I N T E R N E T ' S M A O I S T BI-M O N T H L Y 

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X V X X X V X X X X X X X XX XXX
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THE MAOIST INTERNATIONALIST MOVEMENT

MIM NOTES 114	MAY 15, 1996


MIM Notes speaks to and from the viewpoint of the world's 
oppressed majority, and against the imperialist-patriarchy. Pick 
it up and wield it in the service of the people. support it, 
struggle with it and write for it.


* * *


RALLY DEMANDS RETURN OF MASSACHUSETTS PRISONERS HEALTH CONDITIONS 
APPALLING: PRISONERS DYING IN TEXAS


The Revolutionary Anti-Imperialist League (RAIL) and the American 
Friends Service Committee (AFSC) held a rally May 4th to call for 
the return of the Massachusetts prisoners still being held hostage 
in Texas. This issue became particularly urgent in early April 
when Charles Mosby, one of the transferred prisoners, sent a 
letter to Jill Brotman of the AFSC Criminal Justice Program 
describing the deteriorating health of a number of the transferred 
prisoners and their lack of medical care and horrible conditions. 
On the six month anniversary of the transfers, the pawns in 
Governor Weld's political game fear they may lose more than 
contact with their friends and family in this transfer: they may 
lose their lives.

One Massachusetts prisoner in Texas has already died of AIDS 
complications undiagnosed prior to the transfer (in spite of 
prison official claims that only the healthy prisoners were being 
transferred). Mosby wrote about another inmate, Robert Lena, who, 
only after threats of violence by the prisoners, was finally taken 
to a hospital with a temperature of 104. He was returned to the 
prison the next day (April 4) with the promise of antibiotic 
(which they had not given him as of the date of the letter, April 
6), the doctors still unable to figure out what is wrong with him. 
Mosby described how Lena's feet were swollen and turning black and 
red with patches of blood on his feet like he is bleeding from the 
inside of his feet and legs. He had a swelling problem in his feet 
and legs for three months that finally worsened to the current 
condition.

Mosby wrote: "...in the 3 months before his condition got like 
this if he would have proper medical attention, he probably 
wouldn't be in the condition that he is in now, I do fear that 
through the lack of treatment, Mr. Lena's life is very much in 
danger: as I have told you, my own feet have started swollen about 
2 or 3 weeks after Mr. Lena and we have both exhibit the exact 
same symptom, only his is in an advance stage, so that means in 
the next weeks I would probably go through the same stuff. Jill, I 
am living in fear of maybe losing my feet or my life, each morning 
when I wake up I wake in fear of seeing my feet in worse shape, it 
is at the point where I am not living in fear of dying, simply 
because these people are not providing proper medical care, Jill 
we need help in here and if we don't get it, I am very much afraid 
that me, Mr. Lena, and the other inmate who has the same problem 
will not live to be brought back to Mass." 

Mosby goes on to say: "We don't want to die here in Texas, 
whatever it is that is wrong with us, we got it here, and it is 
getting to the point where I am beginning to believe that it may 
either be the food or something they put in the food, we were 
perfectly healthy when we were taken from prison in 
Massachusetts." The prisoners have also reported that the water 
looks like beer. Conditions in Texas are appalling: constant 
light, no exercise, no heat in the cold, and no medical care in 
addition to the problems with the food and water.

As was reported in past MIM Notes, Weld forced passage of a $500 
million bill to expand prisons after shipping 299 Massachusetts 
prisoners off to Texas. But even after this victory for Weld (a 
defeat for the oppressed) the prisoners still have not been 
returned. In response to this plea for help by the prisoners in 
Texas, people showed up in downtown Boston to educate themselves 
and others passing by, gather petition signatures, and organize 
people to further action while demanding that the governor and 
legislature return the prisoners.

The rally was scheduled for 2 p.m. and the rain started just in 
time for the rally. A number of dedicated activists turned out in 
spite of the weather with petitions (covered with plastic) in 
hand. It was harder to talk to people in the rain but we did make 
some new friends, gathered a lot of signatures, and were 
interviewed for a radio show on a local station (WMBR). We closed 
down in time to dry off before heading over to Governor Weld's 
house where the American Friends Service Committee has led a 
demonstration of the friends and family of the prisoners each week 
since the beginning of the hostage crisis.

As we marked these two six month anniversaries, that of the exile 
of prisoners and the struggle for their return, RAIL decided to 
begin holding an informational rally the first Saturday of each 
month 2 p.m. at the Park Street T stop in downtown Boston, and 
afterwards at the Governor's house, until the return of the 
prisoners.


* * *


MOVE PUTS PHILADELPHIA ON TRIAL FOR MASSACRE 


April 23 was the opening day of testimony in the trial of the City 
of Philadelphia, in which ex- Police Commissioner Gregore Sambor 
and ex-Fire Commissioner William Richmond are facing charges that 
excessive deadly force was used in the attack on the MOVE 
organization on May 13, 1985. This attack by the city and their 
pigs killed 11 people including five children and destroyed 61 
houses. MOVE survivor Ramona Africa, along with the brother and 
sister of the MOVE founder John Africa (who died in the bombing), 
are seeking millions in damages.

The city dropped the bomb that destroyed so many lives because of 
MOVE's political line and practice. In MOVE's own words: "The MOVE 
organization is a seriously committed family of revolutionaries, 
founded and coordinated by John Africa...[It] is made up of many 
races of people (black, white, Spanish, Jewish, Indians) because 
John Africa don't teach prejudice, prejudice is against our 
Belief....MOVE's work is to teach, give people the truth, and set 
the example of revolution which simply means to move, to work, to 
be right." 

Putting their beliefs in equality of all beings into practice, 
"MOVE people went into the communities to try to put together 
programs to help stop the gang problem in Philadelphia, to help 
the drug addicts get off drugs, to help the pregnant teenagers who 
had nowhere to go and abused women, children and the elderly." 
MOVE brought food to the hungry, took in abandoned and injured 
animals, and held peaceful demonstrations "against institutions 
that exploit, abuse and kill children, the elderly, animals and 
the environment."(1)

MIM believes that MOVE's strategy is not the most effective one 
for achieving equality for all people. They do not use the science 
of dialectical materialism to analyze the successes and failures 
of historical revolutionary lines and strategies and so they don't 
learn from history. Similarly they do not analyze in a scientific 
way who are their friends as a group and who are their enemies. 
Originating in the early 1970s, MOVE had the better political line 
of the Black Panther Party to learn from and did not carry forward 
the revolutionary legacy of the BPP. But MOVE's practice taught 
them that the government and its agencies are corrupt and the 
enemy, and on a whole their line and practice has been in support 
of revolutionary nationalism and the right of people to self- 
determination. So they are definitely on the side of the friends 
of the people and against the imperialists.

It is for this anti-imperialist line and practice that the city 
bombed their house and murdered 11 MOVE members. Ramona Africa 
spent 7 years in prison (her maximum sentence) for surviving the 
bombing, and innocent MOVE members are still in prison.(1) This 
attack was preceded and followed by much media hype about the evil 
well armed MOVE members who started shooting at the cops first and 
left the police no choice but to toss the bomb. The truth was much 
less reported in bourgeois media: one handgun was found in all the 
rubble after the fire and it belonged to a Philadelphia policeman. 
MOVE members had no weapons.(2)

In this latest chapter of the MOVE bombing story, the city is 
paying Sambor's and Richmond's legal fees and has hired former 
city solicitor Judith Harris for a flat fee of $325,000 to head 
the city's defense team.(3) But that the city defends its own is 
no surprise, the real twist to this trial is that W. Wilson Goode, 
mayor of
Philadelphia during the bombing, was granted immunity in the case 
in exchange for his testimony. 

As Chuckie Africa, MOVE member held in Graterford Prison, pointed 
out in an editorial to the Philadelphia Daily News: "The man who 
said on May 14, 1985, 'If I had to make the decision all over 
again, knowing what I know now, I would make the same decision,' 
is saying he didn't make the decision at all. Goode testified 
under oath Wednesday [April 24th] he was 'shocked' and 'surprised' 
to see an 'explosive device' dropped on the Osage Avenue house by 
helicopter. The man who in 1985 praised then- Police Commissioner 
Gregore Sambor and then-Fire Commissioner William Richmond now 
says Sambor deceived him about the plans for MOVE."(4)

This change of sides has many reactionaries attacking Goode for 
being wishy washy and going back on his support for the good guys 
(a.k.a fascist pigs). But this does not make him a friend of the 
people. Goode has his own hide to look out for: he could have been 
prosecuted in this trial for being responsible for the attack on 
MOVE. People like Goode can be useful to revolutionaries if they 
can be made to tell the truth and expose the enemies of the 
people, but they should not be trusted when their primary concern 
is covering their own asses.

Ramona Africa and the MOVE organization are using the criminal 
injustice system to expose the brutal and oppressive system that 
it supports. This trial is keeping the issue of the MOVE bombing 
current and allows for renewed building of public opinion around 
this massacre. Victory for MOVE is unlikely in a system that is 
set up to keep its opponents powerless. But revolutionaries can 
turn the trial into a victory by turning people's awareness of the 
issue into understanding about the imperialists and the criminal 
injustice system and support for the MOVE political prisoners. It 
is rare that the revolutionaries are able to put the state on the 
defensive in a widely publicized trial. As with the case of the 
Rodney King trial, even a loss can be a victory in education for 
the people.


NOTES:
1. First Day, Issue 5. Publication of the MOVE organization. P.O. 
Box 19709, Philadelphia, PA 19143.
2. Philadelphia Daily News April 26, 1996. 3. The Des Moines 
Register April 3, 1996. 4. Philadelphia Daily News April 26, 1996. 


* * *


ISRAEL MASSACRES LEBANESE CIVILIANS


When Israel fired more than 40 155mm shells for 12 straight 
minutes on a United Nations base in Qana on April 18--killing more 
than 100 Lebanese civilians sheltered there--Israeli leaders 
expressed some regret and the U.N. moved to condemn the attack, 
which violated "international humanitarian law" and a 1993 accord 
in which both Israel and Hizbollah agreed not to target civilians.

The action, while one of the single bloodiest in Israel's 14 year 
occupation of Lebanon, was not exceptional. Israel's strategy to 
defeat Hizbollah guerrillas is built on systematic economic 
devastation of Lebanon and the forced relocation of its southern 
population to make way for further Israeli expansion. Israel's 
biggest sponsor in crime, the United Snakes, was the only country 
besides Israel itself to vote against the U.N. resolution 
condemning the attacks, and calling for an end to Israeli air 
raids.(6) That makes Amerikan credibility to broker a "peace" 
agreement among Israel, Lebanon and Syria a sadistic joke for the 
Lebanese people.

As MIM Notes goes to press, a cease-fire agreement is in effect 
which states that neither Israel nor Hizbollah will fire at 
civilian areas, although both sides are allowed the "right of 
self- defense."(11) It is ironic for Israel to sign such a "self-
defense" clause as it occupies a section of Lebanon ostensibly as 
a defensive measure. For the Lebanese people, any actions taken to 
expel foreign militaries from their land are justifiable as self- 
defense. True peace for Lebanon cannot include partial Israeli 
occupation, but the Amerikan- brokered agreement contemptuously 
ignores this fact.

U.N. spokespeople have said that Israel was notified days before 
the massacre that refugees were in all U.N. posts.(2) And in the 
first 10 days of "Operation Grapes of Wrath," as well as the days 
since the Qana attack, Israel deliberately killed other Lebanese 
civilians, with missiles hitting an ambulance and a house filled 
with a family of 12 people.(3) In the last two weeks of April, 
four hundred thousand people were forced to leave southern 
Lebanon.

