This is an archive of the former website of the Maoist Internationalist Movement, which was run by the now defunct Maoist Internationalist Party - Amerika. The MIM now consists of many independent cells, many of which have their own indendendent organs both online and off. MIM(Prisons) serves these documents as a service to and reference for the anti-imperialist movement worldwide.
MIM Notes 312 · January 2005 · Page 1
MIM Notes
January 2005, Nº 312
The Official Newsletter of the Maoist Internationalist Movement (MIM)
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The government of the Netherlands
recently defended its decision to halt the
social benefits and freeze the bank
account of political refugee Professor
Jose Maria Sison. Prof. Sison is a Filipino
with long history of activism on behalf of
the exploited and oppressed and against
U.$. imperialism. Under pressure from
the United $tates and without due process
the Netherlands declared Prof. Sison to
be a "terrorist" in 2002. This ruling froze
Prof. Sison's bank account and removed
all state subsidies for food, housing, health
insurance and other basic necessities
which he had received for over a decade
as a recognized political refugee.
The U.$. State Department has listed
the Maoist Communist Party of the
Philippines and the New People's Army
(NPA) as "foreign terrorist
organizations" and encouraged other
governments "to take action to isolate
these terrorist organizations, to choke off
their sources of financial support, and to
prevent their movement across
international borders." On 12 August 2002
the U.$. Treasury Department listed Prof.
Sison as a "terrorist" whose assets must
be frozen. The Dutch government passed
the "Sanctions ruling on terrorism 2002
III" that criminalized Sison the next day.
The actions of the United $tates and
Pressed by U.$., Dutch gov pursues case against revolutionary Sison
the Netherlands
against Prof.
Sisons's survival
rights are a
microcosm of
the imperialists'
b r u t a l
repression of the
survival rights of
the peoples of
the Philippines and other Third World
nations. Forty percent of households in
the Philippines live below the poverty line
of $200 per persyn; about one-third of
pregnant wimmin do not have access to
prenatal care. The majority of the
population lives in the countryside under
conditions of feudal exploitation, with
tenants paying as much as 50% of their
yearly produce in land rent to large
landlords.
This poverty and the resultant suffering
are due to the exploitative policies of the
imperialists and their local cronies, who
rob the Philippines of its natural resources
and exploit its workers in labor intensive,
import- and export-dependent industries.
Over 100 years as an Amerikan colony
and neo-colony has devastated the
economy of the Philippines--and when
the oppressed of the Philippines rise up
to try and change that, the U.$.-funded
and trained Armed Forces of the
Philippines cracks down on them and
chases their leaders out of the country.
Here is a press release describing the
latest hearing on Prof. Sison's case. Prof.
Sison is not the only persyn affected by
these charges--they also restrict the
speech rights of residents of the United
$tates or its European allies. (Note the
Dutch government's position that those
who provide help or accommodation to
Prof. Sison are legally punishable.) Even
those who defend publication of Prof.
Sison writings or those of the CPP on the
grounds that this is necessary for fully
informed public debate may face
harassment or deportation under the
"USA Patriot Act." Standing up for Prof.
Sison is also standing up for our own ability
to speak and organize freely.
For more information about Prof.
Sison and the revolutionary movement
in the Philippines, see www.etext.org/
Politics/MIM/countries/phil/.
More starting on page 4:
-- Statement from Committee Defend-
Netherlands
--Who is Jose Marie Sison?
-- Dutch spies ran "Marxist-Leninst
Party"
By MC12
This is the headline you didn't see in
the Amerikan newspapers when the U.$.
military forced more than a quarter million
people from their homes in Fallujah, Iraq,
in a futile attempt to weaken the anti-
Amerikan uprising.
Fallujah had a population estimated at
250,000 to 300,000 at the time of the
Amerikan invasion (1). The population of
Iraq is about 24 million (2). That means
1.1% of the Iraqi population lived in
Fallujah before the invasion.
To find a metropolitan area in the U$A
of comparable relative size, look at Seattle,
Washington. The Seattle metro area,
which includes Tacoma and Bellevue, had
a population estimated at 3,122,000. That
is 1.1% of the total U.$. population of
288,369,000 (3).
So what happened to this population in
Fallujah? They were driven from the city
before and during the Amerikan invasion.
The clueless Amerikan media can't seem
to get the magnitude of this crime into
their heads. Consider this exchange
between NPR's Scott Simon and his
correspondent in Iraq from Weekend
Edition Saturday on December 18:
SCOTT SIMON (Host): Michael, can
you tell what it's like for people who
live in Fallujah to live day by day?
SHUSTER: No one is living in
Fallujah, Scott. Almost all the civilians
have left. It's impossible to live. There's
no water. There's no electricity. There's
no food. And many, many of the buildings
and houses have been flattened. All--
most of the residents of Fallujah went to
other cities to live with other Iraqis while
this happened and some went to refugee
camps not too far back. There's a lot of
talk about bringing them back, resettling
them. There have been various comments
from the Iraqi mayor of Fallujah and the
Iraqi government officials in Baghdad that
this process is going to start soon. But
the Marines tell you -- it's not clear how
that can happen, as long as there's
continued resistance and continued
attacks on Marine teams in Fallujah so I
Foreign army purges entire city
(the relative size) of Seattle
Continued on page 6...
DNC ARREST
CHARGES
AGAINST MIM
NOTES
REPORTER
DROPPED
BOSTON
District Court recently dismissed
trespassing and disorderly conduct
charges against a MIM Notes distributor/
reporter arrested at the Democratic
National Convention that nominated John
Kerry for president.
The Boston Phoenix also reported on
charges against four others arrested at
the Democratic National Convention--
all of Asian ethnicity. One of those
arrested complained of racial profiling.
MIM will report further on that in the
future as we learn the details of the
conclusions Boston reaches.
While the MIM Notes reporter was in
court, two Black men filed for restraining
orders against wimmin. A Black male
senior citizen with socks that did not match
and looking very frail was one of the
applicants. Although MIM finds it
disgraceful for the Black nation to have
to go through the u.$. court system,
Continued on page 6...
MIM Notes 312 · January 2005 · Page 2
What is MIM?
The Maoist Internationalist Movement (MIM) is the collection of existing or emerging
Maoist internationalist parties in the English-speaking imperialist countries and their English-
speaking internal semi-colonies, as well as the existing or emerging Maoist Internationalist
parties in Belgium, France and Quebec and the existing or emerging Spanish-speaking
Maoist Internationalist parties of Aztlan, Puerto Rico and other territories of the U.$. 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.
MIM Notes Production by MC12
Letters
MIM Notes
The Official Newsletter of The Maoist Internationalist Movement
ISSN 1540-8817
MIM Notes is the bi-weekly newsletter of the Maoist Internationalist Movement. MIM
Notes is the official Party voice; more complete statements are published in our journal,
MIM Theory. Material in MIM Notes is the Party's position unless noted. MIM Notes
accepts submissions and critiques from anyone. The editors reserve the right to edit
submissions unless permission is specifically denied by the author; submissions are
published anonymously unless authors insist on identification (prisoners are never
identified by name). MIM is an underground party that does not publish the names of its
comrades in order to avoid the state surveillance and repression that have historically
been directed at communist parties and anti-imperialist movements. MCs, MIM comrades,
are members of the Party. The Revolutionary Anti-Imperialist League (RAIL) is an anti-
imperialist mass organization led by MIM (RCs are RAIL Comrades). MIM's ten-point
program is available to anyone who sends in a SASE.
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Here we go again with Sean Hannity
and his so-called smooth right-wing radio
host snakes! To the perceptive man, their
lies are so lame! So who believes them?
Well, unfortunately there are numerous
uneducated Americans who are easily
duped by their lying propaganda! I feel
for them. They are comparing Nick Berg's
beheading with the U.S. soldiers who
abused those prisoners at the Abu Ghraib
prison.
The beheaders are being called
"monsters" while the prison guards are
nothing but "mischievous kids" who did
not know what they were doing! They
were just kids who were bored and
stepped out of line in a non-serious way.
They were untrained to be M.P.s, they
say! I beg to differ. Anybody with a
healthy conscience would know that what
they did to those Iraqis was plain wrong
and immoral. And aren t these Americans
supposed to be the no. 1 civilized people
of the world? What happened is very
simple to those people who still have
some shred of good common sense.
-- a Texas prisoner,
21 May 2004
MIM adds: It's no secret that the
Amerikan national conscience is impaired
by imperialist plunder. The people of this
country enjoy a wildly inflated standard
of living, at great expense to people in
the Third World. Self-interest keeps
Amerikans from considering how
persynally the Iraqis might take having
their homes and cities decimated and their
natural resources turned over to
Halliburton.
While we don't see any Maoist
leadership in the struggle against the u.$.
occupation, it is to the credit of the Iraqi
resistance that it is forcing some
Amerikans take the war a little bit
persynally too. The whole point of anti-
imperialist resistance is to make wars of
conquest and the profiteering that follows
too expensive for the aggressor country
to bear. It is unfortunate that the u.$.
people are so far gone outside the
international community that seeing such
resistance is their best chance of waking
up to the horrors of their own militarism
and cutting it out.
Revolutionaries need
background checks?
Greetings as always with a clenched
fist salute. Recently I was sitting in my
cage reading a book titled The FBI and
Martin Luther King Jr. by D.J. Garrow.
The gist of this book is the effects of
COINTELPRO [the FBI's Counter-
Intelligence Program, a campaign aimed
at spying on, infiltrating and destroying
progressive and revolutionary
organizations in the united snakes] on the
civil rights movement. While I fully
comprehend its dynamics, I'm hard
pressed to figure out how/why those of
the revolutionary left didn't take any
drastic countermeasures to unearth those
agent/infiltrationist elements. They seem
to be able to slide into the ranks relatively
easy, with little or no investigation of
background!
Reflecting on the assassinations of
Jonathan & George Jackson by pigs in
70 & 71, respectively, they were both
eliminated utilizing agents provocateurs
that had been serving law enforcement
for years! My point is you have very lax
security when unknown/untested
strangers can simply walk in off the
streets, claim allegiance to some ideology
and by virtue of a look be embraced into
the fold. George tried to warn the BPP
of Cleaver's background, i.e., his conduct
while in prison to no avail. His writing &
oratorical skills superceded his potential
for derailing the BPP. Now here we are
in 2004 still taking two steps forward &
three backwards. Where is the effective
front line? In the manifesto Blood in My
Eye, both George & Jonathan observed
a primary obstacle to collective progress
was the lack of a formal military cadre
strictly devoted to internal investigations
& neutralization of traitors! They felt then,
as I do now, that it isn't a lack of training
in ideology that stagnates a progressive
class struggle. Rather it's these boot-
licking sellouts amongst us, who are
working to kill us!
-- a Federal prisoner in Colorado
17 August, 2004
A RAIL Comrade and MIM reply:
Revolutionary organizations are always
at risk of being infiltrated. We can learn
not only from the example of FBI
infiltration into the Black Panther Party
and other U.$. groups, but from our
predecessors in other countries as well.
We look especially to the model of Lenin's
Russia. When asked about the presence
of a state agent on his Central Committee,
Lenin remarked that the agent must have
done a lot of revolutionary work to earn
the position. We take security seriously,
but no background check is going to weed
out every infiltrator.
At this time, the imperialist police
agencies in the U.$. have far greater
material resources than the revolutionary
camp and can easily concoct false
backgrounds for their agents. What they
cannot fake is activism that supports our
revolutionary goals. We expect the same
level of contribution of all comrades at a
given level of membership. In other
words, comrades and allies will prove
themselves through hard work rather than
through background checks. We may not
deflect every leech trying to suck the life
out of our movement from within, but we
will be sure to extract the greatest level
of work for the least amount of exposure
from every persyn we work with.
Iraqi insurgents vs. Abu Ghraib guards: Who are the monsters?
Sean
Hannity,
radio host
snake.
MIM Notes 312 · January 2005 · Page 3
by International Minister
El Diario International has reported that
Carol Andreas of Colorado died at age
71 on December 7 of a cerebral
aneurism. She was a professor and
revolutionary. The people of Peru and
Amerika both have special reason to
mourn.
