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.
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THE MAOIST INTERNATIONALIST MOVEMENT
MIM Notes No. 60 JANUARY 1992
MIM Notes speaks to and from the viewpoint of the
world's oppressed majority, and against the
imperialist-patriarchy. Pick it up and wield it in
the service of the people. support it, struggle
with it and write for it.
IN THIS ISSUE:
1. U.S. CAGES HAITIANS
2. GAY MURDER SHOWS RIGHTS NOT ENOUGH
3. AMERIKA CELEBRATES HOMELESSNESS
4. LETTERS
5. CORRECTION
6. WILL THE (REAL) FEMINISTS PLEASE STEP FORWARD?
7. BAN ALL MEN
8. WHO CARES IF HOOKERS DIE?
9. THE CURRENCY OF IDEAS
10. DEATH IN DETROIT
11. ANOTHER COUP IN THE EX-USSR?
12. POVERTY: AN UNHEARD-OF-CRIME
13. NICARAGUA RACES TOWARD CIVIL WAR
14. UNDER LOCK & KEY: NEWS FROM PRISONS AND PRISONERS
15. MIM NOTES 'TRESPASSES' IN MIAMI
16. SUPERMARKET MAG BASHES 'MADAME MAO'
17. MOVIE REVIEWS: STAR TREK VI: THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY, CAPE
FEAR, THE ADDAMS FAMILY
18. REVOLUTIONARY HISTORY
The Maoist Internationalist Movement (MIM) is a
revolutionary communist party that upholds
Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, comprising 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
Spanish-speaking Maoist internationalist parties
of Aztlan, Puerto Rico and other territories of
the U.S. Empire. MIM Notes is the newspaper of
MIM. Notas Rojas is the newspaper of the Spanish-
speaking parties or emerging parties of MIM.
MIM is an internationalist organization that works
from the vantage point of the Third World
proletariat; thus, its members are not Amerikans,
but world citizens.
MIM struggles to end the oppression of all groups
over other groups: classes, genders, nations. MIM
knows this is only possible 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
human history. (3) MIM believes the North American
white-working-class is primarily a non-
revolutionary worker-elite at this time; thus, it
is not the principal vehicle to advance Maoism in
this country.
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
* * *
U.S. CAGES HAITIANS
Since the end of October, the United States Coast Guard has
stopped more than 6,300 Haitians trying to sail to Florida to
escape starvation and military repression in Haiti.
This increased exodus of Haitians is in response to the Sept. 30
overthrow of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the new military
government and horrible conditions fueled by the subsequent U.S.-
led trade embargo, which is supposedly aimed at punishing the new
government and getting Aristide back in power.
Every day, the bourgeois media shows us pictures of masses of
Haitian refugees--laying on shipdecks or behind barbed wire at
Guant‡namo Bay refugee camp in Cuba. Those Haitians kept at sea or
detained off the mainland cannot apply for asylum or seek legal
counsel. Over the last ten years, only 28 of the 20,000 Haitians
who have attempted to gain political asylum in the United States
have been successful.
Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, has been
especially punished by imperialists since it was the home of the
first successful Black revolution nearly 200 years ago. Just as
the last revolution overthrew slavery to make way for capitalism,
the next one will overthrow the highest stage of capitalism--
imperialism.
TRAPPED IN UNCLE SAM'S NET
by MC42
Since the end of October, the U.S. Coast Guard has stopped more
than 6,300 Haitians trying to sail or float to Florida to escape
starvation and military repression in Haiti.(1)
This increased exodus of Haitians is in response to the overthrow
of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide on Sept. 30, the new military
government and the horrible conditions caused by the subsequent
U.S.-led trade embargo aimed at punishing the new government and
getting Aristide back in power.
Forced repatriation
On Nov. 18 and 19, the Coast Guard picked up 538 Haitians and
returned them to Port-au-Prince, where they were met by the Red
Cross, given $10 and sent on their way.(2) But on Nov. 19, a
federal judge in Miami ruled for a temporary ban on the forced
repatriation of Haitian refugees.
The Federal District Court in Miami, which made the ruling,(1) has
now ordered that the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS)
find a new way to make sure that Haitians with a "legitimate fear
of persecution" will not get returned to Haiti.(3) If they are
"legitimate" claims, the United States will grant them political
asylum. In Amerika's definition, "persecution" means getting shot
in the head by Amerika's enemies.
But Haitians who are fleeing for solely economic reasons, by
Amerika's terms, will most likely be forced back to Haiti. Murder
by starvation, disease and poverty due to a U.S.-sponsored trade
embargo is not considered "persecution," but normal capitalism at
work.
Those Haitians kept at sea or detained off the mainland cannot
apply for asylum or seek legal counsel, as many Haitians who
arrive in the United States by air now do.(4) Refugee advocacy
groups maintain that all Haitian refugees should be granted
political asylum. So far, only 161 "boat people" have been flown
to Miami to pursue political asylum cases.(5) Over the last ten
years, only 28 of the 20,000 Haitians who have attempted to gain
political asylum in the United States have been successful.(6)
Refugees detained
The Coast Guard and Navy vessels--where Haitian refugees were
detained and hastily interviewed--are now dumping the refugees at
the U.S. Naval base at Guant‡namo Bay in Cuba. In the first week
of December, the Coast Guard brought more than 4,000 Haitians to
the growing "tent city" refugee center at Guant‡namo--which is
surrounded by barbed wire. As many as 10,000 more Haitian refugees
are expected there.(7)
Hearings were scheduled for Dec. 9 in a Federal court in Miami, on
whether the state order will be lifted and the United States will
be allowed to resume the repatriations.(4)
Conditions deteriorate
The embargo--imposed by the Organization of American States (OAS)
on Oct. 8 and joined by the United States on Nov. 5--has brought
Haiti almost to a standstill.(8,2) The United States--Haiti's
biggest trading partner--froze trade and assets; Venezuela cut off
oil deliveries; Canada joined in, so did France. Food shortages
are causing malnutrition, lack of gasoline has stopped public
transportation and deliveries of goods, electrical generation is
erratic at best, and total blackout is imminent.(9)
But the U.S. embargo does not include products sent from the
United States for Haitian assembly plants; Undersecretary of State
Bernard Aronson says that this is because the United States is
"concerned" about Haitian industry. And it should be. U.S.
companies own many of these plants.(10)
On Nov. 27, the military's hand was strengthened when 110,000
barrels of oil--enough for about 15 days--entered Haiti in defiance
of the OAS embargo; the fuel came from the Dutch colony of Aruba
on a Swiss-owned tanker and was let through by the U.S. Coast
Guard after inspection in international waters.(11)
Most Haitians want Aristide back in power and so they support the
international embargo as the only way to pressure the military
government. A demonstration in protest of the embargo violation
was scheduled for Dec. 4 at the Haitian consulate in New York
City.(11) But begging with the imperialists gets us nowhere.
Haitians need to organize and build support for revolution.
"The Bush Administration and the OAS are unlikely to accept
anything less than Mr. Aristide's return."(12) It is clear that
Aristide will return as a U.S. puppet, nothing more.
Demonstrating in Miami
Every night, hundreds of pro-Aristide Haitian demonstrators still
flood Little Haiti's 54th street in Miami, Florida. A march in
November had 15,000 people in the streets, protesting the military
overthrow of Aristide. But recently, these protests have led to
confrontations with small anti-Aristide groups.(13)
The small and recently formed anti-Aristide group, Students for a
Free Haiti, opposes the embargo, saying it is strangling Haiti's
commerce and starving Haiti's poor. Members of this group say they
have been silent for so long because they feared "mob violence"
against them.(13) One member also said that "upper, middle and
business classes were unfairly blamed for many of the nation's
problems" and that "Aristide was a demagogue bent on leading Haiti
to communism."(5)
But most Haitians in Miami support the pro-Aristide activist
group, Veye Yo which is Creole for "watch them," i.e. keep an eye
on corruption and crime in high places.
Haitians must organize
The first open demonstration in Haiti against the coup took place
on Nov. 1 in Gonaives-- site of the 1985 demonstrations that led to
Duvalier's overthrow in 1986.(14)
There is also speculation that the Haitian people will take some
dramatic action on Dec. 16 to mark the anniversary of last year's
presidential elections, in which Aristide won 67% of the vote.(14)
Haitians in the United States are planning a demonstration in
Washington, D.C. on Dec. 13 with the following demands:
enforcement of the embargo; unconditional return of Aristide to
the presidency; no military intervention; and political asylum
for Haitian refugees.(11)
But unfortunately, no amount of benign demonstrations in
Washington will make Haiti free. Haitians need to organize
resistance in their country, getting help from Haitians abroad and
from other revolutionary organizations.
Notes:
1. New York Times 12/3/91, p. A5.
2. Economist 11/23/91, p. 33.
3. NYT 12/5/91, p. A4.
4. NYT 12/2/91, p. A6.
5. Miami Herald 12/1/91, p. 1A.
6. NYT 12/12/91.
7. NYT 11/28/91, p. A7.
8. Christian Science Monitor 11/5/91, p. 1.
9. NYT 11/23/91, p. A5.
10. Nicaragua Solidarity Network 11/3/91.
11. Washington Post in NSN 12/1/91.
12. Economist 11/16/91, p. 50.
13. Miami Herald 11/24/91, p. B1.
14. NSN 11/10/91.
* * *
GAY MURDER SHOWS RIGHTS NOT ENOUGH
One evening in early November, three members of a skinhead street
gang lured Julio Rivera into the corner of an abandoned
schoolyard, beat him repeatedly with a hammer and a beer bottle
and stabbed him to death.
Rivera was attacked because he was gay. The scene of the crime was
an established meeting place for gays, and the murderers, Dennis
Doyal, Esat Bici, and Erik Brown, were out for gay blood that
night. They got it.
According to the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, anti-gay
violence is on the rise. The Task Force counted 7,248 anti-gay
incidents in 1988.