"Israeli fighter-bombers demolished a water reservoir at 
Sultaniyeh, a village about 15 miles southeast of the port of 
Tyre. ... [and] the airstrike deprived 20 villages of water," 
forcing all but 4,000 to flee the villages.(4) "Israeli ships 
blockaded Lebanon's ports, the source of most of its food. Jet 
fighters and attack helicopters repeatedly hit Lebanon's coastal 
highway and alleged Hizbullah positions in Beirut, the Bekaa 
Valley and Sidon. ... Israel destroyed two freshly renovated power 
plants serving Beirut."(5) Inevitable deaths resulting from the 
destruction of these economic targets (the New York Times 
conservatively estimates that 11,000 people now lack running water 
or electricity (6)) will be added to the death toll in this latest 
military offensive.

On April 25, Israel fired precision missiles at a road that 
extends from the port of Tyre to the southeastern town of Ain 
Baal, bringing the number of roads destroyed to "at least a 
dozen," and preventing even more injured people from getting 
medical care or relief.(6)

Israel's bombardment of the southern Lebanese coast, as well as 
its military blockade of sea traffic into the southern ports of 
Tyre and Sidon, is ostensibly aimed at cutting off "supply lines 
that might be used by Hezbollah."(7) But according to even pro-
imperialist sources, only a tiny fraction of "supplies" used by 
Hizbollah are military.

Like its Palestinian counterpart Hamas, Hizbollah uses the 
majority of its resources to support schools and health care 
facilities that serve the Lebanese population. In fact, the 
largest source of relief from these recent military attacks comes 
from Hizbollah.(8)

History has shown that attempting to defeat a guerrilla movement 
means all out war on the civilian population, who are all 
suspected of hiding the guerrillas--the masses are all potential 
guerrillas. With financial backing from the U. S. Empire, Israel 
has insisted it will continue bombing Lebanon, and occupying its 
stolen security zone, until its own northern regions (which it 
defines to include the security zone) experience "quiet." MIM 
supports the self-determination of the Lebanese people, who appear 
to support Hizbollah. We have no independent sources in Lebanon to 
confirm this, nor do we know of Maoist activity there. The most 
effective strategy for national liberation and the overthrow of 
imperialism is to organize a Maoist People's War on the principles 
of socialist self-reliance.

For negative example, Lebanon need only look to the nearby neo-
colonial Palestinian regime, which displayed a tragic sense of 
timing in the wake of the Qana massacre, when the Palestinian 
National Council met and rewrote the famous PLO charter to remove 
references to the destruction of the Israeli state.(9) Better 
proof does not exist that the negotiated road to national 
liberation leads to concessions made from the point of extreme 
weakness, as Palestine itself is subjected to heightened 
repression and closure during this latest Israeli security 
crackdown. With the exception of some Israeli reports that Hamas 
had planned attacks in retaliation for Lebanon,(10) the bourgeois 
media has paid little attention to Hamas, preferring instead to 
promote the so-called peace process.

Within Israel, the talk is on whether bombing Lebanon will help 
the "moderate" Prime Minister Peres win reelection at the end of 
May. For the people of Lebanon or Palestine, the outcome doesn't 
matter. Their future will depend on the course of their own anti-
imperialist struggles. MIM will continue to support the oppressed 
nation masses in their struggles for self-determination by 
exposing the Amerikan role in national oppression and using our 
newspaper and other media to build support for those struggles 
within Amerika.


NOTES:
1. Reuters, April 23, 1996.
2. Baltimore Sun, April 24, 1996.
3. The [London] Independent, 4/19/96. p. 1. Excerpted in "Middle 
East Realities,"
MIDDLEEAST@aol.com.
4. Dallas Morning News, April 24, 1996.
5. Newsweek, April 29, 1996.
6. New York Times, April 26, 1996. p. A18. 7. New York Times April 
22, p. A6.
8. National Public Radio, All Things Considered, April 25, 1996.
9. Washington Post, April 26, 1996. p. A31. 10. Israel Line, April 
19, 1996.
11. New York Times May 1, 1996.


* * *


LETTERS TO MIM

MIM ANTAGONIZES FIRST WORLD FORESTS?


MIM's article "Two Roads for Environmentalism" (Mid-April, 1996 MN 
112) compares the Maoist line on revolution with environmentalists 
protesting the logging of Cove/Mallard, one of the bigger old 
growth forests left in North America. MIM correctly emphasizes 
that activists who want to protect the Earth's environment, and 
not just some part of it in the First World, need to focus their 
efforts at defeating imperialism and overthrowing the dictatorship 
of the bourgeoisie. MIM righteously upholds the Communist Party of 
the Philippines (CPP) in this regard as those who are waging 
People's War against the U.S. backed Ramos dictatorship. The CPP 
and its mass organizations have shown the environmentalist 
community in the Philippines and around the world how to 
effectively stop the clearcutting of forests and rape of the 
environment by the imperialists and their local cronies. The key 
is to organize and arm the oppressed masses so they can defend 
themselves and the environment on which they depend.

MIM distinguishes between two roads for
environmentalism: a privileged First World reaction and a 
revolutionary proletarian offensive. First World 
environmentalists, those who really are concerned with defending 
the earth and not merely devouring it, are mostly pacifists or 
focoists. Pacifists rely on some combination of direct- action, 
lobbying and electioneering to achieve their goals. Some groups, 
like local not-in-my- backyard pseudo-environmentalists, merely 
want the nuclear waste, clearcut, or chemical dump in someone 
else's community; almost always the someone else is a community of 
oppressed nationals who don't have enough political clout to keep 
the toxic colonialists away. More progressive groups, like 
Greenpeace, take an internationalist stand and oppose French 
nuclear "testing" in occupied Mororoa (Tahiti) and Shoshone 
territory ("Nevada"), dumping in Black and Latino communities, and 
imperialist wars like the Gulf War. These groups are good but 
mislead the masses into thinking we can save the environment 
without overthrowing the system. They also use lingo like 
"environmental racism" which obscures the actual process by which 
imperialist pigs can destroy the Earth--toxic colonialism or 
neocolonialism and capitalism. Above all, First World people can 
afford to be pacifist (or at least they think they can) because 
they are not threatened as directly as oppressed nationals. Third 
World and Indigenous environmentalists know that any hesitation 
surely means death.

The focoists rely on acts of sabotage to raise environmental 
consciousness or achieve a particular goal. Earth First! spikes 
trees and monkey wrenches logging equipment to raise the cost of 
logging any particular forest. Contrary to public opinion, they 
always warn the loggers first, as the point is not to kill anyone 
but dissuade the pigs from coming at all. The strategy is 
sometimes effective at stopping a particular clearcut, but doesn't 
decrease the net destruction of forests. Some activists contend 
that, as a result of opposition to clearcuts near privileged 
communities, loggers are more likely to pick forests in the Third 
World or on First Nation land where activists can be shot with 
more abandon. On the other hand, Earth First! also tends toward 
internationalism, publishing accounts of environmental struggles 
all over the world in their newspaper. Their philosophy, like most 
of the sincere environmental movement, is that of direct local-
action coupled with global solidarity.

[...]

Nowadays the Unabomber is in the news a lot and s/he deserves 
credit as a hard-core focoist who has successfully proved that 
killing individual pigs doesn't do a thing but sell bourgeois 
newspapers. Progressive groups inspired by Earth First! focoism 
and Greenpeace pacifism are non- revolutionary and will not save 
the environment, though they buildpublic opinion against 
environmental destruction and sometimes get through effective 
reforms. Our only real hope is overthrowing the imperialist system 
of world domination and profiteering. The only way that every 
people can defend their environment is through self-reliant 
socialism . That being the case, MIM and RAIL--as the Party and 
mass organization in North America dedicated to smashing 
imperialism and waging self-reliant socialist revolution--are 
presently the best way forward for environmentalists in North 
America. 

MIM and RAIL do not yet have an adequately worked out 
environmental line, and the article "Two Roads for 
Environmentalism" made three regrettable errors. It is important 
to keep in mind that smashing imperialism and building self-
reliant socialism are necessary but not sufficient conditions for 
human survival. Therefore, revolutionaries must struggle 
diligently to work out the correct environmental line if we are to 
survive to see a world free of oppression. 

First, contrary to the claim in MIM Notes, there is no "national 
forest [in the First World] that exists at the expense of forests 
and people around the world." First World people can be parasites, 
living at the expense of the plundered colonies, but trees cannot. 
Forests are producers by nature, they never leech. What MIM 
correctly wants to say is that it is parasitic and imperialist to 
save trees in North America as a cute national park while 
clearcutting the rest of the world. However, environmentalists 
should not stop protecting North American forests. They should 
just do so within the general framework of anti-imperialism and 
revolutionary organizing. Plenty of pseudo- environmentalists are 
guilty of national park-ism and Sierra Clubbery, but that is a 
people-error not a forest-error. If we ever get to build self- 
reliant socialism in North America we will need the forests, as 
will our comrades in India, the Philippines and Peru.

Second, MIM misinterprets so-called Luddism and "the neo-luddite 
approach" taken by some environmentalists and Indigenous 
activists. Neither the Luddites or the so-called "Neo-luddites" 
were ever or are now opposed to all technology or change. Rather, 
like Marx and genuine communists everywhere, revolutionary 
environmentalists oppose certain technologies that foster 
alienation, hierarchical divisions of labor, brain vs. brawn 
divisions and ecological degradation. Thus monocrop agriculture, 
nuclear energy plants, and huge centralized factories are all out 
of the question. The very scale of the projects--as well as their 
traumatic effects on the ecosystem--make them enemies of 
humanistic labor.

Finally, MIM accuses some environmentalists of "offering to die to 
protect the land for non-human reasons." While it is good to tell
environmentalists more effective ways of dying--or better yet, 
living--to save the environment, it is not true that 
environmentalism depends in any way on "non-human" justifications. 
As Marx and Engels repeatedly said, people are of nature. The 
distinction between human and non-human--like all distinctions--
exists for humanity at a particular stage of historical 
development. Like other philosophical constructs, the mind-body 
distinction for example, it pops up and disappears throughout 
human history. Western science--not to mention non- Western or 
Indigenous knowledge--recognizes an identity and continuum between 
humanity and "nature". Evolutionary biology, ecology and physics 
resist the notion of borders and divides. Minute particles are 
constantly passing through "us" while we have the feeling of 
identity through time. Apes are genetically closer to people than 
zebras are to horses, yet people continue to talk of the 
unbridgeable human/non- human divide, or even of "races" of 
people. There are differences of course, most importantly for 
revolutionaries differences about how and who to organize (people 
yes, horses no). But that hardly changes the reality of the world 
and the dialectical nature of existence. 

There is a basis in Marx for some of these undialectical 
constructions of theory and, regrettably, of practice too. In the 
Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts, Marx describes the 
relationship between humanity and nature as the relation between a 
person's head and their body. Marx wants to say that humanity is 
part of nature, yet is able to change nature consciously. In 
reality, however, the head is no more able to "consciously" 
control the rest of the body than hormones, genes and the 
environment let it. More precisely, it doesn't make sense any more 
to talk about the mind as separate from the hormones (the body) or 
anything else. Even Marx would have to admit that if you shoot a 
person in the head they will die, but nature can get along just 
fine without humanity.

The metaphor is no good, but another point in the Manuscript is 
right on the mark: there is no genuine resolution of the conflict 
between people and nature without resolving the conflict between 
groups of people. Today the principle conflict in the world is 
imperialism. There will be no environmental progress made until 
imperialism is smashed and every people can safeguard their local 
environment from toxic colonialism. There is no time to waste on 
failed strategies. Smash imperialism, defend the earth!


