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 83
December 1993
Electronic Edition
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Get MIM Notes 83 from the Maoist Internationalist Movement
(MIM), and get the latest in Maoist news and analysis - put
a revolutionary weapon in your hands.
This issue features an in-depth look at national oppression
as perpetrated by Amerikan imperialism: the spread of
Supermax prisons designed to control revolutionary
prisoners; the case of Fred Hampton, Jr., framed and in
jail; the politics of population transfer in San Francisco
housing projects; the fraudulent injustice system and the
LA4+ case; reviews and more, including monthly prison news
in Under Lock & Key.
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.
Struggle with it and write for it.
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MIM Distributors, PO Box 3576, Ann Arbor MI 48106-3576.
(Send only cash or check made out to "ABS".) Send questions,
responses or submissions to: mim@blythe.org.
This issue features:
1. FIGHT THE SREAD OF SUPERMAX
2. FREE FRED HAMPTON, JR.!
3. THE WHITE HOUSE IS THE CRACK HOUSE
4. LA4+ VERDICT NOT VINDICATION OF THE SYSTEM
5. POPULAR JUSTICE WILL RIGHT FUJIMORI'S CRIMES
6. CRIMES OF THE BUTCHER KENYO FUJIMORI
7. D.C. WANTS MORE PIGS TO REPRESS THE PEOPLE
8. LEONARD PELTIER'S DEFENSE PANDERS TO PIGS
9. ANTIOCH POLICY DEFENDED
10. EMMETT TILL WAS A MAN
11. KIDS AT WORK
12. LETTERS TO MIM
13. MIM DISTRIBUTOR WINS TACTICAL VICTORY
14. ON MAO'S 100TH BIRTHDAY
15. "SORRY ABOUT THAT"
16. FILM REVIEW: FRAMED: THE STORY OF GERONIMO PRATT
17. OVERHEARD: HOW MANY MAOISTS?
18. UNDER LOCK & KEY
* * * * The Maoist Internationalist Movement * * * *
- MIM Notes 83, December 1993 -
FIGHT THE SREAD OF SUPERMAX
At the end of October, 300 protesters gathered to further
the campaign opposing the proliferation of Supermaximum
Control Units. They targeted Amerika's newest and most
advanced unit in Florence, Colo. which is rescheduled to
open in the Spring of 1994. The Bureau of Prisons (BOP)
intends to transfer the most politically conscious prisoners
and those that have filed lawsuits exposing torturous
conditions to Florence.
Amerika increasingly advances the technology of repression
and torture. Control Units isolate the prisoner for 23 hours
a day in an 8-by-10 cell where the only human contact is
with the three pigs that shackle and drag the prisoner to
the exercise cage. Strip status in 50 degree cells, limited
access to reading and writing materials, rare visitor
privileges are normal torture tactics for the pigs. The new
Florence prison has perfected and added to this system of
repression. There, automatic solid steel doors, cameras and
loudspeakers increase sensory deprivation and make
communication between prisoners impossible.(1)
The Florence federal prison is modeled after the Pelican Bay
Security Housing Unit (SHU) in California. There, 2,500
prisoners have filed a class action suit against the
Department of Corrections (DOC) for using excessive force,
failing to provide adequate medical treatment, and
deliberately using isolation conditions that are cruel and
dehumanizing, among other violations.(2)
The Florence Supermax is also sited near the Cotter Uranium
Corp., a Superfund site that has a class action lawsuit
pending because of the contamination in the area.(3) Erica
Thompson, an attorney for the People's Law Office in Chicago
and a member of the Committee to End the Marion Lockdown
(CEML), told MIM that Control Units, now in 36 states, have
a trend of being located next to Superfund sites because
there is no other use for the land and there is not enough
support for prisoners for their health to be considered.
STOPPING "REVOLUTIONARY ATTITUDES"
A lawyer for the prisoners said that the DOC has turned the
Control Units into a tool for prisoners to wage war amongst
themselves because the only way out is to snitch to the
pigs. The SHU officials say that the threat of confinement
has helped them to dismember gangs such as Nuestra Familia,
the Black Guerrilla Family, and the Aryan Brotherhood.(2)
A former warden of Marion said, "the purpose of the Marion
Control Unit is to control revolutionary attitudes in the
prison system and the society at large."(3) Thompson said
that the prisoners - mostly from Marion, Amerika's original
permanent lockdown dungeon - are currently being transferred
between prisons awaiting confinement at Florence.
The law allows inmates to be segregated for disciplinary
problems and requires a hearing if the transfer is a
punitive measure. However, the warden can order transfers
without a hearing if it is an administrative measure - the
tactic used to control political organization.
The pigs can ignore their due process procedure under the
pretense that the transfer and isolation of a specific
prisoner will make it safer for the general population. For
example, when women at the federal Lexington facility
refused to return to their cells in protest of continuous
racial and sexual harassment, administrative transfers were
used to send the 12 perceived leaders to Marianna prison,
the highest level security torture chamber for women in
Amerika.(1)
The Bureau of Prisons claims there is a need for more
Control Units because the isolation allows less restrictive
conditions and enables rehabilitation in the general prison
population. The CEML points to the Westville, Ind. Supermax
as more proof that the BOP lies. In prisons close to
Westville, record long lockdowns have occurred to control
the prisoners protesting the inhumane conditions at the
Supermax. Waples, the Indiana Civil Liberties Union attorney
said, "the correction department violates state law in the
method used to assign inmates to Supermax, and violates
inmates' constitutional rights in the way it treats them
once they're there."(4)
The beatings and torture at Westville forced the prisoners
there to stage two major hunger strikes.(5) This pressure
resulted in the resignation of James Aiken, Commissioner of
the Indiana DOC. The prisoners filed a lawsuit because the
"segregation tortures prisoners by depriving them of the
basic necessities of human existence."(1) The lawsuit seeks
an injunction against assignments to the Supermax until the
department devises new guidelines.
PUBLIC OPINION THROUGH PROTESTS
The CEML was founded in 1985 to monitor and oppose the
brutal conditions of Marion, to fight against the
proliferation of Supermax prisons, and to publicly expose
the racist nature of these prisons.(6)
The CEML demands that the Congressional subcommittee that
oversees the BOP hold hearings on the future of Florence.
Two years after Marion opened, such hearings showed that 80%
of the prisoners did not have the security rating
appropriate for them to be incarcerated there.(3) The
subcommittee members that received the CEML's demands and
accounts of human rights violations have ignored the
situation entirely.
Another goal is to stop the construction of the Supermax in
Jackson County, Ill. Tamms - a desolate and economically
depressed area - got the bid two weeks ago. The advocates
promised jobs, but the CEML argues that all positions at the
proposed Supermax will be filled by the present DOC
personnel.(6) Thompson said that they will try for a
legislative veto. She said that will be nearly impossible,
but the legislative process is mostly for publicity and
education.
Amerika justifies the proliferation of Control Units across
the country with the myth of incarcerating the "worst of the
worst."(7) The targets of the concentration camps are
transferred because of their political beliefs and most
Control Units are 85% black.(3) The Supermax Units serve the
interests of the capitalist class and the only way to stop
the massive torture is to build a vanguard party inside and
the outside the walls of the prison system. The genocidal
fanatics do not stop when we protest, they do not stop when
we petition, they do not stop when prisoners die, they must
be stopped by stripping them of control!
Notes:
1. Walkin' Steel Fall 1992.
2. The Bay Guardian 9/23/92 p. 26.
3. Walkin' Steel Fall 1993.
4. The Indianapolis Star 5/2/92.
5. Southbend Tribune 7/12/92. For more information see MIM
Notes 59.
6. Letter from CEML to Jackson County Board 9/3/93.
7. Journal of Prisoners on Prisons, Vol.4. No.2, 1993, p.10.
MIM Notes is not copyrighted. Please credit MIM when
redistributing or referring to this material.
Subscriptions are $12/year (12 issues), U.S. mail or e-mail.
Send only cash, stamps or check made out to "ABS." Write:
MIM Distributors, PO Box 3576, Ann Arbor MI 48106-3576.
E-mail: mim@blythe.org
* * * * The Maoist Internationalist Movement * * * *
- MIM Notes 83, December 1993 -
FREE FRED HAMPTON, JR.!
December 4, 1993 marked the 24th anniversary of the 1969
assassination of Fred Hampton, Sr., Chief of Defense for the
Chicago Chapter of the Black Panther Party. Hampton was shot
dead by FBI agents as he slept next to his wife Akua Njeri -
who was eight and one-half months pregnant with Fred
Hampton, Jr.
On May 19, 1993 Fred Hampton, Jr. was sentenced to eighteen
years in prison in Chicago, Illinois after being framed for
"aggravated arson" by Chicago police in the aftermath of the
Rodney King rebellions in 1992. The lying finger of the
state was pointed at Mr. Hampton, a former local president
and an organizer for the National People's Democratic Uhuru
Movement (NPDUM) in Chicago.(1)
Hampton was charged with "firebombing" Lee's Mens Fashions,
a Korean-owned business still standing and operating on
Chicago's South Halstead Street.(1) At Hampton's trial the
state was not able to present a shred of evidence
implicating Hampton in the fireless "arson."
A bottle filled with gasoline and black-eyed peas was found
intact inside the store. No fingerprints were presented as
evidence in the trial; there were no eyewitnesses; there was
no physical evidence; there was *no fire.* The sole content
of the government's case against Hampton was that he had a
"predisposition" to commit arson.(2) Initial bail was set at
$1 million.(1)
Despite mass demonstrations organized by NPDUM to protest
the Gestapo-snatching of Mr. Hampton, an Amerikan court
system rubber-stamped his capture - because a politically
conscious Fred Hampton, Jr. is much too dangerous to live.
Hampton's defense attorney failed to raise a single
objection at the trial.
As a captive whose life is constantly imperiled inside an
Amerikan gulag, Mr. Hampton has refused to bow down to the
oppressor. He was immediately thrown into maximum security
solitary for helping to organize a hunger strike and
greeting his prison comrades with the salutation Uhuru,
meaning freedom in Swahili. An international call-in
campaign organized by NPDUM was successful in ending
Hampton's solitary confinement.
Upon release from The Hole, Hampton was immediately
reprimanded for wearing red, green, and black beads. These
colors are universally recognized as symbolizing African
liberation. According to Hampton's captors: red, green, and
black are "gang colors." On this ugly pretense Hampton was
stripped of basic prisoner "rights." Visits from his mother
and his lawyer were denied.