In the face of such statistics, the gay and lesbian "rights"
movement in Amerika has stepped up its demands on issues like job
discrimination, access to health care and AIDS. But convincing
the state to accept homosexuality in the First World is not a step
toward liberation for gay men and lesbians everywhere. And seeking
state protection from anti-gay violence is meaningless when the
Amerikan state itself is the world's biggest perpetrator of
violence against the oppressed.
WHEN GAY RIGHTS ARE NOT ENOUGH
by MC99 & MC44
On Nov. 20, two men were convicted of second degree murder for
acting "in concert" as gay bashers. The case involves a third
perpetrator, Dennis Doyal, who is actually responsible for killing
the victim, a Latino man named Julio Rivera. Doyal, the son of a
retired New York cop, served as an eyewitness for the prosecution.
In exchange for his testimony, Doyal escaped a first-degree murder
charge by pleading guilty to the lesser charge of manslaughter.
The trial lasted three weeks and took place in the New York
Supreme court in Queens.
Doyal stated that he instigated the attack and that his friends,
Erik Brown and Esat Bici, lured Julio Rivera into an isolated
corner of a school yard and beat him with a hammer and a beer
bottle. Doyal admits to stabbing Rivera. The medical examiner
stated that the beating did not cause the death. Bici and Brown
received life in prison, with the earliest chance of parole in 15
years. Doyal received a 25 year maximum sentence with a chance for
parole in 8 1/3 years.(1)
MIM describes this as typical settler injustice. The driving force
behind the deal was probably that there was a pig's son in
jeopardy, not that the New York district attorney wanted to solve
this case because gay bashing is criminal or wrong.(1)
According to the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, general
anti-gay violence is on the rise. The Task Force counted 7,248
anti-gay incidents in 1988. The New York State Governor's Task
Force on Bias-Related Violence states that "the most severe
hostilities are directed at lesbians and gay men."(2)
In the Julio Rivera case, the assailants were acquainted by their
common participation in a "violence-prone skin-head street gang."
Doyal and Bici had shaved heads on the night they attacked Mr.
Rivera.(1) Although MIM cannot directly cite an organizational
link between right wing groups and gay bashing, we know that right
wing "family protection" groups compose the opposition to domestic
partnership legislation.(3)
Julio Rivera was attacked because he was gay; the scene of the
crime was an established meeting place for gay men. The fact that
he was Latino was probably a bonus to the white supremacist
attackers.
The modern gay and lesbian movement
The modern gay rights movement in Amerika identifies its roots in
the 1969 Stonewall riot, in which thousands of gay men and
lesbians rioted against police harassment at the Stonewall Inn in
Greenwich Village, New York.
Since then, gay and lesbian activists have addressed a variety of
issues: AIDS, sodomy laws, civil rights, family rights and hate
crimes. The movement wants gay men and lesbians to be able to
identify as gay and still be allowed equal protection under the
Constitution, access to jobs, and health care.
MIM would like all gay men and lesbians to be able to break the
chains of the traditional family structure and live freely. But in
an imperialist-dominated world, this is impossible. Gay men and
lesbians in the Third World are slaves to the heterosexual family
structure; they provide the First World with a cheap labor force
and increasing their own chances of survival through reliance on
the income of their children. If the gay rights movement in this
country was serious about fighting for the "right" to identify, it
would get serious with anti-imperialist work and take up the cause
of the international proletariat.
Wilson just says no
The gay movement's legal battles have been met with some
successes--sodomy laws have been repealed in 25 states, civil
rights for gays and lesbians have been enacted in more than 65
municipalities, and in seventeen counties.(3) But in California,
these attempts have been thwarted by an intransigent state
government.
On Sept. 29, California Governor Pete Wilson vetoed Assembly Bill
101, which would have made employment discrimination based on
sexual orientation subject to a review by the state Department of
Fair Housing and Employment. The gay community lobbied the
California legislature intensely and their efforts appeared
successful--from a reformist standpoint--since the bill was passed.
Wilson's slap-in-the-face veto was not only met with swift action
on the street, but is now credited with making the issue of civil
rights for gays and lesbians equal to AIDS in terms of the gay
political agenda.(4)
Gays and lesbians are neither the only, nor the largest,
population afflicted with AIDS. Government figures indicate that
nearly 200,000 people have been diagnosed with AIDS, and almost
130,000 people have died so far. According to Dr. June Osborn,
chair of the National Commission on AIDS, 34 million people in
this country have no health coverage, including nearly a third of
all AIDS patients.(6)
The struggle to find a cure, and provide access to health care for
every single person with the virus, can only be won when the
people are in power. No amount of petitions or resolutions begging
the Amerikan government to increase its AIDS research will
revolutionize health care. Only a revolution can do that.
Response on the ground
Angry protestors in Los Angeles and San Francisco took to the
streets the day after Wilson's veto. In Los Angeles, a member of
Queer Nation told the press: "Simply, we are going to take over
the Capitol ... Wilson your political career is over. You are the
enemy."(5)
Isolating one particular pig as the enemy is at best misleading
and at worst outright reactionary. If this movement is struggling
for liberation of oppressed people, then the Amerikan
government--all of it--is the enemy. But if the movement is about
civil rights for gay men and lesbians in the First World only,
then it is not on the side of the oppressed, and the imperialist
patriarchy is not really its enemy.
Also in Los Angeles, Tori Osborne, executive director of the Los
Angeles Gay and Lesbian Service Center was asked if the threats to
"out" gay politicians would be followed through on. She said "This
is war, and anything goes."(5)
In San Francisco $250,000 of damage was done to the local state
office building. The next day protestors rushed a stage at
Stanford University where Wilson was speaking.(4)
Gay liberation or what?
Despite the extreme character of the demonstrations, the veto
seems to have broadened the movement. Politicizing employment and
job security has increased the number of professional and white
collar protestors. State employees have proceeded with measures to
recall the Governor, a move for which gay groups have demonstrated
support. Urvashi Vaid of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force
says that "people are calling it Stonewall II."(4)
Vaid apparently meant by this comparison that the first Stonewall
was some kind of revolutionary struggle, as is the current uproar.
On the contrary, while the comparison is a good one; this wave of
the gay struggle is as liberal and reformist as that of 1969.
At this time, the gay and lesbian movement in Amerika has a lot in
common with supposedly feminist movements. Both movements seem to
be concerned only with their own oppression and oblivious to
greater reality. White gay men and lesbians, who comprise the
majority of the movement, have enough economic mobility--thanks to
super-profits from production in the Third World--to create
lifestyles that are independent of family-structured economies.
When confronted with violence, these groups seek state protection.
Victories from the state are usually reactionary victories. The
struggle for gay and lesbian "rights" is a perfect example of the
fallacy of the gradualist approach to social change, advocated by
single issue and reformist groups. Convincing the state to accept
homosexuality in the First World is not a step toward liberation
for gay men and lesbians everywhere.
First World people are not beholden to heterosexual family
structures for their economic survival, which is why the Amerikan
gay movement can achieve its desired reforms of identifying as
homosexual in both their public and "private" lives, while still
gaining access to all First World economic privileges. The
international proletariat, most of the world's population, does
not have such privilege in an imperialist-dominated world. Nor
will they, until we launch a successful socialist revolution,
smashing imperialism and its patriarchal structures.
MIM opposes discrimination based on sexual orientation. We are
working for economic, political, and sexual freedom, which
includes some of what the Amerikan gay and lesbian movement is
fighting for. But we cannot lend our support or endorsement to a
movement which organizes not on behalf of the oppressed people of
the world, but only in order to gain access for a privileged few
to the fruits of imperialism.
Notes:
1. New York Times 11/21/91, p. A1.
2. Ms. 9/10/90.
3. The Nation 7/2/90, p. 12.
4. NYT 11/12/91, p. A8.
5. Los Angeles Times 10/1/91, p. A19.
6. AP Wire 12/9/91.
* * *
AMERIKA CELEBRATES HOMELESSNESS
As we move into 1992, there's talk of "celebration" among the
oppressor nations: celebration of 500 years of robbery and
pillage, and of settlers making new homes for themselves in the
so-called New World.
When the first European settlers arrived, North and South America
supported 100 million indigenous people: who are now homeless. The
Founding Fathers imported 100 million former home-owners from
Africa. Most of the 25 million survivors of slavery have never
owned a home in Amerika.
Even during a recession, Euro-Amerikan workers and owners receive
large salaries, high wages, and a standard of living that dwarfs
the below-subsistence pittances that keeps most of the world
under-fed, under-employed, and under-housed by any contemporary
standards of technologically-possible decency. The not-so-Big
Secret of capitalism is that those who do the least work get the
most money. It's all about ownership.
Amerikan home-ownership has always rested on the destruction of
other peoples' homes. Just ask the Iraqi people. Ask the
Panamanian people. Ask the Korean, the Japanese, the Vietnamese,
the Cambodian, the Salvadoran people. The list is as long as
Amerika is old.
GIVE ME A HOME . . . WHERE THE BUFFALO ROAM NO MORE
by MC86 & MC¯
Homelessness in Amerika is necessarily built into the very
structure of the Amerikan Way. But, as if poverty were a new
phenomenon, each year the media runs feature stories profiling the
poor as a suddenly urgent problem. These articles ignore the real
cause: capitalism. Yes, even in this decadent country, where the
economy is drunk on the blood of superprofits from the Third
World, people die outside, cold and hungry. The system demands
their deaths.
The key to full rights as an Amerikan citizen is home-ownership.
You can't be a settler without a house. Settler Amerikans stand in
line at the banks pleading for mortgage loans, since it is cheaper
to own a house than to rent one--if you've got the credit. Not only
does real estate ownership mean the opportunity to resell the
property for a profit, but owning it provides a tremendous tax-
break. The group benefitting the most from government housing
subsidies are not "welfare-mothers," but home-owners!