MIM RESPONDS: You make three criticisms, the first of which is 
correct. While Third World people should be first in line to stop 
their forests from being injured, there is nothing harmful in 
trees in the First World. However, there is a dangerous 
provincialism in the slogan "Think Globally, Act Locally." The 
imperialists are organizing globally, and we need to be organizing 
globally to oppose them. First World environmentalists who focus 
on First World forests are not taking the most effective and 
necessary actions to fight imperialism and really save the people 
and the environment.

The second criticism, regarding whether those MIM called Luddites 
oppose technology per se, feigns more unity between Marxists and 
the anti-technology line than is the case. Perhaps you would call 
those who really do oppose essentially all technology past the 
knife revisionist Luddites, betraying the original cause. However, 
we disagree that it is Marxist to oppose large-scale production on 
principal. You are correct that ultimately communists seek smaller 
scales of decentralized production, but we do not believe that 
goal can be accomplished prior to the transition from socialism to 
communism. In fact, in the development of socialism there may be a 
great need to develop large-scale production to meet immediate 
needs. This dialectic was recognized in the Cultural Revolution 
(for more on this see Charles Bettelheim's book Cultural 
Revolution and Industrial Organization in China, available from 
MIM for $4).

On the third point, we agree with you insofar as genuine 
environmentalism does not require non-human justifications. 
However, some environmentalists think that ignoring human beings 
is the best way to organize. Recognizing that many in the First 
World do not want to help the oppressed in the Third World, they 
pander to reactionary sentiment by assuring their supporters that 
they only care about trees, or worse yet only First World trees. 

There is a great deal more that can be said about revolutionary 
environmentalism in the context of the First World. We encourage 
you to write articles for MIM Notes and for RAIL Notes on this 
topic so that those who read MIM Notes will be more informed on 
the news at the same time that your theory is opened for critique 
as we see how you put it into practice.


* * *


INTERNATIONAL WORKERS DAY RALLY AGAINST U.S. IMPERIALISM


by a RAIL comrade

ANN ARBOR, MI, May 1--MIM and RAIL held a rally against 
imperialism at Liberty Plaza on Liberty St. at Division. Things 
started off a little slow, but as more people began to show up 
things got more lively.

One comrade started things off by telling people about MIM and the 
importance of an internationalist perspective. S/he explained that 
for this reason we chose May first (International Workers' Day ) 
to rally against imperialism. May first has traditionally been a 
day of action, protest, and international solidarity. The comrade 
also explained that not all workers have the same interest in 
opposing imperialism. White Amerikan workers are a bought off 
labor aristocracy that directly benefits from imperialism.

International solidarity does not mean solidarity with the wage 
struggles of parasitic imperialist workers. MIM supports the 
national liberation struggles being waged by oppressed people, 
like the war being fought by the National Democratic Front of the 
Philippines against Amerikan imperialism. 

A RAIL comrade then told people about RAIL, anti- imperialism, and 
the struggle in the Philippines. S/he pointed out that Ramos was a 
key figure in both the Marcos dictatorship and the bourgeois 
democratic Aquino administration, fought for the United Snakes in 
Korea and Vietnam, and graduated from Westpoint. Ramos does such a 
good job of licking his imperialist masters' boots that many 
Filipinos call him "Amboy," short for Amerikan boy. 

After these speeches a comrade started off a series of anti-
imperialist chants, using a bullhorn. "National Liberation for the 
World's Population" was the most popular chant, but people also 
liked "Self-determination for all Oppressed Nations" "Support the 
People's Fight Against the U.S. Parasite" and "Salt for the 
Leeches, Land for the People."

The RAIL comrade distributed some signs bearing anti- imperialist 
slogans to the people in attendance. The demonstration started in 
the center of the park, then moved to the sidewalk where it began 
to get a little louder and livelier. Moving to the sidewalk gave 
the demonstration much more exposure to the heavy mid-day downtown 
traffic. On the sidewalk we were much more conspicuous, it is hard 
to ignore a crowd of people lined up on the sidewalk holding signs 
supporting the New People's Army of the Philippines and other 
anti-imperialist struggles, especially when they are all loudly 
chanting and being led by a communist with a bullhorn.

The demonstration part of the rally lasted about a half hour. RAIL 
and MIM then led the more interested participants to the center of 
the University of Michigan campus to distribute anti- imperialist 
flyers and MIM and RAIL literature. For about another half hour, a 
number of activists handed out a flyer on imperialism written 
specifically for this event.

The rally provided MIM and RAIL with an excellent platform for 
spreading revolutionary anti- imperialist ideas. In the process, 
RAIL made a few new friends who helped to educate the masses on 
the nature of U.S. imperialism and the revolutionary struggle to 
eliminate it.


* * *


AMERIKA THREATENS TO NUKE LYBIA


APRIL 23--The outlaw united snakes threatened to drop a nuclear 
bomb on an alleged weapons plant in Libya today. The Pentagon 
claims that the underground plant is "the world's largest chemical 
weapons facility" and says it is "prepared to take... drastic 
preventative measures." According to Amerikan government 
scientists, conventional bombs could not harm the underground 
plant, only nuclear weapons could.

The united snakes is the only entity to ever to engage in nuclear 
warfare and continues to engage in nuclear terrorism. In 1991 the 
united snakes threatened to use nuclear weapons against Iraq, 
again in order to "deter chemical weapon attacks." Of course the 
united snakes (which has the largest chemical and biological 
weapons arsenal in the world) has an interest in and a history of 
fabricating these supposed threats. Plants in Baghdad bombed 
during the gulf war which the u.s. claimed were chemical weapons 
factories turned out to be powdered milk factories.

These threats against Libya, which has a history of defying the 
Amerikan government, are meant to send a message to Libya and 
other oppressed nations: play ball, or else!

The threat of nuclear war was not confined to the old u.s.-
U.S.S.R. inter-imperialist rivalry. Imperialism breeds war in 
general as competing capitalist conglomerates struggle to control 
the world's resources. The imperialists have waged and are 
currently waging genocidal conventional wars against the people of 
the oppressed nations in order to ensure their control; in this 
context nuclear bombs are just one more weapon in the arsenal of 
modern militarism used to oppress the colonies and neo-colonies.

Arguing (as some Social Democrats do) that nuclear weapons no 
longer serve a purpose will not convince the Amerikan government 
to give up its nuclear bombs or reduce the risk of nuclear war 
because these weapons continue to serve the evil purpose of 
reinforcing imperialist power and domination. The only way to 
eliminate the danger of nuclear war is to replace war-mongering 
imperialism with socialism. The oppressed yearn for peace and 
justice; their righteous struggle to topple their oppressors will 
stifle the imperialist campaign for conquest.


NOTE: Los Angeles Times April 24, 1996.


* * *


UN STUDY: INCREASED POVERTY IN LATIN AMERICA 


A new study by the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin 
America and the Caribbean concluded that the so-called economic 
reforms of the 1980s have done absolutely nothing to improve the 
lives of the majority of the population in Latin America. Even the 
short quotes and bourgeois analysis in the Washington Post paint a 
picture of a widening gap between rich elites and the poor 
majority; economic policies in the way of stabilizing prices and 
decreasing social welfare expenditures that make Latin America 
profitable for imperialists but unlivable for the people; and 
comprador governments afraid of imminent revolution in many 
countries.

The study indicated that "the poverty rate in Latin America is now 
higher than it was in 1970." Per capita income was $1,820 for 
Latin America and the Caribbean in 1993, the last year for which 
statistics are available. These numbers--which can never 
adequately represent the desperate poverty and misery imposed on 
the Third World by the murderous imperialists and their Third 
World stooges--show that no matter how good capitalism looks in 
rich First World countries and a tiny minority of hand-picked 
developing nations (like Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the south Korea), 
it can only mean poverty for the majority of people in the world.

The study recommends "reforming the way pensions are managed to 
increase savings...using tax breaks to increase business 
investment... making credit accessible to small and medium 
businesses." These reforms only benefit the tiny middle class and 
wealthy elite of Latin America and do absolutely nothing for the 
vast peasant majority who need sweeping land reform. Land reform 
can never be accomplished under the present imperialist 
dictatorship because it would mean expropriating the "property" of 
the very people calling the shots now. In truth, the United 
Nations and the imperialists who fund it, have no interest in 
solving poverty and only want to stall revolution so they can keep 
repatriating their superprofits. 

In that line, the study concluded that "the principal reason the 
region has not fared better is its modest growth rate, which is 
around 3 percent annually." Gert Rosenthal, the secretary general 
of the commission, "said that the region must achieve a sustained 
growth rate of 6 percent--roughly what Chile, the region's role 
model, has attained." Chile has been a haven for imperialist 
exploitation since the U.S. assassinated and overthrew Salvadore 
Allende's progressive, democratically elected government in 1973 
and installed the Pinochet dictatorship. Chile has expanded its 
middle class and enriched its military-neocolonial elite, at the 
expense of its impoverished majority, particularly the indigenous 
peoples of the area. Large houses-- staffed by servants captured 
as children from indigenous groups, renamed and educated to clean 
or cook--sit in close proximity to shanty towns. Poor children who 
attend inadequate government schools watch as their wealthier 
peers walk to British schools in their freshly pressed school 
uniforms. 

Not only would doubling the growth rate in Latin America do 
nothing for the vast majority, but neither the UN nor any of the 
countries in the region are in a position to administer the kind 
of sweeping environmental regulations and industrial 
reorganizations that are necessary to increase production without 
destroying the already damaged ecology. Increasing the number of 
cars for the middle class by planting more cash crops or mining 
more raw materials for export to the First World makes life for 
all but the bottled- water drinking minority an impossibility. 
Only because the imperialists own stock in water bottling 
facilities is the idea thinkable at all.

Looming large in the minds of the UN, imperialists and comprador 
elites is the threat of revolution. According to the study, "this 
[poverty and rich- poor gap] presents a not too healthy social 
panorama with latent problems that could make it difficult to 
sustain the process of development." The Washington Post writer 
asserts that
"frustration over the economic model is now one of the principle 
causes of civic unrest in the region." The frustration is not 
merely intellectual in origin however, the immiseration is 
physical, overwhelming, and insoluble without revolution. 


NOTES: Washington Post April 13, 1996. p. A25. 


* * *


PSEUDO-FEMINISM SUPPORTS OPPRESSION

**In April, MIM and RAIL attended two different Take Back the 
Night rallies and marches. Both events demonstrated that pseudo-
feminism and the gender aristocracy objectively support oppression 
of people in the Third World and of oppressed nation peoples 
within U.S. borders. There was no mention of imperialism at either 
rally, although imperialism is surely an integral part of the 
greatest patriarchal injustices. This failure to mention 
imperialism underlines the stake the Take Back the Night ralliers 
have in maintaining it.** 



DOWN WITH PATERNALIST RACISM;
RISE UP WITH REVOLUTIONARY FEMINISM


by a RAIL Comrade

AMHERST, MA, April 18--The annual "Take Back Our Rights," 
previously "Take Back the Night," march attracted approximately 
250 men and women from the five-college area to speak out on 
feminist empowerment and violence against women. Many people 
spoke, ranging from a woman whose daughter was killed by her 
abuser to a Black lesbian making a film on rape and violence. 
There were also martial arts demonstrations by local women and 
youth. Though we could find some unity among the progressive 
empowerment of self defense and the film-maker's criticism of a 
patriarchal state, overall the event amounted to supporting 
patriarchy.

