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| x   x x x   x   x  x  xx  xxx xxx  xxx                   |
| xx xx x xx xx   xx x x  x  x  x   x       Issue #10      |
| x x x x x x x   x xx x  x  x  xx   xxx                   |
| x   x x x   x   x  x x  x  x  x       x   03/21/85       |
| x   x x x   x   x  x  xx   x  xxx  xxx                   |
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|    Newspaper of the Maoist Internationalist Movement     |
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   REMEMBER SHARPVILLE!
   
   APARTHEID REGIME SHAKING; FEARFUL OF DIVESTMENT
   In an attempt to save capitalism in South Africa, the 
business community is calling for the apparent dismantling of 
apartheid. The American Chamber of Commerce in South Africa 
now advocates the abolition of pass laws that require the 80% 
Black population of South Africa to carry identity cards and 
to live outside the urban areas. The Chamber of Commerce also 
criticized the forced resettlement of Blacks to so-called 
homelands, which are reservations of the worst land in South 
Africa constructed as dumping grounds for Blacks not working 
in the white cities and mines. (Christian Science Monitor, 
3/19/85, 12)
   Meanwhile a coalition of 80% of South African industry, 
mining and commerce called on Botha to lead South Africa with 
a "visible expression" of long-promised reforms for Blacks. 
It said this would have a "positive impact" on overseas 
opinion and the divestment debate in the U.S.. Thus, business 
in South Africa has shown a remarkably public fear of U.S. 
withdrawal of investments. (Ibid.)
   According to the Christian Science Monitor, "the strategy 
of South African businesses, says one official with one of 
the country's largest companies, is to let U.S. companies do 
the lobbying in Washington, and to focus local efforts on 
pressuring the government into faster and more fundamental 
reform of apartheid." (Ibid.) The South African ruling class 
demonstrates that it is aware that its lobbying in the U.S. 
against divestment has backfired. In the past, it had spent 
hundreds of thousands of dollars in the effort to keep 
Massachusetts from divesting for example.
   So extreme is the pressure, the executive director of the 
American Chamber of Commerce has resigned in order to take a 
more active role in lobbying against divestiture. 
Furthermore, the apartheid regime admits that it must find a 
more coordinated strategy of communication to oppose 
divestment. (Ibid)
   Part of the window-dressing effort concerns the government 
budget. Military spending increased 8% for 1985-86 compared 
to 23% the year before. Education increased 19%; although, at 
best one fifth of the education budget goes to the "four 
million black pupils who make up two-thirds of the country's 
school population outside the tribal homelands." (New York 
Times, 3/19/85, "Pretoria Plans to Cut Arms Spending and 
Raise Education Budget") Undoubtedly the militant school 
boycotts have been dysfunctional for the ruling class. 
Recently, 20,000 students boycotted school in Johannesburg, 
where six people had been killed. (New York Times, 3/12/85) 
Hundreds of thousands of students in the very places where 
they have been massacred over the years--Sharpeville and 
especially the Soweto area--continue to expose the lie of 
apartheid.
   Over the past 13 months, over 220 people, all but one 
Black, have been massacred by the police, yet the rebellion 
continues. (Ibid.) It is truly inspiring to realize that 
repression does not work even in one of the most efficient 
fascist states in the world.
   
   ISRAELI OCCUPIERS LOSING
   Amal Shiites and even garrisons of the Lebanese Army 
resisted an Israeli occupation and massacre in a town in 
Lebanon. 37 Lebanese died in Zrariyeh. (Chicago Tribune 
3/14/85; New York Times 3/12/85)
   Pro-Israeli hard liners amongst Gemayel's Christian 
militia supporters have rebelled to take open action that 
Gemayel can not as head of the Lebanese puppet government. 
The Christian hard-liners want to protect their interests 
without going through Gemayel. Gemayel appears helpless to 
prevent the actions of his supporters. He may no longer serve 
the U.S./Israeli interests.
   The Christian reactionaries are on especially thin ice 
because their Israeli backers are having to pullout of 
Lebanon sooner than expected. The Israelis have suffered 
heavy casualties as unwanted occupiers of Lebanon.
   
