some quaint European

city and voila: pro-Amerikan, secular

democracy.

Already in 2001 MIM predicted that

this strategy would fail, based on our

understanding of imperialism and study

of history. Only those too lazy to read a

few articles about the Soviet Union's war

in Afghanistan, Amerika's war in Vietnam

or its support of Chiang Kai Chek in

China's civil war could have thought

Rumsfeld's approach would work. Now

even laziness is no excuse. Every day the

5 o'clock news shows that the Amerikan

puppet regime's authority doesn't go past

the "President's" security cordon.

Warlordism has returned to the

countryside, and anti-Amerikan fighters

such as the Taliban and Al Qaeda are

gaining ground, despite being driven from

the cities.

Still, Afghanistan appears to be the

model for John Kerry's approach to

foreign policy. He tells the Amerikan

No end in sight to Amerika's

`war on terror'

Protesters carry hundreds of flag-draped coffins through the streets of New

York (left) to symbolize the 973 Amerikan soldiers killed in Iraq (as of 29 Aug

04). If they had carried one per every Iraqi civilian killed, like the one above,

the line of coffins would have been more than ten times as long.

Hundreds of thousands marched against the Republican National Convention

just as MIM Notes went to press. For more coverage of the RND and DNC

protests, visit http://www.prisoncensorship.info/archive/etext/elections/ and http://

www.prisoncensorship.info/archive/etext/whatsnew.html.

Osama Bin Laden or his followers are

not just scaring the wits out of the

bourgeoisified people of the imperialist

countries. He and his followers are also

winning the praise of Third World peoples.

At this particular point in history, it is a

given that the imperialists are going to

demonize someone in the Mideast. We

have to ask ourselves why it is that an

Arab, African or Iranian Maoist leader

did not obtain this honor now given to

Osama Bin Laden.

A bourgeois research organization

found that the peoples of Indonesia,

Jordan, Morocco, Pakistan and the

Palestinian Authority regard Osama Bin

Laden as one of three leaders they most

trust to "do the right thing."(1) The people

of Jordan (71%) and Indonesia (66%)

also view Osama Bin Laden as more

peaceful than the United $tates.(2) It goes

to show that attacks on U$ interests will

be supported by the Third World masses

and even the foreign-policy bourgeoisie

of U$ imperialism knows it. It's an

important lesson to take a materialist

approach to the masses and ask them who

they trust more, their Maoist leaders or

the U$ imperialists.

MIM's summer

movie breakdown

Too busy protesting the

Republocrats to catch any movies

this summer? Don't worry, MIM will

let you know what you missed--or

didn't miss.

Addicted to celluloid? Check out

what MIM has to say about this

year's summer blockbusters. They're

not all bad. Really.

MIM reviews The Bourne

Supremacy, The Day After

Tomorrow, Collateral, and Harry

Potter: pages 8-9.

Bin Laden and the Concept of `Theocratic Fascism'

A motley crew of

counterrevolutionaries, labor bureaucrats

and centrists calling themselves "Marxist-

Leninist" are responsible for Islamic

militants' outflanking the communists in

the minds of the exploited of many Third

World countries. We have two choices

in this matter: 1) we can believe the

Islamic scriptural hocus-pocus and that

it is somehow God's will; or 2) we can

realize that communists in many Middle

East and Third World countries

surrendered nationalist credentials in the

Third World the way a Mao or even a Ho

Chi Minh never allowed. The Islamic

movement is becoming the preferred

expression of the struggle against

imperialist super-exploitation in many

countries while the "Marxist-Leninists"

Continued on page 6...

Continued on page 5...

MIM Notes 307 · September 15-30, 2004 · 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.

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

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

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

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

long as we are credited.

For general correspondence, contact:

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eMail: <mim@mim.org>

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

Latino soldiers' role in

the Iraq war: an

historical perspective

Historically, the function of the military

has been to protect and perpetuate the

ideological/material interest of the ruling

class. The rank and file, being

predominately from the impoverished and

middle class, are among the least informed

in society. In the 21st century, this fact

remains which explains those justifications

given by the Raza as to why they are in

Iraq. They have said, "To free the Iraqis

from Saddam Hussein" and "to eliminate

an imminent threat to the United $tates."

I will respond to both of these quotes in

turn, but first I want to make a brief

historical analysis of our role in Euro

conquest.

For us, this first occurred in 1519 when

the Cempohuanlans made a strategic

alliance with Cortez and his

conquistadores. On their way to

Tenochtitlan, the conquistadores

continued to acquire recruits and make

alliances with tribes who [opposed] the

Aztec Empire. These few thousand

conquistadores and a few hundred

thousand allies went on to successfully

defeat the Aztecs. Those tribes who allied

themselves with the conquistadores

retained some autonomy during the

conquest and were under the belief that

their material conditions would improve

once free of Aztec domination. However,

once the conquest of Mexico and Central

America was completed and the

European forces were secured, their

"allies" were reduced to commodities of

the Spanish crown. Putting those "allies"

in the same category as the tribes they

helped to conquer.

Let's jump forward 300 years to Texas.

Believing the propaganda for

independence by Anglo squatters, many

Mexicans did, in fact, fight along side Sam

Houston, thinking that independence

would equal prosperity. However, once

independence was realized, they learned

that Anglos neither acknowledged their

contribution, nor allotted them any

significant role in the new independent

state. In fact, their material aspirations

only resulted in Anglo consolidation of land

and power.

Then there are the many lessons of

North Amerikan First Nations who, in

various "Euro wars," sided with the

British, the French or Amerikans.

Regardless of their alliances, once the

smoke had cleared and they were no

longer needed by Euro forces, they

learned that Europeans were not in the

habit of sharing land, wealth or power.

Consequently, they all met the same fate.

In these few examples, those

indigenous forces had either an

independent strategic and/or material

interest in fighting in "Euro wars." In 2004,

what is the Raza's interest in fighting for

Europeans? As a captured colony of the

United $tates, the Raza has no

independent interest in fighting for

imperialism. Some can point to a

"dependent interest" but even this is

illegitimate and only testifies to our

incapacitated state and is a manifestation

of our neo-colonial status.

Fighting to free Iraqis? When and where

has imperialism "freed" anyone? This

historical fact does not exist! The Raza

in the United $tates are not even free

ourselves so how are we going to free

anyone else? (Indeed, we are only free

to be good subjects of Euro imperialism.)

Underneath all the propaganda, it amounts

to Raza/people of color killing people of

color for Euro interest.

Even if all that was alleged about Iraq

was true, which the U$ Administration is

not admitting was not, we must realize

that imperialism not only provoked but

created that threat. If we analyze the 20th

century, we'll find that imperialism

frequently created (and will continue to

create) situations all over the world that

will require our bravery, our blood and

our lives in large amounts.

Let's not be fooled into believing that

the war in Iraq eliminates an imminent

threat. This idea is propagated to give

people a false sense of security. Who or

what is the most imminent threat to us

(people of color)? "Imminent" implies

something that will occur in the future.

I'd ask you to look at the material

conditions as they exist now and decide

which is the most detrimental to our

existence: other people of color in foreign

countries or the status quo in the United

$tates? Undisputedly, it is the status quo.

It is the U$ oppression. It is Mexican on

Mexican violence. It is our high child

mortality rate. It is our sky rocketing

incarceration rate. It is our suicide rate.

Etc., etc. All of which are the

consequence of imperialism.

I'd also challenge you to make a

quantitative analysis of how many civilian

"terrorists" or "rogue nations" have killed

outside of their own countries. How many

millions of civilians did the U$ kill in

Vietnam in one war alone? In Iraq, the

U$ has already killed 10 times the amount

of civilians that died in 9/11/01. So decide

who is the most imminent threat to human

kind and world stability.

Unfortunately, the Raza have become

equivalent to the Aztec forces after they

were militarily defeated. We are being

used (just as the Aztecs were) to fight

and die for the same people who have

conquered us, taken our lands and reduced

us to subsistence. Beneath the pose and

illegitimate justifications, Raza in the U$

military are only perpetuating Euro

imperialism. After 500 years, we are back

to square one!

The fact that most Raza who enlist in

the U$ military do so specifically for

economic mobility, it gives potential to a

collective realization of the cause and

effect of the U$ military industrial

complex via imperialism, as it directly

applies to them and their native country/

continent. For those of us who are

politically advanced, our challenge is to

develop this collective realization, to move

our forces, from their current front of

stabilizing Euro imperialism and

domination, to our own.

-- A California Prisoner, April 2004

MIM Notes 307 · September 15-30, 2004 · Page 3

After more than four years since the

ACLU filed suit on behalf of MIM, other

publishers, and some Colorado

Department of Corrections (DOC)

prisoners, we reached a settlement out

of court which requires the DOC to

institute clear policies regulating

censorship. Far from perfect, the

settlement explicitly continues censorship

of parts of MIM Notes and other

publications named in the lawsuit. In spite

of this and other limitations, the settlement

was clear progress for the battle against

prison censorship.

We have gained an explicit statement

that "there will be no general prohibition

of publications such as. . . MIM Notes . .

." And the settlement mandates the

prison follow explicit regulations when

they censor mail. For example, the prison

must notify the sender of any censorship

and give the sender and recipient an

opportunity to challenge censorship in

front of a review board.

People reading this might be surprised

that these policies are not standard for

all prisons. But this is the myth of free

speech in Amerika-- it is free for those

who support the imperialist system, but

not for those who oppose it. In reality

MIM faces censorship across Amerika,

both in the prisons and on the streets.

Censorship is the strongest in the

prisons where people are denied access

to even basic reading materials on the

whim of the prison staff. Many prisons

censor MIM Notes and other literature

without notifying either the prisoner or the

sender. When notification is given, it

generally includes vague justification if any

at all.

By this settlement the DOC is required

to offer a meaningful description for the

reasons of withholding publications,

identify the portions that are objectionable,

and remove only the objectionable portions

if that is fewer than four pages. According

to the ACLU, censorship of the specific

issues of MIM Notes in question was one

of the last point of contention in the

negotiation with the DOC. They refused

Anti-censorship activists force Colorado DOC reform

to modify their position on MIM's

organizational statement.

Ultimately the settlement included

delivery of MIM Notes to the prisoner

named in the lawsuit, but with the pages

with MIM's organizational statement

(page 2) and those written by prisoners

(Under Lock and Key) removed, along

with a few other pages. The settlement

makes it clear that no one is agreeing that

the partial censorship of these issues is

correct or even consistent with the new

regulations.

Once the Colorado DOC puts the new

censorship regulations in place, MIM will

use these new regulations to challenge

the on-going censorship of MIM notes.

It used to be that Oxfam was just a

charity organization bringing food to the

Third World and maybe even wrecking

the agriculture there in order to do so.

We did not think much of its political or

economic sense. While drawing endless

attention to starvation, Oxfam does not

see a non-negotiable humyn right to eat

while MIM does. Hence, MIM is for the

dictatorship of the proletariat while

Oxfam believes that when push-comes-

to-shove the exploited and super-

exploited should negotiate away their

rights to eat in "democracy." A large

portion of the world gives money to

Oxfam to feel good about itself rather than

actually change anything.