Tax write-offs for propertied citizens amount to more than $54
billion dollars a year in uncollected taxes.(1) Compare that to
the total housing subsidy for the poor of $9.2 billion in 1988 (a
72.6% drop from 1981).(2)
Home on the range
Homelessness is not a new phenomenon in Amerika. When the first
European settlers arrived, the "New World" supported 100 million
indigenous people: who are now homeless. The Founding Fathers
imported 100 million former home-owners from Africa.(3) Most of
the 25 million survivors of slavery have never owned a home in
Amerika.
As home-ownership opportunities grew for the Euro-Amerikan
settlers, landlords charged the indigenous, Black, Latino, and
non-Anglo immigrant nationalities exorbitant rents to live in
tenement ghettos. Over the years, banks and speculators moved
entire slums from one area of a city to another, as neighborhoods
built by the people were gentrified.
Fear of homelessness or unemployment helps keep proletarians
working within U.S. borders--working for less and less pay in a
country that saw the number of millionaires double from 475,000 in
1982 to 941,000 in 1986.(4)
In 1990, Congress passed the mis-named Cranston-Gonzalez
Affordable Housing Act, which subsidizes banks and slippery "non-
profit" developers as they buy up decrepit housing projects, fore-
closed properties, and entire blocks burned by landlord-arsonists.
The buildings are remodeled and sold to the wealthy, as well as to
managers and labor-aristocrats who can afford to purchase
cooperatives and condominiums.
As the inner-city communities are destroyed by gentrification and
people flee to suburban territories in search of work and housing,
some people become homeless for a few months, others for years.
Who's homeless?
A 1987 study of interviews with 1,846 homeless people--most of whom
were found in soup kitchens or shelters--found that 54% were
members of oppressed nationalities. Almost one out of four had
done time in a state or federal prison.(5)
This points toward overall poverty rates, which show that 30% of
all people officially under the "poverty line" are Black.(6) 41%
of Black households have incomes of less than $15,000 per year,
compared to 17% of white households.(7)
Homelessness involves two key factors in America: First, some
unemployment is structurally built into the system, as it is with
any capitalist economy. Second, when the economy suffers
internationally, more people become homeless and the bourgeoisie
is less able and willing to ensure even their allies the basic
necessities.
In the United States both of these categories--structural
homelessness and the increases in homelessness with economic
downturns--are made up predominantly of the oppressed nations. So
it is no surprise that the homeless are mostly Blacks, Latinos,
and indigenous peoples.
Liberals, social democrats and Trotskyists love to point to the
figures showing the growing numbers of homeless and unemployed and
suggest that things are going bad for the white working class.
Knight-Ridder recently did a study on the demise of "the middle
class" (namely white wage-workers) and how this class now has less
money and privileges than it did 20 years ago. But when push comes
to shove, the white nation in the United States fairs very well
compared to the oppressed nations inside Amerika and throughout
the Third World.(8)
Don't gimme shelter
Homeless people stay with relatives, with friends, in cars, in
parks, in subways, in squats, in empty lots. The places that most
people do not want to stay are in the concentration camps--called
"shelters," "welfare hotels," "sanctuaries," "work-farms."
Municipalities receive Federal monies for warehousing people in
city-owned, uninhabitable slum apartments in cities where there
are thousands of vacant, "market-rate" units and a surplus of new,
unused office space built with government funds.(9)
For people denied real shelter, just staying alive on a hand-to-
mouth basis is a full time job. Homelessness is also a profitable
industry for various reformists, religious institutions, and
poverty pimps who have a financial stake in the continuation of
the people's misery.(10)
Solving the problem
After World War II, Amerika stayed drunk on the blood, sweat and
tears of the 70% of the world's population who earn in one year
what many Amerikan workers make in a week. As 40,000 children die
of starvation every day in the nations bled by imperialism, Euro-
Amerikan owners and workers (including industrial white workers)
dance in their graveyard. Even during a recession, they receive
high salaries, wages and a standard of living that dwarfs the
below-subsistence pittances that keeps most of the world under-
fed, under-employed, and under-housed by any contemporary
standards of technologically-possible decency. The not-so-Big
Secret of capitalism is that those who do the least work get the
most money. It's all about ownership.
Amerikan home-ownership has always rested on the destruction of
other peoples' homes. Just ask the Iraqi people. Ask the
Panamanian people. Ask the Korean, the Japanese, the Vietnamese,
the Cambodian, the Salvadoran people. The list is as long as
Amerika is old.
MC12 and MC42 contributed to this report.
Notes:
1. Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, "The Crisis in Housing
for the Poor," 7/89, pp. 26-27.
2. United Church Board for Homeless Ministries, "Homelessness and
Affordable Housing," 1989, p. 52.
3. J. Sakai, Settlers: The Mythology of the White Proletariat,
Morningstar Press, 1983.
4. Institute for Policy Studies, "The Right To Housing," 1989,
pp.17-18.
5. Urban Institute Project Report, in Population Today 2/89. (This
study is probably not reliable overall, since it mostly counted
people "receiving services.")
6. 1991 Statistical Abstract of the United States, p. 462.
7. Ibid, p. 456.
8. Detroit News 11/5/91, p.1. Detroit Free Press 11/26/91, p. 1A.
9. NYT 11/6/91, p. A1.
10. MIM Notes 53, p. 9.
* * *
LETTERS
ANARCHISTS HATE MIM NOTES
MIM received the following letter to a request to exchange
publications:
Mao-oids:
We don't exchange subscriptions with admirers of dictators and
mass murderers. We cast our lot with our comrades from Hong Kong
who produced the enclosed poster.
Remember what the Beatles said ...
--The Fifth Estate
November 1991
MC17 responds: The enclosed poster was one of Mao with bloody
bullet holes through his head. The slogan on the poster was "no
more emperors, down with authoritarianism of all kinds."
MIM sees this letter as a classic example of the anarchists'
incorrect practice that makes it impossible for them to achieve
anything. MIM exchanges publications with a range of political
groups hoping to expand our sources of information and further
improve our line as we work to build the most progressive
organization possible. These particular anarchists can not even
see past their own blinders of unsubstantiated propaganda to
exchange potentially useful information or enter into intelligent
dialogue with a group like MIM whose ultimate goal is quite
similar to their stated purpose.
The difference between Maoists and anarchists is one of practice.
Maoists are the real anarchists, the ones who will ultimately
bring about communism: a society without power of any people over
people. This difference is seen historically: Maoists have a
practice and a history of success; never has there been a
successful anarchist revolution.
Anarchists have never posed a threat to capitalism and so are
themselves complicit with the system they profess to hate.
MIM offers any believers in anarchism essays and books to back up
our politics. Write to us for a list of literature on anarchism
including a review of the publication of the Fifth Estate. People
interested in MIM's work defending Mao against the charge of being
a butcher should send $2 for back issues.
DO STATE CAPITALIST COUNTRIES THREATEN IMPERIALISM?
Dear MIM,
I am unsure how Maoism deals with imperialism versus the state
capitalist/nationalist regimes vis-a-vis our stance towards these
revolutions.
I am referring to the relationship that Maoism has to the
revolutions where national democratic revolutions have taken
place, but where state capitalism or the deformed socialism has
emerged. Cuba clearly falls into this category. Since it is still
a Third World country I support it against imperialism and feel
that the gains even under state capitalism/socialism (as they call
it) are better than what they had under capitalism. The problem is
that their socialism is not socialism at all.
As in other "socialist" countries (or state capitalist would be a
better term to use here), for one, the bourgeoisie was opposed to
their existence, be they state capitalist or not. They did
represent a threat, even if it were only symbolic.
I do not agree that these state capitalist/liberated nations are
necessarily just thorns in the U.S. side. Grenada--was that a
thorn? Does the decades-long embargo of Cuba sound like how
someone would deal with a thorn? To me, it sounds like how you
would deal with the enemy--like it deals with Vietnam, N. Korea and
the like. Their military and economic and even political influence
may not threaten the United States and its allies. But they
represent something SYMBOLICALLY if nothing else. They won't play
ball the U.S. way. So, as in the case of Libya, they are the U.S.
enemy. That's how I see it anyway.
--MA20
November 1991
MC17 responds: There is a lot for Maoists to support in the
revolutions of Third World countries. They deal a blow to
imperialism and in most cases succeed in liberating themselves
from feudal or semi-feudal conditions. In a Marxist sense, that is
quite an advancement leading on the road to socialism,
understanding that a society develops from slavery to feudalism to
capitalism to socialism.
As a result of the advancement of production relations,
revolutions in countries like Cuba have succeeded in improving the
standard of living of the masses of people in those countries. It
also achieved some socialist advances for the masses: improved
medical care, education, and more equitable distribution of wealth
are a few examples.
But Cuba, like other Third World revolutions that have degenerated
into state capitalism, followed an incorrect road to socialism.
They soon set about becoming dependent on the Soviet Union after
their revolution, ignoring the importance of the principle of
self-reliance in revolutionary struggle.
When you ask if the smaller state capitalist countries are not a
threat to imperialism since imperialist countries oppose their
existence, you raise the question of the principal contradiction
on a world scale. Certainly there is a contradiction between
imperialist countries seeking to be the dominant imperialist--as
between the United States and the Soviet Union until recently.
This is not opposition to socialism; although, sometimes it is
done under the guise of anti-red propaganda.
It is true that the inter-imperialist rivalry (and the
imperialist/state capitalist rivalry) is a threat to imperialism.
It is a major force in the downfall of imperialism, because there
will never be peace as long as imperialism lives. The constant
struggle will weaken the links in the imperialists' power,
creating revolutionary opportunities for the masses.
But at this point in time, the contradiction that we must grasp
with all our might is between the oppressed nations and the
international proletariat against the imperialists. This is where
we can deal real blows to imperialism.
In this regard, Cuba is only one among the many Third World
countries facing U.S. imperialist attacks--the invasions of Panama
and Iraq for example. MIM supports the defeat of U.S. militarism
everywhere. That does not mean MIM supports the system in Iraq,
Panama, Grenada or Cuba, anymore than Lenin supported the system
in Germany in World War I, while still organizing a military
defeat for Russia.