Although in the 1960s there were over
1 million self-described revolutionaries
among u.$. college students, by 1976, the
number of people still active in
revolutionary struggle in the united $tates
fell to about 0.1% of its previous level. El
Diario International led by Luis Arce
Borja mentioned her support for the
People's War in 1980 and after, but Carol
Andreas has international significance to
Maoism as well.
In 1976, when most of the world's
communists fell for Hua Guofeng and
Deng Xiaoping after the death of Mao,
Carol Andreas held firm. Her study group
immediately published a book upon the
death of Mao upholding the Cultural
Revolution and denouncing the capitalist
restoration. This should have been
unremarkable given the preparation Mao
and the "Gang of Four" gave the world
for capitalist restoration in China, but in
practice relative to others, Carol Andreas
proved to have great foresight and
firmness on this question while most of
the world's communists temporarily fell
off course. It was only in succeeding years
that Hua Guofeng and Deng Xiaoping
revisionism went into the minority in
parties outside China.
As El Diario International correctly
pointed out, Carol Andreas also held firm
in 1992-1993 when the "peace accords"
controversy in Peru arose. MIM will add
that Carol Andreas confided to MIM that
we should uphold Luis Arce Borja in exile
against others arising at the time to
diminish his stature outside Peru. In
knowing what's what in 1976 and 1992,
no one can do better than Carol Andreas
did.
MIM also conducted activity to support
the Cultural Revolution and Luis Arce
Borja, so the question arises about the
unity of Carol Andreas and MIM. One
would guess that the issue dividing us
would be the labor aristocracy, and we're
still not entirely convinced she accorded
this issue the proper weight, but Carol
Andreas claimed not so much to disagree
with MIM on this point. In fact, she
pointed out that even in Peru the labor
aristocracy was quite a problem. She
stressed repeatedly that she had read all
of Lenin's Collected Works and she knew
where MIM was getting all those
suspicions about the oppressor nation
workers. With regard to others agitating
for labor aristocracy demands she said,
"let them bang their heads against the
wall."
In print, a newsletter published by
Carol Andreas on Peru openly debated
MIM's contributions in passing. She
reported that she had spoken with those
who had found MIM to be a rejuvenation
of Maoism in Amerika and integration of
Maoism with U.$. conditions while others
say MIM made no contribution to the
struggle in Peru.
Our criticisms of Carol Andreas were
public before she died. What we have
not reported before is that she told MIM
she "did not have energy" for inner party
struggle and democratic centralism
anymore. Her attitude was something like
"been there, done that."
We do not doubt that Carol Andreas
told Luis Arce Borja there is no vanguard
party in Amerika, but we only criticize
Carol Andreas and some Third World
comrades for a liquidationist line. Carol
Andreas was an articulate activist
regarding the Cultural Revolution and
Peru and this translated into invitations
to speak to international communist
conferences. In this practice of
promoting individual personages at
conferences, MIM has found a
liquidationist attitude catering to the
imperialist country petty-bourgeoisie.
Some have gone so far as to invite Carol
Andreas as an individual to speak while
excluding parties.
Sartre spent his most correct years
criticizing intellectuals who refuse
vanguard parties. Intellectuals chafe
against discipline for their own persynal
mental needs at the expense of the
international proletariat.
The disease of petty-bourgeois
intellectuals obtains orthodox aid from
those who have quoted Stalin on
vanguard parties in the West against
MIM. Stalin made a list of conditions
organizations must meet to call
themselves vanguard parties. Yet we
challenge our critics to find in Stalin
anywhere that it is OK not to join a party
until it meets those conditions and if Stalin
did any such liquidationist thing, then he
was wrong. Our international comrades
do a disservice to the international
proletariat with cynical comments
denying the need to take sides and join
organizations. That does nothing to
encourage youth in countries where no
one claims to be Maoist either.
The relationship of Carol Andreas to
the vanguard party idea and Stalin's
theses on vanguard parties raise a basic
question of materialism. The problem in
the day of Lenin and Stalin was to choose
among parties or factions wishing to join
the Comintern especially from Germany,
but also typically from Italy. These
factions Lenin and Stalin could choose
among had five and six digit
memberships. That sort of luxury does
not apply today in the imperialist
countries. When we materialists are
choosing among factions and parties, we
can use conditions like those prepared by
Stalin for use in the Comintern.
The decision on how to recognize one
faction or party over another discussed
by Stalin is completely different than what
Carol Andreas and some of her
international admirers have done-- which
is to deny any choice at all. If we have a
choice between factions or parties, we can
compile a list of conditions. When we find
ourselves saying there is no vanguard
party at all when at least one claims to be
one, then we have fallen into
liquidationism.
There is always a most advanced line
in any society--a basic fact of
materialism. If Carol Andreas did not like
MIM or other organizations, she should
have declared herself vanguard in
Amerika and forced the issue. The
passive attitude that no one else has
People mourn the death of Amerikan
revolutionary Carol Andreas
already established nicely running
vanguard parties that we can join as cogs
in the machine must be banished as anti-
Leninist and fatal to this stage when so
many countries need to form vanguard
parties.
One thing we like about what Carol
Andreas did is that she took a liquidationist
line which she made up for to some extent
with internationalism. In her last decade
or so she could not see straight to leading
revolution in the united $tates, but she
gave her energy to the revolution in Peru.
Comrades who would like to remember
Carol Andreas should read her book Peru:
When Women Rebel. And if anyone
clings to any stereotypes about wimmin
not being able to hold firm lines, digest
Lenin or lead politically, we point to Carol
Andreas. No one in Amerika, male or
female did any better than Carol Andreas
did in 1976 and 1992.
If anyone in direct contact with the
Forever 21 struggle disagrees with this
press release or believes it to be false,
please contact mim3@mim.org.
A recent agreement reached by the
Garment Worker Center and Forever 21,
Inc., among others, stipulates that the
Garment Worker Center contact the
owners of websites deemed by Forever
21, Inc. to contain information pertaining
to the disputes resolved by the
aforementioned agreement, and to ask
those owners to post the statement that
follows on any page containing said
information.
We apologize if you believe you have
been contacted in error.
Sincerely,
Garment Worker Center
STATEMENT:
Forever 21, Inc., the Garment Worker
Center, Sweatshop Watch, and the Asian
Pacific American Legal Center, on behalf
Sweatshop agreement reached
of several Los Angeles garment workers
represented by it, have reached an
agreement to resolve all litigation between
them. In addition, the parties have agreed
to take steps to promote greater worker
protection in the local garment industry.
The parties are pleased to announce the
resolution of this matter as a positive and
symbolic step forward in demonstrating
respect and appreciation for garment
workers. Under the parties' agreement,
the national boycott of Forever 21 and
related protests at the Company's retail
stores, initiated by the Garment Worker
Center in 2001, have ended. The parties
share a belief that garment workers
should labor in lawful conditions and
should be treated fairly and with dignity.
Forever 21, the Garment Worker Center
and Sweatshop Watch all remain
committed to ensuring that the clothing
Forever 21 sells in its stores is made under
lawful conditions.
For more on the fight against sweatshops, visit:
http://www.prisoncensorship.info/archive/etext/agitation/sweatshops/index.html
MIM Notes 312 · January 2005 · Page 4
by Committee Defend-
Netherlands
Prof. Jose Maria Sison's appeals
against the Dutch Minister of Finance
and the COA (Central Organ for
Reception of Asylum Seekers) were
taken up at the court hearing at the
Utrecht Court on 29 October 2004 at the
Vrouwe Justitiaplein 1 in Utrecht. Also
taken up was the appeal of Ms. Julieta
de Lima against the Ministry of Finance.
Present at the hearing were Prof. Sison
and Ms. De Lima and their lawyers: Mr.
J.M. Langenberg and Mr. D. Gurses for
Prof. Sison and Mr. Gerard Scholten for
Ms. De Lima. The Minister of Finance
was represented by Mr. A.B. van Rijn
and the COA by Mr. R. van Duffelen.
Ms. De Lima's appeal was first taken
up. Mr. Scholten argued against the
continued freezing of the Euro 1.700
amount in the joint account of Ms. De
Lima and Prof. Sison. He strongly
asserted that this amount is for paying
medical, food and other necessary bills.
These havenothing to do with terrorism.
Ms. De Lima had been saving up money
to pay the bills, thus running into deficits
in her other accounts. Mr. Van Rijn, on
the other hand, reiterated the Finance
Minister's position that any direct or
indirect provision of financial and
economic means to Prof. Sison is
prohibited by the EU listing.
The presiding judge declared that the
court would issue a decision on Ms. De
Lima's appeal within four weeks.
Mr. Langenberg, speaking on behalf of
Prof. Sison, started with the statement
that the issue at hand was how, in a
modern democratic society, the minimal
fundamental rights of an individual must
be protected or cannot be protected. This
concerns the right to survival, he said.
Mr. Langenberg stated that since 9/11
the world appears, as in the Cold War of
the past century, to have been divided into
two camps: terrorists and fighters against
terrorism. The events in the US have led
to the hardening of society, especially
American society, and to a wide-ranging
internationalization of the fight against
terrorism. He cited reports on violations
of international law regarding torture of
prisoners in Guantanamo. There is now
the question of protecting fundamental
rights of individuals and protecting
democratic society against terrorist
attacks.
Langenberg added that it was an
executive order of US President Bush that
put Prof. Sison on the terror list. This was
followed by the Dutch government
through a Sanction Regulation that took
away his basic allowances for survival.
However, through an authorization of the
Minister of Finance, the Municipality of
Utrecht was allowed to grant the minimal
needs for food, accommodation and
insurance. Langenberg declared that he
assumes, from the humanitarian
standpoint, that one who cannot secure
his basic needs because he is not allowed
to work and may not be expelled, cannot
be made to starve or be put in danger of
losing his life through denial of his basic
allowances.
Mr. Langenberg strongly criticized the
Ministry of Finance's hard line position
that it is the policy of the Dutch Cabinet
not to provide any financial means to those
on the list of terrorists and the granting of
authorization would contravene the
cabinet policy.
And yet, Langenberg said, Justice
Minister Donner declared, when
questioned in parliament, that "in the end,
the government has to give a certain
welfare allowance because he (Prof.
Sison) may not be expelled. That is the
dilemma in which the law has put itself
into."
Langenberg stressed that, since Prof.
Sison is covered by the absolute protection
of Article 3 of the European Convention
on Human Rights (EVRM) and may
therefore not be expelled, he should be
granted a welfare allowance by the
COA. He referred to cases of many
Afghan refugees who continue to receive
allowances from the COA, despite their
being declared excluded from the
protection of the Refugee Convention.
Langenberg criticized the "head in the
sand" tactic of the defendant and its
"ostrich policy". He further asserted that
UN Security Council Resolution 1452 and
European Council Regulation 561/2003
should apply to Prof. Sison and the claim
of the Minister of Finance that these apply
only to Osama bin Laden, Al Qaeda and
the Taliban violates the purpose of the
UNSC resolution. It would mean that
Prof. Sison and others put on the terror
lists since 9/11 have less "humanitarian"
rights than Osama bin Laden and
members of Al Qaeda and the Taliban.
Mr. D. Gurses assailed COA's position
that Prof. Sison has no legitimate stay in
the Netherlands. He stressed that Prof.
Sison is a recognized political refugee,
with status of 1A according to the
Refugee Convention and is covered by
the absolute protection of Article 3 of
EVRM. He therefore has a right to a title
to stay since he has been tolerated in this
state for more than seven years. It is
inhuman, stated Gurses, to tolerate a
refugee (he may not be expelled) but to
deny him the right to a humane existence
by taking away the necessary means of
existence. This has an impact on the
psyche, not only of Sison but also on his
wife and his children who live in the
Netherlands. He is, as it were, artificially
kept alive by gifts from friends so that he
will not starve to death. Gurses said that
this manner of tolerating someone violates
the principles of a socially just state and
also Art. 3 of EVRM.
Mr. Gurses pointed out that since it is
crystal clear that Prof. Sison may not be
expelled, there is indeed in a farreaching
manner a "detournement de pouvoir"
(abuse of power) by the Dutch authorities
who must be considered as negligent and
improper. The conclusion of the COA that
the appeal of Prof. Sison is to be rejected
is therefore unfair and unreasonable.