Now things have changed. The "fair

trade" project initiated by Oxfam has

turned Oxfam into a better ally of MIM

than the countless "communist"

organizations that do not as of yet

understand international exploitation even

as much as Oxfam does. As MIM has

predicted in several articles on the

emergence of internationalist social-

democracy, Oxfam has made

internationalist reformism respectable

reformism. Together we can support an

end to imperialist country protectionism,

the abolition of agricultural subsidies or

the internationalization of them, an

international minimum wage for the

whole world and not just the export

sectors either, international regulations on

child labor, international environmental

controls--at least for all countries

wanting to participate in the WTO-

governed trade agreements which is

almost everyone.

Tackling the WTO, the Oxfam has

opened a huge subject within which there

are many, many large, medium and small

issues. Doubtless MIM will have

disagreements with Oxfam down the road

on how to implement fair trade.

However, broadly-speaking in the world,

there are two responses to globalization.

1) One fans imperialist country economic

nationalism a la Patrick Buchanan, Ross

Perot and to a lesser extent Richard

Gephardt. This camp benefits from the

irrational nihilism of many so-called

anarchists who have no way forward. 2)

The other camp accepts that the world is

getting smaller and seeks reforms of the

WTO and international trade agreements.

MIM belongs to this camp, because the

other camp speeds the planet toward an

intensification of world war. Included in

this camp should be the oppressed nation

economic nationalists seeking to compete

on terms more favorable with the rich.

For MIM, one great class struggle

occurred recently in Berkeley, California

where the labor aristocracy showed us

internationalists that the labor aristocracy

is in the saddle, not us, even in the

supposedly most radical city in Amerika.

Over 70% of voters would not require

coffee shops to use coffee beans from

"fair trade" certified sources.

It's one of the few class struggles in

Amerika in recent times that was not

Oxfam shows respectable internationalist reformism

strictly intra-bourgeois. There was real

proletarian content to that struggle in

Berkeley which we lost.

MIM wants to be clear with people that

Oxfam cannot succeed, because the

economic and political interests blocking

it will not surrender without revolution.

Any concept of "free trade" or "fair

trade" is only a pipe-dream under

capitalism. Nonetheless, as even most

calling themselves "revolutionaries" have

not figured that out yet, and because the

alternative to Oxfam reformism is

reactionary reformism, we encourage

many people to join MIM or Oxfam.

Revolutionaries should hook up with MIM

and weak-kneed reformists and charity-

lovers should push Oxfam's

maketradefair.com project as far as they

can.

We encourage anyone launching a "fair

trade" offensive to keep MIM informed.

We can publicize it in our publications and

website as well.

Imperialism kills

Dear MIM,

Why don't you have a spot in your

paper where you print what the

Americans say is the recent number of

dead (`913'), and they don't print the

ones they cart away wounded and thus

die, the poor slobs. Those few on tap

come home with legs or arms or eyes

cut out, they can't get the right

compensation for their ills. There's so

much more, but you should print the

true deaths in your paper; it would

wake the sleepers up for sure. You owe

it to the people.

--a reader in Los Angeles, 5 August

2004

Indeed, the Amerikan military does not

like to report on the number of U$ soldiers

killed and wounded in Iraq. Although it

publishes press releases on individual

deaths, it does not tally them ("we don't

do body counts" is the quote from U$

general Tommy Franks). It even tried to

censor photos of flag-draped coffins

returning to the United $tates.

Information on the number and severity

of non-fatal wounds is also difficult to

find.

So as a public service we publish the

current numbers (as of 30 Aug 2004)

here.

Iraqi civilians 11,707

U$ military fatalities 973

U$ allies' military fatalities 66

U$ military wounded total 6,497

U$ military wounded RTD 2,992

"Wounded RTD" means wounded in

action, returned to duty within 72 hours.

This gives some idea of the severity of

the wounds suffered. More than half of

the total wounded were militarily

incapacitated for over three days.

U$ military recruiters try to lure

recruits with promises of money for

college and adventure in exotic places.

Some even suggest Amerikan youth are

less likely to die by gun violence in Iraq

than in Amerikan cities--a ridiculous

claim that we debunked in MIM Notes

305. The truth is being a soldier is

dangerous. Unlike targets on a shooting

range, people tend to shoot back, especially

when they consider you a member of an

A public service announcement brought to you by MIM

illegitimate occupying army.

Young people! Don't make a devil's

bargain! Don't join the U$ military! Not

only will you be part of the system of

violence and oppression, but you might

end up tallied in one of the figures above.

Sources:

Iraqi civilians: iraqbodycount.net; U$ &

allies' military: http://icasualties.org/oif/.

MIM Notes 307 · September 15-30, 2004 · Page 4

by Roger Burbach and Jim Tarbell

London: Zed Books, 2004.

This is the right topic for a book, a topic

dear to MIM's heart. The first 100 pages

seem to rebut the Amerikan public that

thinks September 11th came out of the

blue. Burbach and Tarbell show the U$

history of imperialism, including those

leading Amerikan voices for empire ever

since 1776.

One point we like in this book is that

pretty much as soon as Negri and Hardt

wrote "Empire"--which claimed there is

one global capitalist empire already

without conflicts among nation-states--

the United $tates asserted its national

interests and took over Afghanistan and

Iraq, the latter especially without

international sanction (p. 197). The only

function a book like Negri's and Hardt's

now can serve is capitulation to the United

$tates.

After proving the historical existence

of U$ imperialism, Burbach and Tarbell

focus on recent times under Bush.

Burbach and Tarbell come to some

surprising conclusions, mostly by analogy

with Rome and via the works of others

who have written about the decline of

empires. Burbach and Tarbell tell us that

with Bush in power, the fall of empire is

a matter of a few years, maybe even 1 to

4 (p. 195). Something worth considering

is that competent administrators such as

Clinton prolong the agony of crisis while

people like Bush may be speeding it up.

On the point of the collapse of U$

empire, Burbach and Tarbell created the

title of the book but provided little build-

up. For an example of the kind of build-

up we needed more of, we learn that in

2003 "of the thirty-three active-duty

brigades only three were actually free for

new duties" (p. 11), thanks to all the

military activities of the U$ empire.

In response to this overstretch,

Democrats such as Hillary Clinton and

John Kerry are calling for an expansion

of the military while the Pentagon wants

funding for new weapons systems

instead. Thus far, the Republicans and

Democrats have united in increasing the

size of the government budget deficit by

spending for both weapons and soldiers.

Readers of MIM Notes and the MIM

web page have seen most of the factual

material in this book already. Burbach and

Tarbell add some slight social-democratic

illusions as well that we would not. For

example, they trot out the usual facts on

how military spending produces fewer

jobs than other kinds of spending. (p. 5)

That's an example of something MIM

does not stress, because building a social-

democratic state is not our priority and

because the statement implies that in

exchange for enough jobs the authors will

put away their concerns about imperialist

war--not a good idea in this day and age.

At the beginning of the century the

European rulers offered their workers

pensions and employment in exchange for

war. On the other hand, it is an important

kind of point if one believes that capitalists

do what is most rational for business

overall. In fact, there is nothing that says

the capitalists appreciate anything of the

drawbacks of military and prison

spending for the economy.

In response to communism, Burbach

and Tarbell said it did not take root in the

Amerikan culture, thus leaving discussion

of imperialism in intellectuals' hands (p.

31). They also attack the Soviet Union's

interventions in Eastern Europe while

making clear that U$ interventions have

been historically unprecedented in scope

and ferocity. (p. 57) By page 70, we see

that the authors accepted the Brezhnevite

premise that foreign aid to Soviet allies

was greater than the gains from

exploitation.

In MIM's opinion, Burbach and Tarbell

needed to develop such points more

deeply. They have misunderstood both

the Soviet and U$ crises. For the same

reason that the U$ empire does not pick

the social spending that produces the most

jobs, the Soviet empire's compulsion to

export capital did not necessarily take any

particular form suitable for any particular

short-term goals that Burbach and Tarbell

would accept as reasonable even for

capitalism.

When we argue about pre-socialist

systems where planning has yet to reach

full acceptance, we must break from

thinking that some bourgeois ultra-planner

at the top can fully control bourgeois

development or would seek to do so

toward definite ends other than business

competition narrowly construed. Such

bourgeois planners will in fact not even

be able to maximize the profit of the

system as a whole, both because they

have no theoretical system to be able to

do so and because the state itself is not

an even-handed representative of the

bourgeois class. Some parts of the

capitalist class have more influence on

the state than others and those sections

with more influence will use the state to

make more profit. The only given is that

the individual capitalist will seek to

succeed in business competition. There

is nothing saying that the winners of such

competition will succeed in making the

state undertake a course of action to

maximize profits for capitalism in all its

business branches as a whole.

The closest thing to an overall strategy

for the imperialists is appeasement of the

bond markets; yet, these bond markets

are notorious for their psychological

fragility. One may rightly suspect that

expanding the U$ military in order to

export less oil from Iraq than before is

not the kind of thing the bond market will

accept not only universally but

increasingly at the margin.

Even if Bush does con the public into

ever greater wasteful military spending

and thus pump up military-contractor

profits, it's far from clear that really boosts

overall profitability. The nature of the

bond market is one reason that Burbach

and Tarbell are right to point out the

strange situation where the United $tates

alienates the rest of the world and then

borrows from it to attack more countries.

Burbach and Tarbell say the financial

markets are not going to tolerate that

much longer.

In this sense, we are close to the

position of Burbach and Tarbell. Whether

they know it or not, the U$ imperialists

have already lost the game. It is U$

imperialism that has the most to lose in

the slow down in trade and business

caused by the "war on terrorism." Other

countries and political actors have long

ago built their strategies without depending

on freer trade. The United $tates benefits

most from easy border crossings and

greater peace. This gets lost in the

imperialist vision, because the imperialists

see booming military, security and prison

profits without grasping the overall

picture.

Militarism is war-mongering or the

advocacy of war or actual carrying out

of war or its preparations.

While true pacifists condemn all

violence as equally repugnant, we

Maoists do not consider self-defense

or the violence of oppressed nations

against imperialism to be militarism.

Militarism is mostly caused by

imperialism at this time. Imperialism is

the highest stage of capitalism--seen

in countries like the United $tates,

England and France.

Under capitalism, capitalists often

profit from war or its preparations.

Yet, it is the proletariat that does the

dying in the wars. The proletariat

wants a system in which people do not

have self-interest on the side of war-

profiteering or war for imperialism.

Militarism is one of the most

important reasons to overthrow

capitalism. It even infects oppressed

nations and causes them to fight each

other.

It is important not to let capitalists risk

our lives in their ideas about war and

peace or the environment. They have

already had two world wars admitted

by themselves in the last 100 years and

they are conducting a third right now

against the Third World.

Even a one percent annual chance of

nuclear war destruction caused by

capitalist aggressiveness or "greed" as

the people call it should not be tolerated

by the proletariat. After playing

Russian Roulette (in which the bullet

chamber is different each time and not

related at all to the one that came up in

previous spins) with 100 chambers and

one bullet, the chance of survival is

only 60.5% after 50 turns. In other

words, a seemingly small one percent

annual chance of world war means

eventual doom. After 100 years or turns

of Russian Roulette, the chances of

survival are only 36.6%. After 200

years, survival has only a 13.4%

chance.

What is militarism?

The unsustainability of Amerikan aggression

Review: Imperial Overstretch: George W. Bush & the Hubris of Empire

MIM Notes 307 · September 15-30, 2004 · Page 5

Average Monthly Combat Fatalities in

Afghanistan

1,024

2001

2002

2003

2004

Source: http://pubpages.unh.edu/~mwherold/

Afghan Civilian

U$ Military

Superficial, bourgeois internationalism in `Axis of Evil'

Review: Inventing the Axis of Evil: The Truth About North Korea, Iran, and Syria

Bruce Cumings, Ervand

Abrahamian, Moshe Ma'oz

The New Press (2004) 213 pp.