Amerika's overlords fear the revolutionary power surrounding
the fearlessness of the Hampton family. At the age of
sixteen, Fred Hampton, Jr. was acquitted of a trumped-up
murder charge. When Hampton and his mother Akua Njeri,
national president of NPDUM, joined NPDUM upon its founding
in 1991 by the African People's Socialist Party (APSP) -
they laid their lives on the line. On February 15, 1993
Hampton narrowly escaped death as three ski-masked assassins
opened fire on him while he was driving his van on a Chicago
street.(3)
According to the APSP's newspaper The Burning Spear: "NPDUM
is a national mass organization whose function is to expose
the U.S. counterinsurgency and unite the great masses of
African people in pushing back the U.S. government attack
upon the U.S. front of the African Liberation Movement ...
[NPDUM's] aim is to ... create the conditions which will
allow for the completion of our revolutionary struggle for
national liberation."(4)
A spokesperson for the NPDUM comments: "The murder of Fred
Hampton, Sr. effectively ended the revolutionary activities
of the Black Panther Party. The Black Panther Party for
Self-Defense was militarily defeated by a massive government
operation - but its revolutionary legacy has proven to be
politically impossible to destroy." More than 700 BPP cadres
were shot down or imprisoned from 1967 to 1969.
Nor did the U.S. government act alone. Its lethal terrorist
campaign against the Black Panther Party (BPP) was
sanctioned by millions of white settlers squatting on the
stolen lands of North Amerika. It was suffered in silence by
scores of highly-paid Black integrationists in service to
imperialist careers. It was tolerated by most of the "new
left" - which lip-synched to colonized people's armed self-
determination movements - while actually dancing to the tune
of white working class demands for more Third World super-
profits and increased national oppression.
As Fred Hampton, Jr. rested inside Akua Njeri's womb,
Amerikan bullets rained down on the Hampton's marriage bed.
Fred Hampton, Jr. entered the revolution as a warrior before
he was even born. Now he struggles in the very belly of the
beast. MIM calls upon all class, nation, and gender
conscious revolutionaries to join the fight to free Fred
Hampton, Jr. from his prison and - ultimately - to free all
oppressed groups from Amerikan guns and capital.
Notes:
1. The Burning Spear Sept./Dec. 1992, p. 4.
3. The Burning Spear Sept./Dec. 1992, p. 4, 22.
4. The Burning Spear May/June 1993, p. 4.
Send mail, telegrams, and faxes to the officials listed
below with the following demands:
1. We demand the immediate release of Fred Hampton, Jr.
2. Stop the harassment of Fred Hampton, Jr. in prison.
3. We demand an immediate investigation of all government
agents and agencies involved in the kidnapping and
conspiracy to murder Fred Hampton, Jr.
4. We demand reparations from the government for Fred
Hampton, Jr. and his family for his illegal arrest and
detainment.
5. We demand that the bond paid to obtain Fred's release be
returned to him.
Warden Mary Hardy-Hall Big Muddy Correctional Facility Ina,
Illinois 62846 (618) 437-5300 fax: (618) 437-5627
Director Howard Peters Dept. of Corrections 1301 Concordia
Court Springfield, Illinois 62702 (217) 522-2666 Fax: (217)
522-2666, Ext. 7016
Jim Edgar Gov., State of Illinois 207 State House
Springfield, Illinois 62706 (217) 782-6830 Fax: (217) 782-
3560
Mayor Richard J. Daley City of Chicago City Hall, Room 507
121 N. LaSalle Chicago, Illinois 60602 (312) 744-3300 Fax:
(312) 744-2324
Roland Burris Atty. General 500 Second St. Springfield,
Illinois 62706 (217) 782-1090
For more information contact: NPDUM National Office P.O. Box
368255 Chicago, Illinois 60636 (312) 924-7072 Fax: (312)
788-7544
Write to Fred:
Fred Hampton Jr./aka Alfred Johnson B42954 P.O. Box 900 Big
Muddy Correctional Facility Ina, Illinois 62846
MIM Notes is not copyrighted. Please credit MIM when
redistributing or referring to this material.
Subscriptions are $12/year (12 issues), U.S. mail or e-mail.
Send only cash, stamps or check made out to "ABS." Write:
MIM Distributors, PO Box 3576, Ann Arbor MI 48106-3576.
E-mail: mim@blythe.org
* * * * The Maoist Internationalist Movement * * * *
- MIM Notes 83, December 1993 -
THE WHITE HOUSE IS THE CRACK HOUSE
SAN FRANCISCO - On Halloween, the colonial occupation forces
at Geneva Towers saturated the two 20-floor Towers with a
Red Ribbon propaganda cloud. Red banners proclaiming the
Towers to be a "drug-free zone" went up in the lobbies and
tenants were given red ribbons to wear in support of this
completely hypocritical campaign. There are no drug free
zones anywhere in Amerika; and Geneva Towers is not a crack
house: it is a prison.
Armed pigs accosted children demanding that they sign
"pledges." Rembrandt Security men fondled female children as
they forcibly pinned red ribbons to their blouses. Mr. Elzie
Lee Byrd, 58 year-old co-chair of the Geneva Towers Tenants
Association (GTTA), objected to these molestations and was
assaulted by two gun-toting pigs who cornered him in a
crowded elevator and karate-chopped him.
WHITE COLLAR CRIMINALS
Two years ago, 3,000 people lived in the HUD-owned Geneva
Towers. Now, after two years of forced evictions; 24 hour-a-
day armed occupation by a 40-goon terror-squad; and a
concerted attack by criminal HUD bureaucrats and "non-
profit" poverty pimps: 800 people are left.
HUD plans to rid the decayed and toxic buildings of all the
people within the next several months. GTTA predicts that
the Towers will then be torn down as San Francisco's
Department of City Planning continues to coordinate
population removal attacks which are forcing Black people
out San Francisco's 49 square miles at the RATE OF 9.5%
EVERY 10 YEARS.(1) Wiping out Geneva Towers *alone*
eliminates 3.92% of the City's 76,463 person Black colony in
one fell swoop.
MIM has covered and materially supported the self-organizing
efforts of the oppressed peoples at Geneva Towers for the
last 18 months. During this time, long lists of felonious
crimes committed by HUD and its managing agents have been
submitted to bourgeois authorities in City Hall and in
Washington D.C. These criminal actions range from guard-rape
to embezzlement of federal funds. One by one, every
bourgeois institution with the power to easily remedy these
violent attacks by bureaucrats and other slugs - has either
denied that the criminal actions occurred - or falsely
claimed an absence of jurisdictional authority.
GTTA organizers recently won a legal victory when lawyers
associated with "minority" business interests were able to
beat back eviction proceedings initiated against tenants
flying protest banners from their balconies. The lawyers are
being paid by local Black contractors who have an interest
in allying with tenant organizations on the off-chance that
these organizations will one day be in a position to spend
money with the contractors. Black contractors are
systematically cut out of government and corporate bidding
contests - and in desperate need of work.
A baseball team of Black lawyers would not be enough to
handle the arsenal of illegal hardballs HUD is throwing at
the tenants. Residents are now being charged hundreds of
dollars for flood damage repairs caused by obsolete plumbing
inside their apartments. Non-payment is "grounds for
eviction" in this militarized community - where the only law
is the law of real-estate speculators enforced on the spot
by $22-an-hour robopigs. Unless a tenant has a battery of
lawyers - s/he will be evicted on the slightest pretense.
The good news is that management is painting apartments for
the first time in 20 years! The bad news is that tenants
will receive unpayable $1,000 painting bills on their
monthly rent statements. HUD inspection teams surrounded by
gunslingers search units for "illegal" washing machines -
and other minor lease "violations" - in buildings where the
ventilation shafts are chock full of friable asbestos and
the elevators lurch like drunken dinosaurs.
FATAL ATTRACTIONS
The bottom line is that the armed goons at Geneva Towers do
not really work for one lousy managing agent or another -
they are a colonial occupation force mirrored everywhere in
Amerika's internal colonies. The goons serve corporate
Amerika and the class, nation and gender interests of the
190 million Euro-Amerikan settlers garrisoning the
continent.
GTTA has built strong alliances in the Black community and
created floods of local public opinion exposing capitalism's
particular form of attack on Geneva Towers. Recently, GTTA
criticized itself for neglecting to continually mobilize the
mass of remaining tenants *inside* even as it has been
successfully waging small legal and media battles *outside*.
GTTA has consistently brought the plight of the people to
the public attention of the very groups responsible for
waging capitalism's war against Blacks, Latinos, Samoans,
and the Indigenous trapped in the Towers. Through bitter
experience, GTTA has learned the fruitlessness of appealing
to the sentiments of the City Hall apparatus, federal
District Attorneys, all politicians - and the major media.
GTTA is now working to turn its organizing campaign inwards
and to organize resistance door-by-door - hoping to appeal
to the group interests of the embattled prisoners in HUD's
jail.
Constant terror in the hallways and fear of eviction has
kept most of the tenants from raising their voices and
joining *en masse* in GTTA political actions. An additional
factor holding back the political development of many
tenants is that even poor people in Amerika have "something
to lose" - whether it be a car, VCR, minimum-wage job, or
AFDC check.
When MIM compares the economic status of even the poorest
people in Amerika to the economic status of the majority of
exploited people residing in the enslaved Third World - MIM
sees that even proletarians in North Amerika benefit from
imperialist super-profits. Frankly, oppressed people are
disarmed *politically* when we organize to grab "a piece of
the pie" and agitate to "share" in white Amerika's miserable
orgy of imperialist plunder.
Building independent power of the oppressed nations inside
North Amerika - while necessarily depending upon the
international proletariat to fatally weaken Amerikan
imperialism abroad - is not the easiest or the most glorious
task for romantic - or impatient - revolutionaries. MIM is
eager for the day when the construction of liberated
revolutionary socialist base areas in North Amerika becomes
possible. But Rome did not fall in a day - and neither will
Amerika.
In the meantime, it is the duty of North Amerikan communists
to actively support all wars against imperialism; while
using our angry hearts and scientifically-guided minds to
arm the people with class, nation, and gender consciousness.
Imperialism only needs to die - but once.
Notes:
1. Citywide Summary of 1990 Census, San Francisco Department
of City Planning, 1991.
MIM Notes is not copyrighted. Please credit MIM when
redistributing or referring to this material.
Subscriptions are $12/year (12 issues), U.S. mail or e-mail.
