This is an archive of the former website of the Maoist Internationalist Movement, which was run by the now defunct Maoist Internationalist Party - Amerika. The MIM now consists of many independent cells, many of which have their own indendendent organs both online and off. MIM(Prisons) serves these documents as a service to and reference for the anti-imperialist movement worldwide.
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THE MAOIST INTERNATIONALIST MOVEMENT
MIM Notes 134 MARCH 15, 1997
MIM Notes speaks to and from the viewpoint of the
world's oppressed majority, and against the
imperialist-patriarchy. Pick it up and wield it in
the service of the people. support it, struggle
with it and write for it.
IN THIS ISSUE:
1. STRAWBERRY WORKERS FIGHT IMPERIALISM IN
CALIFORNIA
2. D.C. PIGS ESCALATE WAR AGAINST THE OPPRESSED
3. LETTERS TO MIM
4. MAOIST SOJOURNER WINS SUSTAINERS: WHEN WILL MIM
NOTES?
5. HOMES NOT JAILS ACTION IN BOSTON
6. AMERIKANS: A PEOPLE ON PSYCHOLOGICAL DRUGS
ROTTING THEIR MINDS
7. ALBANIAN ECONOMIC FAILURES DEMONSTRATE FAILURE
OF STATE CAPITALISM
8. THE MASSES DON'T MOURN THE DEATH OF SOCIAL
FASCIST DENG XIAOPING
9. TOKEN REVISION OF REPRESSIVE LAWS DOESN'T CUT
IT FOR SOUTH KOREAN MASSES
10. SCHOOL AID FOR STUDENTS INCREASES
11. WILD PIG WIELDING BATON EXONERATED BY FELLOW
PIGS
12. UMASS PROFESSOR SERVES BOURGEOISIE
13. FILM REVIEWS: ROSEWOOD AND LARRY FLYNT
14. UNDER LOCK & KEY: NEWS FROM PRISONERS AND
PRISONS
* * *
WHAT IS MIM?
The Maoist Internationalist Movement (MIM) is a
revolutionary communist party that upholds Marxism-
Leninism-Maoism, comprising the collection of
existing or emerging Maoist internationalist
parties in the English-speaking imperialist
countries and their English-speaking internal semi-
colonies, as well as the existing or emerging
Spanish-speaking Maoist internationalist parties of
Aztlan, Puerto Rico and other territories of the
U.S. Empire. MIM Notes is the newspaper of MIM.
Notas Rojas is the newspaper of the Spanish-
speaking parties or emerging parties of MIM.
MIM is an internationalist organization that works
from the vantage point of the Third World
proletariat; thus, its members are not Amerikans,
but world citizens.
MIM struggles to end the oppression of all groups
over other groups: classes, genders, nations. MIM
knows this is only possible by building public
opinion to seize power through armed struggle.
Revolution is a reality for North America as the
military becomes over-extended in the government's
attempts to maintain world hegemony.
MIM differs from other communist parties on three
main questions: (1) MIM holds that after the
proletariat seizes power in socialist revolution,
the potential exists for capitalist restoration
under the leadership of a new bourgeoisie within
the communist party itself. In the case of the
USSR, the bourgeoisie seized power after the death
of Stalin in 1953; in China, it was after Mao's
death and the overthrow of the "Gang of Four" in
1976. (2) MIM upholds the Chinese Cultural
Revolution as the farthest advance of communism in
human history. (3) MIM believes the North American
white-working-class is primarily a non-
revolutionary worker-elite at this time; thus, it
is not the principal vehicle to advance Maoism in
this country.
MIM accepts people as members who agree on these
basic principles and accept democratic centralism,
the system of majority rule, on other questions of
party line.
"The theory of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin is
universally applicable. We should regard it not as
dogma, but as a guide to action. Studying it is not
merely a matter of learning terms and phrases, but
of learning Marxism-Leninism as the science of
revolution."
-- Mao Zedong, Selected Works, Vol. II, p. 208
* * *
STRAWBERRY WORKERS FIGHT IMPERIALISM IN CALIFORNIA
Class warfare is an unending phenomenon of the
capitalist system and the recent struggles of the
strawberry workers in California illustrate the
situation of the proletariat, the evils of
imperialism, and the differences between the labor
aristocracy and the proletariat.
The recent conflict is between the United Farm
Workers (UFW) union and the farm owners and
corporations involved in cooling the strawberries.
As with other farm workers in the United Snakes,
the strawberries workers are predominantly Latino,
escaping oppression and exploitation in their own
countries to seek a better life in the wealthy U$.
While workers in Mexico receive $4 a day on the
farms, farmworkers in California earn $8,000 per
year which is a slight improvement.(1) But neither
is a reasonable wage, especially for stoop labor, 6
days a week, 12 hours a day, that is impossible to
sustain beyond age 30 and which involves work in
fields with dangerous pesticides and unsanitary
conditions.