MIM can't recommend this book,

except as a quick substitute for reading

the last two years of the New York Times

or Foreign Affairs. It contains some

factual tidbits, many showing how the

United $tates fostered the very regimes

President Bush now calls "evil." But

these tidbits don't make up for the

authors' rather superficial analysis and

bourgeois-internationalist biases. For

example, readers interested in Korea

would well to skip Bruce Cumings' essay

and instead read MIM Notes' coverage

over the last two years; we cover the

same material, but better.(1)

Readers interested in the limitations of

the bourgeois internationalist opposition

to Bush and his neo-conservative coterie

might want to dwell on the Cumings essay,

however. Cumings falls into the "mistakes

were made" school of history, along with

former Secretary of defense and war

criminal Bob McNamara.(2) Both

Cumings and McNamara do a pretty

good job exposing Amerika's leading role

in some of the 20th century's worst

atrocities, especially the Korean and

Vietnamese wars. But both blame these

crimes on Amerikan leaders' mistaken

ideas, not the economic system of

imperialism.

Cumings thinks that if the Amerikan

government had only shown a little more

patience, it could have avoided the Korean

and Vietnam wars and other fiascos--

and still have come out on top of the

struggle against "communism." There

were good, socio-historical reasons

Koreans and other oppressed nations

adopted radical land reform and anti-

colonial programs, Cumings argues, and

this made them sympathetic to

communism. If, instead of waging overt

and covert anti-communist wars, the

Amerikans had been patient and

supported their just anti-feudal and anti-

colonial struggles, then these former

oppressed nations would eventually have

gotten over their radical phase and

embraced liberal capitalism.

Aside from overestimating the allure of

liberal capitalism--look at the decline in

life expectancies in Russia since the

collapse of the Soviet Union--Cumings

overestimates the imperialists' ability to

abstain from conquest. He approvingly

quotes former diplomat and architect of

the post-WWII "containment" doctrine

George Kennan:

"I considered that if and when we had

succeeded in persuading the Soviet

leadership that the continuation of [their]

expansionist policies... would be, in many

respects, to their disadvantage, then the

moment would have come for serious

talks with them about the future of

Europe. But when... this moment had

arrived--when we had made our point

with the Marshall plan, with ... the Berlin

blockade and other measures--when the

lesson I wanted to see us convey to

Moscow had been successfully conveyed,

then it was one of the greatest

disappointments of my life to discover that

neither our government nor our Western

European allies had any interest in

entering into such discussions at all. What

they and others wanted from Moscow,

with respect to the future of Europe, was

essentially `unconditional surrender.' They

were prepared to wait for it. And this was

the beginning of forty years of Cold

War."(3)

Kennan and Cumings fail to understand

that the cold war was an imperialist war.

On the one hand, the Amerikans (and

eventually the social-imperialist Soviets)

fought to preserve and expand their

colonial empire; on the other, oppressed

nations fought for liberation. The

Amerikans couldn't do anything but "kick

them while they were down." As Lenin

taught us in "Imperialism," the economic

pressures of monopoly capitalism drive

imperialist powers to divide and re-divide

the world; they cannot rest content with

their little piece of the world, they have

to try and take way their neighbor's

piece--or die.

This is the key point that people working

to eliminate war and colonial exploitation

have to understand: it's the economic

system of imperialism that drives nations

to war, not leaders' persynalities.

Measures that do not challenge this

underlying system--clever diplomacy or

well-meaning reforms--cannot prevent

war or end exploitation. In fact, the more

likely such "pragmatic" measures are to

change something fundamental the less

likely they will ever be adopted by the

powers-that-be--unless they are under

duress from more radical forces.

The Kennans, McNameras and

Cumings of the past 150 years have

shown us that it is impossible to reform

imperialism, no matter how clever one is.

If we want to keep the humyn race from

blowing itself up with its latest hyper-

deadly invention, we have to attack the

capitalist system, and fight for socialism,

which eliminates economic competition

among nations and makes true

cooperation possible.

Notes:

1. See e.g. MN253, MN261, MN262,

MN271, MN272, MN273, MN275,

MN276.

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

M I M / b o o k s t o r e / b o o k s / a s i a /

mcnamara.html.

3. Pp.45-46.

people that more Special Forces and

greater UN involvement in Amerika's

"war on terror" will bring peace. Given

the current mess in Afghanistan Kerry

and his supporters are either lying or

willfully ignorant.

Those in the ABB ("Anybody But

Bush") camp may be tactically correct:

to win the votes he needs outside of the

big coastal cities Kerry needs to show he

can "take care of business," militarily

speaking. But this is a case where sound

tactics lead to ultimate failure because

the overall goal was poorly chosen. The

ABB crowd may well find themselves

with a president who creates one, two,

three Afghanistans--assuming he can

find any allies, as many of the

governments that backed Amerika in

Afghanistan are waiting on the sidelines

to see how Amerika handles the current

crisis of its own making in Iraq.

In the year after Don Rumsfeld

declared major combat in Afghanistan

over on 31 May 2003 ("we clearly have

moved ... to a period of ... stabilization

and reconstruction activities") between

1,532 and 1,845 people have died from

military operations.(3) 386 of these were

civilians, compared to 343 from the

No end in sight to Amerika's `war on terror'

previous 18 months. (The initial bombing

campaign killed over 2,500 civilians.) The

civilian combat fatality rate more than

doubled in the first eight months of 2004

relative to 2003. U$ military fatalities are

also up slightly (see chart). Far from

slacking off, resistance to the Amerikan-

led occupation is picking up.

Kerry and his egghead advisors ignore

the basic facts. So do Bush, Cheney et

al. The "war on terror" is not a war

between Amerika and a few nihilist

lunatics who "hate freedom." It is

Amerika's futile attempt to put a lid on

the struggle of the oppressed, who, having

exhausted all other mean of struggle, have

taken up the one method Amerikans

understand: violence. The United $tates

long ago used up the good will of the

oppressed masses. The oppressed will not

listen to pretty words and empty promises

forever while the United $tates runs

roughshod over their rights and Amerikan

companies exploit them.

Only a serious program of reparations

for superexploitation, stolen resources,

and lives lost due to imperialist aggression

can begin to win back that good will and

pave the path to peace. But this program

cannot be implemented through capitalist

elections; the companies who profit from

Third World superexploitation and from

arms sales can buy media coverage and

elections. The system doesn't need a few

tweaks--it needs a complete overhaul.

Notes:

1. Associated Press, 29 Aug 2004.

2. CNN, 29 Aug 2004.

3. Numbers taken from Professor

Marc Herold's webpage http://

pubpages.unh.edu/~mwherold/. He

compiled them from published news

reports; as such they are incomplete but

the best we know of. Where no range is

given we use his lower estimate of the

number of deaths.

Continued from page 1...

MIM Notes 307 · September 15-30, 2004 · Page 6

and "Maoists" lose the battle to represent

the super-exploited by their failure to

concretely expose super-exploitation and

target the super-exploiting enemies.

Obvious sell-outs

The bourgeois press made it no secret

that after September 11 2001, the CIA

landed in Afghanistan with paper bags full

of money to buy off political leaders.(3)

This sort of thing has gone on throughout

the Mideast and even many of the most

stupid and reactionary pseudo-Marxists

ranging from Trotskyists to neo-

Hoxhaites have figured out that much

along with the fact that NGOs (non-

governmental organizations) are playing

a similar role throughout the Third World.

Along these lines the Iraqi "Communist

Party" volunteered to serve in George

Bush's occupation regime in Iraq. It's

important to understand that this goes

against not just "MIM Thought," but also

the universal teachings of Lenin, Stalin

and Mao. This is so obvious that it is

almost not worth mentioning.

Clandestine sell-outs

In addition to the obvious, in-daylight

sellouts in the Middle East, there are also

clandestine sell-outs. Like the Liberals in

the Iraqi CP and the CP=U$A that

supports it, there are many in the Middle

East and other places who have decided

that attacking "theocratic fascism" takes

higher priority than attacking U$

imperialist interests.

No doubt Russia and China have their

cynical geo-political interests involved in

enticing U$ imperialism into becoming the

world's two-fisted liberal against Islam.

Those thrilled with this idea should see

their new allies. One of those denouncing

"theocratic fascism" is Christopher

Hitchens. The other is the practically John

Birch society rag "Front Page

Magazine"(4) which has called for a

Congressional investigation of MIM.

Hitchens is hawking his credentials as a

journalist in favor of a war crimes trial

for Henry Kissinger et al. regarding

Vietnam while simultaneously talking up

G.W. Bush. Even worse, J. Sakai is calling

September 11 2001 the work of "Pan-

islamic fascism pressing home their

war."(5) Since none of these Liberals

ever claimed to buy into Lenin's theory

of imperialism as the highest stage of

capitalism dominated by finance capital,

we cannot say we are surprised. They

are all entitled to define fascism in

whatever useless way that they want.

The real problem comes when a similar

approach comes out of many

"communists" with a half-assed reading

of Dimitrov and Stalin, because Stalin

targeted the fascist imperialists "first"

during World War II. Many Third World

wannabe compradors with a Liberal

streak adopt Marxist-Leninist or even

Maoist camouflage while claiming to

target "theocratic fascism" "first." What

they did not read in the definition of

Bin Laden and the Concept of `Theocratic Fascism'

fascism used by Dimitrov and Stalin is

that fascism is a strategy of "finance-

capital." In other words, fascism stems

from imperialism, not some local tradition

of Islam or the like, which is really just

obtaining its strength from taking up the

nationalism of the oppressed nations.

There are no imperialist countries in the

Middle East except for I$rael. None have

reached the stage of having the banking

organization that coordinates global

business, so fascists in the Middle East

are only there as puppets of U$

imperialism.

The pseudo-anti-fascist struggle by

Third World Liberals is clandestine in two

aspects. First, Liberals are hiding in many

parts of the world inside communist

parties, because full-blown consistent

Western Liberalism has no chance, no

electoral popularity in many Third World,

Middle East and ex-Soviet bloc localities.

It's the opposite in the majority-exploiter

countries where liberalism is mainstream,

so that the accusation usually runs the

other way around--that communists

might be adopting liberal camouflage in

the majority-exploiter countries.

Secondly, the Third World Liberals are

clandestine in hiding their line of attacking

local reactionaries through alliance with

the government agencies of imperialism.

What these Liberals masquerading as

communists have done is hijack the

proletarian banner for a bourgeois-

democratic pipedream. They have no idea

why even for as large a country as China,

Mao said, socialism is the "only way out."

The clandestine Liberals hope no one

notices that they are working with

George W. Bush's state apparatus.

Between the open sell-outs like the

Iraqi "CP" and the clandestine sell-outs

who are really just two-fisted Liberals

seeking like-minded support in the United

$tates, "Marxism-Leninism" and even

Mao's image have been dimmed.

Confusion-spreading sell-outs

Another road to selling the struggle

short and making Osama Bin Laden look

like a giant is the "tail wags the dog thesis"

that I$rael calls the shots in Russia and

the United $tates--e.g. the line of the

Syrian "Communist Party." In reality, this

line reflects the political flabbiness of the

Middle Eastern bourgeoisie. Rather than

admit that the United $tates is the root of

national oppression in the Middle East,

the bourgeoisie attempts to pin everything

on I$rael with its handful of millions of

exploiters instead of the United $tates

with its over 200 million exploiters. The

absolutely shameful thing is that this goes

on among those calling themselves

"Marxist-Leninist" even as U$ troops

stand in Iraq.