Mr. Van Rijn, speaking on behalf of the
Minister of Finance, reiterated the latter's
position that no benefits may be given to
Prof. Sison, especially since the decision
of the Council of the European Union is
stricter than the Sanction Regulation of
the Dutch government. The latter allowed
the Dutch Minister of Finance, in
consultation with the Minister of Foreign
Affairs, to grant an exception. But the
EU decision requires the consultation
with other Member States, the Council
and the European Commission.
Mr. Van Duffelen, speaking on behalf
of the COA, maintained that the order to
leave the Netherlands had been given to
Prof. Sison. He ignored the fact that Prof.
Sison's recognition as a political refugee
and his protection by Article 3 of EVRM
effectively countered the order to leave.
He reiterated that the decision of the COA
to declare Prof. Sison's appeal not
grounded should be confirmed by the
court.
In a brief question and answer period,
the presiding judge asked about refugees
whose procedure had ended but still
received welfare allowance. An assistant
lady judge said that a new law, issued in
September 2004, ordered the stopping of
such allowances. To a question whether
those who have helped Prof. Sison and
Ms. Julieta de Lima who has provided
accommodation to Prof. Sison are legally
punishable, Mr. Van Rijn said "yes".
The Court asked if Prof. Sison wanted
to speak. Prof. Sison stated that he has
been subjected to inhuman and degrading
treatment in violation of Article 3 of
EVRM and to violations of his democratic
right to due process. He has been unjustly
demonized and branded a terrorist. His
life has been put in danger. All this and
the view of the Minister of Finance's
representative that those who help him
are legally punishable are indications of a
Hitler-like fascism creeping into Dutch
society. He added that his lawyers had
already presented his position.
The presiding judge announced that the
Court would issue its decision within four
weeks.
--From Committee Defend-
Netherlands, October 31/04
[December 15 2004 comment by
MIM: We have no further news as of
this date.]
Report on 29 October 2004 Court Hearing in Utrecht on
Appeals of Prof. Jose Maria Sison and Ms. Julieta de Lima
Who is
Jose Maria Sison?
Prof. Sison helped found the Kabataan
Makabayan (Patriotic Youth) in 1964 and
led some of the first protests against
Amerikan intervention in Vietnam--of
particular relevance as the United $tates
used the Philippines as a staging area for
aggression in Southeast Asia.
He went on to found the Communist
Party of the Philippines on December 26,
1968, the New People's Army on March
29, 1969 and the National Democratic
Front of the Philippines on April 24, 1973.
The CPP, NPA and NDF continue to
wage revolutionary armed struggle for
national liberation from imperialism, for
socialism, and against feudalism,
imperialism, and crony capitalism. Under
the pen name Amado Guerrero he wrote
"Philippine Society and Revolution," a
concrete application of Maoist principles
to the reality of the Philippines that
remains a guiding document of the
Philippine revolutionary movement.
Prof. Sison was imprisoned by the
Marcos fascist regime from 1977 to l986.
Soon after his release the U.$.-puppet
Aquino regime exiled him. Dutch courts
previously upheld his refugee status and
granted his wife and son political asylum.
While in exile, Sison has served as a
political consultant to the revolutionary
National Democratic Front of the
Philippines in peace negotiations with the
Government of the Republic of the
Philippines. He also speaks and publishes
articles in support of the revolutionary
movement of the Philippines and against
U.$. imperialism; he is a strong critic of
the "war on terrorism" and the U.$.
invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.
To give their campaign to silence Prof.
Sison the flimsiest of justifications,
Philippine and Amerikan spy services and
their media mouthpieces claim without
evidence that Sison still heads the CPP.
However, as the CPP puts it in a
statement reprinted on page six, "the
Party's collective leadership effectively
operates in the consolidated revolutionary
guerilla bases in the Philippines, safely out
of the immediate reach and mischief by
the US and local reactionary armed
forces."
MIM Notes 312 · January 2005 · Page 5
by PIRAO chief
On December 10th, Dutch government
radio admitted that the Dutch government
infiltrated or set up three organizations--
the Marxist-Leninist Party and two
friendship societies, one for Kampuchea
and one for Albania. These organizations
also did succeed in recruiting genuine
members between 1969 and some date
in the 1980s. Among other goals of the
organizations set up by the Dutch spies
was to obtain support from China, which
the Dutch intelligence agencies claim they
succeeded in doing. In the West, the
governments deliver money to their
lackeys running for election or serving as
dictators around the world, even where it
is illegal. On the other hand, the majority-
exploiter governments make a big stink if
China or some other competitor spends
money on politics in their allegedly free
countries that supposedly allow a free
competition of ideas as a selling point for
the whole organization of their societies.
This incident shows that the Dutch
government in its zeal to catch the
Chinese government cheated its own
people of a chance to organize Dutch
communist organizations without
interference. This alone gives the lie to
the "free world" often discussed by the
Dutch and the rest of Western Europe
and the united $tates. Infiltration by the
state is especially damaging to communist
and anarchist organizations, because
people often join them because they
detest the idea of secret services, so any
talk of "fair play" in a "democracy" needs
to be taken with a grain of salt.
Far more damaging to the international
proletariat is the setting up of
organizations where armed struggle is
going on or about to happen. These
organizations set up by cops and spies
seek to divert the naive where struggle
has reached a certain level of intensity.
Peru and Nepal have a plethora of parties,
mostly because of the needs of the
exploiters. Equally damaging is those
instances of organizations that suddenly
have major support in the imperialist
countries arranged by the CIA. In Iraq, it
is public knowledge that the "Communist
Party USA" works with the U.$. puppet
regime, (a case of minor support) but
similar activities are also happening
covertly in many Third World countries.
On the other hand, an additional
complication is that sometimes the
exploiters do briefly ally with the exploited
when the exploiters are in a bad squeeze.
The case of Germany sending Lenin back
to Russia in a train car in World War I is
an example. When there is a war going
on or could be going on in a given region,
we cannot rule out that a faction of
exploiters would ally with the exploited
on fairly positive terms.
From the bourgeois point of view, the
infiltration of communist groups serves
dual purposes. One is to dampen or track
activity in those groups and the other is
to prevent activity in the first place. As
the people learn that communist
organizations are infiltrated, they may give
up trying to work with them. Even
planting false stories of infiltration aids in
this goal. In response, we Maoists have
dual duties--one is not to deny enemy
activity and the other is never to justify
cynicism or paralysis of the exploited and
oppressed.
Speaking of an eastern European
comrade, Comrade Stalin said "what does
he know?" in reference to the idea that
there are no enemies in his party. De-
classified documents also show that U.$.
police infiltrated the Black Panther Party
and went so far as to co-chair a Trotskyist
group.
Likewise, in Kanada an organization of
2500 found itself infiltrated by agent
provocateurs. In the imperialist countries
unprepared for armed struggle, the enemy
joins communist organizations and tries
to provoke them into unplanned armed
activity.
Meanwhile, the imperialists carry out
illegal act after illegal act through wars
only to be let off with impunity. While
these infiltrators waste taxpayer money
and risk others' lives in an effort to
provoke violence, they fail to arrest war
criminals such as Henry Kissinger,
Caspar Weinberger and Donald
Rumsfeld.
In any case, the capitalist class will
continue to look for communist
scapegoats in the majority-exploiter
countries, with the hope that the public
will blame the communists for terrorism,
war and everything else the imperialists
are carrying out or causing to happen. The
fact that the communists have no power
and only the blame and the fact that even
the Dutch intelligence agencies make it
more difficult to organize fair-weather
communist organizations is a plus of the
kind Mao referred to when he said it is
good that the enemy attacks. The quality
of movements under attack improves
while the quantity dissipates. In countries
like the Netherlands, the fair-weather
types who avoid communist organizations
would be from the petty-bourgeoisie
anyway, so there is no real loss of contact
with the "masses," because of the
intelligence agency activity.
As MIM pointed out in its 2004
Congress resolution, the enemy does set
up entire organizations and it also takes
small organizations and makes them
transit points for huge operations dwarfing
anything the communist organizations in
that country could dream of doing
themselves. Nonetheless, we would never
exchange our internal problems for those
of the bourgeoisie--their inter-imperialist
wars, imperialist rivalries and shady
business competition that undermines the
whole capitalist system without any
communist's lifting a finger.
The nub of our problem is that just
because the enemy sets up organizations
favoring Stalin and Mao we cannot afford
to abandon the principles of Stalin and
Mao. Since we cannot always know
precisely which organizations are fakes,
and to what degree, it is important to
approach this question in principle. We
must establish principles to follow that
take advantage of our strengths and
emphasize the enemies' weaknesses. If
we succeed in doing this, it won't matter
if we do not precisely know which
organizations or leaders are fakes and
which are not, because in the long run
our principles will guide us to getting that
right in practice more often than not. For
example, if we have a purge, and it throws
out 100 people, the question is not how to
be absolutely right about every single
purged individual but how to be sure that
overall the 100 thrown out damaged the
enemy more than us. If we wait till we
find payroll stubs for every enemy on CIA
payroll we will lose for sure, because our
ability to function in that realm is a relative
weakness. If however, we can come up
with a policy that disproportionately
affects the spies and cops, we will win,
and this is something that the party can
do.
Crucially, we must teach our own
movement the difference between
discussions of historical origins and line.
This is also related to why ad hominem
criticism is never right. It hardly matters
if David Duke or a CIA spy says 2+2=4.
2+2=4 is still true. Likewise, maybe the
first Maoist organization in the
Netherlands started with just spies.
Nonetheless, that is no excuse for the
Dutch to avoid Maoist principles. That is
an example of how we have to distinguish
between origins and line. This truth is also
evident when we work it in reverse.
People with good origins often end up
quitting or otherwise betraying the
movement. The enemy has to emphasize
the psychological and individual to split
up the strength of the globally exploited
and oppressed. The enemy hopes that by
targeting the leaders, there will be no one
left who can implement Marxism-
Leninism-Maoism. The enemy
miscalculates and in sports terms there
is no way that the proletariat and
oppressed can lose unless they defeat
themselves or if the bourgeoisie carries
out internal war that destroys the planet--
game over, called on account of
destruction of the atmosphere.
What to do about potential paralysis
Contrary to some dreamers, there are
always enemies in communist parties that
have been around the block. Only parties
just starting that no one has heard of yet
can hope not to have enemies inside yet.
MIM has a number of policies and
recommendations to deal with the enemy
problem at arm's length to take advantage
of the proletariat's strengths relative to
the enemy's. We guarantee that MIM and
the organizations it admires have
infiltrators perhaps going to the very
origins and leadership of the organizations
as does happen some times.
1. MIM members do NOT claim to be
MIM members and travel to the Third
World struggles except by prior
arrangement or at open conferences. In
practice with the current low level of
International Ministry support mandated
by our Party Congress, even this issue
should not come up. MIM has NO pre-
arranged plans for meeting in the Third
World at this moment. So, if anywhere in
the Third World you meet someone from
the imperialist countries seeming to spew
the MIM line, you may be talking to an
unaffiliated persyn or you may be talking
to an agent.
There is never any reason for People's
Wars to be trusting toward imperialist
country alleged comrades. Someone
carrying MIM Notes around could be
anybody. MIM Notes is free, so carrying
that around does not mean anything either,
so we warn everybody, especially the
Third World comrades, that no imperialist
country comrade is worth risking security
for. In the best of circumstances, the
comrades from the majority-exploiter
countries are not weeded out by
systematic armed struggle, so chances
are very high that the best one could hope
for is that any imperialist-country
"comrade" is really a Menshevik with
some sympathies for the international
proletariat. We suggest that Mao's
teaching that without a people's army the
people have nothing be taken seriously in
relationship to the majority-exploiter
countries.
2. Lenin's "better fewer, but better" is
the best security advice for proletarian
parties. Write off dead wood hanging
about the party. Newbies should be aware
of this problem. Newbies and others
starting their political commitment should
ask themselves, "if I were a leader of a
communist party, how would I be able to
tell a police agent from a newbie?" This
is another reason to emphasize the self-
reliance and self-activity of comrades and
it is also a reason not to be expecting
proletarian unity and action to come about
spontaneously and easily. It is part of our
underdog status that we must continuously
exercise our brains on this question and
improve through small increments and
sometimes by leaps and bounds.
3. Party leaders should not substitute
talk for a standard of action. The fact
that someone discusses a cool political
line with a party leader does not mean
anything. Effective work in public and
effective marshalling of resources is what
counts in security questions. It does not
mean there should be no place just to talk.