There are about 20,000 strawberry workers in
California and they have no job security, no health
insurance, and frequently face sexual harassment
and arbitrary firing. Many growers, to further
exploit the workers, turn to sharecropping
arrangements which are feudal landlord
relationships where the workers are given a piece
of land on which they work and from which they must
return most, if not all, of the berries produced to
the landlord. Up to half of the state's pickers are
sharecroppers and these people often end up further
in debt at the end of each season.(2)
Farmworkers in the U$ are among the few exploited
professions in this country. While the average
Amerikan worker receives more than the value of his
or her labor as a part of the imperialists work to
buy the support of their home country workers,
farmworkers are not part of the labor aristocracy.
The fact that these workers are mostly Latino
underscores the national oppression within US
borders.(3)
One of the most commonly used pesticides on
strawberry crops is methyl bromide. Because of its
environmental impact and toxicity, it was scheduled
to be banned in 1996. But after heavy lobbying, the
California legislature allowed Governor Pete Wilson
to delay the ban. Agribusiness has paid for this
favor: they gave hundreds of thousands of dollars
to Wilson and the Western Growers Association,
strongly tied to the industry, gave more than
$30,000 to Wilson's campaign fund in 1994.(2)
As a result of methyl bromide and other pesticides
along with the unhealthy stoop labor and unsanitary
conditions, the life expectancy for a Latino field
workers is 49, more than two decades less than for
a typical Amerikan.(2)
In their January 23rd press release the Strawberry
Workers & Farmers Alliance (SW&FA, an organization
of growers and their supporters) stated that the
workers are treated well, and thus are in no need
of a union. Even the state recognizes the absurdity
of the SW&FA. The Division of Occupational Safety
and Health found that "about half of the growers
fall short of some state sanitation requirements,
including those calling for accessible toilets and
clean drinking water."(1)
When the farmworkers started organizing themselves
into the United Farm Workers union the companies
fought back. They fired employees who supported the
union and when whole farms voted to be represented
by the union the farm owners would plow under the
fields and take their business elsewhere.
At B&J Farms near Watsonville, the company promised
to pay workers $500,000 in back wages seven years
ago. They still owe half that in spite of a court
order to pay. The company was cited in April of
1996 for child labor law violations and maintains
filthy and inadequate portable restrooms and dumps
them into the fields. B&J denies workers drinking
water for as long as five hours at a time and
forces them to eat green, unripe strawberries that
they pick by mistake. More than a dozen workers
were recently fired for complaining when their
paychecks bounced.(4)
In one of its few progressive ventures, the AFL-CIO
recently began helping the UFW organize, giving
funds and resources to the effort. The AFL-CIA
generally represents the better off white workers
in Amerika in their demands for a bigger piece of
the imperialist pie. In a country where most
workers are earning more than the value of their
labor, the AFL-CIA is not having an easy time
sustaining growth and their move to support the UFW
may be at least partially pragmatic: these
farmworkers represent a potentially large addition
to their union and size helps the union maintain
labor aristocracy privileges for its workers.
The UFW is asking for a 5 cent rise in the price of
a pint of berries which would be used to boost
workers' piece rate pay by 50 percent. Studies have
shown that this price increase would pay for the
wage increase. But MIM asks why the proletariat
should not demand that the imperialists take the
money out of their own pockets to give to the
workers.
While asking the wealthy Amerikans to pay more for
their fruit in order to compensate the workers who
are exploited to produce that fruit is not
unreasonable, the proletariat should focus its fire
on the main enemy: imperialism. The farm owners
and the strawberry cooling corporations that
control the industry are making huge profits off of
the suffering of the Latino immigrant workers. The
UFW is giving tacit support to capitalism by making
this demand which would allow the imperialists to
keep making the same profits. The idea that the
capitalists need to raise the price of strawberries
in order to afford to pay the exploited workers
more is ridiculous. But this pragmatism makes sense
if the UFW has accepted that they will never change
the capitalist system. MIM, on the other hand, is
fighting to overthrow imperialism so that the
proletariat can take control of production and
force the imperialists to work along side everyone
else.
WHAT IS A LIVING WAGE?
As a part of the UFW organizing campaign, they have
put forward the demands for five basic rights:
# A living wage
# Protection from arbitrary firings and rewards for
their years of loyalty
# Clean drinking water and bathrooms in the fields
# Health insurance
# An end to sexual harassment in the fields.
The UFW demand for a living wage should be
considered by all champions of the labor
aristocracy who throw around this demand when
talking about workers who earn more than three
times what the strawberry pickers earn. If doubling
the piece rate pay of strawberry workers would give
them a livable wage, it should be clear that the
vast majority of workers in this country already
have such a wage. True internationalists should be
outraged that the AFL-CIO can endorse such
inequality without mention of these vast
differences in workers pay.