Connected to this approach of

downsizing the enemy to be more

manageable is the line that "we are a

small country. We cannot take on U$

imperialism. I$rael is about all we can

handle!" The truth is this shows a lack of

global perspective, something even the

bourgeois internationalists such as Clinton

and Bush Sr. have more of than most of

the Arab bourgeoisie. Even nutcase

Donald Rumsfeld knows that he's

stretched thin globally so he has ordered

a third of the troops out of Korea. For

that matter, even Osama Bin Laden thinks

more globally than some of our spineless

"communists" and comprador

bourgeoisie. Osama Bin Laden organized

in several Arab and non-Arab countries.

So it is not true that a small country ever

has to worry about taking on all of U$

imperialism for starters. Iraq is showing

how to take on the bulk of the U$ armed

forces as we speak.

Politically subtle sell-outs

Should the oppressed of the Middle East

decide to bolt from all the sorry excuses

regarding an oppressive reality, there is

one last hurdle before getting on the road

to Marxist-Leninist-Maoist liberation. The

centrists stand at the door.

Although there is a MIM saying that

the imperialist countries owe huge

reparations and have populations of

hundreds of millions of exploiters, the

centrists say there are 10% or 50 or 60

million enemies in the imperialist

countries. They echo the CP=U$A on the

class structure almost precisely. The

centrists assuage the flabby Arab

bourgeoisie by telling them tall tales about

Amerikan workers about to flip over to

the Arab side any day, thereby justifying

the Arab bourgeoisie's focus on the Jews.

The centrists are also there dampening

the struggle for reparations, again

counseling that Arabs not offend

Amerikan workers too much. When it

comes to Western exploiters operating in

their countries, the centrists are there with

a bleeding heart for Amerikans they call

"exploited," in the oil, food transport and

military contractor businesses.

The centrists of the imperialist countries

combine with Third World leaders to

present a social-imperialist future, one

complete with aspiring social-imperialist

leaders and aspiring social-imperialist

compradors. Together they are arranging

a new neo-colonialist deal for the future,

because it is always easier to re-engineer

a deal for division of surplus-value than

to take down imperialism and all its

attendant exploitation.

All of this must be combated without

subtlety. 1) Westerners in the Middle East

are exploiters. MIM calls on them to read

the writing on the wall and leave. 2) A

demand for reparations must go forward

to bring out the global proletariat to target

the real source of its problems. 3) The

comrades in the West must do whatever

else they can to make sure that the

comrades in the Middle East do not find

themselves outflanked in representing the

super-exploited masses of the plundered

countries. Islam vs. Maoism

In reality, Islam has no record of

success relative to Maoism. That's both

in terms of kicking out oppressors and

speed of social progress. If we purge the

rot from our Marxist-Leninist-Maoist

movement and adhere to its universal

principles we will get back on course and

earn the proper enmity of the imperialists.

The Iranian theocrats denounce "Great

Satan," the United $tates all the time, but

these leaders were not able to stop the

Iran-Iraq war that bled oppressed and

exploited people for the benefit of U$

imperialism. Of course, Saddam Hussein

deserves much of the blame for that war

serving U$ imperialism. On the other

hand, the only principle that can unite the

Arab and Iranian people against U$

imperialism is a secular one, and the

Iranian side is more to blame in that

question. The religious sects unable to

build an alliance against U$ imperialism

because of their supposed religious

divisions (but in reality their subordinated

class positions) only prove that they are

in league with "Great Satan."

MIM is clear that fascism is the

dictatorship of the most reactionary, most

chauvinistic, and most imperialist

elements of finance capital. Finance

capital is a crucial part of this definition;

this means that it is impossible to have

fascism without imperialism. The

imperialists export fascism to many Third

World countries via puppet governments.

And imperialist countries can turn to

fascism themselves. But it is important

to note that there is no third choice for

independent fascism in the world: they

are either imperialist or imperialist-

puppets. Germany, Spain, Italy and Japan

had all reached the banking stage of

capitalism and had a real basis for thinking

they could take over colonies from the

British and French.

The vast majority of the world's fascist-

ruled countries have been U$ puppets.

None would survive without U$

backing--whether El Salvador or

apartheid South Africa. Today possible

exceptions would be Russia and China.

They could go fascist and claim to have

reached the finance-capital stage of

capitalism; although in China we would

probably see some debate the point by

saying that China is too dependent on the

United $tates to be counted as

independently social-fascist. Even white-

ruled South Africa was a candidate for

fascism but fell out.

The notion that Saddam Hussein or

Osama Bin Laden could go fascist misses

that they are both former U$ puppets.

Saddam Hussein proved to have no

independent imperialist basis. As far as

we know about Osama Bin Laden, he

also cannot operate banks globally in the

manner of imperialist finance-capital.

Today Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin

Laden are both independent. They may

have aspired to fascism, but they are in

fact not fascists, because they are neither

imperialists nor their stooges. Osama Bin

Laden and Saddam Hussein are simply

unscientific competitors on our turf.

Khruschev/Gorbachev appeal

to the West

Continued from page 1...

MIM Notes 307 · September 15-30, 2004 · Page 7

The battle against fascism globally has

two scientific components: 1) for the

leaders; 2) for the masses. The

communist scientific leaders must know

the root causes of economic development,

as specifically stemming from the labor

theory of value. Labor occurs along with

poverty thanks to exploitation. The same

can be said of entire countries. There is

no positive record of independent fascist

economic development.

The uninformed intellectuals of the

Soviet bloc in the 1980s reacted badly

against social-fascist Brezhnevism and

actually believed Gorbachev Liberalism

was going to bring economic progress.

The root error was a misunderstanding

of the political economy of economic

development. In the ex-Soviet bloc, China

and the whole developing world, we must

win the battle for the intellectuals on

questions of economic development.

They must understand that there is no tool

better than Marxism for understanding

economic development. Key to that

Marxist understanding is labor

appropriation and its connection to the

distribution of wealth in the world.

Genocide and slavery started it, and

super-profits sustain the great Amerikan

economic miracle. It is not the case that

"free markets" and "democracy" bring

prosperity. It is now 2004, 15 years after

the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the notion

that the ex-Soviet people were going to

leap into Bloomingdale's by taking up

free-market capitalism is achieving the

same skeptical embrace that intellectuals

gave Brezhnevism.

Among the masses, we must be even

more concrete than in the questions of

surplus-value, labor appropriation and

uneven economic development. Among

the masses of the ex-Soviet bloc, China

and the whole developing world, we must

unleash their enthusiasm for proletarian

internationalism by giving detailed

demands for reparations their due. This

must be done before revolution in order

to unleash the full revolutionary potential

of the exploited masses who will

otherwise fall for Amerikan consumer

propaganda.

The fascists excel often by copying

Leninism and adding nationalism. There

is no reason to let Marxism-Leninism-

Maoism take a backseat to fascism or

Islamic nationalism or any mystical

competitor in the oppressed nations or ex-

Soviet bloc. Many of these competitors

will crowd into our turf of standing up for

the oppressed nations, but none will have

Marx's insight into economic injustice. No

matter what "spiritual" tradition they are

from, they won't be able to recognize

economic injustice when they see it--not

compared with Marxism.

What is more: no imperialist country

fascist is going to back the demand for

reparations. This will give the

international communist movement a leg

up over fascism. So we MIM

communists say it again: we don't want

to hear about any Third World comrades

letting fascists or Islamic nationalists get

the upper hand in nationalist credentials!

Our Third World comrades can point to

us. The fascist comrades in imperialist

countries will make it evident what self-

defeating projects Hitler-type fascism and

Limonov-style national bolshevism are.

They have no real prospects of

cooperation.

In this battle for the hearts of the

exploited and oppressed, we must not

repeat errors that communists have

already made. Lenin broke with all the

parasitic European social-democracy

when he formed the Third International.

When Khruschev came to power, the

socialist bloc had unprecedented power.

It had only to stay united on the road of

Lenin and Stalin to keep moving forward.

Yet at that very moment of communism's

greatest political power, Khruschev chose

to orient himself toward the Western labor

aristocracies by abandoning the Third

World armed struggles. Information about

this continues to seep out into the public.

Khruschev's splittest activities very much

pleased much of the Liberal rot

accumulating in Western "communist"

parties. According to Gromyko--no

blazing Stalin supporter himself--

Khruschev gave birth to

"Eurocommunism"--the watered down

"communism" which a good chunk of the

labor aristocracy adhered to in Western

Europe.(6)

From Khruschev to Gorbachev and the

very end of the Soviet Union, each step

rightward came with the justification by

the Soviet Politburo that it would make

the European "communist" parties more

popular. Indeed, Gorbachev openly

courted U$ public opinion so successfully

that 74% of the U.S. public gave him the

highest possible rating during the coup(7)

that marked the turning point ending

Gorbachev's rule in 1991. (When Reagan

retired his approval rating was said to be

68%. It hit a high point of 73% after an

assassination attempt and during the latter

stages of his senility.(7)) The truth is that

abandoning Stalin and socialism was in

fact popular with the Western

"communist" parties and U$ public

opinion.

It's important not to repeat Khruschev's

history. Had Khruschev written off the

entire Western "working" class, the worst

that could have happened is that the West

would have threatened the Soviet Union

with nuclear annihilation--and had more

backing from the Western "workers"

than usual. Yet, the Soviet Union could

have handed back an amazing punishment

as well, a punishment that even our labor

aristocracy would understand. Instead of

catering to Yugoslavia and Western

European public opinion, Khruschev

should have taken advantage of his

military position to neutralize those while

turning up the heat by staying on Stalin's

road for the Third World. Chasing after

Western labor aristocracy popularity,

Khruschev broke with Mao, perhaps the

single greatest crime against the

international communist movement from

within.

Khruschev became known for his

speech at the 20th Congress of the

Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

The speech attacked Stalin and

consolidated Mao's proletarian

internationalist duty to break away from

the Soviet Union. Today, Gorbachev and

Yeltsin are called "children of the 20th

Congress;"(8) though there continue to

be those calling themselves "communist"

too dense, pig-headed or accustomed to

bribery to admit it or understand its

implications. When Gorbachev made his

final moves to destroy the Soviet Union,

he had the assistance of a right-hand man

accused of Trotskyism during the Stalin

era--Yegor Ligachev.(9) Only after it

was too late did Ligachev admit he was

wrong in supporting Gorbachev. Trotsky,

Khruschev and Gorbachev are connected

together in history for their condemnation

of Stalin and contributions to the

dissolution of the Soviet Union.

It is only fitting that Ligachev was there

for the demise, because it was grandpa

of labor aristocracy-based revisionism

Trotsky who had excoriated Stalin for not

making the Soviet Union more appealing

to the Western workers. From the days

of Trotsky's delaying negotiations with

Germany on peace in World War I

(despite Lenin's insistence contrary) till

his death, Trotsky always had an

unrealistic sense of how much Western

European workers could help the Soviet

Revolution. Here is what he said about

the treaty with the Germans: "It was

necessary to give the European workers

time to absorb properly the very fact of

the Soviet revolution, including its policy

of peace."(10) That's his explanation for

why he delayed making peace with the

Germans despite orders from Lenin.