MIM would be selling out the proletariat if it were to cheerlead
for the state capitalists just because the imperialists find them
bothersome.
BASHING WORKERS VANGUARD
MIM can not pass up the chance to respond to the Nov. 22 issue of
the Workers Vanguard, "the Marxist Working-Class Biweekly of the
Spartacist League of the U.S," which included an analysis of MIM's
line on the white working class.
In an article entitled "Scab 'Socialists' Boycott Union Label"
W.V. described a letter sent out by a fellow Trotskyist to 12
"self-proclaimed socialist organizations," asking why they did not
print at union presses. Of these 12, only three answered the
question.
In their criticism of MIM they wrote:
"The MIM and Progressive Labor Party simply wash their hands of
the labor movement--since unions are led by sellouts they must be
hopelessly reactionary. But what MIM and PL reveal is their own
incapacity to politically fight the pro-capitalist trade-union
bureaucracy, as well as a deep, anti-Marxist pessimism about the
possibilities for class struggle in the United States."
Apparently W.V. missed the crucial point in this excerpt from
MIM's letter which said, "the white working class in this country
primarily constitutes a labor aristocracy." MIM does not care to
fight the "pro-capitalist trade-union bureaucracy," because it is
the entire trade union, including the workers, that has a material
interest in capitalism. The union masses are not stupid. They are
not being led astray by their leaders; their leaders are fighting
for exactly what the white working class labor aristocracy wants--a
bigger piece of the pie.
Furthermore, it is interesting that the W.V. should call MIM anti-
Marxist. Marx was a materialist who opposed dogmatism. Yet the
W.V. takes a dogmatic and anti-materialist position, ignoring the
changes in material conditions since capitalism in the time of
Marx.
Lenin first explained the development of the labor aristocracy in
First World countries as a part of the proletariat from the
dominant nation that would be bought off with the profits of
imperialism, so that they would no longer have an interest in
revolution. An economic analysis of the white working class
reveals that it is a labor aristocracy in its entirety and no
longer exploited. (Write to MIM for more literature on this
subject.) Burying their heads in the non-existent possibilities
for class struggle from the white working class amounts to allying
with the imperialists. The Spartacist League and all of history's
Trotskyist groups combined have done nothing to threaten the
existing power structure, as they rally around the capitalists'
lackeys.
The Spartacist League believes that if they could lead unions, the
whole working class would rise up for revolution. But it was white
workers who turned out in droves to protect their economic
interest and vote for David Duke (a.k.a. fascism and the Amerikan
way) in the recent Louisiana elections.
W.V. goes on to say that "MIM is willfully blind to the fact that
blacks and Hispanics are represented in disproportionately high
numbers in unions in this country; in fact they are the backbone
of countless unions and strike struggles--precisely because they're
under the heaviest attack by the racist bosses."
White people are disproportionately in power, not in unionized
jobs. Taking the proportions within manufacturing sector
jobs--those that are unionized--should reveal exactly what the W.V.
has found. Since more white people are in power, they are out of
the manufacturing sector where jobs are unionized. The ratio of
whites to Blacks and Latinos in unionized jobs should reflect the
disproportionate number of whites in power, which would give a
disproportionate number of Blacks and Latinos in unionized jobs.
In talking only about the disproportionate number of Black and
Latino people in unions, the W.V. is ignoring the composition of
the non-unionized work places in those sectors. Undocumented Third
World people are by default going to make up a large number of
these non-unionized workers precisely because they are not legal
workers.
It is also likely that the "disproportionate number" of Black and
Latino union organizers come from unions that MIM would support,
such as those at places like Imperial Foods or in the
maquilladoras, where the laborers really are exploited. On the
other hand, a fraction of oppressed workers receive benefits from
U.S. super-exploitation of the Third World as well.
Rather than responding to MIM's call for a study of the material
status of white workers and the history of the labor movement, the
Sparticist League resorts to labor union cheerleading and
Trotskyist dogma. They claim to be a party "of the working class,
whose gains we defend, from the trade unions to the Soviet Union,
despite and against the sellout leaders who undermine them and the
fake-lefts who spit on them."
Failing to recognize the white working class for the Duke
supporters they are, the Spartacist League if successful with
their union struggles will simply bind the white workers even
closer to the imperialists, creating the kind of unity that was
essential to the white nation's setting up apartheid in South
Africa (Azania)
That system reserves the best jobs for white workers while super-
exploiting Black workers. U.S. imperialism does the same thing on
a world scale, with U.S. companies like Pico Products Inc. paying
$6.20 a day in South Korea, and less in Third World countries
generally, while Amerikan workers average well over $10 an hour.
Given this material reality, the Spartacist League's work amounts
to organizing the white nation's unity and the new international
apartheid order. The Sparts are all the more effective as the
unwitting shocktroops of the new apartheid, because of their left-
wing noises which divert people from the material realities of the
Third World proletariat.
So MIM agrees with W.V.: "Union shops are more expensive. And
there's a reason why." The reason is that the money goes to pay
white working class wages instead of the wages of workers
exploited and super-exploited by a system that unifies imperialist
nation people to put down the Third World--from Grenada, to Libya,
to Panama and Iraq.
--MC5 & MC17
* * *
CORRECTION
The article entitled "Haitian coup builds Yankee dominance" in MIM
Notes 58 incorrectly implied that president Aristide was
overthrown for attempting to "delink" Haiti from the world
capitalist system. Delinking removes a country from the capitalist
world system--an act that can only be achieved through revolution.
Aristide planned to continue ties with U.S. multinational
corporations.
* * *
WILL THE (REAL) FEMINISTS PLEASE STEP FORWARD?
by MC86
Toward A Feminist Theory of the State
Catharine A. MacKinnon
Harvard University Press, 1989
On October 1991, The New York Times Magazine featured pseudo-
feminist scholar Catharine MacKinnon as the subject of a
flattering cover story. The article noted that, "Even some of
MacKinnon's allies suggest that her polemical fervor sounds, as
one put it, 'Stalinist.'"(1)
In the following week, the Hill/Thomas spectacle erupted,
hypnotizing millions. Suddenly, MacKinnon was On The Air--consulted
by television anchor-men as an expert in feminist legal theory and
issues of sexual harassment. Regarding Hill's witnessing against
Thomas, one Media-Mind asked MacKinnon, "Is one alleged instance a
pattern?" She replied, "He's not dead yet."(2)
Short, sweet analysis like this had caused Judge Richard Posner, a
"leading legal theorist," to accuse MacKinnon of "depict[ing] the
United States as a vast conspiracy of men to rape and terrorize
women."(1)
To her credit, MacKinnon has developed and promoted a theory of
sexuality which describes rape as a sexual act inextricably linked
to a continuum of coercive social activities, marking all sex as
shades of rape and all rape as acts of sex. MacKinnon espouses a
theory of gender as a socially constructed hierarchy of power
based on socially imposed inequalities. "Sexual pleasure is the
experience of power," she says.(3)
Discarding male-biased theories of gender as rooted in biological
difference, MacKinnon demonstrates that pornography is sexuality.
She holds that male-supremacist, culturally-conditioned acceptance
of never-ending violence against women, and sexual sadism, are the
social norms around which Amerikan social codes and jurisprudence
orbit.
MIM agrees with this analysis. Based on the evidence of gender
oppression and the world-wide exploitation of women as a group,
MIM advocates the overthrow of all capitalist states, the armed
suppression of the Patriarchy in all its forms, and the continuing
up-lifting of social consciousness through the material
annihilation of capitalist and patriarchal institutions.
MacKinnon's Toward a Feminist Theory of the State also correctly
criticizes Marx and Engels for treating the division of labor,
known as "women's work," as "natural" and biologically determined.
MacKinnon remarks that "to define women's status solely in class
terms is entirely to miss their status as women defined through
relations with men."(4)
MIM recognizes that Marx and Engels were not Gods. They were men
subject to the gender brain-wash of their time. Despite this
limitation, they recognized that, "Bourgeois marriage is in
reality a system of wives in common" (glorified prostitution).
They called for communist revolution, "to do away with the status
of women as mere instruments of production."(5)
Marx and Engels could not benefit from the advances in gender
theory made possible by the mass movements towards women's
emancipation that have occurred since their day. They tended to an
analysis in which, "Consequence is presented as cause."(6) They
saw women's role in the reproduction of labor-power, in
agriculture, and in house-work, as naturally derivative from
biological givens, as opposed to labor-roles historically enforced
on women through social control and sexual terrorization.
Marx and Engels tended to one-sidedly see patriarchal relations
as primarily feudal, guided by the transference of private
property through male lineage, and as remediable by bringing women
into the public work-force. Today, we can see that even under
socialism, patriarchy will not be instantly wiped away through
laws mandating equality or comparable pay for comparable work.
Despite her insights critically derived from studying Marx,
MacKinnon's tortured and futile compulsion to disprove Marx leads
to a gradual reduction of her grip on the essence of gender
oppression. She throws away the most effective scientific tool for
social revolution and is left with no greater plan for social
change than advocating "consciousness-raising," and petitioning
the State through law-suits.
She hopes that by achieving a legal status equal to men, women
will somehow influence the patriarchy to reform itself. By relying
on bourgeois dictatorship and bourgeois law as vehicles for social
change, she is complicit in the daily horror that is life for all
women oppressed by patriarchal imperialism. Hence MIM labels her a
"pseudo," or false, feminist.
MacKinnon's greatest ideological weakness is that she is not an
internationalist, and hence she is not an advocate of the world's
majority of women, who live in the Third World. In speeches in Ann
Arbor, Michigan, MacKinnon refused to oppose the bombing of Iraq.
MacKinnon is no Stalinist.