4. Lenin's advice on making police
agents work hard is applicable. He had a
police agent on his central committee, but
there could have been a lot more if the
standard of work for the central
committee were low. The police agent
that managed to get in did much work for
the revolution.
5. Do not answer pig questions. People
Security: This time a lesson from the Netherlands
Continued on page 7...
MIM Notes 312 · January 2005 · Page 6
think that that process is -- that process
of resettling is still unclear when it will
start.
SIMON: Mm-hmm. Michael, have
Marine commanders imparted to you or
are you otherwise able to make some kind
of judgment now about what the strategy
on the ground seems to be for US forces?
Simon knows he's supposed to
"personalize" the story, so he asks about
daily life. But when the reporter's answer
reveals the horrific crime committed by
Amerika, Simon has no response except
"Mm-hmm," and he doesn't follow up.
Instead, he changes the subject to the
future Amerikan strategy.
Perspective affects perception. While
the gingoist Amerikan always thinks of
Army purges entire city (the relative size) of Seattle
because we continue to back the original
Black Panther Party demand for Black
national courts, we would like to comment
on the gender aspect of the restraining
orders. Again, because of the
imprisonment rate of Black men and the
poor health care given to Black men,
there is a vast shortage of eligible Black
men for heterosexual Black wimmin. The
discontent of Black heterosexual wimmin
and the stereotyped gender roles and
images of domestic violence should not
add up to an attack on Black men any
more than Black wimmin should put up
with domestic violence by Black men.
What we saw in court is only a concrete
confirmation of what we know from
statistics on domestic violence generally.
Police thuggery
The arrest of the MIM Notes distributor
started as a matter with the Roxbury
Community College administrator who
has in the past specifically prevented
distribution of MIM Notes while
permitting other publications distributed
in the Reggie Lewis Center, where the
DNC held a forum for Howard Dean and
Dennis Kucinich. However, Boston police
involved themselves and even upped the
ante by physically taking away the MIM
Notes reporter's digital recorder on which
there were numerous interviews with
Democratic Party convention delegates
and other official attendees.
We can now report that those
interviews will never see the light of day,
because Boston Police maliciously
destroyed the recorder by breaking it in
half before returning it by order of the
judge. We apologize to the various
delegates and members of the Utah
Progressive Democrats Caucus we
interviewed that day.
CHARGES
AGAINST MIM
NOTES
REPORTER
DROPPED
Continued from page 1...
Scott Simon: Hm-mmm.
Continued from page 1...
Good news, bad news on MIM's central task
Amerikan well-being first, the scientific
perspective allows us to compare apples
and apples. We can see that the
Amerikans emptied out a city the relative
size of the Seattle metropolitan area, and
compare that with other atrocities or
crimes -- revealing the scale of
imperialism's crimes. Our revolutionary
determination then drives us to right these
wrongs by working to eliminate the
system that systematically produces
them.
Notes:
1. Boston Globe 11/15/04, p. A1.
2. http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/
2003/iraq/maps/
3. Statistical Abstract of the United
States, at http://www.census.gov.
December, 2004
Central Task Report
by PIRAO Chief
December 9, 2004
MIM's central task: "to create public
opinion and the independent
institutions of the oppressed to seize
power."
Overall
This month we continue to fail in our
primary goal of advancing the number of
users. Also, as arranged at our 2004
Congress, we cut back the November and
December MIM Notes. Meanwhile, our
art users only recovered to their 2002
levels.
On the prisons front we have bad news
and good news. The bad news is that
there was no money to distribute papers
into prison. Some comrades have stepped
forward to keep MIM Notes afloat, but
funding for prison distribution is just
coming on line now. In the past, I have
taken the blame for prison distribution, but
in this case I will not. One could say I
should do more of X work instead of Y
work or allocate resources differently, but
then I would be here making a false self-
criticism for a shortage somewhere else,
such as in MIM Notes printing. It would
also encourage people to have overly
inflated ideas about MIM's resources.
The good news in prisons is that we
continue to right a historic wrong in
relations between the lumpen and the
middle classes. By this I mean that MIM
was always strong in prisons, but the
people outside prison walls were not
paying much attention. Articles taken in
just the prison subsection of our agitation
page increased at a 136% annual rate this
November.
On an even brighter note, this month
had solid growth in our second-most
important goal, pages taken. With 76%
annual growth in files taken per day, we
are almost on target with our Five Year
Plan for that goal. Concretely, it means
that right now, we average over 250
articles taken per every hour of each day.
MIM Notes distribution
We have a report of independent MIM
Notes distribution in Toronto which we
do not include in the statistics. As we have
pointed out before, the .pdf files are
available on our web page. Anyone can
print them and distribute them. To learn
how to do that and do it once is the major
hurdle for any comrade learning
distribution. After that, comrades can
work on increasing their frequency of
distribution per year. Learn to do big
distribution of MIM Notes by doing it.
Realistically, it takes on the order of
$1000 to be able to print a substantial
quantity of newspapers. For many people,
that $1000 is another hurdle. Yet, knowing
what the problem is is also helpful. The
money problem is just another reason we
of the proletarian line are the underdog.
If we cannot arrange $1000, we should
work on earning a living more efficiently
and examine our consumer choices--
apartments that are too expensive often
being a culprit. Some people would be
dramatically better off buying a house and
paying a mortgage instead of a rent. Only
the children, senior citizens, disabled and
prisoners really have a good reason in the
majority-exploiter countries for not being
able to raise printing money. The rest of
us need to think about it. This is our
attitude toward any resource question.
It's not enough to enjoy reading MIM.
Whenever we say "can't do it" to
ourselves, we have to realize we just
learned something. We are not Buddhist
or Hindu practitioners aiming at thought
devoid of material influences. On the
contrary, our problem is to obtain all kinds
of resources, not to say "we don't have
it," and then purify our minds. Working
with a vanguard party in the majority-
exploiter countries is much like being a
business entrepreneur who works from
the bottom up. We get people who apply
all kinds of wrong logic to working with
MIM. It's not like asking for a government
job, fitting like a cog in a big corporation
or picking a church or fashion outlet at
the mall. Out of all these experiences
people are familiar with in the non-
unionized sectors of majority-exploiter
countries, the entrepreneur is really the
most applicable model. Most union
experiences are also not applicable,
because most unions are tied in with large
corporations. The large corporations offer
a model of how to organize, but they also
buy people off so fundamentally, that they
are not the best example--though
churches, unions and single-issue
organizations provide a foundation of
experiences very helpful to MIM.
Some people will decide they cannot
arrange $1000 or more for their own
distribution work in which case they
should find other ways to build public
opinion against imperialism and for
communism and the independent
institutions of the oppressed. On the other
hand, most non-prisoners in the majority-
exploiter countries have a basis for
gradually improving their distribution
work.
Getting to the point of doing printing
once is a major achievement. Before
MIM did it, we worked with xerox copies
and that is another way to go in the short
run-- to pick articles or posters and do
xerox copies. However, comrades should
put out of their minds doing distribution
of a newspaper every two weeks in small
quantities. Let this be an official retraction
or end to a past campaign to increase
distribution. If comrades in each locality
do a large distribution once a year or even
two years, this will contribute hugely and
also serve as a basis for improvement. In
addition to a large sum of money, the
activity also requires some free time to
distribute the paper. Comrades may wish
to consider planning to spread out the
distribution over periods of days and
maybe weeks or months.
The proletarian class obviously must
improve greatly to rule, so improvement
is more important than actual level of
political work accomplished. We could
become demoralized thinking how the
bourgeois papers publish their garbage
daily or even by how the MIM publishes
twice a month. That would be the totally
wrong way of looking at the question. The
right way is to take a step toward
improvement and focus on the one's own
progress in contributing to the communist
movement. One should take this MIM-
recommended road, because imperialism
is going to do itself in and because the
Third World proletariat is going to assert
its interests eventually. The more than five
billion people on the bottom will take
power from the other billion or fewer
people. In the meantime while this huge
historical trend is asserting itself, we
Continued on next page...
MIM Notes 312 · January 2005 · Page 7
asking your name, address, occupation,
age, race, education level, hair color
etc.--any of these--could be innocent
or nice but stupid people or they could be
cops. There is no reason to take a
chance. Nice people should learn not to
ask pig questions--ever. Whether people
are too inept not to carry this out or
whether they are cops hardly matters to
the party: such people need to be written
off.
6. Politically cut down the psychologists,
individualists, geographic opportunists and
Liberal pragmatists. a) Psychologists are
interested in your persynal motivations.
So are cops. Alleged Marxists who
cannot distinguish between questions of
motivation and line are never going to
amount to anything anyway, so dispensing
with them in order to dispense with cops
is no loss in the majority-exploiter
countries.
Let people interested in persynal
motivations read some autobiographies.
W.E.B. Du Bois and Bobby Seale have
them published already. So we should
make use of what is already available and
not re-invent the wheel.
On the whole, the question of persynal
motivation is unimportant. Marxism is a
science for solving certain problems of
food, clothing, shelter and peace.
Marxism-Leninism-Maoism presumes
that people are interested in these subjects
and that presumption has proved as
historically correct as the presumption
that people are interested in medical
doctors because they fight epidemics. We
spend no time worrying about a lack of
humyn interest and hence we do not
worry about persynal motivations. Those
motivations could be right or wrong, and
given the low level of scientific effort by
psychologists and psychiatrists, those
motivations could be misunderstood, but
ultimately the question is unimportant.
There are going to be people interested
in the Marxist agenda until those social
problems are gone.
In this psychologist category we can
include the ad hominem attack crowd and
all identity politics and most of post-
modernism. They emphasize subjective
experience and motivations while we
Maoists emphasize picking the right
basketball team to play for and then
putting the ball in the hole--sports-talk
for implementation. Even if no basketball
team will draft you, you still have to put
the ball in the hole. To translate--if it is
difficult to work with an organization,
there still has to be a way to raise the
level of the proletariat's game. For the
exploited and oppressed to win, it will not
be necessary for every persyn to work
directly with a party-affiliated
organization, though it is certainly
desirable.
b) Individualists of all kinds make police
infiltration easier. Typically the
individualist raises one persynal pet peeve
to a level of principle without realizing it.
For whatever reason, individualists hang
about communist movements in a manner
indistinguishable from cops looking to
obtain information without having to work
for it. Someone uninterested in broad
historical questions should not be given
credibility as a "comrade." Someone who
would raise this or that ad hoc point above
unity and struggle around broad historical
questions should be written off. If they're
talking about something millions and
billions of people cannot reference, it
cannot be a basis of unity and struggle.
c) Geographic opportunists only fight
for lines that provide leaders in their
localities. If that happens to be the CIA
with its superior resources, geographic
opportunists are satisfied. The geographic
opportunists do not think about the logic
of what it is going to take to unite billions
of people across boundaries. (These kinds
of people who passively await something
to do in their locality Lenin also referred
to as "provincialists.") Likewise
pragmatist Liberals.
d) Pragmatist Liberals Pragmatist
Liberals are combining problems from
above. In some organizations cops/spies
outnumber members. In others it is vice-
versa, but in no case are we justified in
basing membership struggle around
anything other than broad historical
questions that could be grounds for a
cardinal principle. In other words, we
cannot allow spy successes to scare us
into taking up origins, size or locality
questions as a replacement for cardinal
questions. That would be a total victory
for the enemy, much akin to how the
"terrorists" have already won the battle
against "freedom" with the passage of
the "Patriot Act."
In the Netherlands, the spies put in a
lot of effort with a lot of spies, so anyone
who joined based on size would have
picked the spy organization instead of
setting up their own. Likewise, the U.$.
intelligence services have a 10 digit
budget, not to mention the cops, so for
them to carry out large operations is no
big deal. Depending on what they are
fishing for, these spies may even put the
ball in the hole for the proletariat. This
does not give us the luxury of saying
anyone who accomplishes something is
a spy.
In retrospect we can say we wish there
were some other organization the Dutch
proletarians formed, but we cannot say
that it was wrong to join a spy-arranged
organization instead of none at all. This
idea would be as wrong as Hoxha's
metaphysics against Mao that since there
is a bourgeoisie in the party, Mao must
be a Liberal. The people who joined the
spy-arranged organization did so on
principle and on the whole that principle
is going to work out more often than not
for the proletariat and its working is going
to doom the imperialist system a tad faster
than by its own suicidal tendencies.