Trotsky wanted to wait for the Western

workers as usual. That's exactly the

same substance of what Khruschev and

Gorbachev were to say later.

The CIA itself has noted that in the end

the Soviet leaders did manage to move

public opinion in the West: "Polls in

Europe showed that Gorbachev's

popularity exceeded that of any Western

leader of the 20th century. Time chose

him Man of the Decade, and he received

the Nobel Peace Prize for 1990--a token

of the West's gratitude for his helping to

end the Cold War. Critical assessments

in the media and the scholarly journals

were rare."(11) Bush Sr. had to answer

the following question: "Q. Mr. President,

despite your recent success at the NATO

summit, Mr. Gorbachev seems to enjoy

far greater popularity in Western Europe

than you do. Why do you think that is,

and what can you do about it?" Bush

answered, "You know something? I don't

really care about that. I'm not interested

in that. I am delighted that he enjoys

popularity in Europe."(12) Hence, it

cannot be questioned that the USSR had

effective tactics to change Western

public opinion, but their tactics added up

to a strategy of alliance with the labor

aristocracy of the imperialist countries,

so the entire goal of the struggle was lost.

It's a case where political line should have

said that the strategy is wrong and

therefore the tactics effective but still not

desirable for the international proletariat.

The tactics worked; the strategy was left

somewhat shrouded to those of cloudy

politics, but the line was impermissible.

That is evident to anyone who had hoped

the Soviet Union would go down the

socialist road. Khruschev and Gorbachev

did succeed in producing a big change in

Western exploiter opinion and the result

was state-capitalism followed by open

free market capitalism.

Now what we have is this: Gorbachev

won higher approval ratings from the

Amerikan public than Reagan did and

Osama Bin Laden has higher ratings in

the Third World than any Soviet leader

including Khruschev and after. What good

did that do? This whole result proves that

socialism does not win with pragmatism.

It's a profound lesson, that yes, tactically

it is possible to maneuver a formerly

socialist state into popularity with the

Western labor aristocracy; however, the

game is not worth the candle.

Notes:
1. http://www.iht.com/articles/98482.html
2. http://www.upi.com/

view.cfm?StoryID=20030618-060033-9862r

3. http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/

wp-dyn/A61461-

2002Nov15?language=printer

4. http://www.frontpagemag.com/

Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=2870 Hitchens

is all over the Internet with the phrase
"theocratic fascism," e.g., http://
www.thenation.com/

doc.mhtml?i=20020415&s=hitchens

5. http://www.kersplebedeb.com/mystuff/

books/fascism/shock.html6. "USTINOV: It's

not a secret that the westerners never loved
us. But Khrushchev gave them such
arguments, such material, that we have

been discredited for many years.
"GROMYKO: Basically thanks to him the
so-called `Eurocommunism' was

born."http://wwics.si.edu/
index.cfm?topic_id=1409&fuseaction=library.document&id=616

7. http://www.worldandischool.com/

public/1991/november/school-
resource19556.asp ;A discussion of
Reagan's ratings and how they became

dramatically better with the labor
aristocracy by bombing Libya is here: http:/
/abcnews.go.com/sections/politics/

DailyNews/poll_reagan010806.html
Gorbachev's approval ratings were higher
than Reagan's and Bush's, even moreso

then than in retrospect.

8. http://www.time.com/time/special/moy/

1987.html ;http://www.businessweek.com/

magazine/content/03_14/
b3827024_mz005.htm ;There are 26 Google
entries mentioning Gorbachev and his like

as "children of the 20th Congress" in which
Khruschev denounced Stalin.

9. Yegor Ligachev, Inside Gorbachev's

Kremlin: The Memoirs of Yegor Ligachev
(Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1990), p. 10.

10. Trotsky, My Life http://

www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/works/
1930-lif/ch32.htm

11. CIA, 1999, http://www.cia.gov/csi/

books/19335/art-1.html

12. Bush presidential library, http://

bushlibrary.tamu.edu/research/papers/1989/

89070601.html

MIM Notes 307 · September 15-30, 2004 · Page 8

Bourne Supremacy (2004)

Directed by Paul Greengrass

Starring Matt Damon

The action in this film far outweighs its

cerebral plot. Although the CIA comes

off as a combination of stupid, inept,

corrupt and evil people following orders

or working on the black market, I predict

few people will notice.

Politically, it seems that the plot could

do no wrong. "Bourne Supremacy" is

about the CIA's and FSB's (Russia's

CIA) assassination of a politician opposed

to the privatization of oil in Russia and

the subsequent corruption of governments

by oil tycoons established by the CIA.

Of course, the facts of real life are that

the CIA was involved in privatization of

assets in Russia and spawning of the

mafia there. The privatization was very

bloody, not to mention unjust and in fact

the bleeding of Russia has yet to stop. In

the movie, a former CIA assassin even

apologizes to the Russian daughter of two

of his victims, thus rightfully raising the

question as to what good ends the CIA

serves with all its secrecy.

The plot line is all very contemporary,

so contemporary that the lines are stolen

from reality. When Iraq weapons

inspector Scott Ritter tried to tell the

Congress that the planned Iraq war

regarding weapons of mass destruction

was a sham, Senator Biden of Delaware

told Ritter that he was making judgments

above his pay grade, but the Boston

Herald movie reviewer thought that

comment was the wittiness of the

"Bourne Supremacy" script writer.(1)

Leave it to the official newspaper of the

Boston labor aristocracy to find a put-

down by people of higher rank an

entertainment high point in a movie. No

wonder Trump is such a hit with his reality

TV series saying "you're fired."

There are good reasons and bad

reasons to criticize the "Bourne

Supremacy," so we will defend this movie

against those who seek to sell the public

on its action alone, such as one critic who

said, "Unfortunately, much like its

predecessor, Supremacy's only real

failing is its muddled and confusing plot

about CIA cover-ups, espionage, and a

Russian politician. I'm sure there's a

cohesive story somewhere in this mess

(which a rewrite would have clarified),

but it's not completely necessary to figure

out."(2) Quite the contrary, there should

be more films that try to show power

struggle as it is; even though, the public

may refuse to believe it or even engage it

thanks to a naive existence.

Whenever a movie portrays a

sophisticated power struggle, the public

and some critics say the plot is

"confusing" or even "muddled." Such

spectators don't want to think. They want

the movie to drive the spectator instead

of the other way around. All the better if

the chairs would raise the soft drinks and

popcorn into our mouths and maybe the

arm rests should rise to open our mouths

to await the food to begin with.

MIM's criticism of "Bourne

Supremacy" would be different. The plot

and actors are in no way to blame, but

The Day After Tomorrow (2004)

Directed by Roland Emmerich

We have to hand it to Hollywood this

time--a very good movie. They even

came up with a revolutionary solution that

MIM did not think of. If the joint

dictatorship of the oppressed nations over

imperialism (JDPON) does not come

about in time to stop global warming, it's

still possible that "what goes around

comes around."

As the closing words of the movie point

out, there are other ways to clean up the

atmosphere. Sorry, Kanada, Iceland,

England--those are the breaks. On the

bright side, the Emmerich solution

improves relations with Mexico. We have

secretly obtained some excised script

notes here that apparently did not make

it into the movie. The Vice President of

the United $tates came from a mega-

corporation, called "Hailabunchon" that

operates in oil and puts the squeeze on all

forward thinking on energy. While in

office, he steadfastly turns away all

scientific advice on the causes of global

Training for the brain

Bourne Supremacy overwhelms with action

the scripting of such intense action will

have the effect of glorifying the life of a

CIA assassin or covert operative. The

various dim bulbs will fail to see the

substance while seeking to join the CIA

out of some romantic and adventurist hope

for a thrill. In the end, if George Bush

can use Woodward's book Plan of Attack

to boost his campaign, then "Bourne

Supremacy" might as well be a recruiting

tool for the CIA.

For the rest of us with set careers apart

from the CIA, the film is just yet another

long scene of violence seemingly justified.

Instead of organizing a communist

movement to do away with secrecy and

oil motivations behind that secrecy,

Bourne takes on the main capitalist states

of the world by himself on behalf of his

sense of privacy and family. The novelty

in this film is that Bourne is so

aggressively violent that he has the

gumption to take the battle to the enemy

instead of waiting for legions of evil

assassins and cops to kill him. So in this

movie, Bourne happens to be completely

right, but we're sure the public will not

notice. Instead, he's just another example

that copy-cat serial killers will follow.

Notes:

1. http://theedge.bostonherald.com/

movieReviews/view.bg?articleid=410

2. http://filmcritic.com/misc/

e m p o r i u m . n s f / 0 /

058f5bcc90fb791388256ed8008010dd?OpenDocument

warming, because too many corporate

interests are at stake.

When the president goes soft and starts

giving government orders that affect the

corporations' business, Hailabunchon

cronies arrange to have him die and make

it look natural. Then the Vice President

comes to power. Hailabunchon also pays

off droves of scientists to cover up the

effects of fossil-fuel dependency.

Nonetheless, one heroic scientist working

with some other people deemed lesser

lights for making lesser money figured out

that global warming was going to melt

too much Antarctic ice.

Unfortunately, our discontented but not

discontented enough scientist and would-

be hero joined a phony communist party

working for the labor aristocracy. While

he was at demonstrations chanting for

higher welfare payments to the top richest

10% of people in the world and trying to

move his own salary from the top 5% to

the top 4% and getting "30 for 40" in the

United $tates, a proletarian party

organizing people hungry for change

languished without his support. At a

crucial rally of 1 million people, our would-

be hero led the people off track and the

JDPON had to delay coming to power,

when the weather started changing.

Our would-be hero was critical of

mega-corporations and the Vice-

President, but he channeled that into

petty-bourgeois channels instead of

realizing that the capitalist corruption of

truth-production, distribution and

implementation processes was more

important than the white-collar class's

economic demands. He knew somehow

that the question of the status of scientists

like himself was somehow at issue, but

he never studied Marxism-Leninism-

Maoism-MIM Thought. He had read a

lot of books to get his earth science Ph.D.

and now he was kind of tired of studying.

When the Vice-President came to

power, he made mea culpa for the

previous disasters, only because he had

invested in Mexican hotel chains first. The

process of corrupt truth production started

anew, from a base in Mexico when our

earth scientist finally joined MIM. Better

late than never.

As far as the movie acting and scenes

go, the point was to be overwhelming to

the point where one has to be a bit

cerebral. There's no hope in physical

resistance. Even the people on the margin

of survival do not have the scenes or

acting of say a "Poseidon Adventure."

The kid was either going to drown at the

payphone or not, and it was not going to

be glorious. We'd blame it on the actors,

but it was like that in all the scenes. The

nervous tension is not quite as high in this

film as some others, simply because

nature is too overwhelming in this film

and the director chose to do scenes and

acting that do not match up with some

other disaster flicks. All in all, though,

given the script, we think the choices are

justified. Maybe they saved a few bucks

too. Off hand, I can't think of a better

disaster film, to which people could say

that's not saying much, but really--it was

very good.

Disaster flick shows new solution to environmental problems

MIM Notes 307 · September 15-30, 2004 · Page 9

Collateral

Directed by Michael Mann (2004)

A contract killer hires a taxi for the night

to drive him to his hits in Los Angeles. In

the wrong place at the wrong time, the

cabbie looks for opportunities to escape,

but gets himself into even more trouble.

The killer's employer is a drug cartel with

a Mexican face.