Self-proclaimed radical and feminist groups such as the Every 
Woman's Center, Radical Student Union, Power and Third Wave co-
sponsored the event along with the University and town police 
departments and the District Attorney's office. In retaliation to 
this inclusion of the pigs, RAIL sent a contingent with flyers and 
posters to the event.

By including the local pigs, the sponsors support the role of the 
police, which is to defend the current system--a system which is 
capitalist, imperialist and patriarchal. The police have no 
interest in ending patriarchy, only manipulating the reformist 
"feminist" groups and keeping a tight control on any chance of 
serious social change. 

The pig sponsorship determines that these budding feminists choose 
to defend the state and ignore imperialism. By doing so they 
support the oppression of the majority of the world's women-- 
those in the Third World. Hundreds of thousands of Third World 
women are forced by U.S. induced poverty to prostitute themselves 
to Amerikan servicemen around the world. The biggest enemy of 
these women is Amerikan imperialism, and to be a feminist in the 
1990s is to be an anti-imperialist. 

Paternalism is inherent to the pig's agenda of keeping Amerikan 
pseudo-feminists in their place. The police and their culture tell 
women--from pro- fear escort service advertising, to Katie 
Koestner, to the grocery store women's magazines--to be afraid and 
to seek state protection. This paternalism works to discourage 
revolutionary sentiments in women to change the entire system, and 
gives the pigs carte blanche to open fire (literally and 
figuratively) on oppressed nationals.

One in three young Black men are under the control of the 
injustice system, and the Black imprisonment rate in Amerika is 
four times that of apartheid South Africa. This shows that pig 
inclusion in a so-called feminist event is openly racist. 
Regardless of the intent of organizations that promote pro-pig 
approaches to rape, the result is more Black men in prison. These 
organizations should either break with their white supremacist 
practice, or be honest and don the Klan robes. 

The responses by rally-goers were in line with their material 
interest. One person verbally attacked RAIL and claimed that 
RAIL's criticism was "inappropriate." This amounts to paternalism 
because the critic is assuming that women can't handle the 
criticism. An organizer of the rally asked the RAIL activists not 
to march with their anti-cop signs with the rest of the group, so 
as to not jeopardize their relationship with the pigs. The head of 
the rape hotline at the Every Women's Center at the University of 
Massachusetts also accused the activists of jeopardizing their 
relationship with the pigs, and must we say most likely her job. 
She also criticized the RAILactivists for going to an event with 
signs and flyers because we were "disempowering" women at a so-
called "empowering" event. She called us "arrogant" for saying 
that one option a woman who was raped might choose--going to the 
police--was wrong.

We agree that this is arrogant. It's also arrogant to want to go 
head to head with the patriarchy that pushes reliance on the 
state. If we are going to destroy patriarchy and actually stop 
violence against women of the world, we are going to have to break 
the patriarchal rules. On the same note, we see it as imperative 
for ultimate change to interject a revolutionary analysis wherever 
possible.

RAIL did gain the support of several new friends through 
distribution of our anti-cop literature. We also discussed 
revolutionary politics with the producer of a zine called 
"amerikkka on Trial". 

The solution to violence against women is in revolution that 
eliminates the power of group over group, including the power of 
men over women and First World women over Third World women. 
Anything short of breaking with the police and building 
revolutionary feminist power amounts to postponing the day 
patriarchy dies. The 4.5 billion people who suffer under and 
struggle against U.S. imperialism need allies. What they don't 
need is women believing the crap about being powerless, and they 
don't need people marching in lockstep with the imperialist 
government that oppresses them. 

Third World people will dismantle Amerikan imperialism whether the 
attendees of the rally join them or not. To them true freedom 
through revolution is a matter of life or death. We need to fight 
for them by working with RAIL and MIM and gaining support for a 
revolution here in North America.

***

SHUNNING THE PIGS IS NOT ENOUGH:
REAL FEMINISTS WORK FOR REVOLUTION


ANN ARBOR, MI, April 20--MIM handed out flyers at and struggled 
with attendees of the annual Take Back the Night rally here. Two 
hundred people attended the event, which proclaimed the theme, 
"breaking the backlash against economic, cultural, and physical 
violence" against women. The two hour rally included half a dozen 
speakers, both women and men attended. The march which followed 
was for women only.

Pigs did not escort the march, nor were they present at the rally. 
This is an improvement upon past practice and is not as openly 
pro-imperialist as working with the police. But the event still 
objectively supported imperialism by ignoring the plight of the 
majority of the world's women, who are the victims of U.S. 
imperialism. Some people MIM talked with thought our criticism of 
pseudo- feminism made sense and were interested in reading our 
flyer which stated that any movement calling itself feminist must 
be anti-imperialist. 

In a major step back from past Take Back the Night practice, rally 
organizers canceled a planned self- defense presentation because 
they wanted to place the responsibility of preventing violence 
against women on men. The organizer stated that "if men were not 
committing violent acts then women would not have to go to self-
defense classes." This privileged pseudo-feminist logic reveals 
the material interest of the gender aristocracy, which doesn't 
really want to end oppression and violence but wants a higher 
position in the hierarchy of power at the expense of the majority 
of the worlds people. By contrast, MIM believes that women can and 
must take the lead in defending themselves against and destroying 
patriarchal power. 

The first speakers were welfare rights activists. One woman 
identified herself as a "welfare survivor, domestic violence 
survivor and U.S. citizen survivor." MIM agrees with this 
connection to a larger oppressive social structure. Two other 
speakers stated that rape is not sex. MIM disagrees and says all 
sex is rape, therefore rape is also sex. Rape is defined as 
coerced sex. Because women never consented to being born into a 
world where they have unequal power with men, all sex involves 
coercion, therefore all sex is rape.

One woman told of her rape by an eighteen-year-old when she was 5. 
A standing ovation followed this woman's speech (most people were 
sitting on the pavement). She spoke about taking back her 
childhood and not allowing her rapist to control her ever again. 
MIM thinks that it is important for women to control their own 
lives, and that they have the power to do much more. Women can 
work to change the power relations in society that make rape so 
common by working to overthrow the patriarchy.

One speaker openly called for longer prison sentences for rapists. 
This strategy will only succeed in incarcerating more Black men 
and will never decrease the number of rapes. Though other speakers 
did not say this directly, they did support it indirectly by 
referring to their own personal experiences and their utilization 
of the criminal injustice system.

One speaker marginally addressed national oppression by talking 
about a song written as a tribute to women victims of the so-
called Ann Arbor serial rapist. The song was called "Don't let 
darkness catch you on the edge of town." The speaker expressed 
disbelief at the irony of cautioning women in this way, given that 
this is historically a warning to Black folks to not be caught on 
the outskirts of town after dark because of the danger of white 
chauvinist violence. This speaker also correctly pointed out that 
rape is not about a "strange Black man lurking."

One speaker addressed the oppression of disabled people, stating 
that they are "beaten, raped, robbed and left to die in their own 
urine." She also spoke of the "incarceration" of disabled people 
in nursing homes and went on to explain that the average profit 
for nursing homes is $600,000 a year.

The last speaker said not to "forget women in prisons and jails." 
She also mentioned that the state controls the bodies of women in 
prison. MIM would take this a step further to include men in 
prison. The sexuality of both women and men in prison is 
controlled by the imperialist, patriarchal state. We also learned 
from this speaker that the Children's Visitation Program (CVP) in 
Washtenaw county was reinstated. This program, which allows women 
in prison to have contact visits with their children, was recently 
threatened.(See MIM Notes 112 for more on the CVP.) 

The political line of the event was less openly contradictory than 
other Take Back the Night rallies as the call for more cops to 
stop rape was minimal. But the event still ignored the role of 
imperialism in oppressing the majority of the world's women. MIM 
thinks it is an improvement to not call for a police state to stop 
violence against women. But the organizers had no plan for halting 
or even decreasing rape or domestic violence. MIM is working to 
build a revolutionary proletarian feminist movement which will 
dismantle imperialism and all power of groups over groups. To find 
out more about why we say that an
internationalist approach is necessary to feminism, write to MIM, 
P.O. Box 3576, Ann Arbor, MI 48106- 3576 or mim@nyxfer.blythe.org.


* * *


KKK=IRS=COPS
SECURITY JUSTIFIED BY CORRUPT STATE


The Boston Globe has reported that IRS employees use their access 
to taxpayer records for their own personal purposes. MIM is not 
surprised that an alleged KKK member has been convicted for using 
his access to tax records to snoop on people he thought were 
infiltrating the KKK. Nor is MIM surprised by recent stories in 
the press that the military, FBI and IRS have KKK and Nazi members 
who cannot be removed from their jobs by the rules of this 
bourgeois dictatorship known as the U.S. Government.

Some employees at the IRS contend that such snooping goes on all 
the time. The only time the government cracks down is when police 
identities are threatened or politicians get snooped on. The 
Boston Globe also reported a case where an IRS worker used his 
access to records to help a campaign against a candidate for 
Congress. 

The typical, natural and naive conservative authoritarian position 
is that those who have done nothing wrong don't need to keep 
secrets from the government. Some reactionaries--especially in 
East Asia--even oppose individualism from this point of view, 
saying that privacy rights are unnecessary. These reactionaries 
accuse communists of believing that so-called human nature is 
"good," but it is they who assume everyone in government authority 
will have good behavior--even in the profit-mad capitalist-system. 
While we at MIM oppose individualism, we won't whitewash any of 
the current governments in the world to do so. 

MIM supports privacy rights against capitalist governments and we 
go a step further and advocate that activists protect their 
identities. The Greensboro, North Carolina shootings of five 
Communist Workers Party members on November 3, 1979 was a perfect 
example of why such security is necessary. Because of the 
infiltration, many members of the Klan were police officers, which 
means the pigs were participating in these Klan activities, but 
they did nothing to stop the Klan from shooting communists. Since 
the government cannot protect the citizens against anything 
ranging from spying to murder, the citizens must preserve their 
privacy rights against the government.

The same is true of the police beating of citizens- -again 
videotaped in Los Angeles in the case of Rodney King and the two 
Mexican immigrants and also Worcester, MA where police lied about 
choking a man to death only to have been videotaped doing it. 

The reactionaries always say that "it's just a few bad apples." It 
turns out a few bad apples can kill you, so even if the 
reactionaries are correct, it doesn't mean people should not 
protect themselves against the government's law-abiding officials 
and its rogue officials.

In reality, the reactionaries are not correct, because if it were 
just a "few bad apples," the good apples would have the integrity 
to stop the bad apples. Yet police are taught the "code of 
silence" to protect each other. Hence, those who put the code 
above integrity are all "bad apples." 

Under the proletarian dictatorship, the highest standards will 
apply to government officials. Cops and other government officials 
who don't want to serve the people will be fired and we will be 
able to do that without resistance, because everyone will be 
guaranteed a job.

The highest standards of proletarian morality will be exercised 
from the top down so that no cops or other government officials 
will get the idea they can get away with racism, national 
chauvinism, sexism, selling drugs etc.


NOTE: Boston Globe Apr. 14, 1996, pp. 91, 97. 


* * *


PIGS CAUGHT ON TAPE BRUTALIZING MEXICANS 


On Monday April 1, 21 Mexican nationals riding in a truck were 
chased and stopped by riverside sheriffs. The chase lasted for 
about 80 miles. The pigs took out their batons immediately after 
the truck stopped, ran towards the riders, and without first 
saying a word started bashing people. Meanwhile a local news TV 
camera was taping the whole thing from a helicopter, and 
broadcasting live. It can be clearly seen on the video that these 
pigs were very eager to break somebody's bones.