Maybe in many Dutch localities, Dutch
secret services were the first to espouse
Maoist principles. Because of this we do
not obtain the luxury of saying Maoist
principles are wrong! First we have to
pick our cardinal principles. Then we
have to think about how to make life
harder for spies and cops.
Lastly, the above speaks of a process
of purges and demarcation regarding
membership and affiliation practices. Yet
it also worth stressing that no purge, no
diss and no cop/spy activity ever justifies
giving up work against imperialism and
imperialist militarism. People who
intended to be genuine or who were just
thinking through something may find
themselves wrongly "written off" or
purged. Such people will continue political
work and not use the accidents of struggle
as an excuse to discontinue work. There
are widely varying levels of working with
or inside communist parties.
Examples of successful action
In the Dutch case, money for the cause
from genuine comrades ended up going
right to the Dutch secret services, thus
serving to discourage anyone attempting
to organize a communist party in the
future despite Dutch pretensions to
"freedom." Likewise, it is now public that
the "Communist Party USA" treasurer
was FBI; although the FBI allowed both
deposits and withdrawals for political
purposes.
So in some cases, the enemy is taking
the efforts of hundreds or thousands of
people and wasting it. In other cases, the
enemy is just watching activity while
fishing for bigger fish.
When we emphasize putting the ball in
the hole, instead of psychological talk and
investigation of "origins," we are going
to foil the attempts of the enemy to waste
our activity. For example, PIRAO
recently reported that Toronto and vicinity
has had some distribution of MIM Notes.
This particular distribution would foil any
possible attempt at sabotage, because the
persyn in charge took the MIM Notes
from the web site and printed and
distributed it him/herself. In other words,
this comrade(s) took the assist from the
web page, but basically put the ball in the
hole him/herself. So this persyn who
carried out action knows him or herself
that what the enemy could do to interfere
was very limited. It's not a case where
the comrade sent in $1000 and it went to
the secret services.
Now let's apply this lesson to newbies
and MIM. In every newbie's political life,
the hurdle of commitment involving money
is very important. People who get in the
habit in their teens or twenties of giving
money get on the right track. Others often
never commit to political activism despite
years of discussion. On the other hand,
newbies are going to read stories like this
true story about the Dutch. In addition,
there will be geographic opportunists and
pragmatists telling newbies not to "trust"
certain people based on various ad hoc
reasons that add up to unprincipled
individualist schlock. Separating from that
will also involve being able to distinguish
between petty-bourgeois vehemence for
narrow-minded pet peeves and proletarian
militance. The bourgeois Liberals dressed
in ultra-left or militant clothing can cause
paralysis by spreading the most corrosive
Liberalism. To break the impasse of
"trust," newbies may just have to put the
ball in the hole themselves. They can
advance cardinal principles themselves
and make a tremendous advance while
exercising the brain to work in better unity
in the future.
Now we would also say this: for those
who cannot put the ball in the hole
themselves like Toronto did, we have to
say, yes, there is the chance the enemy
will sabotage your contribution, but there
is also a chance your contribution will do
good. In the end, the proletariat wins,
because it can afford to take more
chances than the bourgeoisie. The
imperialist system is doomed.
Note: http://www2.rnw.nl/rnw/en/
currentaffairs/region/netherlands/
041210canl
Security: This time a lesson from the Netherlands
Continued from page 5...
Task report
From previous page...
should not get lost in its scale and instead
we should focus on improving our own
activities.
Corresponding attitude
toward the party
Something we have stressed is that
MIM is not Burger King. We don't have
"have it your way." We don't have a
professional staff and the number of jobs
needed for the revolutionary movement
are infinite in variety and intensity, at least
metaphorically speaking. So we hope
everyone looks at the party the right way.
Even if we had a professional staff, MIM
would not encourage a consumer ethos
in picking one's politics.
It's not a question of "shopping" for a
party or dumping jobs on the party and
seeing how it does. These are the sorts
of passive activities that imperialist
consumer society encourages both at
home and at work. How often we have
heard "the party does not do _________
(fill in the blank)." It would be like "I don't
buy that gadget, because I need 60 watts
instead of 40." That is wrong and the
correct way to choose a party out-of-
power and without control of base areas
as is the situation generally in the
imperialist countries today is by how it
hastens the scientific struggle--and by
hastening I do not mean a random fill-in-
the-blank "practice." The correct way is
by choice of cardinal principles and
nothing else. Everything else is part of
our predicament of being the underdog
class and not doing something because
of that underdog status is the equivalent
of original sin. There are good and bad
reasons for rejecting MIM. The worst
reason is thinking one has a proletarian
line and then making the absolutely
circular discovery that MIM is the
underdog. A good reason for rejecting
Continued on page 9...
MIM Notes 312 · January 2005 · Page 8
Review: Lemony Snicket's A Series
of Unfortunate Events
Directed by Brad Silberling
Paramount Pictures, 2004
Reviewed by a contributor
"Lemony Snicket's A Series of
Unfortunate Events" is based on the first
few books of Lemony Snicket a.k.a.
Daniel Handler's ongoing fiction "Series
of Unfortunate Events," which deals with
the adventures of the three Baudelaire
orphans. "A Series of Unfortunate
Events" has been compared to J. K.
Rowling's "Harry Potter" series in terms
of popularity with children, but has
received much less press. A large number
of movie viewers may become new
Lemony Snicket fans after seeing the
movie, which has a bearing on the movie's
impact.
Although this review is not particularly
interested in how "Unfortunate Events"
compares with the books artistically, the
movie is supposedly similar to the books.
Someone mysteriously burned down the
Baudelaires' lavish mansion and killed
their wealthy parents. The orphans'
distant relative Count Olaf doggedly
pursues the children, trying to take their
inheritance. It seems that he was
somehow involved in the arson. Each of
the children is "gifted," or "talented."
Violet is good at inventing gadgets; she's
like MacGyver. Klaus is good at absorbing
information from books. Sunny excels at
biting things, and in the movie, she can
speak "baby" fluently, or think complex
thoughts. (The movie captions Sunny's
(Kara Hoffman and Shelby Hoffman)
baby talk with witty subtitles, which is
supposed to be funny.)
"Lemony Snicket's A Series of
Unfortunate Events" is definitely not the
first comical or satirical movie in which a
child character resists a dislikable adult
who is ignorant, irrational or given to
ridiculous antics. For example, looking
way back, there is Jean Vigo's " Zéro de
conduite " (1933). Of course, there is the
whole "Home Alone" series (1990, 1992,
1997, 2002). Other recent movies of this
kind include "Max Keeble's Big Move"
(2001). However, few movies are as
thorough as "Unfortunate Events" in
portraying adults as being dim-witted
compared with children.
Even Lemony Snicket's (Jude Law)
antics are ridiculous compared with Klaus
(Liam Aiken) and Violet's (Emily
Browning) seriousness and sober-
mindedness. He pretends to be writing
down a true story, but he is way too
excited. The movie pauses its bringing-
to-life of Lemony Snicket's story to show
Lemony Snicket himself; while doing this,
it distracts from the seriousness of the
deadly, distressing situations in which
Klaus, Sunny and Violet find themselves
as a result of Lemony Snicket's typing.
For that matter, the character Lemony
Snicket's imagination is almost sadistic in
the way that it incessantly torments the
Baudelaire orphans with situations that
they do not find funny despite the movie
audience's laughter. Funny things are
going on around them, but Klaus and
Violet look antagonized and tired of it all.
Gruff, pudgy banker Mr. Poe (Timothy
Spall) is too quick to leave the orphans in
dangerous situations; if he were a social
worker, he would be considered
incompetent. High-strung Aunt Josephine
(Meryl Streep), who is afraid of realtors,
irritates Klaus and Violet with all her
warnings about unlikely accidents (for
example, her large kitchen refrigerator
falling over and squashing a persyn).
Count Olaf (Jim Carrey) and his acting
troupe are flamboyant, foolish and goofy,
but stereotypically greedy and uncaring.
Not all adults seem to bother the
Baudelaire orphans. In particular and
unsurprisingly, Klaus and Violet have fond
memories of their dead parents. But we
aren't shown or told much about them,
and all Klaus and Violet have to
remember their parents by is a metallic
silhouette of their parents' side profiles.
"Unfortunate Events" is the latest in a
long line of movies (including "E.T. The
Extra-Terrestrial," 1982; "Flight of the
Navigator," 1986; "The NeverEnding
Story II: The Next Chapter," 1990; "Peter
Pan," 2003; and "Catch that Kid," 2004,
more recently) portraying mentally or
physically strong children, but ultimately
having them return to the home or the
family as a safe haven. And like the whole
"Spy Kids" series (2001, 2002, 2003),
"Unfortunate Events" is big on family
"sticking together." However, the movie
alludes to some interesting points.
The orphans stick together as a family,
but partly because they are legally forced
to. Also, we see older children taking care
of younger children, or children taking
care of other children--true, because they
have to take care of each other, but Klaus
and Violet are successful in taking care
of Sunny. This reflects a reality that many
persyns in the united $tates are familiar
with: the decay of some forms of
childcare under patriarchy, without the
emergence of advanced forms of
childcare that are further away from
patriarchy, and signs that there are
alternatives to biological parents'
parenting their own children only.
The Baudelaires are English, but in the
real world, after imperialism is
overthrown, oppressed nationalities
especially may experience a restoration
of patriarchal forms of childcare while
patriarchy is still being destroyed. For
example, imperialism causes some
children in the internal semi-colonies of
the united $tates to become orphans.
Without imperialism, there may be fewer
orphans, but temporarily more children in
patriarchal childcare in nuclear families.
Certain patriarchal forms may resurge
after imperialism is destroyed, but
patriarchy will still need to be destroyed.
This includes the practice of placing
orphaned children with relatives even
though they may be abusive.
"Unfortunate Events" deserves praise for
trying to illustrate (painfully--Olaf slaps
Klaus across the face at one point) that
there will be no end to child abuse while
the institution of childhood, and patriarchy
more generally, still exist.
Count Olaf is after the Baudelaires'
inheritance, and the movie does not
question class and patriarchal practices
of inheritance, but it is not so much that
the children want to keep the inheritance
for themselves. Legally, the children have
to die before Count Olaf can get the
money. They may just be trying to survive.
Olaf relies on different kinds of force,
intimidation and threats to control Klaus,
Sunny, and Violet, and other persyns'
actions and hate for children effectively
protect Olaf, but the Baudelaires
repeatedly outsmart Olaf, even Sunny.
The point here is not that infants are
capable of defeating adults, but rather,
that infants, too, are oppressed under
patriarchy since gender oppressors obtain
benefits from infants through a system
that subjects children to violence and
enervation. "Unfortunate Events"
illustrates this in a limited way. Olaf is
able to take advantage of Sunny's small
size. It may be given that Olaf will go for
the most vulnerable child, but he
repeatedly calls Sunny a "monkey" to
demean her. Later, he puts her in a cage.
What Olaf thinks about children is a
condition of his actions toward them.
Like so many other movies that feature
child characters, "Unfortunate Events"
represents or misrepresents a particular
aspect of children's oppression under
patriarchy without even trying to portray
what children have in common socially.
For example, just looking at the movie, it
is hard to imagine that Klaus (a boy,
nearly a teenager), Sunny (baby) and
Violet (a young teenage girl) have
anything in common as children. No other
child characters appear in the movie.
"Unfortunate Events" does go a little bit
further than other movies by suggesting
that the Baudelaire orphans all have
something in common, and maybe even
that they are children "against the world"
of stupid grown-ups, but the children are
supposed to be talented and unique, that
is, different from other children. So, Klaus,
Sunny, Violet are exceptional. However,
"Unfortunate Events" does do a little bit
to show how children in general can
survive despite, and because of , adults'
"mental illness."
In the presence of his troupe, Olaf
scolds Klaus and Violet for not making
roast beef for dinner, as if he could afford
roast beef, but he plainly lives in a
dilapidated, unkempt mansion. Also, Olaf
seems to be oblivious to the fact that he's
a bad actor, and he presumptuously casts
himself in leading roles. Some kind of
mental disturbance may be a cause of
Olaf's brandishing a knife to threaten the
children. Olaf is intimidating, but at
relatively likable Uncle Monty's place, he
is extremely careless with his disguise and
is too quick to run after being exposed as
an impostor. Olaf's lack of self-control
poses a risk to the Baudelaires, but is also
a weakness that they take advantage of.