This summer has seen a few movies

defending the overall integrity and

legitimacy of the law enforcement

agencies of the United $nakes in subtle

("The Bourne Supremacy", "The

Manchurian Candidate") and not so subtle

ways ("Spider-Man 2"). To the latter, we

may add "Collateral."

The drug cartel in "Collateral" is "an

offshore narcotrafficking cartel,"

according to the movie's website. In the

movie itself, little is said about the cartel.

From what we can tell, it seems to be

involved with heroin produced in

Southeast and Southwest Asia, and

cocaine and heroin produced in Latin

America. In the real world, these areas

are major sources of the cocaine and

heroin in the united $tates. Lieutenant

Colonel James "Bo" Gritz and University

of Wisconsin Professor Alfred McCoy

have each discussed the relationship

between the CIA and heroin distribution

in the united $tates, and the CIA's

involvement in cocaine distribution has

been well-reported.

Leaving the theater, one would think

that there was absolutely no relationship

between cocaine in Los Angeles, and the

U$ government. All we see in "Collateral"

is a jurisdiction conflict between the FBI

and the LAPD, and the typical remarks

about how the other organization is trying

to take credit for catching the bad guy

who is giving the morgue a lot of business.

This reviewer wishes that "Collateral"

would have gone with this idea further, to

expose the link between homicide and

capitalism. To the scriptwriter's credit, all

of the homicides depicted in the movie,

including the killings of the white men who

mug the cabbie Max (Jamie Foxx), are

clearly a consequence of private

property. But the movie gives us no way

out of this situation.

To justify his line of work, Vincent (Tom

Cruise) makes a comment about how,

some time ago, nobody noticed a corpse

on the MTA (metro rail) for six hours.

He also talks about how the media blows

the deaths of privileged people in the

United $tates out of proportion and forgets

about Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and Rwanda.

He criticizes Max for not getting as upset

about these things. Vincent's remarks are

more cynical than anything else.

Certainly, by spending his own time

serving drug capitalists, Vincent is doing

nothing about these massive deaths.

What's wrong with "Collateral" is not that

it depicts Colombian or Mexican big drug

capitalists as being Vincent's employer,

or that Vincent's killing of a Korean

witness is almost the climax of the movie,

but that the movie distorts the U$

government's involvement in the

distribution of Colombian cocaine in Los

Angeles. Not for nothing is the CIA called

the "Cocaine Importing Agency"(1). At

the same time, "Collateral" whips up

support for the incarceration of oppressed

nationalities. "Kalifornia's Three Strikes

law and federal sentencing guidelines for

cocaine disproportionately target Blacks

and Latinos. The high incarceration rates

for petty so-called crimes and the courts'

complicity with police who harass and

arrest people from oppressed communities

on trumped up charges show that the

Amerikan injustice system is not about

stopping crime; rather, it is about social

control. Meanwhile the biggest

criminals--the cops themselves and

politicians and militarists like the coke-

importing CIA--these criminals go

unpunished."(2) "Collateral" offers no

alternative to the Amerikan injustice

system.

Even the atmosphere of "Collateral" is

pessimistic. The movie's almost exclusive

use of nighttime urban party and urban

street scenes, and lonely subway cars,

set in Amerikkka is typically

"postmodern" in feel and politically

discouraging. Max's potential intimate

relationship with the Department of

Justice lawyer, Annie (Jada Pinkett

Smith), seems a welcome respite.

Why would Max want to seek refuge

in romance culture? Economically

speaking, this is not clear. Max has

continuously been a taxi driver for twelve

years, and as Vincent points out, Max

could have made a down payment on a

luxury car to start the limousine business

that he often talks about. Vincent criticizes

Max for not having more ambition. Max

is petty-bourgeois, and on speaking terms

with moneyed white people. In the

hospital room scene with Max's mother,

it is made painfully obvious that Max

aspires to be "more" than a taxi driver.

(Max had been telling his mother that he

was already a limo driver.) But he also

has the means to do so, in the long run if

not the short.

When "Collateral" makes a point of

emphasizing Max's economic situation,

we have to be clear on some things here.

Not only is Max not exploited (MIM has

already explained in Notes and Theory

how incomes at or above the U$ legal

minimum wage typically do not represent

exploitation), Max is a net beneficiary of

imperialism with superprofits shifting his

income upward. One has only to drive a

few hours south of L.A. to see taxi drivers

in Tijuana who get one-fifth or less of

Max's annual income(3). Tijuana cabbies

do not have Max's luxury to give free

rides to anyone. Jamie Foxx says that he

"really drew upon from the black

experience"(4) in his performance as

Max, who is supposedly adverse to calling

on the police. This is bullshit. Although

his fear is understandable, Max does try

to use the police more than a couple of

times. Also, he ends up in the arms of

Department of Justice prosecutor Annie,

who is Black. Undercover LAPD officer

Fanning appears to be friendly to Max.

The clear message is that the blue uniform

is Max's friend. Finally, Vincent is

depicted as being a cold-blooded killer.

But this does not stop the movie from

"humanizing" him, and we have to ask

ourselves, to what purpose? This is more

of that amorality that is typical of

postmodernists and which makes it

difficult to talk about who is oppressed,

and who is oppressive, in the world.

As if to recognize the limitations of the

postmodern approach, "Collateral" tries

to provide a specific objective basis for

the violence it depicts. Vincent suggests

that he suffered physical abuse as a child,

which, leaving aside the empirical validity

of this cycle-of-crime theory, ignores the

fact that most of today's crimes would

be impossible in a classless society without

patriarchy.

Notes:

1. "Who profits from the drug trade?,"

MIM Notes 55, http://www.etext.org/

Politics/MIM/mn/mn.php?issue=055 ;

"Cocaine Importing Agency," http://

www.csun.edu/CommunicationStudies/

ben/news/cia/ ; "CIA Hawking Heroin in

Baghdad?," http://www.diggers.org/

freecitynews/_disc1/00000070.htm

2. "West coast RAIL rallies opposition

to imperialism," MIM Notes 161, http://

www.prisoncensorship.info/archive/etext/mn/

mn.php?issue=161 4. "Angry Tijuana

cabbies push past police, tell grievances

to mayor," http://lists.village.virginia.edu/

cgi-bin/spoons/archive_msg.pl?file=aut-

op-sy.archive/aut-op-sy_1997/aut-op-

sy.9708&msgnum=87&start=10749&end=10862

3. "The Thrill of It All: Tom Cruise and

Jamie Foxx on making Collateral," http://

w w w . f r e e t i m e s . c o m /

modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=1817

4. "By 1970, Huey Newton and

Eldridge Cleaver were both putting

forward something a little different than

what would be found in standard Maoist

circles. Influenced by Fanon, they took

up Lenin and wrote off the economic

demands of the middle-classes as

imperialist parasitism. Then they said what

was left was the lumpenproletariat. This

represented the correct recognition that

salary and wage-receiving people within

U$ borders are labor-aristocracy or

higher, unless they are undocumented."

"On the internal class structures of the

internal semi-colonies," http://

www.prisoncensorship.info/archive/etext/contemp/

internalclass3.htm

HARRY POTTER

TAKES ON (NOT

SO) OBVIOUS

FASCISM

"Harry Potter and the Prisoner of

Azkaban" (2004)

Directed by Alfonso Cuarón

While "Shrek 2" set the record for

reaching $300 million in sales by doing it

in 18 days, "Harry Potter: The Prisoner

of Azkaban" hit the market and also did

well. As we said about the previous Harry

Potter movie "The Chamber of Secrets,"

"The Prisoner of Azkaban" deserves a

neutral to somewhat positive rating.

"Prisoner" is almost the best we can

expect from bourgeois liberalism's films

for children. It's pointedly anti-fascist--

giving the boot to eugenics in the opening

scene, where Aunt Marge talks about the

parents of Harry Potter in a disparaging

way as reflecting on Harry.

Many critics said this was the best of

the three Potter films, probably because

it has the most adult depth--by which I

am totally excluding sex. Australians

heard that children under 15 should not

see the film. That seems a bit excessive

to us. 13 should definitely be OK.

There continue to be lots of curios and

special effects. As we said before in the

"Chamber of Secrets" review, the fantasy

element--including going back in time--

is heavy. This can lead to escapism, but

there is recognizable struggle that offsets

the losses, so let it not be said that MIM

opposes all fantasy.

The state is still unable to eradicate

crime despite all the wizards running

about and it errs by putting in prison Sirius

Black, framed by someone who later

changed himself into a rat. Bourgeois

democracy is not developed yet, because

Sirius Black does not have a trial before

being sent off to prison. The propaganda

machine goes into overdrive to demonize

a totally innocent man and he nearly dies

for it.

The guards in charge of Sirius Black

are "Dementos" who suck the life out of

people, but Sirius Black builds his

fearsome reputation by getting by them

all. Dementos lower the quality of life of

everyone in the kingdom. They have one-

track minds to pursue their quarry and

they are not able to distinguish the

innocent from their quarry. Their presence

even damages business at bars. Thus, the

script-writer is a shrewd persyn aware

of the prison mentality's effect on the

whole society. We would only add that in

real life Dementos would have unions, and

those unions would make sure that more

prisons get built, guards hired and secrecy

built in connection to any abuses by prison

guards, most recently including two prison

guards who went to Iraq and continued

their profession at Abu Ghraib.

Note: http://www.reuters.com/

newsArticle.jhtml?type=entertainmentNews&storyID=5366303

Collateral obscures U$ role in Colombian cocaine

MIM Notes 307 · September 15-30, 2004 · 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

California DOC

Budget Crisis

We are currently keeping tabs on the

ongoing propaganda campaign being
espoused by the Department of Corruption.
A fellow convict who receives the local

newspaper sent around an article where the
chapter president of the guards union claims
the state system is only over-budget because

we receive "name brand medications" and
"elective surgery." (Although the operations
manual and title both securely state that no

prisoner can or will receive any form of
"elective surgery.") I suppose they're hoping
that blatant lies will help keep their pockets

lined with pay-raises and other incentives.

-- A California Prisoner, May 2004

Fighting back

behind the bars

I just wanted to say thank you for sending

your newsletter to me. I let everyone read it,
and a lot of them are feeling what you're

saying. I just ask that you continue to send
me your newsletter because me and everyone
else here is in ad-seg waiting to go to a SHU

program. We will be here longer because we
held our food trays, and demonstrated in here
about the conditions (no yard, clippers, books

to read, etc.) Don't forget: while you're
demonstrating out there, a few of us are still
doing it in here. Thank you!

-- a California prisoner at HDSP, July 2004

Criminal medical

neglect in California

At Corcoran State prison we don't have a

24 hour medical service. Just last month a
dialysis inmate died. It was during first watch
between 10:30pm and 6:00 am. Dialysis inmates

go to the hospital on the streets three times a
week: Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, to
get their blood treated to clean out poison

from their body. Dialysis inmates also get a
special meal because they can't eat what the
general population eats.

The dialysis inmate asked the floor officer

to go to med-line because he was feeling dizzy.
The officer wasn't familiar with dialysis (that's

common in prison) and told him to wait until
tomorrow because the medical treatment
assistant wouldn't see him that late. The time

was 9:45pm, 15 minutes until first watch, and
the officer was tired and ready to go home.
But that doesn't give that officer the right to

deny any inmate his or her medical treatment.
A couple of hours later they finally sent him
to the med-line but there were no doctors there

to treat the dialysis inmate so he died. Had
somebody with knowledge of dialysis
patients he would be alive today because all

he needed was blood treatment because he
didn't go to dialysis that Friday and it was
Sunday.