Send only cash, stamps or check made out to "ABS." Write:
MIM Distributors, PO Box 3576, Ann Arbor MI 48106-3576.
E-mail: mim@blythe.org
* * * * The Maoist Internationalist Movement * * * *
- MIM Notes 83, December 1993 -
LA4+ VERDICT NOT VINDICATION OF THE SYSTEM
By MC11
When a Los Angeles jury acquitted Damian Monroe Williams in
October of attempting to murder white trucker Reginald Denny
during the 1992 L.A. rebellion, the white nation reaction
was twofold: rage and relief.
The unabashed reactionaries spouted racist rhetoric and
bought guns in record numbers, even as their liberal
counterparts proclaimed vindication for the justice system
and a happy ending to the closely-watched saga that began
with the videotaped beating of black motorist Rodney King by
white cops more than two years ago.
Both reactions underscore the imperialist war beneath the
monotonous sham of court trials and jury deliberations.
There is some dissension among the white nation regarding
the best way to wage it, but the goal is a unified one: keep
the Black nation down. Like the trial of Rodney King's
police assailants, whose initial acquittal sparked the L.A.
rebellion, the prosecution of Williams and Henry Keith
Watson - two of the four Black men accused of beating Denny
- was viewed as a litmus test of exactly how just Amerika's
criminal justice system is.
The media reported in breathless detail on the ups and downs
of jury members' morale. One juror, it seems, was anxious to
get back to her boyfriend. Another was eventually dismissed
for being too soft in the head to make rational judgments.
And much concern was voiced over the ability of the jury to
be fair given the fear that their decision might set off
another rebellion.
MIM hopes they were scared, if that's what it took. In a
sense the verdicts were a victory for the people. The
violent attack by Blacks and Latinos on white property and
power in the summer of 1992 shook the white nation's
confidence in its ability to perpetrate blatant injustice
and still maintain control. Subsequent mobilization by the
Black community to support the "LA4+" helped keep Amerika's
double standard for justice in the public eye.
But if it took a mass-scale rebellion to eke out a one-count
acquittal (Williams still faces two to 10 years in prison
for convictions on four counts of assault and one of mayhem;
the jury deadlocked, but did not formally acquit Watson on
the final count of assault) MIM would venture to say that's
not a resounding triumph for anyone.
And while we recognize trials like those of the LA4+ and the
LAPD pigs as significant symbols around which good political
organizing can take place, it's important to realize that
such symbols are easily twisted and co-opted by those in
power (i.e. the white nation). The re-trial and conviction
of King's beaters in federal court after the rebellion that
marked their acquittal is a case in point. Pacification is a
useful tool in the imperialist arsenal.
So to base an analysis of nation relations in Amerikan
society on the outcome of a particular trial is bogus and
misleading. It's far more important is to look at the stark
pattern of injustice burned into the fabric of Amerika's
social structure in county, state and federal courtrooms, in
city jails and maximum security prisons throughout the
country every single day.
Blacks account for one-eighth of Amerika's total population,
and one-half of the population in its prisons. Forty-nine
percent of Black men in major U.S. cities are under the
control of the criminal justice system. The rate of
imprisonment for Black and Latino women has increased
dramatically over the last several years.
In prison, they are beaten, gagged, shackled, hosed with
freezing jet-streams of water, forced to eat rotten food,
isolated in dark cells 24 hours a day and sometimes outright
murdered by the state. Check out MIM Notes' prison pages for
more details.
Such facts would stand as a condemnation of the "justice
system" regardless of the outcome of any one, well-
publicized trial, all too vulnerable to state manipulation.
All that said, the disparity in the state's treatment of the
white cops and the Black youths accused of virtually the
same crime is utterly disgusting and well worth holding up
as an example of the gross apartheid structure under which
many Amerikans like to pretend they don't live.
So is the white reaction to the LA4+ verdicts.
Rodney King's police assailants were charged with violating
King's civil rights. The charge holds a maximum penalty of
10 years. Watson and Williams were charged with "attempted
murder, aggravated mayhem, assault with a deadly weapon and
robbery." Maximum penalty is life in prison.
Bail for the LAPD cops Koon and Powell, found guilty in a
second federal trial, was set at $5,000. Their 30-month
sentence will be served at "Club Fed," the Dublin, Calif.
prison camp renown for its video collection, salad bar and
gardens. Williams and Watson's bail was set at $500,000 and
$580,000. They spent 18 months in maximum security holding
cells without being convicted of any crime.
As for the reaction, one need only have listened to a few
samples of the endless outpouring of white rage on radio
talk shows to realize where the sympathies of the white
working class lie.
"I'm so angry, I can hardly talk," said Bob, one of hundreds
of angry white callers gracing the airwaves in the days
following the verdict. "The justice system is dead. It's
open season on white people. I never thought I'd say this,
but I went out today and bought a gun."
"They should ship you back to Africa," said another.
Liberal white political figureheads took a different tack,
preferring to use the "lenient" verdicts as a way to buy off
the Black nation and the anger - bred from years of economic
oppression - stirred up by the whole Rodney King episode.
"We ask you all to follow the lead of Reginald Denny
himself, who has asked the people to put their anger aside
and look to the future of this city," said L.A. Mayor
Richard Riordan. Too bad for the Bobs and Richard Riordans
of the world. The reaction from much of the Black community
was one of moderate cheer without illusions. Pressed by a
talk show host to answer the question of whether justice had
been done, a woman who had organized in support of Williams
and Watson responded: "Justice was not done. Under the
Amerikan criminal justice system, that would have been
impossible."
MIM Notes is not copyrighted. Please credit MIM when
redistributing or referring to this material.
Subscriptions are $12/year (12 issues), U.S. mail or e-mail.
Send only cash, stamps or check made out to "ABS." Write:
MIM Distributors, PO Box 3576, Ann Arbor MI 48106-3576.
E-mail: mim@blythe.org
* * * * The Maoist Internationalist Movement * * * *
- MIM Notes 83, December 1993 -
POPULAR JUSTICE WILL RIGHT FUJIMORI'S CRIMES
From the pages of El Diario, the newspaper of the Communist
Party of Peru (PCP), MIM reprints the text of the "Crimes of
the Butcher Fujimori." Here the PCP denounces the vicious
campaign of terror and impoverishment waged by Peruvian
President Fujimori, against the Maoist PCP and the people of
Peru.
Revolutionaries in Amerika must continue to support the
valiant revolution in Peru. The Amerikan government sends
tens of millions of dollars to the Peruvian government in
overt military aid ($35.9 million allocated in 1990),(1) and
most likely sends a good deal more in covert aid.
This money goes to counterinsurgency operations against the
PCP under the guise of the "war on drugs." At the time of
Fujimori's coup in 1992, there occurred a temporary
suspension of $200-300 million of foreign economic
assistance, and the postponement of $500 million in credits
from a "special support group made up of ... among others,
the United States, Japan, Spain, and Germany."(2)
So Amerika does admit to pouring hundreds of millions into
Peru, all to prop up some pathetic dictator whose sole
qualifications for his job are ruthlessness towards the
masses and groveling to the imperialists. We can only
speculate that this money is being put in the hands of the
military and the ruling class, because it is certainly not
benefiting the people.
Imperialist multinationals from around the world are
flocking to Peru in order to cash in on the poverty of the
people. Nabisco, Occidental Petroleum, Owens-Illinois,
Asarco, Amax and Phelps Dodge, are just a few of the names
of companies who are opening operations there; these are
U.S. and British based companies. Mitsubishi is in there
too.(3)
In Peru, official unemployment has remained at nearly 80%
for the last four years! High unemployment means low wages,
for people are willing to work for any amount, and there is
high competition for very few jobs. Annual incomes in Peru
are estimated at just over $160, a figure which has doubled
over the last five years. But inflation in Peru climbed as
high as 8,000% between 1987 and 1991, which means that the
meager increases in income are not increases at all, because
they didn't even remotely keep up with inflation.(3)
There is very good reason for the multinationals to be
flocking to Peru: *labor-power can be purchased at dirt-
cheap prices.* "Foreign executives" are "pouring hundreds of
millions of dollars" into Peru, and Amerikan imperialism
stands to profit from the deal.(3)
"New York super-investor" Gerard Manolovici says of
investing in Peru that "it's when you go from disaster
[chaos - ed.] to bad [order with massive poverty - ed.] that
you make the most money" MIM's job is made so much easier
when shameless, blood-sucking capitalists simply admit to
being what they are, like Manolovici did.
While the difference between "disaster" and "bad" may mean
something to First World capitalists, to the masses the two
mean only misery.(4) Along with all these other bigshots,
AT&T, GTE, and Southwestern Bell are going to bid for Peru's
two phone companies, which are being sold off to
imperialists along with all of the other state-owned
companies there.(3) So next time you pick up the telephone,
remember that your call is being subsidized by the brutal
exploitation of the Peruvian masses.
Revolutionaries must defeat imperialism. Only popular
justice, not bourgeois law, will right the wrongs of the
butcher Fujimori. The People's Liberation Army will drive
out the imperialists and liberate their factories, mines and
fields. The Communist Party of Peru will lead the Peruvian
masses to victory.
Notes:
1. David Scott Palmer, "Peru, the Drug Business, and the
Shining Path: Between Scylla and Charybdis?," Journal of
Interamerican Studies and World Affairs, p. 72
2. Ibid., p. 79, p. 67
3. NYT 11/2/93, p. A1 and p. D2.
4. NYT 9/28/93, p. A19
CRIMES OF THE BUTCHER KENYO FUJIMORI
Crimes against humanity, war crimes, criminal acts by his
death squads, and high crimes in violation of the Charter of
the United Nations, the American Convention on Human Rights,
International Law, the Constitution of Peru and laws made in
pursuance thereof.
Traitor to the Nation of Peru.
An imperialist lackey.
RESPONSIBLE FOR:
1. Turning Peru into a concentration camp for political
prisoners and prisoners of war who are being kept in inhuman
conditions.
2. Imposing martial law, which resulted in thousands of
victims killed by the Army, illegally imprisoned or
persecuted.
3. The proliferation of mass graves and political
assassinations. The genocide of 100 prisoners in the jail of
Cantogrande-Lima. The genocide of 20 unarmed civilians in
San Gabriel, the killing of one student and two children in
La Peria, the killing of 16 defenseless Los Barrios Altos,
the killing of a professor and nine students at the
University of La Cantuta-Lima and other crimes still not
reported as well as the killing and persecution of the
relatives of political prisoners. The imprisonment or
persecution of lawyers who dare to represent political
prisoners.