In the real world, the mental abilities
of some parasites living in imperialist
citadels are decaying for different
reasons. (This doesn't necessarily appear
as "mental illness.") To the extent that
this deterioration of mental abilities, and
this descent to lower modes of thinking
like sentimentalism or what-feels-good
subjectivism, worsens as metropolitan
imperialist-country parasites get older, the
possibility is raised that some oppressor-
nation children will dictate to oppressor-
nation adults--and particularly that
oppressed-nation children will dictate to
oppressor-nation adults. This is on top of
the fact that children are gender-
oppressed and have an objective basis to
support the revolution in different ways,
while the vast majority of oppressor-nation
men and wimmin, who are exploiters and
gender oppressors, do not. Although
"Unfortunate Events" does not deal with
revolution, it is interesting to see the
Baudelaire orphans take matters into their
own hands because they think they know
better than the crazies, fools and idiots
surrounding them. It is not so much that
stupidity (whatever this means) is peculiar
to gender oppressors like adults in
oppressor nations. On the contrary, adults
may have a sort of monopoly on cognitive
development because of the social
exclusion of children in so many different
ways--but children ought to be
encouraged to recognize their differences
with other persyns and take important
Quick-witted children live among mentally
disturbed adults in an imperialist country
Go to next page...
MIM Notes 312 · January 2005 · Page 9
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?
work with MIM is realizing that one likes
bourgeois ideology and does not want to
waste MIM's time. There are all sorts of
alternatives to MIM ranging from
Republican to Trotskyist organizations.
MIM is not asking for votes or for trust.
Because what we have to accomplish is
different than what Burger King or John
Kerry attempt to accomplish and because
we do not have the bourgeois resources
sufficient to simply replace the
government, we must focus on continuous
improvement by taking up self-reliance.
The exploited and oppressed camp
must have a different outlook than Burger
King and other businesses serving
consumers. "Ask not what the party can
do for you but what you can do to create
public opinion and the independent
institutions of the oppressed" should be
our motto.
Part of adopting the right approach is
puncturing any myths about the party. For
example, PIRAO is defunct. I'm still here,
but I and other comrades are busy with
such a wide range of things that for all
practical purposes concerning the outsider,
PIRAO is defunct. Now, some people
will react by becoming discouraged.
Others will see this as a lesson about our
underdog status. Part of my job is to
report on this accountably, so people will
know our strengths and weaknesses.
Though we are in a weak position, other
organizations and activists do not issue
reports as regularly and accountably as
we do. So my point is not to say we are
inactive, only that for practical purposes
PIRAO is defunct.
Originally, we had hoped PIRAO would
serve as an organization for people under
the tightest discipline. As one might think,
Task report
From page 7...
that is not our strong suit in the majority-
exploiter countries. Yet, as it stands we
do not have the leadership to implement
even partially some aspects of the
PIRAO concept for people willing to do
disciplined work or for people who need
disciplined structure. That is up to you,
our reader to become PIRAO leaders.
PIRAO has become more of a
mediating influence--talking about how
to approach going from lofty principles
and understandings to action. Reading
theory magazines and MIM Notes, one
could end up a reading consumer only, so
PIRAO has attempted to communicate
through these reports more about what
it's like to do work that we call
"infrastructural" as opposed to direct
public opinion or theory writing.
MIM holds no base areas or
government power. That's a key point in
understanding what kind of accountability
to apply to MIM. Again, if one thinks there
is some kind of huge stash of centrally-
located resources that need to be
employed, that is not the case, at least
not right now.
Although we have more readers than
any other organization in the English-
speaking world calling itself "communist,"
we also reach our limits and that is also
an example of puncturing myths. For
example, why we are stuck at around
40,000 readers, I do not know. That could
just be our limits as individuals here, so
it's encouraging to see a deeper
readership. Perhaps the deepening of
readership will lead to people's making
contributions to the struggles that will get
MIM out of this rut, if not now, then by
steady improvement, soon enough.
In fact, the readership this month was
noticeably dramatically better. This month
there were so many articles including
many rather obscure ones with over 100
readers that it makes me tired thinking
about it. Hopefully we will all get used to
the idea that no matter how much we put
in work on articles for the website, there
will be more demand.
As the number of files taken on the
website indicates, there is a connection
between the work we manage to get up
on the web page and our readership. The
number of files taken increased 61% in
one year and that is a major
accomplishment by comrades submitting
their articles and other web files. Of
course, MIM does all that by going
through a political weeding-out process.
We have proved that it is possible to
oppose all opportunism and come up with
big numbers.
There is not a single "job" that the party
center does that it always did. MIM
comrades printed first and then became
journalists, editors and graphics workers.
MIM also did not have the money,
transportation and other resources and
skills that it has now.
The good thing about the way the MIM
web page is set up is that people can
arrange their own printings and
distribution and not "trust" the party. The
party has more than earned "trust," but
in the most important senses, "trust" is
not an important question. We encourage
everyone to keep their eyes on "impact."
Decide for yourself if you like what MIM
Notes says and whether you "trust" the
party or not, do something to distribute
MIM Notes if you like it. That's what we
mean by keeping the eye on "impact."
matters into their own hands if the
supervising adults refuse to change their
mistaken ideas.
It is possible to tease out these themes
further, but overall, "Unfortunate Events"
deserves a neutral rating for doing little
to change the status quo. Some of this
has to do with the fact that there is so
much bullshit in this fantasy movie to wade
through to get to anything meaningful.
Also, the movie undermines its own best
elements. For example, Aunt Josephine's
various fears seem irrational especially
when her house's foundation is built onto
the face of a cliff above Lake
Lachrymose, but her seemingly irrational
fears about unlikely home accidents turn
out to be premonitions; the idea is that
Aunt Josephine wasn't that crazy after
all. The Baudelaires aren't enthusiastic
about accompanying eccentric Uncle
Monty on his trip to Peru and seem to
feel that people are pushing them around,
which alludes to a certain reality under
patriarchy by which children are
pressurized into a restricted group of
households, usually relatives', but Lemony
Snicket suggests that sticking with Uncle
Monty would have been ideal for the
Baudelaires. The movie depicts the
Baudelaires as being intelligent compared
with all of the adults, which counters the
notion that biological children are all
unintelligent and senseless compared with
adults, but despite all his knowledge, Klaus
almost superstitiously believes that there
is always a way out of a bad situation.
And while "Unfortunate Events" happens
to be right in showing how vast book
knowledge doesn't necessarily mean
having correct ideas, there is a difference
between perseverance and superstitious
persistence that the movie itself blurs.
The whole movie is very dream-like.
In the movie, everything does happen for
a reason, like in roleplaying games. There
is always a way out of a bad situation,
which is the premise of Violet and
MacGyver's feats. In addition, there is a
lot of deliberate anachronism in the movie;
the movie looks like a dream. For
example, Olaf drives an antique car with
power door locks and lock knobs that can
disappear (as if by magic, but this isn't
clear). Olaf's dark, dingy mansion is
across the street from a contemporary,
quaint house, while the Baudelaire
mansion is located in what looks like a
suburb in industrial England. In the "Harry
Potter" movies (2001, 2002, 2004), there
is at least a sense of how the witches
and wizards' fantastical inventions came
to exist (by magic), and there is a more
or less clear separation between the
Muggle world, which looks like the real
world, and the wizard world. In
"Unfortunate Events," it is difficult to
discern any history behind the
simultaneous existence of Olaf's power
door locks and Mr. Poe's "car stereo": a
bulky audio tape reel player. In
"Unfortunate Events," no attempt is
made to explain the fantastical inventions
and fantastical situations; they're simply
there. While "Harry Potter" and
Snicket
From previous page...
"Unfortunate Events" may both be
products of idealism, "Unfortunate
Events" makes no effort to ground its
fantasticism in any reality, not even a
fictional one. As a result, it encourages
idealistic ways of thinking and discourages
looking for patterns in objective reality that
are based on history. Sequels to
"Unfortunate Events" may explain some
of the stranger elements of the movie,
but as it stands, the movie's redeeming
elements have the context of a fantasy
world.
"Unfortunate Events" is very dream-
like, but real childhood is a nightmare in
which children are coerced, silenced,
terrorized, and made to be fearful. The
victimization of children is not a
consequence of just incompetent or
malicious caretakers, but will happen as
long as children as a group are oppressed
under patriarchy. It is doubtful that the
adults and even the children who laugh
at Klaus, Sunny and Violet's expense will
understand this after leaving the theater.
MIM Notes 312 · January 2005 · Page 10
MIM on
Prisons & Prisoners
MIM seeks to build public opinion
against Amerika's criminal injustice sys-
tem, and to eventually replace the bour-
geois injustice system with proletarian jus-
tice. The bourgeois injustice system im-
prisons and executes a disproportionately
large and growing number of oppressed
people while letting the biggest mass mur-
derers -- the imperialists and their lack-
eys -- roam free. Imperialism is not op-
posed to murder or theft, it only insists that
these crimes be committed in the interests
of the bourgeoisie.
"All U.S. citizens are criminals--
accomplices and accessories to the crimes
of U.$. oppression globally until the day
U.$. imperialism is overcome. All U.S.
citizens should start from the point of view
that they are reforming criminals."
MIM does not advocate that all
prisoners go free today; we have a
more effective program for fighting
crime as was demonstrated in China
prior to the restoration of capitalism
there in 1976. We say that all prisoners
are political prisoners because under
the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, all
imprisonment is substantively
political. It is our responsibility to
exert revolutionary leadership and
conduct political agitation and
organization among prisoners --
whose material conditions make them
an overwhelmingly revolutionary
group. Some prisoners should and will
work on self-criticism under a future
dictatorship of the proletariat in those
cases in which prisoners really did do
something wrong by proletarian
standards.
Under Lock & Key
News from Prisons & Prisoners
Oregon Organizing
Needs Next Step
Unfortunately, I am once again enchained
in the belly of Oregon's imperialistic DSU
machine. This time, for nothing at all! They
transferred me to Snake River Correctional
Institute only to place me on `Involuntary
Ad- Seg' status which means they can lock
me down for any amount of time for nothing
other than being me! I say this because of the
political tattoo on my face, which reads,
`FUCK COPS!' in huge letters! But the
administrative imperialists say it's because I
am a threat to staff. Since an anti- imperialist
prisoner just stabbed one captain and one
CO at OSP, they locked me down as well.
We revolutionaries in Oregon have been
very busy this year, with simultaneous hunger
strikes on three of Oregon's roughest prison
yards, and telephone strikes and boycotts.
The imperialistic administrative capitalist
machine agendas that run Oregon's prison
telephone systems are profiting a million
dollars a year off Oregon's prisoners. Our
telephone strikes in September were very
successful. We are now granted three yard
times a day. Also, they have lowered many
items' prices in the canteen.
Yet, the biggest accomplishment of all was
and remains the racial unity that brought
about the prisoner unity that dominated the
system across Oregon. It is time for unity to
rise up and overthrow. Many people have
thrown their theories and ideology around
and have gained good ground in the struggles
of our movement. Reality, however, is always
right around the corner, and fact is louder
than fiction. With that in mind, I submit these
few words of realism untainted by fantasy.
In Oregon there are 106 county jails, 12 state
prisons and 1 Federal prison. Oregon is
succeeding in its effort to transform human
warehousing into a centerpiece of the
imperialist, capitalist, corrupted economy. Yet
I see people everywhere shocked by what
they saw in the Abu Ghraib situation in Iraq,
but no one is protesting the many men and
women on Death Row in California and
Oregon, the prison beatings, the cases of
outright torture, or prisoners murdered for
their acts of political resistance. Why is that?
It seems that parading around in Portland and
Eugene under a 1,000 different ideologies will
accomplish nothing other than riling a bunch
of street kids to throw a few rocks.
Some say this approach to a common
ground in resistance movements is really
counter-productive, and in the end only put
our supporters with the most heart and
courage in the prison system. In turn, this
clash of ideology is only sacrificing our people
to the system's imperialistic machines, and
then forcing them to stand alone in a structure
long built on racial separation and oppressive
segregation. This is why the ARM and I are
combining our efforts in learning and teaching
towards working in a united front with MIM,
Rail, USW, Under Lock and Key and MIM
Notes, and becoming part of the proletarian-
led united front against imperialism.