-- a California prisoner at Corcoran, June

2004

We are all "Riders of

the storm!"

To my bro. KStorm! Indiana bro., my black

nationals, Chicano nationals, Taino warriors,
my Red brothers of the first nations. To all

those in cliques who are waking up!!! We are
all "Riders of the Storm." We are "kinetic

energy." I am proud to see many of you waking

up and I encourage you to spread the word
about MIM.

I was cut off for a minute from getting MIM

Notes. But the pen is like a sword, I pulled it
out and cha-ching! Now I'm back doing my
thing, spreadin the light like a Sun of Light.

Dig this, Under Lock & Key is a blessing, so
I encourage you all to help MIM not only by
writing, but also having your people get the

paper and distribute it. Leave it in convenient
spots where it will get read.

There was a time when I thought as a child.

Then I began to think like a King. But after
studying with MIM, I've begun to think of
bigger things, global things: the masses and

internationalism. I no longer see brothas as
Crips, bloods, Eme, Netas, etc. I see them now
as oppressed nationals. Some are asleep, few

are awake. Many of you reading this come
from one of those backgrounds or another.
You are a revolutionary Sun of Light and it is

your duty to learn from MIM and take it back
to your peers. Some will accept it, many won't.

On Feb. 1 Storm mentioned about the

disunity, about all the things the Attica bros.
died for that are now being taken away. I want
to remind you all, the struggle is full of twists

and turns. But it's a trail going up the
mountain. Steadily up, at times we'll lose some
ground. The object is: fall four times, get up

five. Maoists are only defeated once they stop
their strenuous efforts toward any goal.
Failure is not an option. Revolution is a

process, not a single act. You are proof that
everything can be taken from a man, but one
thing: the last of human freedoms, to choose

one's attitude in any given set of
circumstances, to choose one's own way ...
the Maoist way!

I'm proud to see brothers growing. Take

what you learn back to your peers. This is a
function of our "USW program." United

Struggle from Within. Sure, many are divided
and some of your own may even lash out at
you, inadvertently helping the beast, when

you try to educate them. They do so out of
ignorance because the most violent element
in society is ignorance. I speak from

experience. We are all Storm.

Remember: none of us who sacrifices to

help our people (even from their own

ignorance) can expect to come out of the
struggle unscathed. Na mean? We attempt to
educate our people, and like Mao admonished

make the people do self-criticism and in the
process conjure up the most evil of those
half-tamed demons that inhabit the human

beast and seeks to wrestle with them.

But like Marx has proven to us, we don't

have nothing to lose but our chains. Me

personally, I ain't gonna fret about what them
righteous bros. in Attica died for that we are
now "losing." Sure, it was positive gains,

momentary gains. That is the moribund nature
of imperialism. Pacify the masses for a while,
give them a few treats then, when they forget,

take it back and much more. No! For all I care,
they could take it all. It's all cosmetic, them li'l
gains. What the Blaze in my heart yearns for

is Real Change, a change where we tear the
mothafucka down and erect a revolutionary
system once and for all. And this change will

come when we all ARISE, Active Resistance

In Social Enslavement.

A solidarity Red Salute to all my comrades

in the USW (I'm proud of youStorm),

--a Federal prisoner in Kansas, 12 May

2004

Washington state

censors MIM

Washington State Department of

Corrections has censored incoming mail of
MIM Theory on Prisons at Clallam Bay

Corrections Center at Clallam Bay
Washington State. All persons who are
interested in protesting this mail rejection

notice, the file number is 0804159 dated on
August 12, 2004. Whoever is interested and
still are able to read any of MIM literature

might want to read Thornburgh v. Abbott,
490 U.S. 401 at page 414-19 or in the Supreme
Court reports at 109 S.Ct. 1874, 1881-82 which

somewhat explains "Incoming Mail"
standards. Also thought about reading
Prisoners Self Help Litigation manual that has

cases cited to find out how the imperialist
U.S. so-called reasons in their unreasonable
decisions.

Send protest letters to:
Sandra Carter, Superintendent
Department of Corrections

Clallam Bay Corrections
1830 Eagle Crest Way
Clallam Bay, WA 98326

You can request the DOC Policy Directive

450.100 (mail policy) under the public

disclosure request pursuant to RCW 42.17
on WAC 137-08.

Refusal of MIM Theory on Prisons, their

claim is that the incoming mail violates mail
rule #13 which states: "Mail that advocates
that any ethnic, racial, or religious group is

inferior for any reason and makes such group
the object of ridicule and scorn, and may
reasonably be thought to precipitate a violent

confrontation between the recipient and a
member(s) of the target group."

The comments section of the mail rejection

slip states "give a brief but specific description
of reasons for rejection. List titles, dates, issue
numbers, etc." In this section the mailroom

staff just wrote "13. MIM Theory Number 11,
1996"

Clearly the prison has no valid legal

justification for this censorship. Please send
protest letters to help fight this violation of
freedom of speech.

--a WA prisoner, August 15, 2004

Abu Ghraib is typical

For the millions of people across the united

states and throughout the world who have
found the torture chambers of Abu Ghraib
prison in Iraq and outrage should be equally

outraged that these same practices of torture
are being carried out right here in the united
states.

No! Abu Ghraib prison is not an isolated

incident committed by a few sick minded
individuals as your government and its media

mouthpieces would have you believe, but is

a common practice employed by your

government and its middle class reactionary
forces.

Yes! There are numerous Abu Ghraib

prisons across the united states that are
overflowing with an extremely high number
of oppressed nationals, mostly Latinos and

Blacks. These torture chambers are called
SHUs and other similar names, the prisons
within prisons that the Department of

Corrections and politicians avoid
acknowledging. These SHUs are just one of
the many repressive appendages built into

an inherently corrupt capitalist system, that
results in the social inequalities where crime
develops, that the Department of Corrections

and politicians would rather you not know
about. And on those rare occasions that the
mainstream media mouthpieces do inform you

about the SHU facilities, you're fed half truths
and lies which are manipulated to further the
political and financial agendas of politicians

and correctional officers seeking higher

MIM Notes 307 · September 15-30, 2004 · 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.

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?

salaries and reelections.

I want you to imagine, you or one of your

loved ones, being left stripped naked in a cold
cell for days at a time as a so-called form of
disciplining or "softening up" as they do, not

only in Abu Ghraib, but in SHU facilities
across the united states. I want you to imagine
yourself being pepper sprayed and beaten

by 15 club wielding guards armed to the teeth.
Imagine your loved one being forced to
endure the exposure to extreme cold weather,

out and inside your cell, making it nearly
impossible to sleep, or the confinement to
100 degree plus temperatures in cells with no

ventilation. Imagine your physical health
being compromised, being fed below the u.s.
government's requirements that's necessary

to sustain a healthy body, all in order to divert
money so your anatagonizers can continue
collecting highly paid overtime hours.

I want you to imagine what it's like being

confined to a windowless single man cell
where the lights never go off for 23 hours a

day, sometimes 47 hours, with an occasional
hour alone in a so-called exercise module that
amounts to being placed in the bottom of a

dim mine shaft. And aside from the physical
deterioration that inevitably ensues, imagine
the slow mental deterioration of your loved

ones mind at it slowly loses its grip on reality
as a result of the years of extreme isolation of
all human contact and the sensory

deprivation. Imagine sick minded guards
setting up your loved ones to fist fight with
one another as a form of gambling only to

shoot them down and kill them in cold blood.
Although equally atrocious and intolerable,
this is not only Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq,

these are also the numerous SHU facilities
within the belly of the beast, right here in the
United States.

In Iraq, a prisoner was beaten to death by

u.s. soldiers who then attempted to hide their
murderous deed by sneaking the prisoner's

corpse out of the prison. This attempt by u.s.
mercenary soldiers to cover up their
murderous deeds is all too familiar to many of

us who are confined within our own Abu
Ghraib prisons here in the united states where
Corcoran SHU guards shot and killed

numerous prisoners in California for
"entertainment" and then also attempted to
cover the tracks of their murderous deeds

until one of their own, as in Iraq, blew the
whistle on them. And in Iraq have no illusions,
just as in Corcoran, the reactionary middle

class never convicts its own. And it should
come as no surprise to many of us ot learn
that two of the seven soldiers charged with

the torture of Abu Ghraib prisoners in Iraq,
one of whom poses so proudly in the now
world infamous photographs, first learned

their tactics as correctional officers here in
the united states. The photographs of the
atrocities being committed against Iraqi

prisoners in Abu Ghraib prison could easily

be the photographs of conditions inside a
SHU facility here in the united states.

The states fascist policy of confinement of

oppressed nations within u.s. borders has
been employed under one guise or another

for years. The Department of Corruptions
knowingly uses falsified and fabricated
evidence it not only manufactures itself, but

also obtains from unreliable prisoners who
themselves are seeking to avoid the harsh
conditions of SHU confinement. This falsified

evidence is uncorroborative and
unchallengable by the accused prisoners.
These prisoners are dragged before kangaroo

courts established by the Department of
Corruptions and are falsely labeled prison
gang members, associates, and security

threats to the prison institution which results
in lifetime confinement within these torture
chambers offering no way out except parole

or death. The dept of corrections and
politicians would have you believe that the
control units house the worst of the worst,

but many of these prisoners have no history
of institutional violence. Even after years of
discipline free behavior and no links to prison

gangs, prisoners are still denied adequate
legal relief and release to general population.
These Department of Correction tribunals are

mirror images of the tribunals staged by the
u.s. military.

The practices of Guantanamo Bay where

prisoners are being held indeterminately with
no due process rights, no rights to confront
their accuser, or adequate access to legal relief,

is nothing new to the Department of
Corrections or to the thousands of prisoners
who have been confined illegally to the

control units across the united states.

Those of you who are outraged by the

atrocities and human rights violations of Abu

Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay, should not only
be equally outraged by these same atrocities
and human rights violations that even the

imperialist U.N. condemns that are being
committed here in the united states, but need
to join the struggle with the prisoners of the

control units and MIM in a fight to abolish
this fascist form of oppression. The
Department of Corrections, politicians, u.s.

government and its reactionary supporters
can no longer stifle our voices and sweep us
under the rug like dirt that the public

shouldn't know about. The time has come
and is long over due. We will materialize our
voices and make them be heard. Join the fight

to shut down the control units.

--a California prisoner at Pelican Bay, July

2004

Lockdown in

California

On June 1, 2004, Salinas Valley State Prison

in California was locked down due to an
alleged assault on a correctional officer. The
prison administration always overreacts to

these types of incidents in their retaliation
against all prisoners and this includes
retaliation against prisoners on different

yards than where alleged incident took place.

In contract to this, the prison administration

at Salinas Valley State Prison constantly

covers up humyn rights violations at this
prison. Staff members assault prisoners;
which is usually covered up by placing that

prisoner in administrative segregation and
charging the prisoner with assault on staff.
The medical care at this prison is very

inadequate and has even led to prisoners'
deaths. Prisoners can be placed in holding
cages for up to eight to sixteen hours as a

form of staff retaliation for as little as prisoner
speaking his mind back to correctional
officers. (Holding cages are three feet square

by six and a half feet tall cages). There are
numerous other types of abusive treatments
that is sanctioned by this prison

administration.