4. The hunger of millions of Peruvians who are living in
extreme poverty and lack basic needs. The proliferation of
cholera, the chronic neglect of the education and health of
the people. The end of free education for the people.
5. The permanent recession of the economy. The brutal cut of
salaries and wages. The destruction of the national economy.
The retailing of state enterprises to multinational
corporations. The sellout of our natural resources to
imperialist countries. The introduction of an outdated neo-
liberalism in the national economy.
6. The military coup. The abolishment of the parliament and
the judiciary. The creation of a subservient "Democratic
Congress" to act at his behest as a means of securing power
to commit crimes. The waging of a vicious low-intensity war
against the people.
7. The compulsory use of peasant communities to serve as
cannon fodder or a buffer for the military in its fight
against the rebels. The killings of indigenous Ashaninkas by
the Army and then blaming it on the Shining Path. The
organization of the peasantry in paramilitary rondas, with
striking similarities to those reported recently in
Guatemala and in the 1960s in Vietnam.
8. The organization, control and manipulation of a
fraudulent SI-NO "plebiscite" in an attempt to legitimize
his crimes. The legalization of the extra-judicial
executions by imposing the death penalty against political
prisoners. The rampant number of rapes against women in
areas under military control.
9. The systematic manipulation, gross misinformation, and
censorship of an impartial press and media coverage. Only
view supporting the regime and the military are allowed to
exist. Even papers close to the loyal opposition are
severely censored.
10. Misleading the world public opinion with cheap
demagoguery and blatant lies: "Peru is already reinserted in
the world economy", "the country is pacified," "95% of the
terrorists are in jail," "Sendero will be finished by 1995,"
"I respect human rights," "most Peruvians support me,"
"human rights abuses by Sendero," "Guzman has
capitulated/repented," "I am courageous with imprisoned
terrorists," "I would kill Guzman with my own hands."
ONLY THE PEOPLE WILL TRY AND JUDGE THE GENOCIDAL!
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* * * * The Maoist Internationalist Movement * * * *
- MIM Notes 83, December 1993 -
D.C. WANTS MORE PIGS TO REPRESS THE PEOPLE
Things are escalating in the belly of the beast. Although
Washington, D.C. Mayor Sharon Pratt Kelly's plan to deploy
the National Guard on the streets of the capital has been
temporarily delayed, President Clinton supports the use of
the Guard in D.C.(1)
Mayor Kelly's original plan was to get the President to
delegate his power to call out the National Guard to her.
Governors of all 50 states can call out the Guard in their
states at will.(1) While the exact details of the Mayor's
plan are still unclear, early reports stated that the plan
would include army helicopters over the city at night and
guards in battle gear patrolling the most violent areas
alongside the D.C. police.(2) Kelly later denied this, and
stated that the Guard would be used to do technical and
administrative jobs.(3) Of course, once she has the power to
deploy the Guard, her story may change again.
Most opposition to Kelly's plan has centered around the
potential violations of civil rights, and the negative
effect that deploying the Guard would have on tourism and
big business in D.C. The twisted idea is that it would be
bad to have the National Guard out, not because it would add
to the oppression of the masses in D.C., but because
opponents don't want "the nation's capital" to look like
"some dictatorial banana republic."(4) Hey, if the shoe
fits, wear it.
Many of the opponents to the plan aren't much better than
the proponents. The opponents have suggested that D.C.
should hire more cops, increase foot patrols and put more
cops around schools and public housing projects.(5)
Even though Clinton told Kelly that he could not delegate
the power to call out the Guard by an executive order, he
said that he would support her efforts to get Congress to
give her the power by changing the law.(6) Eleanor Holmes
Norton has said that she will introduce the legislation to
change the law.(6) Clinton also pointed out that the
National Guard is already used for drug interdiction
activities and suggested that she increase D.C.'s
participation in that program to get more Guardsmen on the
street.(6) So, watch your back in D.C.: As the
contradictions of imperialism grow more intense, martial law
may be just around the bend.
- MC255
Notes:
1. Washington Times 10/26/93, p. A1.
2. Vancouver Sun 10/2/93, p. A1.
3. Washington Post 10/23/93, p. A1.
4. Houston Chronicle 10/3/93, p.3.
5. Washington Post 10/22/93, p. A1.
6. Washington Post 10/26/93, p. A1.
MIM Notes is not copyrighted. Please credit MIM when
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E-mail: mim@blythe.org
* * * * The Maoist Internationalist Movement * * * *
- MIM Notes 83, December 1993 -
LEONARD PELTIER'S DEFENSE PANDERS TO PIGS
MIM recently learned, along with other observant progressive
activists, that the November 21 March on Washington in
defense of Leonard Peltier has been "postponed" until next
June! While there have been many nice brochures and fliers
advising people to get in touch with Clinton to ask him for
executive clemency for Peltier, the March was not widely
publicized. This is not the reason, however, for the delay.
The Leonard Peltier Defense Committee told MIM that "it
would not be prudent to march at this time," because Peltier
is eligible for parole sometime in early December. The
Defense Committee does not want to appear too "militant"
around that time by being "angry" in Washington. Instead,
they want to quietly send thousands of letters and faxes to
the White House to get Clinton on their side. The Defense
Committee is hoping that Peltier will get parole, and at the
same time is begging Clinton for clemency.
MIM opposes alliances with the state, but we also understand
that Peltier's supporters want him out of prison. So does
MIM, but MIM wants to unlock the gates of all prisons in
Amerika. Peltier happens to be one of the more famous
political prisoners of today, but all prisoners locked up in
Amerika are politically, economically, and socially
oppressed.
MIM has long thought that the problem with the Peltier
campaign is its approach.(1) The Defense Committee argues
that there is not enough proof to show that Peltier pulled
the trigger, but MIM argues that Peltier, if he did shoot
those FBI pigs, was justified in defending his home and his
nation. If he didn't then someone else did. MIM doesn't want
to see someone else sold down the river to save Peltier.
Whoever shot those pigs should be free, because they were
righteously defending the people.
- MC31
Notes:
1. MIM Notes 66, July 1992.
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* * * * The Maoist Internationalist Movement * * * *
- MIM Notes 83, December 1993 -
ANTIOCH POLICY DEFENDED
MIM's critique of the Antioch college sex code policy last
month sparked a lot of Internet debate. In response to MIM's
claim that the policy was paternalistic, one critic wrote:
First Critic: "Making rape a crime is 'paternalism'? You may
prefer to keep police and campus authorities out of such
encounters, but that just leaves male violence in the
bedroom as the only authority.... I usually call myself a
socialist, but if liberalism is attacking rape and ending
patriarchal oppression, then call me a liberal."
Another reader countered:
Second Reader: "I call myself an anarchist. Getting police
involved in this will probably stop a few rapes, yes. But it
will do bad things as well. What if a woman fights off a man
while he is trying to rape her, injures him and the police
arrive? 'You're being charged with assault, bitch.' Is that
too hard to imagine happening? After all, police are there
to support a mostly male and white power structure. And
maybe there are other ways to stop rapes than getting police
involved."
MIM responded: This is also MIM's point. Police are never
neutral. An analysis of patriarchy as a structure
acknowledges that police enforce patriarchy even when they
break up individual rapes. And in oppressor-nation Amerika,
the police also enforce the subjugation of whole internal
colonies. Thus, even when the laws designed to protect
privileged women from rape do help to protect them, they
strengthen the establishment that oppresses the majority of
the world's women. Thus MIM calls them "pseudo-feminist":
feminist in word, but not in deed.
First critic: "Promoting self-defense is great, but saying
that 'until the revolution' women are on their own as far as
dealing with rape and sexual violence is a stupid position."
Second reader: "But in many situations a woman will be on
her own when she realises that she's going to get raped
soon."
MIM: In fact, women as a group are largely on their own.
Women have only themselves to thank for any true support
they get from men. MIM has no problem saying oppressed
people are on their own to end their oppression. Only the
chivalrous will object to an argument that leaves women's
liberation in women's hands.
First critic: "The whole MIM position is a typical ultra-
left sanctimonious position that condemns any form of reform
in the name of revolutionary purity."
Second reader: "Well my position is based on mistrust of
police authority. Is that unreasonable?"
The first critic sunk lower: "When 'the left' refuses to
take rape seriously, I place them in the same category of
'states rights' Southerners who refused to support anti-
lynching laws."
MIM: This is highly misleading and untruthful. MIM takes
rape so seriously that it finds rape in all forms of non-
consensual sexual relationships, whether physically forced
or not. MIM takes rape so seriously that it refuses to
accept piece-meal approaches that while not solving the
problem even in the short run, also hurt oppressed women in
the short and long runs by increasing the strength of the
repressive state apparatus. For example, MIM opposes
mandatory-arrest laws that increase the national oppression
of the Black and Latino colonies without decreasing the
level of violent rape at all. This does not mean MIM does
not take rape seriously. MIM takes rape more seriously than
those who do not do their best to eliminate rape altogether
by eliminating its material basis: partriarchy.
The critic who claims to oppose lynching but supports
patriarchal police powers is on very thin ice. The states'
rights Southerners who opposed Federal lynching laws were
white pseudo-feminists who argued that police should take
over the job of keeping Black men away from white women, so
lynching would not be necessary.
And that's just what happened.
From 1930 to 1967, after illegal lynching significantly
declined, the courts legally lynched 405 Black men on rape
charges. That's 89% of all those executed for rape!(1) Would
the critic argue that Black men committed 89% of rapes in
Amerika in those years? And in 1992, Black men were 42% of
those over 18 arrested for rape. Does the critic think
Blacks commit almost half of all rapes today? But perhaps
the critic thinks that arresting 12,000 Black men for rape
last year is reducing rape overall? Wrong. The number of
rapes per year has increased 18% since 1988. And rape
arrests have risen right along with the rate of rape
overall; arrests do nothing to stop rape.(2)
- MC12
Notes:
1. Statistical Abstract of the United States 1991, p. 197.
2. 1992 Uniform Crime Reports, p. 237.
MIM Notes is not copyrighted. Please credit MIM when
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* * * * The Maoist Internationalist Movement * * * *
- MIM Notes 83, December 1993 -
EMMETT TILL WAS A MAN
In response to MIM's review of _Your Blues Ain't Like Mine_
by Bebe Moore Campbell, a Florida critic argued on the
Internet that MIM was wrong to call Emmett Till a "man"
because he was only 14 years old when he was lynched.