In the struggle, Your comrade Lucky,
October 2004
Unite, Stop the
Violence in Oregon
Greetings, brothers and sisters, from my
concrete cage. Recently some violence
occurred at the Snake River Correctional
Institution. Due to differences between some
inmates, it created a situation that could have
been avoided. It is for this reason I would like
to address the great need for unity, and what
unity through the ages has done for small
groups of people.
Everyone knows, or should know, that the
whole justice system isn't properly presented
to the public on television or in most books.
The justice system in this country nowadays
bases its decisions largely on community
opinion. If a decision to be made by a court
might be right and just but contrary to popular
ideology, more often than not, the court will
rule in light of what commercial society would
think.
The reason the prison population isn't
noticed as a force of intelligence is because a
portion of this population is more concerned
with looking good to their friends, getting
caught up in the rumor mill, and extorting from
the weak. Most of those involved in this are
more intelligent than that, but let peer pressure
take over their common sense and their depth
of humanity.
Those who are oppressed by other inmates
are usually highly intellectual people with the
knowledge and resources to assist the inmate
oppressors in areas important to their (and
our) cause. The extorted don't fear the ability
to help others, rather they crave it, but instead
fear the extorters' actions after a completed
task. Without unity the officials of the
prisons, cities, states, and the country will
forever oppress the little man.
Throughout world history, smaller bands
of people have united together to form one
mighty force to impress upon the tyrants of
the era their human need to be heard and
treated as a people equal to that of any other
in the world. . . Brothers and sisters, it is time
to put away childish ways of thinking and
see who the real battle is against. It is time to
become a new kind of society. Each one of
our prisons has within it a community of its
own. The Amerikan government wants prison
reform? Let's give it to them. It doesn't take
violence, not in our lifetime.
Prisoners can use their minds to achieve a
goal, as long as they know what that goal is.
We have a goal, people. How long are you
going to sit on your hind ends and let others
decide what time you go to bed, wake up, and
shower. Contrary to what many may be
thinking, it doesn't have to be done with
violence against each other.
Many people feel angry about some of the
immoral crimes some have done to the point
of hate for those people. You might ask
yourself how you are to deal with that in these
times. Hate is an emotion/feeling that takes a
lot of mental energy. These energies can be
put to better use in other areas. The point is
that hate for other inmates could be what is
keeping a lot of our warriors in chains. At first
it is hard to put into practice, but, like other
abilities, it gets easier and easier.
Violence against fellow captives is what the
autocrats want. They depend on this to show
the unknowing public how `dangerous' their
`jobs' are. When, in truth, they are nothing
more than glorified George Jetsons who push
buttons to keep our daily lives controlled. It
doesn't have to be this way. Oppression is
right in the faces of every locked-up person
banned from society.
For those at SRCI, one inmate who became
upset because those in charge of scheduling
television viewing kept forgetting to schedule
his favorite program, wrote to the Oregonian
newspaper when the institution was going to
show `The Texas Chainsaw Massacre'. Now
SRCI can only host PG-rated movies. Our
anger towards each other is pointless while
being held within. There will be other times
for violence. While in prison it only defeats
our purposes for the rights we seek. There
will be a time for the actions that one may feel
violent and just. But, for our goals, it is not
now. This is your call to arms where the
weapons are pens and intelligence. That is,
unless you like being thought of a stupid
misfit shunned by an uncaring capitalist
society.
--An Oregon Prisoner, October 2004
Prison abuse in Iraq
and U.$.
I greet you in strength. I received MIM
Notes; it was absolutely refreshing to read a
historical dialectical materialist analysis of the
current epoch, i.e., imperialist aggression.
The newly exposed torture and abuse of
Iraqi prisoners at the hands of agents of the
bourgeoisie, in which some were revealed to
be correctional officers in the U.$., has created
a new opportunity. I think as a movement we
have an opportunity to galvanize and create
genuine consciousness as to the culture of
oppression that has been taking place in this
country for decades. I think a tactic that can
be applied is to show the bourgeois domestic
policy of prisoner oppression and continued
sanctioning of this policy by government
officials and the judicial system and how they
extended this policy to the rest of humanity.
History will not forgive revolutionaries for
not making use of the concrete material
conditions in relation to the continuous
ignominious misanthropy of the bourgeoisie.
It will take a constant vigorous explanation
and revealing of the hundreds of thousands
of episodes of torture and abuse sanctioned
by the state against prisoners in the country.
There has to be a real pressure on the
bourgeois media machine in such a way that
they don't gloss over or pusillanimously
report on this condition. It may be idealist to
focus on the bourgeois media machine, but I
think they have a use. The key is to make it
impossible for the media machine to ignore
the humongous nature of the bourgeois
foreign and domestic policy in the treatment
of prisoners.
- A Virginia prisoner May 2004
MIM responds:
The bourgeois media can
freely ignore prison abuse in this country,
until the public knows about it from other
sources. It would be idealist to base our
strategy on the goal of getting the bourgeois
media to carry the proletariat's message.
Instead, we build MIM Notes, our website
and other publications as independent
institutions of the oppressed. True, media
exposure may be a result of our victories, but
it is not their cause. To expose the prison
abuse and torture that you refer to, we
continuously publish reports on conditions
in Amerikan prisons -- and their connection
to the torture in Iraq and around the world.
For example, we publish this report from
prison in a Virgina control unit. It's our job to
get this information into the hands of other
prisoners and concerned readers on the
outside, to build public opinion against
imperialism.
Texas prison system
oppression and waste
Greetings to all my brothers and sisters in
the struggle for justice and peace. I'm writing
to you from one of Amerikkka's Texas Gulags,
straight from the pit of hell, where Satan's
demons run this system -- the Nazi
Greyshirts; where innocent men and women
are put to death on the Texas Concentration
Camp death row; where men are murdered,
beaten, and worked like dogs in their
sweatshops, without pay.
We work years to stay out of trouble to
earn what is called "good time and live class,"
and then one major disciplinary case can take
all that away. A lot of times the cases are
bogus. These officers can lie about anything
MIM Notes 312 · January 2005 · Page 11
Facts on U$ imprisonment
The facts about imprisonment in the United $tates are that the United $tates has been the world's leading prison-state per capita for the last
25 years, with a brief exception during Boris Yeltsin's declaration of a state of emergency.(1)
That means that while Reagan was talking about a Soviet "evil empire" he was the head of a state that imprisoned more people per capita.
In supposedly "hard-line" Bulgaria of the Soviet bloc of the 1980s, the imprisonment rate was less than half that of the United $tates.(2,3)
To find a comparison with U.$. imprisonment of Black people, there is no statistic in any country that compares including apartheid South
Africa of the era before Mandela was president. The last situation remotely comparable to the situation today was under Stalin during war
time. The majority of prisoners are non-violent offenders(4) and the U.S. Government now holds about a half million more prisoners than
China; even though China is four times our population.(5)
The rednecks tell MIM that we live in a "free country." They live in an Orwellian 1984 situation where freedom is imprisonment.
Notes: 1. Marc Mauer, "Americans Behind Bars: The International Use of Incarceration 1993," The Prison Sentencing Project, 918 F. St. NW, Suite
501, Washington, DC 20004 (202) 628-0871 Reference: SRI: R8965-2, 1994
2. Ibid., 1992 report.
3. United Nations Development Programme, "Human Development Report 1994,:" Oxford University Press, p. 186.
4. Figure of 51.2 percent for state prisoners there for non-violent offenses. Abstract of the United States 1993, p. 211.
5. Atlantic Monthly December, 1998.
and their word is always taken as right, but
no matter what we say we're found guilty,
and we never win on the grievance process.
I'm doing time for giving one of these Nazi
Greyshirts a black eye eight years ago. But
they can murder, and do everything else
illegal, and never see one day in jail. Texas is
not the only corrupt system; this whole
government is sick and corrupted. Our very
own president can bomb countries for oil and
kill hundreds of thousands, but it's not murder
what he does? I do time for a black eye while
all my loved ones stand by waiting for me to
come home. I came down when I was 22 years
old and I'll soon be 33. All these years of my
life gone.
All I can say is I'm with all of you in spirit
and heart in this great struggle. One day I'll
be able to be on the streets and help if I can,
but until then I can only write and say,
"March on brothers and sisters and stay
strong. The ones who keep up the fight will
prevail in the end."
--A Texas Prisoner, May 2004
MIM responds:
Thank you for your letter.
When they impose a definition of crime under
which you are in prison while the president is
in his hot tub in Crawford, they not only do
an injustice to you and your family and
community, they also waste the vast human
resources of millions of people who should
be doing meaningful work for the people. And
beyond that, they actively block those
prisoners who are attempting to improve their
lives from getting the education they need.
See the letter below.
No library or
education allowed in
Texas
I have always had mixed feelings about the
way America treats other countries. The
politicians think they can just invade any
country, go in, take over, and tell them what
to do, while they sit in Washington collecting
kickbacks.
I have talked with a couple other people so
far and they want to learn more of your views.
I would like some history books and political
books about Lenin and Stalin for starters if
they are available. I read most of the time but
all I can get here are sci-fi and fantasy, mostly
from other prisoners. They closed down the
library after the librarian retired and only let
people in school go to it. I have to work in the
kitchen 8 hours a day and have too much
education for them to put me in school
[presumably a high school degree -ed.].
I am in prison for the second time for
burglary. I need stability in my life and
something to believe in so when I get out
again I can stay away from drugs. I can write
some articles for MIM Notes, about the prison
here. I look forward to receiving my first copy
of MIM Notes.
--A Texas prisoner, June 2004
MIM responds:
MIM has always said that
some people in prison have committed crimes
against the people and need rehabilitation
(and/or treatment, in the case of drug
addiction). It's just that (1) imperialists impose
a definition of crime that serves their interests,
not the interests of the people (see letter
above), and (2) their prison system does
nothing to encourage people to improve
themselves and their contribution to the
people.
It is criminal that MIM and other small
organizations are left trying to supply
educational material to millions of prisoners,
while the state not only denies them
education, but denies them access to libraries
when they seek to educate themselves even
after working all day. Let's purge this system
with its insane and oppressive practices, and
build a new justice system, as part of a new
just society that prevents crime against all
people while using the vast resources of the
oppressed for the public good rather then
the enrichment of the imperialists and their
lackeys.
Organizing against control units in Indiana
Revolutionary Greetings! I haven't
communicated in a while because I've been
busy with my court preparation and we are
currently in a prison lock- down. I hope the
included signatures help out with the struggle.
If you have any extra copies of the Anti
SHU petition can you send them to me? I
have some comrades that would like to send
them to the outside and get them on the
streets.
--An Indiana prisoner, August 2004
California Prison
Guards: the real
danger
I've come to a place that's not dangerous
because of the inmates, it's dangerous
because of the guards. Don't get me wrong,
ya do have some wacked people in here. But
the people that are supposed to be overseeing
ya safety are the ones putting your life in
danger. If they don't like me they can put a
knife in my cell. If they don't like me I can fall
out and have a seizure in this cell. They'll
provoke you in a way that they actually want
you to put hands on them. These are the folks
who are supposed to be overseeing me. It's
just like the police on the street. Ain't nothing
different.
- A California prisoner, November 2004
California:
Punishment for
sagging pants
Folsom prison has its own rules and has
been under investigation for corruption. There
was one situation where a young Black
brother was sagging his pants. Now the
procedural way to deal with such a minor
offense is to issue a verbal warning and if
that fails the progressive discipline begins.
However, for this brotha that didn't happen,
instead his cell was searched and all
appliances were removed. That night they sat
in darkness! I hooked up a citizens complaint
for him and left the rest up to him. People are
afraid of reprisals.
- a California prisoner, November 2004
Lifers: get involved in
the fight
As a lifer in the state of New York, I feel
there is not much being done in the fight for
good time for lifers. By saying this, I don't
mean to offend the few organizations that are
fighting on our behalf, I'm speaking more on
a prisoners behalf. As lifers, I feel we need to
become more involved in the fight for good
time and get our families involved as well.