The liberals from the ACLU label that behavior "High Speed Chase 
Syndrome" MIM just calls it pig brutality. These pigs hadn't 
noticed that there was a TV news helicopter taping the whole 
thing, which is why they went on beating the victims as they would 
have anyhow. It is anti-immigrant furor and Amerikan chauvinism 
that fuels violent pig brutality, not this bullshit psychological 
"syndrome" that just got invented. Apparently the Riverside 
Sheriffs had been told to relinquish the chase over to the 
California Highway Patrol, but they pursued it anyway.(1)

A lawsuit for $10 million has been filed by one of the victims. 
MIM hopes he wins. Taking money from the imperialists and giving 
it back to the people from whom they stole it (the exploited 
masses forcibly kept outside of the artificial US borders so that 
they can't compete for the high paying jobs given to the parasites 
inside these borders) is progressive.

The AFL-CIA was quick to speak out in favor of all cops and say 
that these two were just "rogue officers" and "bullies." We don't 
expect the AFL- CIA to do any better, they are pigs and firmly 
stand behind their fellow pigs that haven't been caught on 
tape.(2)

An investigation is being set up by the pigs themselves. The two 
pigs who are more directly visible in these beatings, Kurt 
Franklin and Tracy Watson, were placed on paid leave. Here's what 
LAPD's head of the Bureau of Special Investigation, including 
internal affairs, Deputy Chief Bernard Parks had to say about this 
incident: "From what's on the tape, there's justification for the 
force that was used."(1) So much for protect and serve. 


ASSAULTS TRIGGER PROTESTS


The day after the beating was aired live on L.A. TV a protest was 
held in front of the Riverside county sheriff station, several 
other protests were held across Los Angeles and the rest of 
Southern California. The biggest one MIM attended was on Saturday 
April 6, when approximately 13,000 people marched through downtown 
L.A. demanding justice, and condemning the pigs. The march was 
something of a lightning rally organized by liberals; although not 
everyone in attendance was a liberal. Our organ Notas Rojas sold 
like hotcakes to crowds that practically got in lines to buy it.


SETTLERS VOICE THEIR REACTIONARY MINDS
(WITH HELP FROM THE MEDIA)


At the same time that march was taking place in Downtown L.A., 
another "protest" was taking place in front of Westwood's Federal 
Building. We would've never known about it had the media not given 
it so much coverage. They were effective in emphasizing the views 
of the settler demonstrators: "They [immigrants] have no human 
rights
whatsoever," "They broke the law and should be treated like 
criminals." etc. etc. The only good thing that comes out of these 
anti-immigrant rallies is that they make it easier for the 
oppressed of Aztlan to discern who their enemies are, the 
parasitic white nation (Amerika) whose very existence depends on 
the oppression and exploitation of the majority of the world's 
people. 

Join with MIM in fighting to open the borders and smash 
imperialism. We don't just oppose individual pig violence, we 
oppose the system that sets up the pigs to enforce artificial 
borders that keep the people of Aztlan (and other oppressed 
nations around the world) working in jobs that do not pay enough 
for adequate food, housing and medical care so that the 
imperialists and their parasites can afford a second car and a 
vacation to Disney Land. 



NOTES:
1. Los Angeles Times April 5, 1996, p. A22. 2. LA Times April 6, 
1996, A15.


* * *


REPUBLICANS PRACTICE PHONY SOCIALISM


Long Island Lighting Company (LILCO) is on the verge of a takeover 
by New York State. "In the governmental equivalent of a hostile 
takeover, New York state wants to seize LILCO, whose annual 
revenue, at $3.1 billion, ranks 15th among U.S. power companies."

The leaders of this movement are not social- democrats. They are 
staunch Republicans: Governor Pataki and Senator Alfonse D'Amato, 
who led Bob Dole's presidential campaign in the New York 
Republican primary.

The reactionaries are turning toward what they call "socialism," 
in order to protect rate-payers. Typical family of four LILCO 
rate- payers pay double the national average for electricity. They 
have given up on other methods of reform, because the company has 
already had one takeover that only fixed its problems by gouging 
the rate-payers. 

The current management of LILCO has pleased its shareholders. Now 
the Republican leaders of New York are going to fix their wagon. 
This leaves the Wall Street Journal wondering aloud, because 
usually the politicians are praying to the gods of Mammon.


IF THE SOCIAL-DEMOCRATS CAN'T DO IT, THE CAPITALISTS CAN


Ordinarily the capitalist class saves this kind of dirty takeover 
work for social-democrats to do. That way, they can get done what 
has to be done and then blame it on "socialism," so that everyone 
will be sickened by what the bourgeoisie invented and called 
"socialism." In this case, the nature of capitalism has been so 
exposed, that the New York ruling class does not have time to put 
together a social-democratic party, an example of which is the 
Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) or the German Social-
Democrats, which is the most famous social-democratic party.

MIM has always maintained that incremental takeovers are no threat 
to the capitalist class, so we have to have a revolution. Now we 
see the proof in New York. Far from disapproving, the
reactionaries are leading the movement for a government takeover.

It is already regular government practice to take over failed 
banks to prevent the whole banking system from falling like a 
house of cards. Sometimes companies like Chrysler get government 
bailouts too.

In most cases these government takeovers are intended to force 
taxpayers to make the companies profitable again. Once they are 
profitable, the companies are sold to the rich again--at a loss to 
taxpayers. That's what happens if the company is important enough 
that it can't just go out of business.

The government doesn't just let companies like LILCO go out of 
business because of the political pressure from its mass base: the 
majority of the people served by LILCO, who might support another 
wing of the bourgeoisie if the one currently in power does not 
serve the class well enough. In addition, the mess created by 
companies like LILCO leads to even more blatant than usual 
exposure of the failures of capitalism.


REAL SOCIALISM


In the late Yugoslavia, localities had control of their 
businesses, under so-called market socialism. Such socialism is 
not internationalist, because it does not account for unfair 
historical advantages or natural resources. If one locality 
happens to be sitting on an oil reserve, it gets fabulously rich 
in the Yugoslavian solution of old. Such is now happening in China 
too where privatization of agriculture has resulted in some 
locales getting fish farms while others get land barely fit for 
rice. Under socialism, the proletarian party must thoroughly 
squelch provincial interests in order to build unity amongst the 
people.

Real socialism demands proletarian leadership at the society-wide 
level and the local level. Otherwise, the government or local 
leaderships simply imitate the capitalist businesses they are in 
competition with, because they are forced to. LILCO found itself 
in the position of having to please stockholders. So even though 
it is under extreme governmental pressure, it still has to imitate 
the other capitalists to retain its shareholders.

When we are speaking to young bourgeois types, we can even use the 
language of the Wall Street Journal. Socialism is "the 
governmental equivalent of a hostile takeover" but for the whole 
country, with the workers in control of production with politics 
led by a proletarian line.

Ordinarily a takeover specialist like T. Boone Pickens or some 
other billionaire takes over a company by telling people that the 
current management is not squeezing out enough profits. If you let 
Pickens in there, he will get the job done, so give him control of 
the company. Then shareholders will get higher dividends and their 
stock price will go up higher the takeover specialist says.

Communists say that these capitalists are unfit for running 
society, because they degrade and exploit the proletariat, destroy 
the environment to obtain fabulous private profits, subvert Third 
World governments with bribery and CIA-types in the imperialist 
governments. These capitalists sell weapons, drugs and pornography 
for profit, get into world wars where the victor sets the business 
terms. They also create tens of millions of paper- shuffling jobs 
whose product does nothing to advance society--jobs like settling 
disputes between property-owners (lawyers, judges, accountants), 
jobs protecting private property (security guards and police), 
jobs attacking other countries (the Pentagon and military-
industrial complex) and jobs scheming up ads for
technologically advanced and earth-shattering products like fizzy 
water with color in it called Coca-Cola.

Older people with their fat salaries in meaningless jobs are 
pacified as long as the people of the oppressed nations do all the 
hard work, but young people have a chance to make a change in 
their lifetimes and have it make a difference. When the communists 
gain state power and take over the LILCOs and other businesses, it 
won't be to please shareholders or local politicians. No one will 
be allowed to make profits, so that the motivation to oppress and 
exploit will be gone, and so we can attempt to organize LILCO for 
the people. 


NOTE: Wall Street Journal April 26, 1996, p. 1. 


* * *


ECONOMISTS CATCH UP WITH MIM


The chairperson of the Council of Economic Advisers in the Clinton 
Administration, Joseph E. Stiglitz has noted in a study this year 
what MIM pointed out four years ago in MIM Theory 1. Stereotypes 
about service jobs in the united states have picked up political 
momentum, but they are false.

"The cartoons might make you think these new jobs are all 
hamburger flippers," said Stiglitz. "The big growth in service 
sector jobs has not come at McDonald's but at mutual funds and 
hospitals, software companies and accounting services," said the 
New York Times in a paraphrase.

An influential book by Harry Braverman at our favorite academic 
press called Monthly Review heldthe hypothesis called the 
"degradation of work." According to Monthly Review political 
economists inspired by Marxism, the development of capitalism in 
the united states involves ever greater "deskilling" of work. For 
this reason, everyone would end up in service jobs akin to 
McDonald's. Braverman attempts to apply the universals of Marxism 
to Amerika as if Amerika were a capitalist economy unto itself. 
But really Amerika keeps the bulk of its proletariat outside the 
borders so that deskilling doesn't carry the same implication as 
it did when Marx talked about it. Monthly Review also suggested we 
update Marx and Lenin by accepting these degraded white-collar 
workers as proletarian and thus gather our line from this class. 

Democrats and now Dole and Buchanan have been spreading a similar 
image, because it is safe for them to pander to the class 
interests of the bought-off workers here. However, according to 
the Stiglitz report, hamburger-flipping jobs actually declined 
between 1994 and 1995.

Furthermore, 68 percent of the growth in employment in the last 
two years has been in jobs that paid above the median of $480 a 
week. Hence, we again have evidence of a stabilization of the 
labor aristocracy, not an imminent revolutionary crisis for that 
class. If we tie ourselves up with that class now in the 
expectation that it will soon become revolutionary, we will only 
corrupt our own lines and turn against the international 
proletariat, the way some Detroit newspaper workers did recently 
by inventing a story about Mexican scab workers. (See May 1 
MN113.)

MIM has in the past pointed out the fallacy of generalizing to all 
service sector jobs with regard to pay by using statistics that 
apply only to the shortest-term service sector jobs that most 
white workers move out of while they are still in their 20s.

Monthly Review's "degradation of work" hypothesis is an apt 
description for the world's majority of workers. In the 
imperialist societies, however, the degradation of work is its 
increasing parasitism. Forward-looking workers in the imperialist 
countries do not seek to protect their parasitic jobs, but seek to 
change them to work that goes beyond paper-shuffling waste.


NOTE: New York Times April 24, 1996, section D. 


* * *


EVIL EMPIRE

RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE

1996 Sony Music Entertainment


rage against the machine is holding strong to anti- imperialist 
politics but still has not given up the anarchism that marked the 
group's past CDs. This latest release opens with "People of the 
Sun," a reminder of oppression and exploitation "since 1516:" 
"Neva forget that the wip snapped ya back, ya spine cracked for 
tobacco, oh I'm the marlboro man." The answer: "Now you found a 
gun/This is for the people of the sun." Righteous armed struggle 
is the answer, but this struggle must be organized and led by an 
organization with a political line and strategy that can win and 
make progressive change. 

"Tire Me," "Vietnow," "Without a Face" and other songs also bring 
up the history of imperialist repression the world's people have 
suffered. Other tracks defend the right of people to self- 
determination. "Wind Below" upholds the struggles of the women and 
men from the south, including armed struggle. This song ends with 
"They force our ears to go deaf to the screams in the south." 