   IMPERIALIST-BACKED WAR IN MID-EAST SACRIFICES PROLETARIAT
   Iranian and Iraqi reactionaries continued their war 
against each other sacrificing their people in the process. 
In the latest round of bombs dropped by the two air forces, 
over 100 people in the cities of the two countries have been 
killed. (New York Times, 3/12/85) The oppressed are thus 
forced to bear the cost of the war. Hopefully, the 
debilitating war will create an opportunity for revolution by 
the oppressed of the countries against the war makers. 
   
   REAGAN FIGHTING NON-SOVIET NATIONALISTS
   Acknowledging the success of the New People's Army in the 
Philippines in its struggle against U.S. imperialism and its 
puppet Marcos regime, Reagan has called for $275 million in 
aid for the Philippines. (New York Times, 3/13/85, 9)
   
   U.S. GOV'T FOR SALE
   The Supreme Court ruled on March 18th that money talks. In 
a 7 to 2 decision the court said that political action 
committees could spend as much as they like in presidential 
elections. There had been an unenforced $1,000 limit. 
   Upholding lower court decisions, the Supreme Court said 
that the $1,000 limit "'is much like allowing a speaker in a 
public hall to express his views while denying him the use of 
an amplifying system.'" (Ibid.) Thus, the highest court 
admits that people with a $1,000 or less to spend on the 
presidential election are effectively denied their supposed 
free speech. At the same time, the amplifying system of the 
ruling class--by definition those who can rule and have the 
money to--drowns out all views except those of the people who 
own the means of communication.
   In 1980, the bourgeoisie gave Reagan $12.2 million against 
Carter's $45,000 through political action committees (PACs). 
In 1984, it was Reagan's $15.3 million against Mondale's 
$621,000. (Ibid) This is not to mention that neither 
candidate opposes the property system that denies effective 
speech to poor people. Nor is this to raise the issue that 
third parties received only scant funding and media 
attention.
   Each candidate of the two private-property parties 
received $40.4 million of the taxpayers' money. Each also 
received $6.9 million from their party committees. (Ibid) 
Both candidates were personally millionaires.
   It is little wonder that neither candidate attacked 
private property even remotely. Both supported increasing 
military expenditures at the expense of the world's poor and 
hungry. Electoral politics in the U.S. is a game for rich 
people. The propertyless remain disenfranchised.
   The National Conservative PAC and the Fund for a 
Conservative Majority gave Reagan $5.5 million and $2.5 
million respectively. We ask our reformist and electoral 
activists: How are you ever going to compete with that?
   One must either be a yes-man to millionaires or not 
participate effectively in electoral politics. The choice of 
nearly half of the electorate is not even to vote in the 
debate of the millionaire's clubs.
   
   ABC BOUGHT FOR $3.5 BILLION
   Capital Cities Communications Inc bought the American 
Broadcasting Companies (ABC). (NYT 3/19/85, p. A1) The 
purchase continues a trend toward the concentration of media 
resources under one management. An ordinarily boring spate of 
syndicated papers and radio stations can only continue its 
self-perpetuating and incestuous tradition with the merger to 
television. A handful of Big Brother syndicated columnists 
and reporters are extending their monopoly of communications 
under ever more central control.
   Under socialism, the government as opposed to the 
corporations decides and attempts to control news reporting 
within certain bounds. This is not a wonderful arrangements 
for all time that communists seek. The communists recognize 
only that political issues should be decided through the 
application of Mao's mass line. That is to say that the 
opinions of the masses (as opposed to the corporate 
executives) are collected up to be reported in centralized 
fashion. What the media says and what the government does is 
not a matter of who can spend the most money under socialism. 
Rather, the disenfranchised poor, minorities and women--the 
working masses mobilize continuously until they succeed in 
running society in their own interests. With their final 
victory, the formerly disenfranchised masses will enjoy 
stateless democracy and freedom because they themselves will 
be the state. They themselves will have eliminated the 
classes, nations and patriarchy that make a repressive 
apparatus necessary in the first place. Socialism is a 
transition stage in which the disenfranchised try out one and 
only one strategy at a time until they liberate all of 
humanity.
   