Unraveling the political economy of imperialist "super-
profits"--derived from below-subsistence waged labor in the
oppressed nations--is essential to a correct understanding of
intersections involving gender, nation and class. The ability of
Third World women to reproduce cheap labor, through birth and
unpaid domestic work, provides the material basis upon which First
World men and women enjoy a standard of living--of class, nation,
and gender privilege.
Despite touching on many provocative and mind-expanding subjects,
Toward a Feminist Theory of the State demonstrates a philosophical
flaw that would be fatal to any practice attempting to end gender
oppression.
In a key passage, MacKinnon says, "Objectivity assumes that
equally competent observers similarly situated see, or at least
report seeing, the same thing. Feminism radically questions
whether sexes are ever, under current conditions, similarly
situated even when they inhabit the same conditions. The line
between subjective and objective perception presumes the existence
of a single object reality and its noncontingence upon angle of
perception."(7)
By denying the existence of an objective reality, in which the
motion of matter produces the life processes we understand as
rationally knowable contradictions, MacKinnon sinks into the very
swamp of idealism she claims to be floating above.
It is a cornerstone of Maoism that all oppression is a material
force and that the rule of any group over other groups may only be
usurped by revolutionary material forces. Today MIM looks to find,
ally with, and lead these material forces. The revolutions of
oppressed nations, the revolutions of oppressed classes, and the
revolutions of the gender-oppressed go far beyond MacKinnon's
feeble attempt to excuse imperialist patriarchy as a state of
mind.
Notes:
1. NYT Magazine 10/6/91, p. 30.
2. Network TV 10/11/91.
3. Catharine MacKinnon, Toward a Feminist Theory of the State,
Harvard University Press, 1991, p. xiii.
4. MacKinnon, p. 9.
5. Marl Marx & Friedrich Engels, "The Communist Manifesto", FLP,
1975, p. 56.
6. MacKinnon, p. 25.
7. MacKinnon, p. 232.
* * *
BAN ALL MEN
In a flash of irony that must have caught the Brigham Young
University administration with its pants down, Voice--BYU's
Committee to Promote the Status of Women--demanded that a nighttime
curfew be imposed on male students three days a week. Naturally, a
university spokesperson said the proposal was "impractical."
These students found a clever mechanism to dramatize the
restrictions on women's freedom of movement, and patriarchal
society's unwillingness to restrict men in any way. The proposal
says that men who must travel on campus at night must be
accompanied by two women to demonstrate that they are not
threatening. Those needing escorts could contact the Mormon
Church's women's organization. The campaign for such restrictions
follows several recent rapes, attempted rapes and demands for
improved security.
All of this largely creates a false view of rape. It says that
rapists are evil men jumping out of the shadows. This view avoids
the issue of daily rape by husbands, friends, brothers and
fathers.
The program still amounts to an appeal to male-dominated power
structures to secure the safety of women--placing women on a
pedestal. The university, the police and the church are all part
of the patriarchy. Simply asking the patriarchy to pander to a
select group of privileged female students amounts to nothing more
than an appeal to have men be chivalrous.
Rape will only stop when women seize power through revolution,
mobilized in line with the interests of the world's majority of
women--Third World women. The Utah students would be better off
working to articulate the most advanced revolutionary feminist
line through MIM, rather than selecting a "women's issue" with
which to appeal to their administration. Working in MIM, women are
guaranteed a line on all issues.
--MC¯
Notes: AP in Detroit News 11/21/91.
* * *
WHO CARES IF HOOKERS DIE?
A recent study in France showed that 95% of male transvestite
prostitutes and a comparable percentage of women prostitutes in
one district of Paris are either suffering from AIDS or carrying
HIV. The concern that launched the study was that most of these
prostitutes reportedly refuse to use condoms with their clients.
The study further showed that each of the prostitutes in the study
could be "contaminating" up to 40 clients per night with HIV.
The final conclusion the study draws is that many of these Johns
are married heterosexual men who could infect their wives with HIV
after the nasty hookers give it to them. Conspicuously missing
from the bourgeois press report is any mention of how the
prostitutes were infected to begin with, or what the consequences
of infection are for them.
Ideologically, prostitutes safeguard the purity of bourgeois
women. Women of the bourgeoisie have historically been allotted
the sanctified position of wife, mother, homemaker. Increasingly
they are seen as glorious heroines, who combine these roles with
their careers. Their sexuality is protected as sacred. This image
rests on the image of prostitutes, who apparently don't have
enough shame to keep their sexuality private.
Capitalist imperialist culture genders women of the labor
aristocracy and petit bourgeoisie slightly differently along the
spectrum from madonna to whore, but the effect on prostitutes is
the same.
Materially, all these women appropriate the sexuality of
prostitutes. To varying degrees, they can unload the burden of sex
on proletarian women to keep themselves clean.
--MC45
Notes: National Public Radio Morning Edition 12/13/91.
* * *
THE CURRENCY OF IDEAS
Sometime critics of MIM make the argument that the left should be
a big, happy family and that MIM Notes should throw in its lot
with the national left press such as Zeta, The Nation, In These
Times, Mother Jones or any "alternative" newspaper published in a
major city. These publications make the point of trying to "reach
people where they are at." In other words, they provide left-of-
center, mostly reform and ballot-box-oriented news with the hope
of "winning over the mainstream" and perhaps selling some ads in
the process.
The principal problem is that, in this strategy, all of these
publications give up the idea of revolution. The best ones, say
the Guardian in New York or Zeta in Boston, cover revolutionary
movements while also dealing with ballot-box issues in Amerika.
Those publications trying to sell ads--Mother Jones or the New
Republic, for example--write lots of puff pieces on recycling and
other mainstream stuff to appease their politically-correct-but-
apolitical clients and readers.
If revolutionaries decided to have periodicals like these as their
political organs, it would be a "masses are asses" decision that
patronized people out there engaged in struggle. Revolutionaries
would be claiming that political ideas are too big for the people
to understand, so we should just put out this toy version of
politics that readers find entertaining but inoffensive.
The majority of these papers are weaker than MIM Notes already,
and MIM Notes gets stronger everyday. The influence of such papers
is quite minimal compared to the mainstream--their real
competition. While Time magazine has a circulation of more than 4
million, Utne Reader--a compilation of works from the left press
and the largest of the "alternatives" has a circulation of
210,000. Here are a few others: Mother Jones, 165,000; Ms.,
100,000; The Nation, 93,000; In These Times, 42,000; The
Progressive, 34,000; Guardian Newsweekly 25,000; Zeta, 22,000.
Keep in mind much of this circulation is free-dropped places as
advertising.
--MC¯
Note: The World Almanac of 1991, p. 312.
* * *
DEATH IN DETROIT
In Detroit, one of Amerikkka's most destitute cities, the homeless
are already dying on the streets--even before winter has begun. One
70-year-old man froze to death in a bus stop; another passed out
in the cold and died, and a third died from hypothermia after
being rejected from a shelter in a nearby suburb.
The press and the Liberals blame the homeless problem on
Michigan's new Republican governor, John Engler. He has reduced
state monies for medical care, food stamps and disability support,
and has eliminated Michigan's General Assistance program
(welfare). This has left 90,000 more people without any support or
jobs.
Detroit--where 80% of the residents are on some form of public
assistance, according to city hall--has been the hardest hit. The
Department of Social Services estimates that the majority of the
45,000 people in Wayne County (where Detroit is) who were cut from
the welfare rolls are in Detroit.
A coalition of slumlords has appealed to the state government that
the money be restored. Welfare is big business for these pigs who
receive monthly payments of approximately $200 per person who
stays in their decaying hotels and apartment buildings. The state
deposits the money directly in the slumlord's bank accounts; it
never passes through the "tenant's" hands.
The slumlord alliance says it will have to evict more than 5,000
people this month in downtown Detroit. Landlords typically use an
innkeeper law which allows them to throw the poor out on the
street without notice or eviction proceedings because the law
considers them "guests," not legitimate tenants.
With such dire conditions, every possible band-aid and stop-gap
measure has been dragged out of the closet. The city government in
Detroit is setting up warming centers while churches, homeless
activist groups and the NAACP are all pouring money into food and
shelter. The Democratic party whines about the elimination of
welfare even though it approved the budget with the cuts.
(Michigan has a Democrat-controlled House of Representatives.)
It is a deadly mistake to isolate one Amerikan pig in
government--or one party--as the enemy of the homeless, oppressed
and disenfranchised masses. People who want to see housing become
a "right," should be organizing with MIM for a socialist
revolution.
--MC¯
Notes: The Detroit News 11/5/91, p. 1.
* * *
ANOTHER COUP IN THE EX-USSR?
"The USSR, as a subject of international law and geopolitical
reality, is ceasing its existence," declared the leaders of the
new "Commonwealth of Independent States" on December 8. Russia,
the Ukraine and Byelorussia stated that the "norms" and activities
of the former union ceased as of the moment of signing the
declaration.(1)
The new Commonwealth comprises 73% of the Soviet Union's 290
million people, and nearly 85% of the 27,000 nuclear
warheads.(1,2) Russia has 19,000 nuclear warheads, the Ukraine has
4,000, and Byelorussia 1,250.(3) With the Soviet Union
disintegrating, there is now no clear political authority
functioning atop the military chain of command in control of these
warheads.
Boris Yeltsin--Russian president and apparent architect of the
Commonwealth--is capitalizing on his newly found popularity in
light of the August coup which consolidated his power. As part of
the Soviet Dis-Union, Russia had a 47% share of goods production
and 46.7% share of total agricultural output.(1) And, with 148
million people, Russia will clearly dominate the Commonwealth.
In a taped interview on French television, Mikhail Gorbachev
argued vigorously that the new Commonwealth would mean disaster,
and the consequences would make the war in Yugoslavia "a simple
joke by comparison."(1)
Gorbachev's recent futile attempt to create a Union of Sovereign
States with a limited role for the central government crumbled at
the announcement of the new Commonwealth. As MIM Notes hits the
press, Gorbachev announced his readiness to resign as president of
the Soviet Union, a few days after the Commonwealth
declaration.(4)
With the armed forces close to disintegration from mass troop-cuts
and layoffs of officers, another coup could possibly be ignited,
but this time by middle-level officers. Others say that a popular
and spontaneous revolt could happen in response to the grave
economic deprivation and political chaos.