This alleged incident did not take place on

my yard, so I can not comment on that

incident. But, I have personally observed an
incident, where the correctional officer
provoked a prisoner and before the prisoner

did anything the c/o sprayed the prisoner
with a large canister of pepper spray. There
have been numerous other staff assaults on

prisoners on this yard, but most of these
assaults happen behind close doors with the
prisoner being handcuffed. When a

psychologist witnessed one of these assaults
and she filed a formal complaint against those
officers; that psychologist was pressured into

withdrawing the complaint a week later. Later,
the psychologist was transferred to another
prison. The prison administration at Salinas

Valley State Prison sanctions these types of
abuse by covering up these incidents and
refusing to investigate corruption by its staff.

Recently California's correctional officers

union has been advertising on television that
nine assaults happen a day throughout

California's prison system and that California
Department of Corrections needs more money
to staff prisons. This advertisement is in

response to Governor Schwarzenegger being
the first governor in over twenty-five years
that was forced to make budget cuts to CDC

due to California having severe financial
difficulties. So, if this prisoner is skeptical that
this most recent incident is more about money,

it is probably for a good reason.

-- a California prisoner, June 2004

MIM Notes 307 · September 15-30, 2004 · Page 12

Notas Rojas

sep 15-30 2004, Nº 307 Fragmento del Periodico Oficial del Movimiento Internacionalista Maoista Gratis

Traducido por Células de Estudio

para la Liberación de Aztlán y América

Latina

El MIM aprovecha la oportunidad para

publicar la entrevista con Pablo Pueblo,

uno de los líderes del Partido Noble Young

Lords (NYLP). Llevamos muchos años

colaborado con los fundadores de esta

organización y conocemos la solidez de

la teoría y práctica revolucionarias detrás

de su trabajo. La formación del NYLP

es un paso hacia adelante para el

movimiento revolucionario dentro de las

fronteras estadounidenses, y una

culminación de años de duro trabajo y

lucha por parte de Pablo Pueblo y otros

líderes. Consideramos al NYLP una

organización fraterna que respalda la

revolución cultural en China, que se opone

al revisionismo postestalinista y que

reconoce correctamente el hecho de que

la mayoría de trabajadores

euroamericanos constituyen una pequeña

burguesía objetivamente no aliada con la

revolución proletaria. En la actualidad,

el MIM es un partido multinacional. Sin

embargo, el MIM reconoce el hecho de

que durante ciertas épocas las fuerzas

vanguardistas de nacionalidades

oprimidas tienen la necesidad de partidos

vanguardistas compuestos por gente de

sus propias naciones. El MIM reconoce

su derecho a formar partidos separados

como parte de la lucha de las naciones

oprimidas por su autodeterminación. En

nuestra opinión, la validez de movimientos

compuestos por una sola nación ha sido

comprobada a lo largo de la historia

comunista.

Watching Bear: A muchos de nosotros

nos agarraste por sorpresa. Como líder

de la Organización Nacional Lumpen

(National Lumpen Organization), una de

las organizaciones más grandes en

EE.UU., has ejercido mucha influencia.

¿Después de 20 años de tu participación

te vas para fundar el NYLP/LNNA

(NYLP en breve)?

Pablo Pueblo: ¿A ver, como te has

enterado de estos detalles?

WB: Investigando.

PP: Mm... (una sonrisa sospechosa),

no es ningún secreto. En cuanto a la

influencia, todo depende de la gente que

te apoye o se te oponga en un momento

determinado, y ese no es el juego en el

que quiero involucrarme. He tardado

bastante tiempo en madurar políticamente

pero cuando lo conseguí, sentí que lo que

hacía falta en EE. UU. era una

organización latina de vanguardia, una

organización firmemente guiada por una

línea política- la ÚNICA manera de

representar la lucha del tercer mundo.

WB: ¿Firmemente guiada por una línea

política?

PP: Sí, a lo que me refiero es que una

organización que pretende representar a

un pueblo tiene que establecer una

CLARA línea de identidad. ¿Hay que

ACTUAR y REACCIONAR como una

pandilla, un sindicato criminal, un club

social, una organización social progresista,

o como un partido de vanguardia? He

llevado una vida de pandillero y he estado

involucrado con organizaciones sociales

progresistas--no me satisface ninguna de

estas dos opciones. La primera opción

es una rebelión sin dirección, un veneno

para mi pueblo. La segunda no resulta

suficiente para una autodeterminación

nacional. Lo que tiene en mente el NYLP

es acelerar el proceso para que otras

organizaciones que pretenden representar

a los oprimidos y a los países del tercer

mundo, o bien aceleren su práctica

revolucionaria, o bien terminen

repudiados debido a su representación

errónea. Nosotros tenemos una línea

política: el Marxismo. Optamos por

eliminar el partido original Young Lords

(YLP) que operaba desde Harlem,

Brooklyn, Bronx, Nueva York y

Bridgeport, Connecticut. Aunque hay que

felicitar a la Organización Young Lords

que operó desde Chicago, IL, pues

engendró la actividad política de los Young

Lords. Sentimos que el desmoronamiento

de los Young Lords originales fue

prematuro y que hacía falta resucitar un

partido más avanzado basado en líneas

semejantes. Para nosotros, el adherirse

a una línea política equivale a una

supremacía de principios socialistas.

WB: ¿Entonces el NYLP es socialista?

PP: Sin duda.

WB: ¿Y Uds. piensan que es un

proyecto realista?

PP: Sin duda alguna, millones de

personas de naciones latinas están

buscando un cambio revolucionario.

Nosotros intentamos hacer todo lo posible

para acelerar este cambio.

WB: En cuanto al desarrollo de su

organización, ¿cuánto ha evolucionado el

NYLP desde el tiempo de su concepción?

PP: Bueno, pongámoslo de esta

manera: el nombre "Young Lords" tiene

una larga historia. Al principio hubo una

pandilla. Durante los años 60, los Young

Lords pasaron por una madurez política

y empezaron a comprender y actuar en

contra del opresor a favor de los intereses

de los oprimidos. En este sentido, Cha-

Cha Jiménez encabezó el movimiento de

Chicago. En Nueva York, el partido

Young Lords entendió que el socialismo

era la clave para la libertad social y

económica, para poder deshacerse de la

superexplotación de entidades

gubernamentales y corporativas. Y a

pesar de que el partido tomó un camino

correcto, permitió que surgieran

innecesarios puntos de ruptura que

obstaculizaron el avance de su conciencia

política. Claro está, los programas de

contrainsurgencia de los marranos del

FBI desempeñaron un papel fundamental

en su desestabilización, pero aparte de

eso, faltó un análisis completo pertinente

al método dialéctico. Es por eso que las

cuestiones nacionalista y feminista iban

resultando cada vez más difíciles de

reconciliar. Uno de los errores principales

fue el aplicar el nombre de proletariado

obrero a la fuerza laboral estadounidense.

El NYLP ha sobrepasado las teorías del

YLP al reconocer que en EE. UU. no

hay o casi no hay proletariado, y que una

lucha contra la patriarquía se lleva acabo

mejor si se lucha contra el enemigo

número uno que es el imperialismo. Sin

embargo, no habríamos podido llegar a

este punto sin el legado de los Young

Lords. En cuanto a la estructura, nos va

bien, aunque nos hacen falta elementos

cruciales como líderes con mucha

experiencia, fondos monetarios y

recursos. Tenemos un buen liderazgo

pero necesitamos más gente. Tenemos

dos puestos vacantes en el Comité Central

Nacional (CCN)- el de Ministra Nacional

de Relaciones Femeninas y el de Ministro

Nacional de Información.

WB: Al leer el Manual Compendio

Político del NYLP (MCP)- retomaré este

punto más adelante- noté un fuerte

énfasis en la importancia de la lucha

femenina.

PP: Sí, es una declaración del derecho

de las mujeres a la igualdad e

independencia que las libere de la opresión

económica, social y militar (es decir, la

patriarquía). Empezamos por cambios

ortográficos para abolir el sexismo

lingüístico cuando sea posible [se alude a

la sustitución de la ortografía inglesa

tradicional de la palabra "mujer"-

"womyn" en singular o "wimmin" en

plural- por "woman"y "women",

respectivamente. Se pretende cambiar

la raíz "man/men" "hombre/s" -

SLALA].

WB: Hice un poco de investigación y

encontré varios manifiestos, estatutos, y

manuales de reglamentos en Internet que

tenían cierta semejanza con el MCP. Sin

embargo, hasta en los mejores

documentos (específicamente el

manifiesto de la Latin Kings Nation y un

semejante estatuto de la costa del Este),

se nota un sentido de objetivación que

relega a las mujeres a una posición

secundaria en sus respectivas

organizaciones. Se las glorifica o "se las

protege". Esta línea de pensamiento es

bastante popular entre organizaciones

"lumpen" como la de Uds. Sin embargo,

el NYLP tiene una visión más avanzada

con respecto a las mujeres aunque no sea

nueva. ¿Porqué esto no se daba antes

en la arena "lumpen" y cómo ha podido

el NYLP superar esta línea de

pensamiento retrógrada?

PP: Mier*@, Bear, me quedé dormido,

¿podrías repetir la pregunta?

WB: Conmigo no puedes quedarte

dormido. Soy más rápido que un cuervo

(sonríe).

PP: No mames, pensé que no le darías

tan duro (se ríe).

WB: En pocas palabras: el NYLP

representa un "feminismo revolucionario",

algo que organizaciones de tipo lumpen

no representan eficientemente. Uds.

provienen del mismo lugar, ¿Cómo es que

Uds. aciertan en su visión al respecto,

mientras que la mayoría de organizaciones

lumpen no lo hacen?

PP: Verás, todos somos producto de

nuestras circunstancias, lo creo de

verdad. La cosa es que aunque este sea

el caso, también tenemos la capacidad

de superar nuestras circunstancias. Las

agrupaciones lumpen reflejan su sociedad,

de modo que sus leyes sociales, reglas y

opiniones sobre la lucha femenina no

adquieren tanta importancia como su

propia percepción de la "sobrevivencia"-

la mierda que un cabr*@ que proviene

de barrios bajos o de la cárcel tiene que

aguantar. Lo que la mayoría de gente

lumpen no logra entender es que la razón

por la cual siguen atrapados en el mismo

círculo de opresión es que les falta un

análisis socio-político y económico. La

mayor parte de nuestro tiempo se nos va

en HACER FRENTE a nuestras

situaciones individuales, por lo cual no

logramos enfocarnos en las CAUSAS de

nuestra situación.

WB: Es por eso que el NYLP se adhiere

a un línea política. Uds. piensan que la

arena política es responsable de los

puntos claves de opresión incluyendo la

percepción de las mujeres.

PP: ¡Exacto! En el caso de la lucha

femenina, el problema es la patriarquía.

Es un problema político fundamental y

una vez que está identificado, podemos

buscar soluciones al problema. ¿Quién

es el más responsable de la opresión de

género en este momento? ¡El imperialista!

Pues el blanco del NYLP son los

imperialistas; a nuestro modo de ver, son

la principal contradicción contra la cual

hay que luchar. Tenemos que aprender

un SINFÍN de cosas sobre este problema,

pero sabemos que hemos empezado bien

porque nuestro análisis es correcto. Le

agradecemos al MIM por ayudarnos con

nuestros estudios con respecto a este y

otros temas.

Continua en la edición siguente...

La resurrección de un viejo legado revolucionario

Habla el Partido Noble Young Lords