Little do we know that our families hold
some kind of power. Just imagine if all of our
families were to come together and speak out
against this fucked up justice system. They'd
leave the government no choice but to listen.
If we're going to see change in the years to
come, we're going to have to make that change
happen. The only way we're going to be able
to make that happen is by coming together
and fighting against this fucked up justice
system. Fighting against each other only
proves that we're still in the same frame of
mind that we were in when we first entered
this system, when we were purposely kept
ignorant and taught what to think instead of
how to think. The war on Iraq should open
our eyes to what's in store for us. This
government will kill kids and women to
accomplish their goals. Their goals are to
accomplish what Hitler failed to do: take over
the world. (It's called the New World Order.)
So instead of getting on these gates beefing
about what rapper wasn't good and what ball
player made 20 points, we need to start
becoming politically aware and get in tune
with what's going on in this fucked up world
because it effects all of us. Next time, we get
on these gates, we need to be talking about
how Che and Fidel Castro were able to
overthrow a whole system with just 80
comrades and how we can't overthrow a
system with over 2 million prisoners. We need
to become familiar with the speeches of
comrades like Marx, Lenin and Mao. We need
to understand their cause and their fight. Like
the comrade George Jackson said, "Men who
read Lenin, Fanon and Che don't riot, `they
mass,' `they rage,' they dig graves."
Forever onwards to victory! Freedom or
death!
-- A New York Lifer, June 2004
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?
MIM Notes 312 · January 2005 · Page 12
Notas Rojas
enero 2005, Nº 312 Fragmento del Periodico Oficial del Movimiento Internacionalista Maoista Gratis
Escrito por mim3@mim.org y
mousnonya
Traducido por Células de Estudio para la
Liberación de Aztlán y América Latina
El 24 de mayo, Bush salió en la tele con fin
de preparar al público para las semanas y los
meses que tocan en Irak. "Nuestros
comandantes han estimado que menos de
115,000 tropas resultarían suficientes en este
momento del conflicto"- dijo Bush. "Dado el
reciente crecimiento de la violencia,
mantendremos el actual nivel de tropas-
138,000- por el tiempo que sea necesario".
"Si los comandantes necesitan más
tropas"- dijo Bush,- "las mandaré". (1) El
mismo día el senador demócrata Joe
Lieberman se puso del lado del presidente
diciendo en el CNN que la guerra en Irak era
"una prueba generacional". En vez de señalar
que esta guerra ha fomentado el odio hacia el
imperialismo estadounidense, Lieberman
declaró que habría más ataques en el suelo
estadounidense si las tropas no se quedan
en Irak.
Mientras tanto, los senadores Hillary
Clinton (D-NY) y Lindsey Grahan (R-SC)
hicieron un llamado abogando por unas
"fuerzas militares más amplias". Hillary
Clinton expresó dudas en cuanto al
financiamiento de las mismas pero dijo que
no había otra opción. (2) Es posible que
Grahan vea la guerra como una oportunidad
de trabajo para los blancos jóvenes rurales
de su estado, ya que Carolina del Sur ha
perdido muchos puestos de trabajo, pero se
niega a implementar cambios.
Los múltiples escándalos alrededor del
tema de torturas de los prisioneros en Irak y
Afganistán significan que otros imperialistas
como la ONU están en una mejor posición
para negociar. En este momento los
gobernantes estadounidenses están tratando
de aparentar flexibles ante el público.
Nosotros pensamos que esta apariencia se
dirige más que nada hacia la opinión pública
estadounidense, y no tanto hacia otros líderes
estatales.
La diplomática de Hillary Clinton, Madeleine
Albright, dijo que apreciaba el reconocimiento
del valor de la ONU por parte de Bush el 24 de
mayo. El hecho de que Bush está dispuesto a
fomentar las ilusiones de la población
electoral demócrata indica que existe una
unidad bipartidista.
El MIM anticipa la introducción de un
servicio militar obligatorio después de las
elecciones a menos que los iraquíes u otros
luchadores del Medio Oriente obtengan una
enorme victoria militar o a menos que haya
una desesperada lucha radical en contra del
servicio militar obligatorio durante los meses
que vienen. Por el momento paree que la
posibilidad de sacar a EE. UU. de Irak es mejor
que nunca: 1) Bush está "recibiendo palizas"
a nivel internacional y hasta cierto punto
dentro de EE.UU.; 2) Bush y Blair aparecieron
ante la ONU buscando una bendición para la
ocupación. Hay que enfatizar que si bien es
cierto que EE. UU. están recibiendo palizas
militares y latigazos verbales por parte de la
opinión pública internacional, y que pronto
Bush se enfrentará a las elecciones, es posible
que dicha búsqueda del apoyo de la ONU
tenga como su meta una consolidación de la
opinión pública estadounidense con respecto
al tema del servicio militar obligatorio. A los
imperialistas les gusta decir que ellos
"hicieron un intento" con la ONU y fallaron,
de modo que necesitan implementar un
servicio militar obligatorio. (Desde nuestro
punto de vista, no importa si el Tío Sam decide
arruinar el país mediante gastos de déficit para
expandir las fuerzas militares o implementar el
servicio militar obligatorio. De cualquier
manera el imperialismo estadounidense está
condenado a ser parte del basurero de la
historia. Cuanto más luchan los iraquíes y los
afganos, menos eficaces serán los
mercenarios que llevan a cabo
reclutamientos.)
Los imperialistas jugarán las cartas de la
ONU. Otra carta podría ser la Liga Árabe, una
asociación de lacayos gubernamentales
árabes. El 23 de mayo, los lacayos árabes
sugirieron la idea de mandar tropas a Irak como
parte de la fuerza internacional respaldada por
la ONU. (3) Un milagro diplomático llevaría
tropas árabes a Irak, y Bush podría lanzar un
grito de victoria para las elecciones de
noviembre.
Nosotros pensamos que es muy probable
que todos estos esquemas se implementen
con el fin de demostrar al público
estadounidense que Bush "hizo el intento",
y de darles a los senadores Clinton y
Lieberman las excusas que necesitan para
respaldar diseños más agresivos. Es posible
que Inglaterra sea uno de los pocos países
que se nieguen a contribuir muchas tropas a
los imperialistas estadounidenses. Un 66%
del público electoral inglés se opone a que se
manden ni siquiera 3000 tropas más a Irak. (4)
Los imperialistas estadounidenses carecen de
personal militar hasta tal grado que no son
capaces de continuar sus operaciones
ofensivas contra Irán, Siria o Corea del Norte.
Cuatro hechos sobre los movimientos de
tropas enemigas y la "estructura de sus
fuerzas" demuestran porqué la capacidad
militar de los imperialistas ha llegado al
extremo, dada la ausencia de un reclutamiento
militar obligatorio.
En primer lugar, las tres divisiones
(alrededor de 50,000 soldados) recientemente
retirados de Irak están clasificadas como "no
preparadas para luchar". (5) Hasta que no se
reemplace o se repare su armamento, en lo
cual se tardarán unos cuantos meses, estas
tropas no estarán disponibles para su uso en
el extranjero. Estas divisiones han sido
reemplazadas por reservistas y guardias
nacionales. Con menos entrenamiento y un
armamento inferior estos soldados serán
menos eficaces.
En segundo lugar, el enemigo ha tomado la
decisión de retirar sus tropas del Corea del
Sur para mandarlas a Irak, y no es para que
los soldados del frente coreano obtengan una
"auténtica" experiencia de combate. (6) La
desesperación del enemigo es suficiente para
que éste arriesgue un frente (Corea) por otro
(Irak).
En tercer lugar, EE. UU. han empezado a
buscar miembros de la Reserva Individual, en
otras palabras, soldados que durante los
últimos ocho años han estado en servicio
activo o pasivo. Están sujetos a la posibilidad
de una movilización a base de aviso, aunque
no estén pasando por un entrenamiento junto
con la guardia activa o unidades de la reserva
pasiva. (7) Si bien los funcionarios
frecuentemente se han negado a dar de baja a
personal militar en servicio activo de acuerdo
con el programa "paremos las pérdidas", una
activación de la Reserva Individual es el último
paso que el gobierno puede dar para
incrementar el número de tropas, si se evita la
introducción del servicio militar obligatorio.
En cuarto lugar, EE. UU. también están
planeando mandar a Irak sus unidades de
entrenamiento de la fuerza de oposición
("OpFor"). (8) OpFor son los mejores
soldados de las fuerzas militares. Su trabajo
consiste en entrenar nuevas unidades de
acuerdo con los estándares más altos. La
presencia de estas unidades en Irak significa
que los reclutas recién entrenados no tendrán
ni idea sobre cómo pelear, de modo que logros
a largo plazo (algunos de los mejores soldados
de las fuerzas armadas en Irak) resultan en
pérdidas a largo plazo (reclutas no entrenados
serán aplastados como moscas el año que
viene, y sus compañeros fastidiados o
indispuestos a luchar terminarán matando a
oficiales).
Estos cuatro hechos indican que EE. UU.
no tienen el personal adecuado para llevar a
cabo sus planes, lo cual implica la
introducción de un servicio militar obligatorio
después de las elecciones,
independientemente de que facción
imperialista obtenga el poder estatal. El
servicio militar obligatorio no es más que otra
forma de opresión de los jóvenes, aún en
países imperialistas. Los imperialistas
estadounidenses se han dado cuenta de que
no obtendrán apoyo material de los
imperialistas alemanes y franceses, y ni
siquiera de la ONU. Los socios de un crimen
con derechos iguales se respetan a sí mismos.
Así que EE. UU. implementarán un
reclutamiento obligatorio: los problemas
presupuestarios apuntan a la misma
posibilidad.
El capitalismo promociona una actitud de
"vivir en el momento". Este hecho envenena
el razonamiento capitalista en cuanto a la
guerra. Esta es una de las múltiples razones
por la cual el MIM tiene confianza estratégica
en el proletariado mundial. Los imperialistas
siguen cometiendo errores en esta guerra (9)
debido a una sobreestimación de su poder y
no pueden admitir la verdad- el hecho de que
su imperio está construido sobre el sudor y la
sangre de la mano de obra tercermundista
robada por los imperialistas.
Sin considerar el insano tratamiento de los
prisioneros y los abusos de los civiles
documentados en previos artículos de MIM
Notes, está claro que nuestros enemigos están
extendidos más allá de su capacidad y están
cometiendo errores. Si se suman sus cálculos
erróneos de fuerzas militares y sus
atrocidades contra el pueblo de Irak, se
obtendrá un resultado claro: los imperialistas
perderán la guerra en Irak. Cuanto antes sea
la derrota, mejor para todos nosotros.
Estos hechos confirman la predicción del
MIM de que los países imperialistas
desesperadamente necesitados de recursos
tercermundistas, terminarán expandiéndose
más allá de su capacidad e involucrándose
en difíciles guerras por recursos
tercermundistas. El enemigo está cometiendo
graves errores diarios. Pero nuestra victoria
no será rápida: desafortunadamente, los
imperialistas matarán a muchos proletarios
antes de que sus errores estratégicos se
manifiesten en sus propios países. Tenemos
que minimizar nuestras pérdidas hasta el
máximo grado posible mediante la
organización de una resistencia a la guerra.
No tarden en oponerse al imperialismo: la vida
que Uds. salven puede ser la suya.
Fuentes consultadas:
1. http://www.cnn.com/2004/
ALLPOLITICS/05/24/bush.iraq/index.html
2. http://www.cnn.com/2004/
ALLPOLITICS/05/23/senate.military/
index.html
3. http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/world/
story/0,4386,252691,00.html
4. http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/
0,12956,1224003,00.html 45%
5. 15 de mayo, 2004, por Esther Schrader
http://www.latimes.com/news/
nationworld/iraq/compl ete/la-
naready15may15,0,7845126.story?coll=lairaq-
complete
6. 19 de mayo, 2004 por JOSEPH
L.GALLOWAY Detroit Free Press http://
w w w . f r e e p . c o m / n e w s / n w /
troops19_20040519.htm
7. http://www.sltrib.com/2004/May/
05132004/utah/166102.asp
8. 24 de mayo, 2004 http://
www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/
Artic les/000/000/004/
100ctzvm.asp
9. Por Jim Lobe, Asia Times, 21 de mayo,
2004 http://atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/
FE21Ak02.html
Bush reitera lo mismo: es posible
un aumento de tropas en Irak