Many military units and officers, however, are "following their
paychecks" back to their home republics. 30% of the Soviet officer
corps are either Russian or Ukrainian nationals.(3) This
development will further entrench the emerging nationalism in
those areas.
If successful economically and politically, the Commonwealth of
Independent States would be on par with the European Community
economic bloc and the North American trading bloc. If nationalism
flourishes in the Soviet Dis-Union, then we could see a massive
civil war between the republics--all armed with nuclear warheads.
More likely, Boris Yeltsin will become the Russian Bear in search
of territory and wealth.
Meanwhile, South Central Asia--the southern part of the Soviet Dis-
Union--will be swinging back to semi-feudalism and semi-
colonialism, the dominant social relations existing before the
Bolshevik Revolution.
--MC67
Notes
1. New York Times 12/9/91, p. A1.
2. NYT 12/10/91, p. A10.
3. NYT 12/10/91, p. A9.
4. NYT 12/13/91, p. A1.
* * *
POVERTY: AN UNHEARD-OF-CRIME
"The economic crisis is carrying people to commit unheard-of-
crimes," said Adolfo Ferreira, the magistrate investigating a case
where 20 poor Uruguayans are being detained for selling or
attempting to sell their kidneys to rich people. They are being
charged for the illegal commerce of human organs. Ferreira said,
"I have to make an example of this, or we'll have more unemployed
people saying, 'Maybe I'll sell my kidney.'"
Uruguay has a state-run Organ Bank that collects organs from
deceased donors; they have carried out 231 successful kidney
transplants since 1982. But the organ bank has a 200-person
waiting list for kidneys. The demand is so high that one woman
bought a kidney from Pedro Riveroli, a poor laborer, for the
equivalent of $6,850, back in 1988.
Gee, what a great idea for income distribution! Maybe the
oppressed can buy rich peoples' hearts at a discount and throw
them away, or is that an "unheard-of-crime?"
--MC67
Notes: Associated Press 12/9/91.
* * *
NICARAGUA RACES TOWARD CIVIL WAR
by MC67
On August 23, the Nicaraguan National Assembly adopted legislation
called CŽsar's Law, to repeal property laws 85, 86 and 88.(1)
These property laws, enacted in Spring 1990 under the Sandinistas,
granted property titles to more than 200,000 Nicaraguan
families.(2) The laws intensified the conflict over land ownership
between the National Assembly--split between the U.S.-backed United
National Organization (UNO) and the Sandinistas--and the executive
branch of President Violetta Chamorra.
Beneath this conflict is a power struggle led by UNO right wingers
in the National Assembly, and the Sandinistas, who were in power
from 1979 to 1990, when they lost to UNO in national elections.
This has renewed the armed struggle between the two groups in the
past several months.
Property laws
CŽsar's Law contradicts the concertaci—n agreement, signed on Aug.
15 between the executive branch, Sandinista unions and the small
and medium business council (CONAPI).(3) The concertaci—n
agreement awarded free titles to all houses up to 100 square
meters, and when a state-owned business is privatized, the workers
are to receive a 25% share.(3,4)
CŽsar's law would allow families to keep houses 60 square meters
or smaller, but in larger homes Nicaraguans would have to pay
their "fair market value."(4) It would effectively evict tens of
thousands of Nicaraguans whose homes are slightly bigger than the
law allows, but who live in dire poverty as a result of Chamorro's
privatization efforts. These people cannot afford to pay the
market "value" of their houses.
The imperialist media and right-wing UNO officials have
opportunistically focused on charges of abuses by high-ranking
Sandinistas when they enacted these property laws.(5) Former
Conservative deputy Gerardo Alfaro said, "it didn't matter if the
beneficiaries were Sandinistas, Liberals or Social Christians;
even thousands of people who voted for the UNO were protected."(6)
One month after Chamorro vetoed CŽsar's Law on September 11, she
conditionally withdrew her veto of the bill to repeal the three
property laws, on the condition that the legislature rework the
bill to be "acceptable to all parties."(5) Chamorro's oscillation
indicates her inability to bridge the ideological tug-of-war
between UNO members and the Sandinistas--a struggle heightened by
CIA influence and International Monetary Fund (IMF) pressure.
Recontras and recompas The threat of civil war
In the last several months, many recontra and recompa groups have
been formed in Nicaragua.(4,7,8) Recontras are rearmed counter-
revolutionaries who fought a U.S.-financed war against the
Sandinistas, while the recompas are rearmed, demobilized
Sandinista Popular Army soldiers.
According to official government sources, there are about 500
recontras and 300 recompas; unofficial estimates are higher for
both sides.(9)
Some recontra fronts want to overthrow Chamorro, considering her a
traitor for giving the Sandinistas control of the police force and
the army. They want to install ultra-right wing Vice-President
Virgilio Godoy as president.(10) Other recontras say they want
integration into the army and police force, as well as land
promised by the Chamorro administration. Neither has yet to happen
on any substantial level.(10,11)
The recompas have rearmed to protect themselves from recontra
attacks against cooperatives and state farms as well as against
themselves. According to Barricada Internacional, "These groups
are demanding both the disarmament of recontras and civilians and
immediate compliance with the promises the government made to
discharged servicemen and women."(11)
An umbrella organization of 12 recompa groups are demanding an end
to arms shipments to recontras from Honduras.(12) Barricada
Internacional has reported that more than 20 supply flights have
been made since last June from the contras' former military base
in Capire, Honduras.(11) Presidency Minister Antonio Lacayo said
on Sept. 5 that the recontras are funded by Nicaraguan expatriates
in Miami who want to return the country to pre-1979 conditions.(4)
In addition to daily reports of attacks on cooperatives by
recontras, there has been increasing direct confrontation between
recontras and recompas.
During the week of Nov. 17, four recontras, one anti-recontra and
seven campesinos suspected of being Sandinistas were killed.(13)
During the week of November 11, at least ten people were killed
and 17 wounded in attacks by recontras or fighting between
recontras and recompas.(12)
Privatization and labor conflicts
The United States' $17 billion investment in the Nicaraguan war
during the 1980s--along with the Sandinistas' failure to struggle
against the Nicaraguan bourgeoisie-- has finally paid off now that
the UNO controls state power.(14,15,16) With the UNO in power,
privatization efforts will allow the United States once again to
rake in super-profits from the Nicaraguan mines and the banana and
sugar farms--with eager cooperation of the Somocista comprador
bourgeoisie.
As of October 1991, 23 companies have been privatized; at least 12
others are now in the process of privatization while many other
companies have been leased to their pre-1979 owners with an eye
toward eventual ownership. The UNO leadership plans to convert all
state companies by 1993.(17)
Chamorro's economic plan has forced approximately 13,000 women to
lose their jobs.(18) 70% of women workers are heads of household
and over 50% are single mothers with an average of between four
and six children.(19)
Nicaraguan workers, organized and strong from years of fighting
the Somoza dictatorship and eleven years of state power, have
responded to the privatization efforts with continuous strikes,
demonstrations and occupations over the past several
months.(12,20)
But Nicaraguans must resort to armed struggle under a disciplined
united front to not only protect their gains from the 1979
revolution, but to thoroughly eliminate U.S. imperialism and the
capitalist economic base, something the Sandinistas never
completely did during the 1980s.
If Maoist factions exist in the Sandinista front, they must assert
their self-reliance, advanced theories and guerilla tactics and
strategies in order to destroy imperialism and capitalism and
fight for communism in Nicaragua.
Notes:
1. Nicaragua Solidarity Network No. 82, 8/25/91.
2. NSN No. 76, 7/14/91.
3. NSN No. 81, 8/18/91.
4. NSN No. 85, 9/15/91.
5. NSN No. 88, 10/6/91.
6. Barricada Internacional 6/91, p.6.
7. NSN No.84, 9/8/91.
8. NSN No.83, 9/1/91.
9. NSN No. 93, 11/10/91.
10. NSN No. 86, 9/22/91.
11. Barricada Internacional 10/91, p.6.
12. NSN No. 94, 11/17/91.
13. NSN No. 95, 11/24/91.
14. Barricada Internacional 10/91, p. 7.
15. NACLA Report on the Americas 2/90.
16. Newsweek 10/21/91, pp. 46-47.
17. Barricada Internacional 10/91, p. 8.
18. Barricada Internacional 9/91, p.21.
19. Ibid, p.19.
20. NSN No. 82, 8/25/91; No. 89, 10/13/91; No. 90, 10/6/91; No.
91, 10/27/91; No. 92, 11/3/91.
* * *
UNDER LOCK & KEY: NEWS FROM PRISONS AND PRISONERS
IMPRISON THE MIND, VIOLATE THE BODY
Dear MIM,
After reading and contemplating the various prison-related
articles within the MIM Notes, all of which were informative and
thought-provoking, as a Nubian/ Black Islamic/Muslim POW, a
captured political prisoner of war, confined within the racist
state of Maryland's repressive control unit, Supermax, I felt
compelled to expose a few of the blatantly repressive and
dehumanizing aspects of places of such hideous designs.
As conveyed articulately in your responses and those of victimized
prisoners within the MIM Notes, we prisoners suffering in these
new-age penal monstrosities, (i.e. the infamous "control units")
wholeheartedly concur with your analysis and stance regarding the
short-term use of reform only and the persistent thrust for
protracted revolution. Indeed, reform primarily is no more than a
mere band-aid approach to situations that demand far greater
solutions if lasting effectual changes are to be had. For those
enjoying the luxury of not having to endure the daily privations,
repressions and depersonalization which the average prisoner is
forced to endure, it's easy to assert the lip-service, arm-chair
diagnosis of mere reform. However, for us victims of this
antiquated, inhumane, criminal criminal (un)justice system,
reformism only allots our oppressors greater time to formulate
more stringently repressive policies and facilities such as these
infamous control units.