One theme to this release is the miseducation of the masses which 
is attacked in many of the songs. The song getting the most play 
on the radio, "Bulls on Parade," takes on the right wing 
hypocrisy: "They rally round tha family/with pockets full of 
shells/weapons not food, not homes, not shoes." It goes on to 
attack the miseducation system: "I walk tha corner to tha rubble 
that used to be a/library/line up to tha mind cemetery/what we 
don't know keeps tha contracts alive an/movin'." This suggests 
that it is just lack of information that keeps the masses from 
fighting back. "Vietnow" carries on the attack on the masses as 
miseducated sheep forced to listen to misinformation, duped by 
religion and ends by asking "Is all tha world jails and churches?"

While miseducation has always played a role in keeping the 
oppressed down, in Amerika there is the important question of 
material interest that keeps the majority of the people so readily 
willing to accept and support imperialist bullshit. Miseducation 
is rampant in all countries controlled by imperialism but it is 
not just misinformation that is keeping the majority of the people 
in Amerika from rising up in revolutionary struggle. The white 
parasitic labor aristocracy doesn't resist the miseducation 
because they want to hear that the brown people down below are 
inferior and terrorists and stealing their jobs because they want 
to continue to benefit from the exploitation of the world's 
majority. It is not just lack of information that has made white 
Amerika non- revolutionary, it is their benefit from the 
exploitation of the people of the world that has created a labor 
aristocracy willing to support fascism before thinking about 
supporting just struggles for national liberation.

"Down Rodeo" points out "A ballots dead so bullets what I get". 
This is one of the best tracks on this CD and suggests that maybe 
rage against the machine understands the national contradiction in 
the United Snakes and why the whites have been bought off into 
passivity:

"So make a move and plead the fifth 'cause ya Can't plead the 
first
Can't waste a day when the night brings
A hearse
So now I'm rollin' down rodeo wit a
Shot gun these people ain't seen a
Brown skin man since their grandparents bought One
Bare witness to tha sickest shot while suckas Get romantic
They gonna send us campin' like they did my man Fred Hampton


Year of tha Boomerang lays out the revolutionary plan just short 
of a call for Maoist organizing, invoking the memory of Mao's 
comment that a death for the people is as heavy as Mount Tai: 


So I grip tha cannon like Fanon and pass tha Shells to my 
classmates
'Cause tha bosses right ta live is mine ta die So I'm goin' out 
heavy sorta like mount tai Wit tha five centuries of penitentiary 
so let Tha guilty hang
In the year of tha boomerang
I got no property but yo I'm a piece of it So let tha guilty hang 
In tha year of tha boomerang An now it's upon you


But in the end rage against the machine is still calling on people 
to take up guns and not offering them any leadership or 
organization to work with in this country. They seem to be leaning 
towards the Revolutionary Communist Party, acknowledging several 
of their front groups as comrades on the jacket of the CD, whose 
influence could explain the failure to adequately distinguish 
between the white nation parasites in Amerika and the oppressed 
nation allies of the revolution as well as the derogatory attacks 
on the masses as miseducated sheep.

In spite of these failings, overall this is an excellent anti-
imperialist attack on the Evil Empire of Amerika so long as the 
listener bears in mind that the Amerikans (a.k.a white labor 
aristocrat parasites) are a part of this Evil Empire and want to 
continue to be a part of it. And in order to really make our 
deaths as heavy as Mount Tai we must work together in an 
organization that can lead the revolution and make every life and 
death count.


* * *


YOUTH GATHER TO DISCUSS THEIR RIGHTS


On April 13-14, the National Children's Rights Coalition held its 
second annual Youth Summit at Hampshire College in Massachusetts. 
Some RAIL activists were there, handing out RAIL and MIM lit and 
attending informative workshops. We found many allies at the 
conference, even as we recognized the differences that existed 
between the various groups in attendance.

The groups involved were as diverse as Empowered Youth Educating 
Society (EYES), a group of teenage youth bringing attention to the 
anti-youth legislation in Seattle and the complicity of many 
reformist groups with anti-youth aims; and the Central Committee 
for Conscientious Objectors who held a talk on "The Military 
Invasion of our Schools" about opposition to JROTC. There were 
plenty of revisionists (people who call themselves Marxist but 
revise Marx's ideas fundamentally) in attendance as well.

Workshops were informative despite the often incomplete analysis 
of those holding them. For example, in one workshop on 
"Homelessness and Youth" participants asserted (to the 
facilitator's agreement) that layoffs at AT&T were the cause of 
homelessness. Actually, white-collar workers' layoffs usually 
result in their employment in other white-collar jobs.

Paper-shufflers do not usually become homeless, especially those 
educated enough to milk the social system for all they can use 
their privilege to get. In spite of this incorrect assertion, the 
facilitators, representing an Atlanta-based high- school group 
called Youth for Justice (which is affiliated with Empty the 
Shelters) provided lots of information about the situation in 
their city. They talked about the labor pools, which are basically 
temp agencies organized to hire homeless people to set up for the 
Olympics. They are extremely exploitative and wind up paying 
barely enough for a night in a shelter and some food. 

Some of the most interesting discussions took place outside of the 
workshops, where RAIL was tabling. MIM is one of the few communist 
groups out there with such a complete gender analysis, including 
talking about children's situation, and the attendees appreciated 
this. One woman who had seen MIM's article concerning the Parental 
Rights Amendment (March, 1996) on the Internet was glad to meet 
people distributing more literature. She said that she was 
thrilled to read our call for youth liberation as she has been 
telling "the Left" to talk about child abuse as a political issue 
since 1965. Most of the participants were far too young to be 
doing such things since the sixties, as most were high-school 
aged. However, many were receptive to finding out more and 
interested in both MIM and RAIL newspapers. They liked our 
recognition that youth are the main revolutionary vehicle within 
the white Amerikan nation, unlike most groups that keep looking to 
bought off workers to choose the progressive activism youth are 
embracing. 


* * *


UNDER LOCK AND KEY:
NEWS FROM PRISONERS AND PRISONS


THE POWER OF REVOLUTION



Living in oppression each day is a vision of Hell. I wake up daily 
and my physical rebels.
Refusing to submit, I'll never bow to defeat. I walk with shackles 
on my feet,
My waist is chained, my wrist cuffed,
Still the oppressor can't get enough.
He spews out mental torture and dispenses physical pain.
My Comrades know him by many names:
Imperialist, capitalist, fascist, Commander in Chief,
Speaker of the House, psychopathic beast. Faces of the Enemy, No! 
they can't hide, Revolution is on my side.
Yes! Revolution is the key,
The only way oppressed nations will be Free. 

--a New York prisoner, Mar. 4, 1996.



FLORIDA CENSORS MIM NOTES



In early January, a prisoner from the DeSoto Corr. Inst. asked MIM 
to send subscriptions to nine of his friends at this same 
institution. A few weeks later, all nine issues of MIM Notes were 
refused and returned to MIM.

--RCG1



WASHINGTON STATE CENSORS MIM NOTES


According to a letter sent to MIM from the Washington state 
Department of Corrections, MIM Notes was censored because it is a 
publication unauthorized by policy, per memo issued by 
headquarters.

To protest this censorship, write to the Director, Division of 
Prisons of Community Corrections, PO Box 41100, Olympia, WA 98504-
1100.



TEXAS PRISONER DIES OF NEGLECT



On October 6, 1995, in Beeville, Texas, in McConnell Unit, ad-seg 
area, a brother named Rufus Green 586875 was found dead in Cell-1, 
Pod-F, Section-C at approximately 8:45 am.

Brother Green died from a ruptured hernia, which caused blood 
poisoning, resulting in death. From Oct. 2, 1995 until his death, 
Brother Green pleaded with prison officers and nurses.

The first, second and third shifts for medical assistance could 
see that he was suffering in severe pain, but they just totally 
ignored and disregarded his and our complaints.

Just to name a few among the officers and nurses who showed a 
deliberate indifference toward his medical needs were: Eric M. 
Lang Co. 3, Charles A. Bridges Co. 3, Regino A. Quintero Co. 3, 
Eric D. Wood, Sgt. Philippa A. Lang, Sgt. Wesley W. Hemphill, 
Garca Pablo Co. 3, Jose R. Garcia Co. 3, Medical Nurse Sylvia 
Tapia, LVN.

I have written to many state and local
organizations requesting their support but it seems that the whole 
world has ignored my cry, while all those involved are getting 
away with the death by neglect. I am requesting the support and 
advice from prisoners and outside comrades in my quest to see that 
justice is brought upon those involved in the death by neglect of 
Rufus Green.

Please write or call the following agencies below and request that 
the above-listed officers and nurses be investigated regarding 
Brother Green's death. Write or call:

Alvin J Bronstein, Attorney, National Prison Project, 1875 
Connecticut Ave., NW, Suite 410, Washington, D.C. 20004.

American Civil Liberties Union, PO Box 3629, Austin, TX 78764-
3629, Tel. (512) 441-0077. 

Attorney David Deutch, Special Litigation Service, Civil Rights 
Division, U.S. Department of Justice, 320 First St, NW Room 944, 
Washington, D.C. 20534. 

--a Texas prisoner, Jan. 31, 1996



THE STRANGE DEATH OF DONALD WOODS



...Remember the September 1990 death of Donald Woods at the Waupun 
Correctional Institution? There was no video, the media did not do 
a front page story on the broken bones and extensive wounds 
inflicted on Woods, but the fact remains, he died as a result of 
the actions of the Waupun staff. 

On September 8, 1990 at 6:00 p.m., five correction officers 
forcibly removed Woods from his cell for disturbing other inmates 
in his block with "bizarre noises." This cell-extraction was 
accomplished by cornering Woods with a plastic shield, handcuffing 
him and gagging him with a towel. Woods was gagged because he was 
tested HIV positive and allegedly spat at officers in the past.

Once out of his cell, Woods was thrown into a laundry cart, like a 
sack of dirty clothes and transported to the "Adjustment Center," 
where he frantically struggled against the officers trying to 
place him in restraints. Their adrenaline pumping from the heat of 
battle, the officers lifted him onto the bed and began the process 
of subduing him. One officer applied pressure on the towel over 
Woods' mouth to keep his head in place, while a 200 pound officer 
dug his right knee firmly into Woods' chest, preventing the 
manacled inmate from arching his back. Stripped of his clothing 
and placed tightly in restraints, Woods urinated on himself and 
slowly drifted into
unconsciousness....At 3:30 a.m. he was found dead. 

A four month investigation by the Dodge County District Attorney 
concluded that there were no grounds for criminal prosecution 
against the Waupun staff because they did not "knowingly" 
contribute to Woods' demise.

The bottom line is that Woods died of asphyxiation brought by the 
restraining methods of the state, therefore someone has to answer 
for his death.... 

A Wisconsin Prisoner responds: This document represents the death 
of a prisoner by correctional officers who were not charged. They 
suffocated this prisoner, murdered him and got away with it!!! 

Pigs need to learn they have no right to take another life, or 
even to mistreat lives. However, a great percentage of pigs like 
their job as it is their legal way to relieve their hate. 
Prisoners are merely "Hate Rocks" for society-- for those who 
cannot portray hate in their personal lives. We are the Hate 
Rocks, a route for their negativity to flow into!

Here in Wisconsin prisons, the only things that protect an officer 
are the 10 years for the crime, 6 more years for the repeater law, 
then another strike towards three strikes and you're out. Surely 
pigs don't think they themselves protect one another? They're 
foolish, so they likely do. 

Pigs must stop their actions. Some of us just can't keep holding 
back, time after time, year after year. We don't want to hurt 
anyone...