The critic wrote: "Marvelous are the Minds of the Maoists. A
14 year-old male person is properly characterized as a boy
regardless of his race or ethnicity. Not to do so provides
yet another fertile ground for making the entire left look
ludicrous."
MIM countered: What is "proper" about that? Most 14-year-old
males are old enough to procreate, thus by one definition
they are men. More importantly, whether male or female, they
are fully capable of participating in such "adult"
activities as war, revolution, wage labor, etc. In
Palestine, Eritrea and Peru (to name a few recent examples)
they are old enough to fight and die for their people.
The critic had also written: "Much more important however is
the fact that Emmett Till was a CHILD which made his
lynching an even more egregious crime against humanity."
And MIM chimed in: But this is more serious. What is your
point? If Emmett Till was a grown man when he was lynched
for being Black and male in Amerika, it would have been less
egregious? We are sure you know that thousands of Black men
(Till included) were lynched for the charge of rapes of
which they were innocent. Do you need them to be "boys" for
you to believe that they were not guilty of their alleged
crimes?
MIM is still waiting to hear from the critic as to why
exactly it is important to consider Emmett Till a "child"
instead of a "man."
But instead we heard: "Apparently MIM has to hide behind
anonymity ... in order to write this absurdly banal self-
satire.... You are an embarassment [sic] to the entire left
community in your efforts to give the right wing ammunition
with which to ridicule us all."
MIM has often responded to the allegation that our views are
somehow less credible because we don't put our names on
them. This is a bourgeois-liberal political position for
which revolutionaries have no use. Revolutionaries know that
the content of the argument is the decisive factor in the
worth of the argument and that the individual's name is
irrelevant. Revolutionaries also know that the Amerikan
state suppresses revolutionary politics through coercion and
force. Anonymity is one tool of resistance to that reality.
- MC12
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* * * * The Maoist Internationalist Movement * * * *
- MIM Notes 83, December 1993 -
KIDS AT WORK
On the Internet, one supporter of the Socialist Labor Party
expressed support for MIM's right to distribute at Los
Angeles City College. S/he said: "I support their civil
liberties, definately [sic] not their ideas (i've seen the
mim paper and it looks like grammer [sic] school kids put it
together)."
If our critic meant to imply that MIM is put together by
young children, we take that as a compliment. MIM points to
the Palestinian children of the Intifada as an example of
the revolutionary potential of young children. They are in
fact much more revolutionary than the North Amerikan white
working class, which the Socialist Labor Party upholds as
the most revolutionary force in Amerika. MIM appreciates
the support of many different organizations in the fight to
distribute our literature, but we will not sacrifice
material analysis in the process.
If our critic meant to imply that MIM consists of students
of grammar, MIM takes that as a compliment. We study
grammar, spelling and capitalization in order to make our
message easier to understand, but our principal subject of
study is the most effective revolutionary ideology - the
science of Maoism.
- MC234
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* * * * The Maoist Internationalist Movement * * * *
- MIM Notes 83, December 1993 -
LETTERS TO MIM
TO HELL WITH MIM!
I was reading the article in your paper on the riot at
Lucasville. I was there! And it was all evil! From what they
did (the INMATES) and also what made it come about (the
SYSTEM) and by reading what you had to say, *you* promote
the *two!* I myself promote the Lord Jesus and God the
Father.
So stop putting people to sleep with your white-washed
truth! And start waking them up with the truth that is real!
In the name of the Lord Jesus,
- an Ohio prisoner
September 1993
MIM responds: Let's look at only some of the atrocities
committed in the name of the Lord Jesus and God the Father:
war for conquest and profit (Crusades), genocide for profit
in the "old world" (Spanish Inquisition), war for conquest
and profit (30 Years War), 501 years of genocide for profit
here in the "new world" (Manifest Destiny and spreading
smallpox), war for conquest and profit (Mexican-Amerikan
War, Spanish-Amerikan war, Philippines, Vietnam), the number
of priests and pastors using their pulpits to preach
jingoism dwarfs those preaching peace. Etc., etc.
This is not to say that all Christians are mass-murderers or
that Christians can't be revolutionaries. Just that one
needs some material analysis to understand why people who
preach "love thy neighbor" spend so much time killing
theirs. Christianity, since it places ultimate truth beyond
the material world and scientific knowledge, is not the most
effective revolutionary ideology.
MIM agrees that the system which makes riots inevitable is
evil. MIM believes that the Amerikan prison system is an
instrument of repression which will be smashed by a
victorious revolution. MIM is working toward communism: the
elimination of the national oppression and economic
exploitation that make such tools necessary. So MIM
challenges the writer to defend the claim that MIM supports
this system. MIM supports prisoners' struggles against those
who would destroy their minds and bodies.
DO DEMO MAN RIGHT!
And what about all the plot-gaps in the movie? [Demolition
Man -ed] If spicy food has been made illegal, then how can
Taco Bell be the only remaining restaurant? Are people
supposed to get by with mild sauce? Come on!! But seriously,
you had to at least like the scene where Phoenix knocks
those seven hippy/new-age kkkops on their asses. That was
great!!
If only Jean-Claude van Damme were an anti-sexist urban
guerrilla...
- Revolutionary Internet reader in the East
November 1993
MIM responds: MIM tries to provide revolutionary analysis of
popular culture. This is a good vehicle for talking about
all sorts of things, and a chance to play out many
scenarios. In its haste, MIM sometimes has to leave out
important elements of the products we review, such as the
plot lapses noted by this reader. Our apologies.
As for liking the scene where Phoenix (Wesley Snipes) knocks
out new-age kkkops: sure, it was fun. Still, call us kill-
joys, but MIM prefers scenes of real kkkops going down in
defeat over the fantasy images of unarmed pigs dropping like
flies. Real kkkops carry guns. They're the ones who bite it
in our favorite scenes.
We are open to competing fantasies. Why not send us your own
revolutionary reviews?
IS PERU SAFE?
Next year a journey to Peru is under consideration, but many
are afraid here that this country is not safe due to the
insurgency. In MIM Notes 81 you ask those who want to know
"what is really going on in Peru" to write to you. Any
comments, in particular regarding the safety of foreigners
and tourists, would be greatly appreciated!
- European Internet reader
October 1993
MIM responds: Here is some information we make available on
Peru. It is not geared toward tourists, however. We are not
a travel agency! Peru is not "safe" for most Peruvians.
MIM does its best to provide information about Peru to
further the cause of the people's struggle, to build a
movement of support outside Peru, including resistance to
imperialist aggression in the war.
We offer a variety of literature on the revolution in Peru,
including:
1. "Support the People's War in Peru," pamphlet. A series of
articles and polemics from MIM Notes on the Communist Party
of Peru (PCP) and the revolution. Refutes many widely
espoused myths. $3 post paid.
2. Interview with Chairperson Gonzalo. The text of a
complete interview with PCP leader Presidente Gonzalo.
Treats main theoretical issues of the Peruvian revolution.
100-plus pages. $6 post paid.
The revolution in Peru receives regular coverage in MIM
Notes. We also sponsor occasional public events; contact us
for information about possible events you could organize.
ANTIOCH: NO CONSENT AT ALL?
I have no major opinion on the Antioch policy. It sounds
from your news release (MIM Notes 82) that it didn't make
any distinction between sexual assault and touching, so
probably was too broad.
However, I disagree with the statement that as long as women
and men are unequal economically, militarily and
politically, that real consent is impossible.
There are some situations where this certainly is true:
women who are totally economically dependent on their
husbands, for example. But I firmly believe that I can give
real consent or withhold it even in the context of this
society.
I am an adult. Even under capitalism I am not helpless. Not
all sex is rape (Andrea Dworkin and Catharine MacKinnon to
the contrary). I do not favor statements that take away from
women the power that we do possess and that we fought hard
for.
I also think that things are more complicated than simply
saying no real consent is possible until "after the
revolution", which seems to be the logical outcome of your
statement.
- Coalition-building activist
November 1993
MIM responds: Thanks for writing. We say that there is no
true sexual consent under patriarchy because even when
people say "yes" to sex, they are not consenting to be in
the system that sex is a part of. Thus, "yes" means less
than it's supposed to. At the same time, of course, some
women have more power than others. Those women who have more
power are mostly oppressor-nation women whose privilege
comes at the expense of the majority of women.
MIM's line stems exactly from its belief that you are NOT
helpless. Those would-be feminists who try to tell you that
you can't overthrow patriarchy are the ones telling you that
you are helpless. They tell you to spend your time trying to
pick just the right people to have sex with - and if you
can't find the right person, check out a psychiatrist. The
practice of subjectively picking sex partners to minimize
inequality relies on bourgeois-patriarchal socialization
that tells us who it's best to screw. MIM calls this
adapting to oppression, instead of getting rid of it.
Yes, things are more complicated than just saying real
consent will only be possible after revolution. The
communist-led masses in China seized power and constructed a
socialist state beginning in 1949, only to find that
patriarchy survived, though in significantly weakened form
(foot-binding was eliminated and divorce permitted, for
example). To deepen the revolutionary change they had begun,
the masses launched the Cultural Revolution in 1966. Again,
many advances were made. Women took more control in politics
and the economy, advertising that objectified women was
banned, and so on. Nevertheless, in 1976 counterrevolution
succeeded in taking the revolution back, and the current
system of state capitalism took control.
Even though things are complicated, revolutionaries still
have to boil them down enough to take a stand and put theory
into practice. If we're not willing to do that, we'll never
learn from our mistakes in order move on in the work of
human liberation.
VIOLENCE IS VIOLENCE IS VIOLENCE?
"Never trust the state" (MIM Notes 80) is wise advice
indeed. After all, the state is defined as that which has a
near-monopoly on the violence in its geographical area. As
everyone knows, one of the ways it uses its near-monopoly is
to kill people - en masse in war and individually in street
murders by policemen and in executions. So why be surprised
when a *murderer* lies to you?
However, elsewhere in the same issue you say
"...government... is there to stay unless overthrown by
revolution." If you mean violent revolution (there are other
kinds!), the problem is that even if it is successful, we
will be left with people in charge who are even more
ruthless, brutal, better at violence, and bloodthirsty, and
who have even less of a conscience and even fewer
reservations about killing people than those who are in
charge now. They would * have * to be, because otherwise
they could not win the violent battle - could not
successfully overthrow the present regime by violence. All
who wish to discuss this with me, or question me about it,
may address me as: Applied Philosophy c/o MIM Notes. MIM
Notes will forward your letter to me.