State sends comrades to Supermax
The racist state of Maryland, keeping in penalogical sync with
other repressive state regimes, allocated millions in revenue to
have the barbaric, high-tech doors of this putrid penal project
officially opened in 1989. Since its conspiratorial opening to the
present, Maryland Correctional Adjustment Center (MCAC) has
flagrantly violated its purported policies governing
criteria/eligibility for prisoners' transfers to this "high-
security level" facility. The naive populace outside these prison
confines were spoon-fed disinformation-- being deliberately made to
believe that "only" the most "dangerous" prisoners, (e.g. death
row inmates, convicted escapists, etc.) would reside within this
control unit, constituting a safety and security high-profile
threat-- while the correct reality reveals the exact opposite.
There are NO death row prisoners per se confined at MCAC, or
escapists for that reason either.
Rather, MCAC houses the most influentially active POWs,
politicized social prisoners and the mentally traumatized
(sufferers of mental maladies). Within these highly controlled
confines, the malicious whims of Maryland's cruel, putrid-hearted
criminal criminal (un)justice officials and wage-slave penal
functionaries are strategically played out. We are daily subjected
to tortures without reason and no human contact. Straight out of
psychoanalytical behavioral experimentations, like that of
Pavlov's salivating dog, victimized prisoners at MCAC control unit
are being used as human guinea pigs, to satisfy the sadistic,
warped minds of power-crazed racists, intelligentsia and self-
serving wage-slave functionaries. MCAC control unit is expressly
being misused as a repressive instrument of deliberate
intimidation of Maryland prisoners, who are judiciously justified
in their disgruntled disquiet--which has manifested in at least 10
or 11 major riots within the last two to three years. They are
endeavoring to coerce silent acceptance of our own unjust
tyrannization.
Out of sight, out of mind
These control units are the practical implementation of the
phrase, "out of sight, out of mind": they are designed to isolate
and ostracize those prisoners who refuse to submit to the state's
pacification antics or intimidation tactics. And in order to
prevent other victimized prisoners from becoming politicized
rejectors of prison ploys, the most politically conscious and
active prisoners, (i.e. revolutionary) are foremost in being
singled out to be tormented within these human infernos of
torture.
The pathetically sad irony is that our own relatives, associates
and loved ones pay the cost of these deplorable institutions of
injustice and state-sanctioned victimization. It's becoming more
and more common to find politically conscious and active Maryland
prisoners (the majority being Black, incidentally), arbitrarily
and capriciously singled out throughout the rapidly escalating
Maryland Penal System (it has at least 15-20 penal facilities).
For transfer to the conspiratorial control unit, we victims
receive virtually no due process and upon our earnest endeavor to
pursue said legal remedial avenues, such as the inmate grievance
procedure, we are dismayed still more by the stark reality of the
futility of such bureaucratic red-tape stop gap measures. The end
result in most instances, when pursuing such ineffectual
procedures, is that we find ourselves stigmatized even worse. We
are further victimized as a result, because, once returned to the
general population at any of the other MD. penal institutions, our
having been confined at MCAC is used to deny us any/all
privileges-- especially parole.
In conclusion, we certainly concur that few reforms forced out of
our victimizers as a result of the courageous, selfless and
momentous sacrifices--by the prisoners at Attica in particular--have
been essentially rolled back. These repressive penal mazes of
human drudgery labelled conspicuously as "control units" attest to
this truth indeed. Hence, in response to the inquiry upon reform
or revolution, we victims of control unit experimentation reform
measures unequivocally exclaim--"For the oppressed, there is no
question!" Struggle is our lives!
--Maryland Supermax POW
ARMED STRUGGLE, BUT WHEN?
Greetings revolutionary correspondents of MIM:
I am completely dedicated to the total destruction of all entities
and institutions that comprise the impediments to the people's
unrestrained struggle for liberation....
As far as I'm concerned the tool and the textbook are inseparable
(in that sequence). There are those who are just uninterested with
the contents of any book or speech or lecture that deals with the
raw truths of reality. To an extent it can be said that prior to
embarking upon my particular career of full-fledged mutiny I was a
part of that group, that vast collective of potential
revolutionary-types that exist in every community ghetto, in every
city of every state, in every koncentraton kamp in the society.
Only I've managed to make a few adjustments. The book now
supplements the cold implements of my trade, the gun, bomb, knife.
I now understand the necessity for this, but that understanding
shall never replace the raw reality of the situation--violence is
the means to the end, the only thing that the pig respects, and
unfortunately, the only thing most people comprehend....
--MA106, prisoner on the West Coast
MC11 replies: MIM has a broad base of agreement with MA106, but we
differ on a key point widely held by our prison comrades.
We are glad MA106 recognizes the importance of studying
revolutionary history and theory as a powerful tool in working for
revolution. MIM believes learning from the mistakes and successes
of other revolutionary struggles is a crucial part of figuring out
how to wage the prolonged battle against capitalism without being
crushed in the process.
But given our agreement on that, MIM would urge MA106 and others
who believe immediate armed struggle is desireable to study the
examples of the Weathermen, the Black Panther Party, George and
Jonathan Jackson, and the Cuban Revolution. MIM's study of these
people and movements has led us to the belief that the focoist
tactics they engaged in prevented them from successfully
continuing their struggle against the imperialists.
Focoism places great emphasis on armed struggle and the immediacy
this brings to class warfare. Maosim, on the other hand, warns
that taking up the gun too soon, and without the proper support of
the masses, will result in fighting losing battles.
There is no question that revolutionaries will have to die in
order to seize power from the imperialists. Production relations
under socialism will be based on public ownership, and the
capitalists are not going to simply hand over their private
property without a fight. But sacrificing the lives of
revolutionaries like MA106 too early will only ensure our ultimate
defeat.
Jonathan Jackson, acting virtually alone in an attempt to liberate
three prisoners from the Marin County, California courthouse, was
brutally gunned down by agents of the state. His courage is
indisputable, but had no chance of success. And he would have been
far more valuable to the revolutionary movement of his time had he
stayed alive.
MIM believes that the first task of revolutionaries today is to
build a revolutionary party, and to put together a strong base of
mass support for revolution. We know that this is a dividing-line
issue for many prisoners, however, and we welcome more discussion
on the place and time for armed struggle.
* * *
MIM NOTES 'TRESPASSES' IN MIAMI
MIAMI, FL--University of Miami Public Safety arrested a comrade
leaving piles of MIM Notes in campus buildings at approximately
8:25 p.m. Nov. 21.
The arresting officer R. Nagel sought any excuse possible to block
the distribution of MIM Notes. First, Nagel questioned the comrade
regarding soliciting.
MIM leaves its paper free, so this questioning did not produce the
desired results. The comrade also offered several times to leave
campus, so the officer R. Nagel invented a charge of "obstruction
of justice," supposedly for failing to answer enough of his Big
Brother-type questions, despite the fact that the comrade was not
under arrest. Later at the station Nagel added "trespassing" as an
accusation.
The intention of the fabricated charges was to "detain him for six
hours," as one officer told the other at the station. When asked
what good it would do to answer questions, the officer said,
"None, you're going to jail."
The cops sent the comrade through four different police and jail
buildings, with fingerprints taken twice, pictures taken three
times and searches done three times. One of those times was just
so one officer could intimidate the comrade into answering
questions.
Various commercial and non-commercial literature is found in
buildings around the University of Miami. It is an outrage that
people out just to make a buck can pass out their literature on
campus, but not people who the state dislikes.
* * *
SUPERMARKET MAG BASHES 'MADAME MAO'
Vanity Fair
Box 53516
Boulder, CO 80322
$15.00/year (12 issues)
"The Last Days of Madame Mao"
Roxane Witke, author of Comrade Chiang Ch'ing, contributes an
update to the psychoanalytical sex-gossip saga of Jiang Qing in
Vanity Fair's December issue. We recommend that everyone check it
out at the supermarket. But be sure you don't pay a penny for it.
(Instead, send for MIM Notes' Jiang Qing special issue, July
1991.) The article is a marketable mixture of Readers' Digest-
style history and National Enquirer-style gossip, featuring
sensational accounts of scandal, rumor and innuendo surrounding
Jiang, Mao and the sex-lives of the Chinese Communist Party
(CCP).(1)
Jiang Qing did not look kindly upon this kind of gossip the way
some supposed feminists would. Instead she backed an essay by
China's famous writer Lu Xun called "Gossip is a Fearful
Thing."(2) After noting this, Witke proceeds to repeat the various
gossip stories anyway.
Witke also errs in a way common to bourgeois media hacks in saying
that Mao did not accept responsibility for national disasters
during the Great Leap.(3) Quite the contrary, unlike most leaders
of state who rarely admit to being wrong, Mao did make self-
criticism for the errors of the Great Leap, while holding it was
still more of a good thing than a bad thing.
Something previously unknown to MIM, that Witke reveals without
fanfare, is that it was Premier Zhou Enlai who arranged for the
interviews of Jiang Qing with Witke. The same faction of the party
that Zhou Enlai headed then released the interviews in a book
titled Empress of the Red Capital to make it appear that Jiang
Qing had betrayed the country in order to become "empress." Witke
mentions the book only by rumor and it appears that she does not
know if its contents are genuine or not.(4) Many communists in the
West have been confused by the popularity of Zhou Enlai and the
comparisons between Zhou and Jiang; they should note this
revelation by Witke.