--a Wisconsin prisoner, 10/23/95



INEFFECTIVE COUNSEL REMOVED FROM PRACTICE OF LAW 



In the case of Francis Dole Burke, Attorney vs Kentucky Bar 
Association, Case No. 94-SC-267-KB (May 26, 1994) of the Supreme 
Court of Kentucky, the Supreme court rendered Attorney Francis 
Burke to be unethical and unprofessional to his client.... Mr. 
Burke was put on suspension for 59 days, made to pay a $953.80 
disciplinary fee and removed from the practice of law. It should 
be noted that Francis Burke was under multiple disciplinary 
complaints for misrepresenting prisoners. ...any prisoner who had 
Francis Burke as an attorney from the state of Kentucky should 
contact MIM or the Supreme Court law book, published May 26, 1994, 
Case No. 94-SC-267-KB. This case may be of great importance to 
people who have had Mr. Burke as their attorney and are fighting 
for ineffective assistance of counsel cases. 

--a Virginia prisoner, Feb. 22, 1996



IN WISCONSIN, WE SAIL



"Governor Tommy Thompson, known to many state residents as "King" 
Tommy, has announced that "if keeping criminals off our streets 
means sending our prisoners to Texas--bye, bye...they're going 
South."

That's just one of the proposals set forth in the State of the 
State address delivered by Wisconsin's chief executive on Tuesday, 
January 30, in Madison. He means it about the deal with Texas. "We 
have talked with Texas corrections officials. They have room for 
our prisoners. They have agreed to take them. And we're working 
out the details." 

According to Tommy Thompson, "Wisconsin is Working -- better and 
stronger than at any time in our history." To this governor, a 
"better and stronger" state is one that shows "zero tolerance for 
crime." Here are the latest anti-crime proposals he unveiled:

Building a SuperMax prison: "Prisons work," said Tommy Thompson. 
"They keep violent people from harming good people. It's that 
simple. So tonight I am committing to build a SuperMax prison. If 
we don't get federal funding, we must build it ourselves. And once 
this plain, stark and austere facility is built, that's where 
Wisconsin's most vicious criminals will go. The SuperMax will be a 
criminal's worst nightmare."

Building a new "sexual predator" prison: "Statistics show that 50 
percent of violent sexual offenders commit more sex crimes once 
released from prison untreated. That's why we joined together to 
pass a ground breaking sexual predator law... Tonight, I am 
proposing construction of a new sexual predator facility."

Sale of Prison labor to three selected
corporations: "We're putting prisoners to work, both inside our 
prison walls and alongside our roadways. Next month I will 
announce the first three companies that will come into our prisons 
and put inmates to work in activities no other workers want. No 
more sitting around. Prisoners are going to start working. And 
they're going to help pay their keep."

Creation of the Office of Gang Intervention: "We struck a blow 
against gang crime recently when we toughened our laws so gang 
members can't hide behind their birthdays and be coddled by a weak 
juvenile justice system."

Creation of a victim information system at the Department of 
Corrections: "This Victim Security Card puts the status of 
criminals in the hands of their victims... Court dates. 
Sentencing. Prison Location. Release Date... the victim will know 
it all. And will never have to wonder when the criminal gets out 
or where he or she is. We need to start worrying more about 
protecting our families than about the confidentiality of 
convicted criminals."

Providing broader access to criminal data: The state will now 
employ a Mobil Data Terminal System to make it "easier for law 
enforcement agencies throughout the state to keep tabs on 
criminals." 

Banning pornography and movies in prisons: "...we are banning 
pornographic materials from our prisons and removing all movies. 
Prisoners won't have time for these things anyway. They'll be too 
busy working."

Nan Brian, a spokeswoman for the Wisconsin Council on Children and 
Families gave her reactions to the speech: "It's all really a 
crime and punishment plan. When people in Wisconsin think about 
security, they think about stable jobs, family supporting wages, 
affordable health care, good K-12 education for their kids, and 
the opportunity for higher education for their children later." 
She added that the governor's security plan focused entirely on 
building more prisons... and treating criminals more harshly. [See 
The Capital Times, Madison, WI 1/31/96.]

Wisconsin already has eliminated many educational programs in 
prisons, has a three strikes law, has restricted property allowed 
to prisoners [including books, hobby supplies or educational 
materials], has eliminated free weights and may also eliminate all 
weights, has double celled about one- third of prisoners, has 
added new segregation units, has moved to restrict the rights of 
prisoners to request public information or file lawsuits, has 
eliminated the position of an attorney in the Public Defender's 
office who was responsible for investigation of complaints about 
conditions of confinement, has introduced monitoring of prisoner 
telephone calls and stamping of all outgoing mail, and has plans 
to add chain gangs of a "high-tech" variety [the proposed "chain 
gang" program would use stun belts and shackles instead of 
chaining prisoners together].

The prison waiting lists for treatment programs areyears long. 
There is an inadequate grievance system, and complaints about lack 
of medical care, denial of legal rights, mail tampering, racism, 
abuse and other forms of mistreatment abound. Tommy Thompson 
vetoed a bill that would have established an Inmate Death 
Investigation Board. There is no independent citizen oversight of 
the Dept. of Corrections, and services for women prisoners are 
truly limited in a prison system designed primarily for men. 
Requests by families of prisoners for improved visitation 
conditions have gone unheard for decades, and Wisconsin is 
transferring juvenile offenders from supervision by human service 
agencies to the control of the Department of Corrections. The 
state has just begun to enforce a new law that sends violent 
juveniles to adult courts. But all these measures are not deemed 
punishing enough by Tommy Thompson, the Department of Corrections, 
or the get-tough legislators in Wisconsin. A bill to re-instate 
the death penalty has also been introduced, and the governor says 
he'll sign it if it reaches his desk.

Tommy Thompson built his national reputation by pushing for 
"workfare" and "learnfare" under the label welfare "reform" -- the 
safety net for Wisconsin's families is full of gaping holes. He 
uses his veto power to change the intent of bills with the stroke 
of a pen. He is dismantling the Wisconsin educational system. He 
has blurred the line between church and state. He and his 
associates have reaped untold millions in profits from prison 
contracts and highway construction, and he is prepared to assist 
corporations to loot mineral and natural resources with little 
accountability for the social and environmental consequences. 
Virtually all state agencies have been forced to tighten their 
belts, but one agency has been getting fat budget increases: the 
Wisconsin Department of Corrections.

Near the end of his speech, Tommy Thompson left his audience with 
these words: "In Wisconsin, we sail. We sail toward our dreams... 
Good night, and God Bless Wisconsin." To some of us, it sounds 
like we sail toward a nightmare.

Watch this man, folks. He could be sailing your way any time, and 
his dangerous ideas have already sailed on ahead of him. He claims 
to have no national aspirations, but he acts like a man who would 
be King.

For full text of the State of the State address by Tommy Thompson, 
see:


For local articles about the speech see: THE CAPITAL TIMES, 
Madison, WI 1/31/96 (email: tctvoice@captimes.madison.com) THE 
WISCONSIN STATE JOURNAL, Madison, WI 1/31/96 (phone: 608/252-
6110)" 

-- A Dissident in Dairyland, Feb. 2, 1996 



REMOTE PRISONS MAKE LIFE TOUGHER


The Ely State Prison (ESP), a state of the art maximum- security 
institution located in the barren mountain region of eastern 
Nevada, stands as a symbol of prosperity and long-term employment 
for the little village of Ely, Nevada.

To the inmates of ESP, their stay here is similar to being 
sentenced to a prison in Siberia. Most prisoners, after arriving 
at ESP, succumb to the harsh reality of just how desolate an area 
this governmental monument is. Free world contact is virtually 
non-existent, family visits are few, phone calls to loved ones are 
costly, and abuse of power is an everyday occurrence.

This is an all-too-common story shared by thousands of inmates 
sentenced to prisons in remote areas across this nation. Like so 
many other prisons built around small town economic revival, ESP 
offers prison officials an enormous opportunity to misuse their 
authority.

We prisoners have rules and regulations, not to forget state and 
federal laws me must follow. If we fail to abide by these written 
rules, we get punished. Prison staff members also have written 
rules and regulations to follow, but because of the isolated 
location of ESP, they tend to disregard their own written 
policies.

This brings us to why the Nevada Department of Prisons has so many 
lawsuits filed against prison officials in the U.S. District 
Court. Per capita, Nevada inmates file more lawsuits against 
prison staff than any other state prison system. When prison 
officials fail to follow the procedures set down in writing by the 
lawmakers who oversee state prisons, it is the given right of all 
inmates to sue prison officials so that they will discontinue this 
practice of disregarding and avoiding written policy and making up 
rules as they go. It seems here at ESP, there are no rules for 
staff to follow, so we file many lawsuits.

For the inmates at the Ely State Prison, relief in most instances 
can only be found through judicial litigation. You, too, can find 
relief from the constitutional violations caused by prison 
officials by using title 42 U.S.C. 1983; its your avenue to 
relief....Use it! Don't abuse it! 

--a Nevada prisoner, written May 1993, sent to MIM Jan. 4, 1996.


MIM RESPONDS: We too say "use it!" but while some legal battles 
are winnable, we do not agree that litigation spells relief. If 
Amerikkka's legal system weren't stacked against the oppressed, 
there wouldn't be so many prisoners in the first place. This is 
why MIM says that only revolution will give the oppressed full 
relief.


* * *


FBI NAMES UNABOMBER SUSPECT; FBI-CONTROLLED MEDIA CONVICTS


by MC234

In early April, the FBI announced it had a suspect in the 
Unabomber case and arrested Theodore Kaczynski. Unabomber is the 
code name applied to the case by the FBI, as initial targets were 
mainly universities and airlines.

The organization behind the bombings appears to call itself FC, 
and holds an anarchist, anti- technology ideology, of which MIM 
has considerable criticisms in the realms of line, strategy and 
tactics. Principally, we see technology as merely the tools held 
by the ruling class. Under socialism, technology--and society--
itself will cease to be alienating to the masses of people. Like 
the Luddites who attacked machines--and not the capitalists--as 
the root of their oppression, the Unabomber mistakes the symptoms 
and tools of capitalism for the system. The Unabomber seeks a more 
harmonious relationship between humans and the planet by the 
destruction of the technological way of life. In contrast, MIM 
seeks the liberation of the world's people, and a resulting 
realignment of society, which will include a sustainable 
relationship with non-human species and matter. 

In the realm of strategy, we disagree with the approach taken by 
the Unabomber. Maoists hold that armed struggle should only be 
undertaken when the bourgeoisie is really helpless and the people 
can make concrete gains through its use. Scattered acts of 
sabotage or executions are useless--or even counter-productive, 
bring repression down on everyone--because they are not tied into 
the direct and increased politicization and participation of the 
masses. The Unabomber type strategy relies on the bourgeois media 
to convey one's message and results in increasing the split 
between the masses and the political line being advocated. This 
last point MIM makes only in reference to how Maoist organizing 
works and is less important than the overall line difference 
between the Unabomber and MIM on the role of technology and 
imperialism. 

While the FBI claims that FC is one person, the documents from FC 
that MIM is familiar with refer to "we" so we will refer to FC as 
an organization. MIM doesn't know for sure if Kaczynski is FC or 
related to FC.

The arrest of Kaczynski has been characterized by extreme 
manipulation of the media, and this has been the case all along. 
For years, the FBI has decided what information and letters (and 
portions of letters) from FC are fit for print. MIM says "assumes" 
or "allegedly" on some of the "facts" in this case because it is 
difficult to know exactly what is going on when politics is 
filtered first through the enemy FBI and then through the enemy 
mouthpiece media.