- Philosophy buff
November 1993
MIM responds: Philosophy Buff makes the mistake of arguing
only from logical premises instead of historical
investigation. They assume that revolutionary violence must
attack the bourgeois state on the bourgeois state's terms.
This overlooks the fact that the goal of revolutionary
violence is the overthrow of the conditions which make
violence necessary, while the goal of the bourgeois state is
the preservation of those conditions. This difference makes
revolutionary violence inherently stronger; revolutionaries
need not be bloodthirsty or conscience-less, just because
the reactionaries are.
There were officers in the Chinese Red Army who thought the
study of the technical aspects of war alone would ensure the
communists victory. Mao criticized this line heavily. For
him, the Red Army was principally a political organization;
the use of arms was subordinate to its political tasks. When
not engaged in battle members of the Red Army worked to help
peasants organize against the Japanese invaders or their
local exploiters, the landlords. Army members explained
communist struggles and goals. Because the Red Army made
serving the people its goal, while its enemies blatantly
oppressed the people, the people supported the Red Army. The
masses' allegiance to the Red Army deprived the capitalist
and imperialist enemies of intelligence and logistics they
needed, and made every step they took outside of their
strongholds a dangerous one. The Chinese people and the Red
Army together were strong enough to defeat their enemies
without using the same scorched-earth tactics to which the
Japanese and Kuomintang stooped.
The author also hints that revolution can be accomplished
non-violently, but does not mention any successful or even
attempted non-violent revolutions. MIM compares the
development of India, a country which was granted its
independence after a non-violent struggle, with the
development of China, which booted the imperialists and
installed socialism by force of arms. They started at more
or less the same level, but 40 years later China's infant
mortality rate was one-third that of India's, and China was
feeding and educating its people much better than India.
Why? Because the Chinese recognized the institutionalized
violence of capitalism and did not shy away from the
violence necessary to destroy it. (Send $1 for MIM Notes 39
which contains the article "Violence and Mao: Who are the
real butchers?")
The writer begs the question on this point: what is violence
and can you lump all violence together? The writer
implicitly accepts the bourgeoisie's claim that any action
which defends capitalism and bourgeois right is justified
and strikes against capitalism are "violent." MIM uses China
and India as two important examples for the majority of the
world's people. MIM would have a hard time pointing to
"pacifist" starvation in India and calling that less violent
than revolutionary violence which ends in better health
care, education and food distribution in China.
The author does recognize that the bourgeois state has arms
and has no scruples about using them to defend its
interests. MIM agrees with this, and that's why we uphold
Mao's analysis: "We are advocates of the abolition of war.
We do not want war; but war can only be abolished through
war and in order to get rid of the gun it is necessary to
take up the gun."
IMPERIALIST "AID" IS NOT AID
In MIM Notes 81, a friend who had written a letter made a
mistake regarding the word "aid," something we hear about
often from the media. Many people believe that Amerikan
"aid" is really a sort of money give-away. People have been
encountered asking "Why does the government give the aid to
Somalians?" and things like that. This is a very common
misunderstanding. Even some "progressive" music bands have
made such mistakes. For example, the group Club Nouveu had
this mistake in an album called "Listen to the Message"
(1988). In the first song called "It's a Cold Cold World,"
which is a talk about a "lady used to be very pretty...
searching for some food" and "they refuse to give her money
because she have no address" the "president sends money just
to help another country while people on the streets are
going hungry every day." Great! Now we know that there is a
relationship between "help"ing another country and not
giving food to the homeless.
Well, some people claim that the "aid" stuff is basically
something like a loan with interests, or something of that
sort. There was a brief description in the response to that
letter as well. I was wondering if it is possible to give a
little more descriptive explanation regarding things like
"military aid," "financial aid," "food aid," and things like
that, or perhaps MIM comrades could propose a book or
pamphlet to be read regarding this issue.
- Eco-Socialist Friend from the West
October 1993
MIM Responds: Thank you for writing! We share your
frustration with those on the left who do not recognize that
WWIII is happening now, today, in the Third World. The
number of victims of Amerikan military attack is small
compared to those killed by the institutionalized violence
of starvation and miserable health care. Check out Susan
George's book _How the Other Half Dies_ for an exposition of
how food-product imperialists deprive the majority of the
world's population of food. She also gives good statistical
data (e.g. 10,000 people die of malnutrition every day).
MIM believes that there is a reason so many Amerikan
"revolutionaries" have trouble seeing the Third World's
struggles. They are so busy recruiting the established white
working class that they have eliminated the Third World from
their theoretical models. Trotskyism is still powerful dogma
among First World radicals; groups organize on the
assumption that revolution will only come to the United
States if they can mobilize the majority of Amerikans, and
that revolution must start in the highly industrialized
countries.
The Trots are so busy gettin' down with the white working
class that they fail to see that the imperialists have
thoroughly bribed them, turning them into a labor
aristocracy. At this time the labor aristocracy has a
material interest in defending imperialism. We recommend MIM
Theory 1, "A White Proletariat?"($4, 32pp.), which addresses
the question of exploitation.
MIM Notes is not copyrighted. Please credit MIM when
redistributing or referring to this material.
Subscriptions are $12/year (12 issues), U.S. mail or e-mail.
Send only cash, stamps or check made out to "ABS." Write:
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E-mail: mim@blythe.org
* * * * The Maoist Internationalist Movement * * * *
- MIM Notes 83, December 1993 -
MIM DISTRIBUTOR WINS TACTICAL VICTORY
LOS ANGELES CITY COLLEGE - In response to persistent
harassment by one anti-communist, MIM launched a small
petition drive that successfully convinced him to drop his
attempts to stop MIM Notes distribution.
On Oct. 26, MIM gathered 100 signatures in a period of three
hours to a petition stating simply, "I support the right of
MIM distributors to hand out MIM Notes in front of Los
Angeles City College." The petition drive convinced the
anti-communist to stop calling the cops.
Last month, MIM Notes reported on an incident here on Sept.
15 in which a MIM Notes distributor was forced to relocate
after somebody called the cops and falsely accused the
distributor of "harassment." The distributor had been
handing out copies of the paper, asking for donations and
discussing revolutionary communist politics with interested
passersby. On Oct. 21, MIM confirmed that the person who
called the cops was an anti-communist student with whom the
distributor had previously argued.
The anti-communist made it clear he thought that communists
have no "right" to free speech: "Not here; not while I'm
around," or for that matter, anywhere that anti-communists
work to suppress that "right." This is why MIM says that
there are no rights, only power struggles.
MIM's persistence, politeness and reliance on the masses won
this battle. There will be many more to come.
MIM Notes is not copyrighted. Please credit MIM when
redistributing or referring to this material.
Subscriptions are $12/year (12 issues), U.S. mail or e-mail.
Send only cash, stamps or check made out to "ABS." Write:
MIM Distributors, PO Box 3576, Ann Arbor MI 48106-3576.
E-mail: mim@blythe.org
* * * * The Maoist Internationalist Movement * * * *
- MIM Notes 83, December 1993 -
ON MAO'S 100TH BIRTHDAY
December 26, 1993 is the hundredth anniversary of Mao
Zedong's birth.
Mao brought into focus the actions and ideas of the Chinese
people and their revolution. His deepening and extending of
Marxism and Leninism is that body of practice and thought
that we now call Maoism. After the Chinese revolution, we
can say that without Maoism, Marxism and Leninism are
inadequate tools. To pay tribute to Mao Zedong is to pay
tribute to the great accomplishments of the Chinese people
and the oppressed people everywhere who looked to China for
leadership, and who still look to Maoism and the Chinese
revolution for inspiration.
Great revolutionary leaders are the products of the people's
struggles, as Mao reflected in 1971, when he was almost 80
years old:
"Someone has said that to oppose genius is to oppose me. But
I am no genius. I read Confucian books for six years and
capitalist books for seven. I did not read Marxist-Leninist
books until 1918, so how can I be a genius? It is not that
I do not want to talk about genius. To be a genius is to be
a bit more intelligent. But genius does not depend on one
person or a few people. It depends on a party, the party
which is the vanguard of the proletariat. Genius is
dependent on mass line, on collective wisdom."
With the restoration of capitalism in China after 1976,
after Mao's death, revolutionaries lost a great battle in
the war to end all oppression in human society. The
revolutionary life of Mao Zedong is a beacon that shines
through the mists of time to the present, symbolizing the
heroic struggle of the Chinese revolution, and revolutions
of the oppressed everywhere. It is that legacy that MIM
honors today.
WINTER CLOUDS
December 26, 1962
Winter clouds snow-laden, cotton fluff flying,
None or few the unfallen flowers.
Chill waves sweep through steep skies,
Yet earth's gentle breath grows warm.
Only heroes can quell tigers and leopards
And wild bears never daunt the brave.
Plum blossom welcome the whirling snow;
Small wonder flies freeze and perish.
Notes: Chairman Mao Talks to the People, Stuart Schram, ed.
Pantheon: New York, 1974. Mao Tsetung Poems. Foreign
Languages Press: Peking, 1976.
MIM Notes is not copyrighted. Please credit MIM when
redistributing or referring to this material.
Subscriptions are $12/year (12 issues), U.S. mail or e-mail.
Send only cash, stamps or check made out to "ABS." Write:
MIM Distributors, PO Box 3576, Ann Arbor MI 48106-3576.
E-mail: mim@blythe.org
* * * * The Maoist Internationalist Movement * * * *
- MIM Notes 83, December 1993 -
"SORRY ABOUT THAT"
"The Senate voted, 65 to 34, to issue a formal apology to
native Hawaiians for the overthrow of their island kingdom
by U.S. agents a century ago .The resolution now goes to
the House."(1)
- MC49
Notes:
1. Los Angeles Times 10/28/93, p. 20.
MIM Notes is not copyrighted. Please credit MIM when
redistributing or referring to this material.
Subscriptions are $12/year (12 issues), U.S. mail or e-mail.
Send only cash, stamps or check made out to "ABS." Write:
MIM Distributors, PO Box 3576, Ann Arbor MI 48106-3576.
E-mail: mim@blythe.org
* * * * The Maoist Internationalist Movement * * * *
- MIM Notes 83, December 1993 -
FILM REVIEW:
FRAMED: THE STORY OF GERONIMO PRATT
by Dennis Mueller and Masimo Pillow
1993 approx. 30 min.