To its credit, the article does push the limits of the traditional
Amerikan corporate-media version of Chinese history by mentioning
Deng Xiaoping's crimes; however, this is becoming more mainstream
in the Liberal press in the wake of the Tiananmen massacre of
1989. Witke observes: "One of [Deng's] worst worries was that
[Jiang] would outlive him to tell the full story of his numerous
betrayals of Mao."(5)
The article covers ten pages of Vanity Fair--with plenty of big
glossy ads for designer jewelry, $500 watches and exotic resort
hotels. Despite covering many important subjects, this article
serves the patriarchy by perpetuating a ruse identified by
Catharine MacKinnon: "There is an urgent need ... to define women by
who they have sex with--without that, people don't seem to know how
to read."(6)
--MC5 & MC18
Notes:
1. Roxane Witke, Comrade Chiang Ch'ing, Little, Brown & Co.,
Boston, 1977.
2. Roxane Witke, "The Last Days of Madame Mao," Vanity Fair 12/91,
p. 144.
3. Ibid, p. 134.
4. Ibid, p. 150.
5. Ibid, p. 146.
6. Catharine MacKinnon, quoted in New York Times Magazine 10/6/91,
p. 53.
* * *
MOVIE REVIEWS
(FREE) ENTERPRISE SEEKS OUT NEW WORLD ORDER
STAR TREK VI: THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY
These are the voyages of sell-out ship Enterprise, its insidious
mission, to colonize all-too-familiar "new" worlds; to perpetuate
the myth of Amerikan democracy; to go exactly where U.S.
imperialism has gone before.
(Hum wavery Trek theme here).
MIM's log, stardate the highest stage of capitalism:
At its best, science fiction provides insight into the present by
forecasting the (often horrific) future it could generate, or
portraying its absurdities as reflected through "alien" eyes. At
its worst, sci-fi merely rehashes current events, using the
trappings of an unimaginitive future in an attempt to make its
legitimation of today's dominant ideology more interesting.
Let's say for starters that Star Trek VI is not science fiction at
its best. It's more like a western in sci-fi clothing.
The plot, a thinly disguised version of the recent U.S.-Soviet
dŽtente, should be familiar to anyone who has seen or heard the
so-called "fall of communism" story that has dominated U.S. news
media for the last several months, so we won't bother not
revealing the predictable ending in the following two-paragraph
summary.
Their economy ruined as a result of their own flawed ideology, the
Klingon empire (read: USSR) turns to its mortal enemy the
Federation, (a euphemism for "empire" in the same vein as "United
States") for help. Hardliners on both sides, including our hero
Captain James "John Wayne" Kirk, oppose the end of the Cold War.
Cooler and more moderate heads prevail--after the requisite shoot-
'em-up footage.
Kirk sees the light, the peace process moves forward, the Klingons
grovel at the feet of the Federation, George Bush's policies are
celebrated, the Amerikan way is vindicated and Hollywood succeeds
once again in popularizing the politics of Amerika's ruling class.
Instead of illuminating and raising questions about the
complicated reality of U.S.-Soviet relations, Star Trek VI grossly
oversimplifies it. Despite the none-too-subtle nod to the spirit
of capitalism embodied in the very name of our favorite starship,
the movie utterly disregards the economic issue at the basis of
the Soviet Union's current crisis--namely, that it has been mired
in state-run capitalism for nearly four decades--while presenting
viewers with a pat storyline complete with happy ending for the
events precipitated by it.
MIM has long condemned both the Soviet Union for its post-1953
imperialist policies and the United States for the oppression of
other nations on which its economic system is based. Given that
framework, the analysis of the current situation requires far more
than the black-and-white paradigms the movie offers: good vs.
evil, hardliners vs. moderates, the fall of the Evil Empire, the
emergence of pax Amerikana.
The question Star Trek VI fails to raise is how the restructuring
of the superpower relationship will affect the masses of people in
both nations and their colonies. We get a glimpse of a Klingon
prison --more a plot device than a comment on the plight of the
people it holds--but the movie is blithely unconcerned with the
fate of these prisoners under a new regime, or how the
Federation's gulags look in comparison.
By providing easy answers to irrelevant questions, Kirk and crew
help to divert moviegoers' attention from seeking out more
important truths.
Let the record show, however, that despite our trashing of Star
Trek VI: The As-Yet Unexploited Country, (or was it The Virgin
Island? Christopher Columbus Rides Again? Amerikan Capitalism
Finds Cheap Labor, New Markets?) MIM still upholds science fiction
as a genre with a lot of progressive potential. Revolutionaries
need good imaginations, both to envision how a better world will
look and to figure out how to bring it about--and good science
fiction can provide the groundwork for such cogitations. Ursula Le
Guin's Left Hand of Darkness, in which she concocts a world
without fixed gender identities, is a case in point, as is
Margaret Atwood's A Handmaid's Tale, which portrays the United
States after an all-too-possible fundamentalist Christian
takeover. Let's hope Kirk and his cowboys do a better job next
time. --MC11
FEAR OF EX-CON RAPISTS SELLS TIX
CAPE FEAR
Another film that thrives on its technique, Cape Fear is a psycho
thriller that works. It is the story of a maniac prisoner (as they
all are, right?) who gets paroled and sets out to fuck over his
lawyer.
The psycho prisoner from hell turns out to be a brutal rapist, who
wants to pay back his lawyer for suppressing evidence of one of
his victim's prior sexual history--material Psycho feels would have
got him off.
If one reached really hard into this film one might pull out a few
redeeming ideas: Prison doesn't correct anything. People don't get
fair trials. Lawyers are assholes.
Perhaps if one really pushed, the necessity to keep one's own
house in order might surface. In the film, the lawyer is unable to
unite his family to stay out of the way of Psycho, who manages to
seduce the lawyer's 16-year-old daughter. One of the main reasons
is that he can't explain everything to his wife, because he is
fucking a legal clerk on the side. Psycho finds the legal clerk,
seduces her, handcuffs her, bites part of her face off, beats the
shit out of her and then rapes her. (Boy, prisoners--even white
ones like Psycho--sure are animals.) The lawyer doesn't explain
what is up with the connection between himself and the clerk until
it's too late.
People will see this film as scary and disgusting--rape is so--and
will take with it whatever message they read into it. Cape Fear is
the type of movie the masses will not fund after the revolution.
--MC¯
BEYOND WHITE PICKET FENCES
THE ADDAMS FAMILY
Like David Lynch's Blue Velvet, albeit in a more light-hearted
way, The Addams Family asks what really goes on behind those white
picket fences that represent the American Dream. Children who
spend their leisure time dreaming up new and different ways to
murder each other, parents who get off on sado-masochistic sex,
uncles who prefer swordfights with real blood in their neices' and
nephews' school plays than jolly songs and flower costumes--The
Addams Family suggests that such antitheses to Amerika's image of
the ideal family may very well exist. And, judging from the
Amerikan public's fascination with the original TV show and now
the movie, it's probably right.
Of course, the movie does not go far enough in undermining the
myth of the happy family. It does not say, for example, that the
nuclear family exists only because the capitalist division of
labor made it the most profitable way to structure social
relationships, or that the nuclear family is more a luxury of the
bourgeoisie and a means to oppress the proletariat. But hey, what
do you expect from an industry that makes tons of money off
"family entertainment?"
(For a less flippant materialist analysis of the family please
write to MIM).
--MC11
* * *
REVOLUTIONARY HISTORY
by MC18
In the winter of 1967, Shanghai workers responded to Mao Zedong's
call: "take firm hold of the revolution and promote
production."(1) Their struggle represented the beginning of the
Cultural Revolution.
"This mighty revolutionary storm started in Shanghai. The
revolutionary masses in Shanghai have called it the great 'January
Revolution.'"(2) The seizure of power by the revolutionary people
of Shanghai was the most important single victory of the Cultural
Revolution--the model for later revolutionary take-overs of cities
throughout China.
The factions
The ideological debate revolved around the conflict between a
bourgeois economist line and the revolutionary proletarian line of
continuing class struggle and advancing socialist goals. Economism
emphasizes economics over politics, making the workers serve
production--a "vulgar Marxist thinking that assumed that the
workers' sole and highest interest was to increase their share of
the economic surplus;" the typical mode of thought among trade
unionists.(3)
The battle was between the established Party leadership in
Shanghai that was carrying out an economist political line to
defend their power, and a workers' movement advancing class
struggle. The revolutionary workers were represented by the
Workers' Rebel Headquarters.
Although the rebel group consisted of only a few thousand people
in October of 1966, by the end of the year it had swelled to
60,000. The workers supporting the economist line were represented
by Workers' Red Militia, which was formed by the local Party
functionaries. It was of equal size to the rebel group.(4)
The struggle
By the end of December, members of the Workers' Red Militia were
joining the rebel cause in droves. In a last-ditch effort to buy
off the swelling revolutionary movement the Party officials,
through the Red Militia, organized strikes demanding pay raises.
The strikes were designed to cut away at the rebels' base among
the workers, and to buy support for the Party's reactionary line.
Then the Party leaders "opened up the municipal and industrial
coffers to grant millions of yuan in wage increases, bonuses and
grants...." The transparency of the move and the commitment of the
rebel workers made the effort a complete failure. The rebels kept
the factories open, with members of the rebel group working
multiple shifts, and they produced critical newspapers challenging
the Party.
The rebels defeated the reactionary Party leadership on Jan. 6,
with a rally that drew one million supporters. They threw out the
mayor of Shanghai and dissolved the Party Committee.(5) Shanghai
and its economy were under complete worker control. The workers
who participated in the Party-organized strikes demonstrated their
support for the rebels by voluntarily returning the illegal
bribes. "At mass meetings organized throughout Shanghai, the
guilty functionaries were forced to stand with head bowed as the
workers showered them with paper money until the enemy stood knee-
deep in the shameful currency."(6,7)
Notes:
1. Milton, Milton & Schurmann, Peoples' China, Vintage Books, NY,
1974, p. 293.
2. Ibid, p. 308.
3. Ibid, p. 649.
4. Ibid, p. 290.
5. William Hinton, Turning Point in China, Monthly Review Press,
NY, 1972, p. 67.
6. Milton, p. 291.
7. Hinton, p. 66.
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