As NPR reported, U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno refuses to 
comment on the on-going investigation, but "unnamed sources" in 
the FBI are leaking a Niagara Falls of information to the media. 
This should be a sign of concern to all. While there are reasons 
to keep people's names secret, the FBI is currently using a policy 
of "press conferences by leaks". This gives the FBI maximum 
control over what information it gives out and in what context, 
and allows it maximum deniability in cases of incorrect 
information or outright lies. Already small things like the fact 
that Theodore Kacznski's brother (who allegedly turned him in) 
sought assurances that the death penalty would not be sought, have 
turned out to not be true.

It is impossible to know what more significant things are being 
hidden. FC is an underground organization that only communicates 
with it's victims directly and via the censored media, Kaczynski 
(according to unnamed sources) isn't talking, and the FBI is 
"unnamed". So this all ends with the public not really knowing 
anything at all. 

As time has progressed since the arrest, it has only gotten worse, 
with the media obviously becoming increasingly subservient in 
exchange for this increased "access" to informal briefings (the 
leaks.) In fact, to read news articles in the front of the New 
York Times only a few days after the arrest, one would think that 
Kaczynski had been convicted already.

There is a lot to criticize in the FC line (assuming we are being 
given accurate information in the "Industrial Society and its 
Future" (the "Unabomber's Manifesto") published in the Washington 
Post. But what really galls MIM is the mainstream media's attempts 
to de-politicize this case and individualize it. The syndicated 
column by LA Times columnist Peter H. King is an excellent example 
of this.

Before the arrest, "Industrial Society and its Future" was boring, 
rambling, etc. to King. In addition, it wasn't politically valid, 
because as a "sneaky assassin" FC hadn't earned a "seat at the 
debate." Now, however, "Industrial Society and its Future" is 
important to King because he can psychologize its politics to the 
profile of Kaczynski. Instead of reaching individuals wishing to 
work against a society bent on it's own destruction--in this MIM 
has unity with FC--by exposing the controlling nature of society's 
reactionary socialization, King sees a criticism of Kaczynski's 
parents.

FC falls into a lot of psychological arguments him/herself, but 
s/he correctly exposes a major tactic of the ruling class against 
it's enemies: "The concept of 'mental health' in our society is 
defined largely by the extent to which an individual behaves in 
accord with the needs of the system and does so without showing 
signs of stress." King takes this as the defensive posturing of 
someone afraid of being called crazy. Saying that you are crazy if 
you don't enjoy your own alienation from society and you are crazy 
if you point out the fact first is a particularly common form of 
attack for the patriarchy. The next step, of course, is to lock 
you away.

MIM disagrees with all the bourgeois pundits criticizing FC for 
using technology to force a break from technology. This is a is 
perfectly dialectical thing to do. It can be a cover for 
hypocrisy--which we don't think FC was doing--such as Ronald 
Reagan's peace-through-strength arms buildup which saw criticism 
only from the left. 

King's final statement is that "the manifesto's importance is not 
whether it made points about the evils of technology. It is 
whether the document can be matched to manual typewriters found in 
Kaczynski's cabin." If Kaczynski typed the document, had the 
typewriter or didn't it doesn't change the political value of the 
ideas. 

Reading between the lines of the political pundits and media 
servants to the FBI, the case of the Unabomber has become an 
excellent example of why we need alternative press and why focoism 
(the strategy of individual armed attacks) is not the most 
effective way to attack an enemy. MIM builds independent media 
while also building an organization based on Maoist line and 
strategy: the most effective way to attack and overthrow 
imperialism.


NOTES: Syndicated column by LA Times columnist Peter H King, April 
12, 1996; National Public Radio, April 8, 1996;
http://www.envirolink.org/orgs/coe/resources/fc/coe vspf.html


* * *


IMPERIALISTS TIGHTEN GRIP ON PHILIPPINE ECONOMY 


The U.S.-Ramos regime in the Philippines recently passed several 
new laws which further subject the Philippine economy to the 
imperialist policies of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and 
U.S. imperialism. These laws include the Mining Act of 1995, the 
Agricultural Tarriffication Act, the Oil Deregulation act, and the 
Home Consumption Value Act. Together, these laws benefit local
reactionaries and big landlords and allow foreign monopolies to 
invest in broader sections of the Philippine economy and 
repatriate more
superprofits.(1)

These laws are part of the U.S.-Ramos regime's "Philippines 2000" 
economic plan. President Ramos claims that this plan will turn the 
Philippines into a "newly industrialized country" by the turn of 
the century, but the plan only encourages further imperialist 
domination which will only bring greater poverty to the nation and 
increases the exploitation of the working class and peasantry.(2)


MORE MARKETS, MORE SUBSIDIES FOR FOREIGN MONOPOLIES 


The Foreign Investments Act removes restrictions on foreign 
ownership and foreign owned enterprise, and the Home Consumption 
Value Act changes the determination of tariffs on imported goods 
from local prices to the prices in the mother country. The new 
tariffs are a hidden subsidy since prices in the mother country 
are cheaper than prices in the Philippines (or at least they would 
be reported to be cheaper).(1)

These new laws will especially hurt the small entrepreneurs in the 
retail trade who will not be able to compete with large foreign 
monopolies. The May First Movement (KMU), a legal national 
democratic organization, also pointed out that the new policies 
would result in further unemployment, "due to the closure of many 
local industries under the onslaught of foreign domination and 
monopoly competition."(1)


DEREGULATION = MONOPOLY CONSOLIDATION, INCREASED EXPLOITATION


The U.S.-Ramos regime claims that the Oil Industry Deregulation 
Act will increase competition among oil companies by allowing new 
investors into the industry. According to the regime, this will 
cause the price of oil to fall. Actually, full deregulation will 
simply allow the three companies which currently control the oil 
industry (Shell, Caltex, and Petron) to set prices at will without 
prior government approval. Deregulation places local oil prices 
directly under the control of U.S. monopolies.

The Mining Act opens up vast new tracts of land to foreign mining 
companies and allows them to use the highly destructive method of 
open-pit mining. Amerikan and Japanese (and to a lesser extent 
Australian and Canadian) monopolies already control the industry 
through their local comprador partners (in one case the local 
partners own only 23% of "their" mines). More than half a million 
people work in the mining industry, but only 28,000 are unionized. 
Safety conditions in Philippine mines are among the world's worst; 
cave-ins and landslides are common, and workers are regularly 
exposed to dust, chemicals, and toxic gas.(1) 

Increased penetration by imperialist mining interests can only 
increase the exploitation of Filipino miners and the destruction 
of the Philippine environment.


FOOD "SHORTAGE"


Like in other semi-feudal and semi-colonial countries, food 
production in the Philippines is dictated by the profit margins of 
agribusiness monopolies and their big landlord allies but not by 
the needs of the people.

Last summer the price of rice in the Philippines reached record 
levels. Even the pro-imperialist Far Eastern Economic Review 
concedes that the price hike was due to hoarding on the part of 
the rice cartel in the Philippines.(3) According to the Peasant 
Movement of the Philippines (KMP), a legal national democratic 
organization, the rice cartel made $4.3 billion in profits during 
the so-called "rice shortage."(4)

The Agricultural Tarriffication Act will make this situation worse 
by driving more small food producers off of their land. The Act 
lifts quantitative restrictions on foodstuffs and replaces them by 
tariffs. This allows foreign monopolies to flood the market. 
Filipino peasants, many already landless, with small plots of 
land, no modern machinery, facing usurious loans from local 
landlords and violence from landlords and the military, will not 
be able to compete.(1) 

As more peasants cannot make a living working their "own" plots 
and take up work on large plantations run by the landlords and 
foreign monopolies, agricultural production will shift further 
from staple like rice and corn to export crops like flowers, 
pineapples, and broccoli. Ultimately, the unlimited entry of 
foreign agricultural products will worsen the Philippine's 
inability to feed itself.


REVOLUTION THE SOLUTION


The imperialists and their local toadies promise real economic 
development and political
empowerment, but they cannot deliver, because all they really care 
about are the enormous profits they steal from the people of the 
Philippines. The imperialists' drive for ever-greater profits 
forces them to keep the Philippines economically mal- developed 
and to keep the people disempowered--by force.

The Maoist Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and the 
National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDF) are leading a 
Protracted People's War to kick out the foreign imperialists and 
establish a self-reliant socialist state. MIM believes that this 
is the only way to truly liberate the oppressed nations from 
imperialism and ensure that this liberation is long-lasting. 



NOTES:
1. Correspondence, KMU International Department, Mar-Apr 96.
2. For more information on "Philippines 2000," see the RAIL 
pamphlet "Support the National Democratic Front of the 
Philippines."
3. Far Eastern Economic Review, Feb 29, 96. 4. Liberation 
International, Nov-Dec 95. 


* * *


RON BROWN: LIFE AND DEATH OF AN IMPERIALIST 


by MC234


On April 3, a plane carrying Commerce Secretary Ron Brown crashed 
in Croatia, killing all 33 on board. The flight was part of a 
mission to encourage Amerikan businesses to invest in the 
reconstruction of the former Yugoslavia. The plane was carrying 
Brown and 11 business executives. The trip was part public 
relations and part safari for the CEOs. The victims of the crash 
included journalists and at least one CIA spook.

MIM does not mourn Ron Brown's death because he had such a high 
position in a murderous government. He was the highest ranking 
Black official in the executive branch of the U.S. government, and 
he played an important part in the election of President Clinton 
in 1992. He was also the former Chairperson of the Democratic 
National Committee. 

Repairs to infrastructure damaged by war in former Yugoslavia are 
expected to cost $5 billion, and Brown wanted Amerikan 
corporations to get rich on as much of this as possible. According 
to the New York Times, Brown was "in the Balkans in his self- 
assigned role as the nation's salesman-in-chief, seeking 
profitable opportunities for American businesses abroad and making 
the case that economic power should be a cornerstone of American 
foreign policy." In discussing a 1994 trip to China, Brown himself 
had explained the Amerikan agenda: "We intend to compete in this 
market, and we intend to win."

Amerika and the other imperialists made a fortune selling weapons 
to the participants in the war, and benefits from dividing the 
people of former Yugoslavia. Now Amerika is trying to squeeze out 
the other imperialists and grab as much of the spoils for itself. 
For example, Brown had planned to pressure the Croatian government 
to drop a contract to buy 18 European airbuses and switch to 
Seattle-made Boeings. The head of Boeing's aircraft group was in 
Croatia as part of the trip, but not on the plane that crashed.

Brown was a strong proponent within the U.S. government that the 
government should work closely with big business to help it expand
internationally. Governments have at their disposal military force 
and official diplomatic channels which make international actions 
more forceful. 

This highly placed government official's involvement in ushering 
capitalist enterprise into new territory demonstrates the height 
of imperialist activity. Marx said bourgeois democratic 
governments are the executive committee of the big bourgeoisie and 
Brown's life was a stellar illustration of this role. This was 
Brown's 15th trip to other countries with executives: included on 
his plane this time were bank, phone, utility and construction 
executives.

Shortly before the crash, Brown said "peace and stability will 
only be assured through economic development." Brown hoped that by 
increasing ties between the Balkan states and the U.S., the other 
imperialists could be squeezed out, insuring that there would be 
no need for war against the other imperialists. Regardless of 
temporary abatements in the inter- imperialist rivalry, World War 
III continues, with the imperialist nations against the Third 
World and only socialism will ensure real peace.


SOURCES: New York Times April 3, 1996, p. A1, A8; New York Times 
April 4, 1996, p. A1, A13; Boston Globe August 30, 1994.

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