This short video gives a brief glance at the foundations and
formation of the Black Panther Party (BPP), focusing on the
FBI's Counterintelligence Program (COINTELPRO) against the
party and specifically COINTELPROs aimed at dividing the
party from other Black nationalist groups. The information
on COINTELPRO is given as the framework within which
Geronimo Pratt was framed, convicted and sent to prison.
The video brings out the fact that the FBI wanted to put
Geronimo away permanently once he succeeded John Huggins and
Bunchy Carter as head of the Los Angeles BPP. The LA branch
was both very active and central to the BPP's organization -
being geographically and politically close to the party's
Oakland, CA headquarters. Shortly after conducting raids on
the BPP office and on the apartment where Pratt stayed, the
LAPD found a case in its unsolved murders file to pin on
Pratt.
The video gives a solid picture of the extent to which the
local police department worked together with the FBI to
destroy the BPP chapter. This point is important because
consistently throughout the COINTELPRO era the FBI and local
law enforcement denied the existence of any national
coordination in their work against the Panthers.(1)
The film also goes into the depth of FBI interference with
the BPP. It describes how a local informant provided the FBI
with a cardboard model of the LA-BPP apartment in
preparation for the raid, including directions as to where
Pratt and other members of the chapter slept. The layers of
infiltration become clear as we find out that the government
also had an informant participating in Pratt's legal defense
strategy sessions once his trial for the murder began.
*Framed* includes interviews with Geronimo ji Jaga (Pratt),
BPP Minister of Culture Emory Douglas, Panther Chief of
Staff David Hilliard, other BPP members including
Communications Secretary Kathleen Cleaver, attorneys who
worked on the case and one of the jurors in the case.
MIM saw this film at the Midwest Radical Scholars and
Activists Conference at Loyola University in Chicago. An
audience member there pointed out one of the biggest
weaknesses of the film. This person did not know much about
the BPP and asked after the film what the Panthers' program
consisted of - was it just people wanting to carry around
guns and shoot people? You could easily get this impression
from watching the film, because the only references to the
organization were about why it is justifiable for Black
people to use guns to defend themselves.
This actually becomes a major problem with the film, whose
argument revolves around demonstrating how and why the FBI
became so intent on putting Geronimo Pratt away.
The overwhelming military force the FBI and local police
used against the BPP cannot be attributed as a response to
the Panthers' own military power at that time. The BPP was
not principally a military organization and the FBI Director
noted that often enough. The most talked-about reasons for
governmental attack on the BPP were the Survival Programs
which the FBI knew were used for "indoctrination."(2) Much
of the FBI's talk about the military threat posed by the BPP
was an over-excited reading of what it meant that the
Panthers were organizing in Black communities based on
socialist principles. J. Edgar Hoover exhorted local FBI
offices to put a stop to the "nefarious activity" of feeding
Black children free breakfasts before school in the morning.
The government cared so much about the BPP because of their
power and dedication to organize the Black community. The
FBI did what Mao called "putting 10 against 1" in its
actions against the BPP. In the Community Survival programs
and rallies the government saw a scary potential for
organizing Black people in an armed rebellion against the
state. So rather than just take action to cut down these
specific programs, the FBI worked through a campaign to take
out the Panthers as an organization. The FBI saw the BPP's
influence on public opinion as a military threat, and
launched an "appropriate" attack.
Progressives popularizing the BPP today share the
responsibility to accentuate the real strengths of BPP work
- *The Black Panther*, the party's newspaper; the Community
Survival Programs, etc. - and the way these activities
educated the Black community about political and economic
repression and the importance of socialism. MIM doesn't deny
the time and money the BPP spent discussing the right to
bear arms. In discussing the repression of the BPP we try to
keep a clear perspective on the fact that the BPP was not a
direct military threat to the U.S. government, and that the
FBI used exaggeration of this threat - to the point of
falsification - to excuse its campaign against the party.
Notes:
1. This denial was essential to the picture the FBI painted
of the BPP as aggressive, terrorist, etc. The intricacies of
FBI and local police coordination reveal a thoroughly-
organized campaign to harass, provoke, agitate and
intimidate the Panthers. This campaign dug into all levels
of internal party work, work with other progressive
organizations and the private lives of BBP cadre. For a
detailed history see _Agents of Repression: The FBI's Secret
Wars Against the Black Panther Party and the American Indian
Movement_ by Ward Churchill and Jim Vander Wall. MIM
distributes this book for $16.
2. This is the same idea as saying that the Viet Minh or the
Communist Party of Peru "bribes" people with food in
exchange for support. Feeding people could only be seen as a
bribe in an economy which deprives people of healthy food
and calls that good business.
MIM Notes is not copyrighted. Please credit MIM when
redistributing or referring to this material.
Subscriptions are $12/year (12 issues), U.S. mail or e-mail.
Send only cash, stamps or check made out to "ABS." Write:
MIM Distributors, PO Box 3576, Ann Arbor MI 48106-3576.
E-mail: mim@blythe.org
* * * * The Maoist Internationalist Movement * * * *
- MIM Notes 83, December 1993 -
OVERHEARD:
How many Maoists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
There are four answers to that question:
1. That's a pig question.
2. All of them. One to hold the bulb, the rest to make a
world revolution.
3. It's a pragmatist question. It shouldn't matter how many,
if the line is correct.
4. It's a reformist question. It's not the bulb, but the
whole lamp.
MIM Notes is not copyrighted. Please credit MIM when
redistributing or referring to this material.
Subscriptions are $12/year (12 issues), U.S. mail or e-mail.
Send only cash, stamps or check made out to "ABS." Write:
MIM Distributors, PO Box 3576, Ann Arbor MI 48106-3576.
E-mail: mim@blythe.org.
* * * * The Maoist Internationalist Movement * * * *
- MIM Notes 83, December 1993 -
Under Lock & Key
LUCASVILLE UPDATE: PRISONER FACES THREATS, SLURS, BEATINGS,
COVER-UP AND DENIAL OF MEDICAL CARE
Dear MIM,
I hope that this letter finds you and everyone there in the
best of health and spirits. As for myself, I'm doing my best
to remain strong in my struggle for freedom.
MIM, I would appreciate very much if you would forward this
letter to your Editor. If the word about Lucasville does not
get out, convicts may lose their lives at the hands of the
prison guards.
On Oct. 12, 1993, Officer Howard came to my cell and told me
to turn my music down, although the volume was already set
on #1. I unplugged my radio, and the officer moved on, only
to return moments later with threats. He told me that he has
23 more years to work here and that he was going to bring me
down. At this time, I asked him why he is always fucking
with me. His partner, Commanding Officer (C.O.) Carter
called down from the top range and told Howard to take my
radio.
Howard told me to put my hands out the bars so that he could
handcuff me. At this time, I asked him to get me a Sergeant
to take me to the hole, J-2, because he had just threatened
me. His partner, C.O. Carter, called the D.C.T. Team. The
D.C.T. Team are common criminals acting like correctional
officers. They have on all black with riot gear. I put my
hands outside of the bars to be cuffed. I was cuffed with my
hands behind my back. As they were walking me down the
hallway, one of them said, "why ain't you talking now, Nigga
Boy?" I said nothing, because I just wanted to get back to
the hole.
At this time, one of them took his black riot helmet and hit
me on the left side of my head. The others joined in,
kicking me and hitting me in my face and head. I was taken
to the gate of the control center and was beaten again and
asked, "Why can't you stand on your own two feet, Nigga
Boy?" Once inside J-2 strip cell, I was told to put my hands
through a food slot. Once my hands were through the food
slot, I was beaten again, receiving kicks and hits to my
face and head. My wrist was cut by the handcuffs, and the
feeling has not returned to part of my hand. My face is
swollen and I have lost sight in my left eye and lost my
hearing in my left ear.
When the nurse made out her report, she asked me if I fell,
and I told her that five officers had jumped on me. She then
asked where it happened. When I told her that it started on
K-side, she said, "Oh, you fell on K-side." Again I told her
that I did not fall. She still wrote in her report that I
fell. The beating took place Oct. 12. Today is Oct. 21, and
I still have not seen a doctor.
MIM, on Sep. 20, 1993, I sent in a complaint on C.O. Carter
and C.O. Howard for harassment and threats. No action was
taken.
MIM, I thank you for putting the word out, and I appreciate
the time you took to read this letter. Thank you.
Sincerely yours,
- an Ohio prisoner, 10/21/93
MIM Notes is not copyrighted. Please credit MIM when
redistributing or referring to this material.
Subscriptions are $12/year (12 issues), U.S. mail or e-mail.
Send only cash, stamps or check made out to "ABS." Write:
MIM Distributors, PO Box 3576, Ann Arbor MI 48106-3576.
E-mail: mim@blythe.org
* * * * The Maoist Internationalist Movement * * * *
- MIM Notes 83, December 1993 -
Under Lock & Key
SKELETON BAY PRISON'S GANG-IN-GREEN
Skeleton Bay Prison (Pelican Bay State Prison), the new,
high-tech control unit/torture facility, is located in
remote Crescent City in the extreme northwest corner of
California. This is where the California Department of
Corrections sends prisoners - ostensibly due to their
alleged prison gang membership, association with such
prisoners, proclivity for extreme violence, incorrigibility
or supposed threat to the safety/security of the
institution.
On September 12, 1993, Mike Wallace, on "60 Minutes,"
covered the Skeleton Bay torture issues. Mike Wallace
appeared awe-struck as he
interviewed a prisoner named Vaughn Dortch and viewed the
horrendous scar tissue all over the prisoner's body, caused
by prison guards and medical staff who literally cooked him
in boiling hot water and scrubbed him with a scouring pad
until his skin peeled off.
The prison officials, while perpetrating this reprehensible
inhumanity on prisoner Dortch, tormented Mr. Dortch further
with racial epithets like, "We're gonna scrub all the
blackness off you" and "When we're done, you won't be Black
anymore."
Prisoner Vaughn Dortch was sentenced to prison for the crime
of stealing a car, commonly referred to as GTA (Grand Theft
Auto). Basically, prisoner Vaughn Dortch is a petty criminal
who, after approximately nine months in the Pelican Bay SHU
(Security Housing Unit), began suffering from severe mental
deterioration, smearing his body with his own feces. This is
the alleged reason he was chained with restraints and
forcefully held under boiling water, cooked and scrubbed
until the black color of his skin was gone and only the
bloody white epidermis of his skin remained.