   GOVERNMENT OKs ABORTION CLINIC BOMBINGS
   FBI boss William Webster said that his agency would not 
investigate harassment of abortion clinics. The Justice 
Department has said that there have been no civil rights 
violations in the threatening phone calls, demonstrations and 
bombings that abortion clinics have received. (Detroit Free 
Press 3/13/85, p. 16A)
   The 32 bombings since 1982 are overlooked by the ruling 
class that is trying to repress women. Abortion is not so 
much a question of the so-called rights of women against 
fetuses. Rather the right-to-life movement is a messianic 
movement that supports the sexual repression of women and the 
return of women to the family to raise kids. This is how the 
ruling class disciplines women for work and terrorizes and 
disenfranchises women socially and economically.
   
   U.S. TEEN PREGNANCY OVER TWICE THAT OF OTHER COUNTRIES
   The American patriarchy has succeeded in making abortion 
necessary through restriction of contraception education. The 
hypocrites of local school boards denounce sex education and 
then wonder why teensages have so many abortions.
   Countries with slightly different historical conditions 
from those in the U.S.--Canada, England, France, Sweden and 
the Netherlands--have teen pregnancy rates ranging from 14 to 
45 per thousand of the 15 to 19-year-olds. In the U.S., the 
figure is 96. (Detroit Free Press 3/13/85, p. 6A)
   In the world's greatest bastion of capitalism and 
imperialism, it is not surprising that the women's movement 
has had the greatest obstacles to overcome among the Western 
imperialist countries. Luckily their opponents in the U.S. 
now face a deteriorating post-WWII hegemony that forces women 
into economic and political life.
   
   OHIO BANKS GO UNDER
   As of Mar. 20, 71 banks in Ohio had to remain closed for a 
fifth day. They had experienced a run on their deposits. They 
are not federally insured, but state insured.
   The train of events was triggered by the failure of the 
Home State Savings Bank. (NYT 3/17/85) The bank failure 
demonstrates once again that capitalist competition generates 
crisis. Smaller capitalists fail and are gobbled up by the 
capitalists with bigger profits. Property falls into the 
hands of fewer and fewer people or capitalist institutions.
   
   PENTAGON ADMITS PLANS TO BLOCK SUN: FREEZE EARTH
   The Pentagon admits that the detonation of existing 
nuclear weapons could cause a "nuclear winter." Smoke and 
dust from the explosions would block the sun--perhaps for six 
months by some predictions. Temperatures could drop 75 
degrees. (NYT 3/2/85, p. A1)
   Human life would be wiped out along with most if not all 
species. The TTAPS study by scientists including Carl Sagan 
shows that scientists can make progressive contributions to 
the understanding of social problems. Communists recognize 
that there are no guarantees in the struggle against 
imperialism and militarism. The prospect of "nuclear winter" 
only increases the responsibility of politically conscious 
forces.
   
   CHINA REQUIRES SOCIALIST COVER
   Deng Xiaoping reined in speculations about an open 
repudiation of Marxism by the Chinese Communist Party. "There 
are people who fear that China could become capitalist." 
"This fear is not without foundation. We must address their 
concern in deeds, not just empty talk." (NYT 3/17/85)
   Deng has been forced to admit that economic crimes are so 
rampant that it was necessary to attack "capitalist 
thinking." In 1984, $1.2 billion in crimes turned up in state 
enterprises. (Ibid)
   Although in actions China is clearly state capitalist 
already, Deng is required to say that "the ultimate goal is 
to implement communism." Genuine communists oppose this 
socialism in words as "revisionism."