Only one correctional officer/employee was discharged from
employment for the action taken against prisoner Dortch. Of
course, numerous prison officers, medical personnel, and
supervisors should have been fired and charged with both
state and federal criminal charges, but they weren't. But
this is how the California Department of Corrections prison
officials, in collusion, from head administrators to low-
ranking underlings and employees, ignore blatant
inhumanities and violations of laws committed by those in
green (standard guard uniform color). They are called upon
to investigate themselves and my 15 years' experience has
been that it takes extremely exceptional circumstances for
them to admit any wrongdoing.
Prisoner Dortch is but one of many prisoners who are
brutalized and victimized by the Gang-in-Green. Not every
such prisoner subjected to the reign of terror by the Gang-
in-Green can show physical scars, and often only other
prisoners witness such events. (In Dortch's case, a couple
of prison employees came forward to affirm the facts). Also,
psychological torture can be just as intense, odious,
malicious and unforgivable as physical torture.
The Gang-in-Green exists in every prison, but not every
guard or prison official is in the gang. To be in the gang,
you must commit crimes against prisoners while wearing a
badge and while on duty. You must not inform on your brother
gang members. You must lie for fellow employee gang members.
You must cover up the wrongdoings of other gang members and
assist in retaliations against all who attempt to oppose you
or the gang's action, even to the point of murder. If
caught, you must deny everything and plead loss of memory.
Although Vaughn Dortch is African American, the Pelican Bay
Prison SHU houses 59% Mexican mestizos and the vast majority
of abuses are inflicted upon them. I myself have been
relegated to this isolation/sensory deprivation/control-
unit/torture facility, based solely on prison officials'
malicious retaliatory effects against me for being a
jailhouse lawyer for myself and many other prisoners, for
collaborating with the news media, for writing articles to
document my innocence in crimes I was convicted of and for
exposing the internal reality of the corrupt prison system
as well as other injustices against the poor and oppressed.
- by a California prisoner, 10/18/93
MIM Notes is not copyrighted. Please credit MIM when
redistributing or referring to this material.
Subscriptions are $12/year (12 issues), U.S. mail or e-mail.
Send only cash, stamps or check made out to "ABS." Write:
MIM Distributors, PO Box 3576, Ann Arbor MI 48106-3576.
E-mail: mim@blythe.org
* * * * The Maoist Internationalist Movement * * * *
- MIM Notes 83, December 1993 -
Under Lock & Key
PRISON LETTERS: STUDY GROUP, RECRUITING HIS MOM, DRUG
PUSHING AND CENSORSHIP
Dear MIM,
How you be? I hope peaceful, for the time being! Long live
the struggle. I received all the material you've sent me.
And I truly appreciate it. I should say we, because we (the
convicts) in here have a a study group going on. I get the
material you send me and let all the comrades in here read,
study and put it into practice. So I would like to stay on
your mailing list. Can you send me some more material in
here? I already received MIM Theory #2/3 and #4 and several
recent issues of MIM Notes. We will keep our study group
active!
Also, I sent my mother a photocopy of MIM Notes. She said
she liked it and that she didn't know they had organizations
out there like that. So we brought her out of the darkness
in which she once lived! She said she is going to get a
subscription as soon as possible. That makes me feel proud
of myself and makes me want to keep up my studying. And I
will! If you print this, please list me as an associate from
California. That's because I'm from California. Just held
hostage in Indiana. Write back.
- a Californian prisoner in Indiana, 9/14/93
PRISONER WINS A SMALL VICTORY OVER PRISON CENSORSHIP
Beloved comrades:
I've noticed that my MIM Notes were frequently missing
essential elements, such as follow-up pages! This was not in
every issue, but some. So I had enlightened the warden to
this and, out of coincidence or because of my awareness,
thus far ALL of the pages of my MIM Notes are intact.
- a Maryland prisoner, 7/21/93
SUBJECT: DRUG PUSHERS
I hear so much about drug pushers. It seems to me that the
best definition of a drug pusher is when after the victim
has said "no," the criminals then assault the victim and
hold the victim down and injects the victim with toxic
chemicals. Now, this type of criminal is what I would call a
true drug pusher. These criminal assaults occurred to me for
10 1/2 years, from 1976 to 1987, yet NONE of these criminals
has ever been arrested (although I was awarded $1,500 as a
token for the abuse), and now these criminals still pull in
fabulous sums of money at taxpayers' expense. These
criminals currently live in nice homes and drive nice cars.
- an Oregon prisoner, 9/20/93
MIM Notes is not copyrighted. Please credit MIM when
redistributing or referring to this material.
Subscriptions are $12/year (12 issues), U.S. mail or e-mail.
Send only cash, stamps or check made out to "ABS." Write:
MIM Distributors, PO Box 3576, Ann Arbor MI 48106-3576.
E-mail: mim@blythe.org
* * * * The Maoist Internationalist Movement * * * *
- MIM Notes 83, December 1993 -
Under Lock & Key: Prison Poetry
THE TRUTH
If you let the White Man pay you to
Kill ya Brotha.
Man you ain't nothin, and ain't goin
no further.
Pay you 10 Grand to make a Hit,
If you go for that man you ain't--
Shit, on ma shoes let me wipe it off,
Man clean it good, throw away the cloth.
To me you ain't nuthin but a dud,
You think you slick but yo name is mud.
Cause these are the days fo retaliation, and
The Brothers of the World gonna end this humiliation.
Taken our Sisters and turnin em out,
Walking round acting like you got Clout.
Um a tell you somethin man, you ain't cool,
All I see is a silly fool.
Helping the White Man destroy our Nation,
Making it impossible for the next generation.
Now--look at our people, strung out on crack,
Keeping Mothers and Sisters dressed up in Black,
Goin to funerals wasting our time,
Killing for corners, selling vials for a dime.
Thinking you doin something that's really Slick,
But Whitey got you caught up in "his" trick.
Making Millions of dollars, buying houses and Cars,
Investing dope money in Clubs and Bars.
But before it's over you Bound to get caught.
And all that pretty new stuff you Bought.
Goes to Whitey. And you get time.
Saying man this White dude is really good,
Cause he gave me a package when no one else would.
He helped you put poison in your own Community,
To destroy Black Men, Women, and children, you see?
But you thought that was good, cause you ain't thinking,
Men n Women turning tricks, Smoking Crack and drinking.
Selling their Babies to the dope Man,
Getting money for crack, any way they can.
The Bad part about it is we robbing each other,
Bashing, and stabbing, and shooting Black Brothers.
Maiming and Killing like it's the latest style,
While Whitey takes ya money, locks ya up with a smile.
But I be wondering how all this will end,
We must help ourselves, we're our only friend!
All this struggling for that cursed green stuff,
soon American money, won't be enough.
Where will we spend it when this Nation's destroyed,
And this paper we killed for is null and void?
I feel for you all my Ancient Black Brothers,
Uplift our People, Save the Children, and their Mothers.
I know what's in you cause it's in me, too,
We sailed the Oceans lookin for somethin to do.
But now there's no time for Procrastination,
We got to Be About--African Liberation!
--by an Illinois prisoner
"FROM A GENOCIDAL CHAMBER":
POEMS BY AN INDIANA PRISONER:
DE BEAT GOES ON
I lie down to rest
Thinking somehow de world
Would be different
How wrong I was
A young sister died today
Of a back-alley abortion
An elderly mother was gunned
By de same people she called
To protect her
De governmental police
A young man was beaten
To death
Because he wandered in de wrong
Neighborhood
How about de man
That died of his injuries
Because de medical staff
Refused to come to his aid
What day was this?
You don't know?
Aw, sure you do
Yesterday, today, tomorrow
Every day
De beat goes on
De only victors
Are de supporters
Of this one-sided racist system
They systematically come up
With slogans
To disguise de fact that
De beat goes on
Until a people
Identify, recognize
That de evil ones on top
Are perfectly happy
De ways things are
How else do you explain
De same old spit
>From communities to communities
Coast to coast
Day in 'n' day out
Yes, de beat goes on
Unfortunately, de gap
Of life
Is becoming shorter
As de beat goes on...
LABELS THAT DEFINE?
They called me Schizophrenic Paranoid when
Very young.
Said I was "preoccupied with Aggressive Fantasies,"
"Obsessive Compulsive."
Whatever dey call me, Ah know um
tired of dis mess.
Living like a Bird trapped in an Oil Spill.
Huh! You'd be Schizophrenic, too!
Bein able to change who you Is, Be a
Necessary tool for survival, where I come from.
You know, Come from, like, in da past.
You'd be Paranoid too, if Yo eyes
Seen what mine done seen.
And bein "Preoccupied With Aggressive Fantasies,"
ain't nuthin but anticipating that attack
That's been so, Heretofore Prevalent.
Obsessive Compulsive? Well, let's
not Prevaricate,
Three out of four, ain't bad.
--by an Illinois prisoner
"FROM A GENOCIDAL CHAMBER":
POEMS BY AN INDIANA PRISONER:
CONSUMPTION OF LIFE
It's said
Everything's defaulting
From Medicare to child's care
Isn't that strange
Wouldn't you say?
Day in 'n day out
Commercials, commercials
Hundreds a minute
Buy me, buy me
Credit or cash
Come as you are
We don't care
With all those slogans
Doesn't that just make you wonder
How it is that we can buy
As we are
But can't for the life of us
Get adequate emergency care
No matter whom you are
Without credit or cash
Deficit, deficit
But for whom
Let's stop and look
Is it in military spending?
Is it in governmental pay?
Is it in courts or law agencies?
You had three guesses
'N struck out on all three
Those above three are key elements
Of repression that's thriving
More than ever remember
Their slogan
Buy me, buy me
We don't care
Until we realize this
Our true crisis
It's mentally more than facts
It's an illusion less than reality
We don't have to live
Just like this
We can control de future
Once we demand
With true unity and convictions
We must take a stand
>From this you know
False consumption of life...
OUR INFLUENCE
Another generation
Is out in de streets
Tonight
Cause it's Friday 'n Saturday
Nights
Fighting a Battle
As did us before
Thinking it's de thing
To do
Another generation
Is out in de streets
Tonight
Worrying de elders
Physically sick
We de elders are at fault
For setting a pattern
A cycle of false illusions
We too
Refused to listen
As hopes 'n dreams
Are shattered tonight
Dealing with this
A false society
You 'n I
Who've been through
It all
Know what's happening
On Friday 'n Saturday
Nights!
It's time for us
De generation past
To teach this now
Our newest generation's
De truth of this
A
Double standard system
Way before
Even our birth
To be able to stop
This term...
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