The demand for clean drinking water and bathrooms
in the fields is similarly revealing. For those in
the labor aristocracy who lament the lack of a
convenient smoking area as a hardship, it would be
good for them to consider the conditions that the
majority of the world's workers suffer under. MIM
does not begrudge anyone sanitary conditions but we
push well-off workers in the United Snakes to take
up an internationalist perspective and understand
that their high wages come off the backs of the
international proletariat.
The international proletariat is leading the fight
against imperialist around the world while the
labor aristocracy in the imperialist countries
continues to support imperialism. MIM calls on all
internationalists to support the organizing of the
farmworkers in the U$ and to take their battle one
step further and take on the imperialists by
fighting for revolution.
NOTES:
1. Los Angeles Times. 20 December 1996.
2. http://www.latinoweb.com/ufw/paper.htm
3. For more information on MIM's analysis of the
labor aristocracy in the U$ order MIM Theory #1, "A
White Proletariat"($3) or MIM Theory #10 "Coming to
grips with the labor aristocracy"($6).
4. http://www.latinoweb.com/ufw/reports.htm
* * *
D.C. PIGS ESCALATE WAR AGAINST THE OPPRESSED
by Otis
10 Febuary -- "Describing the streets of the
nation's capital as a war zone where residents
should fear for their safety, the head of the
District of Columbia police union called on the
Federal Government today to take over the Police
Department and provide hundreds of millions of
dollars to improve it....'Washington, D.C. is
unique, it is the symbol for the entire
country.'"(1) Indeed, the entire country is slowly
becoming more and more Orwellian. The military is
drastically and sadistically massive and the
streets are now 'protected' by these same pigs.
In keeping with their superhuman gang mentality,
the D.C. pigs are rallying around the murder of
their fellow pig Brian T. Gibson. Senator
Hutchinson stated: "We cannot and will not
tolerate a situation in which officers of the law
in our nation's capital can be callously slain
while protecting the rest of us."(1) The rest of
us? A pig's starting salary is $30,000-32,000. What
Hutchinson meant to say was: the rest of us white
folks with power and money. (Although Gibson was
Black, he was working to enforce and protect the
white nation power structure and had sold out his
nation to work for the pigs.) "Detective Renee
Holden said fear among officers had grown so
palpable that if she were to stop a car at night
for a traffic violation, she would approach it only
with her gun drawn."(2) Amerikkka - 'land of the
free' - living life in the shadow of the state's
many military machinations.
Ron Robertson, president of the Fraternal Order of
Pigs aptly stated: "We're in a war here."(2)
Imperialist business interests, manifested in
racist and violent police forces are attempting to
wipe out the Black and Latino nations that are
imprisoned in amerikan society. If it is a war,
then the death of state sanctioned murderers can
not be considered a crime, but a step in the right
direction. While MIM does not call on people to
carry out these focoist acts of violence in an
imperialist country where we are not ready to
engage in armed struggle, we recognize that this
murderous system of imperialism will only be
defeated with force.
Robertson went on to say: "We have a third-rate
Police Department operating in what has become a
third-world city."(2) Amerikkka is a military
backed imperialist state in which the oppressed
nations are exploited, beaten, imprisoned, or
killed at an alarming rate -- much like the Third
World. The D.C. mayor made an ironically
intelligent statement: "We have the power and the
brainpower to tackle these problems ourselves."(2)
The people say we have the power to rise up and
destroy the sadistic amerikan empire. We have the
power to govern ourselves without fascist pigs.
NOTES:
1. Congressional Press Release 10 February 1997.
2. The New York Times. 8 February 1997.
* * *
LETTERS TO MIM
PRISONER DISAPPOINTED TO HEAR OF SEALE SELLOUT
This letter is in concern with the Black Panther
Party article in the MIM Notes, #126, Nov. 15,
1996.
As a Black Panther follower, I am very disappointed
with this article. It would seem that Mr. Seale has
joined forces with the oppressors. I have looked up
to the Black Panthers for 28 years. Didn't know
what happened to them all. Knew that some were in
prison somewhere.
I have always believed in what the Panthers stood
for: helping the people in the community, [and]
putting a stop to police brutality. Outside of Mr.
Malcolm X., the Panthers were the only forces that
people of dark color could look to for guidance.
These were the people we turned to....
Sincerely in the Struggle,
-- A Texas Prisoner, January 1997
MIM RESPONDS: We agree with your assessment that
Seale has joined forces with the oppressors. But
this does not mean you should give up on the legacy
of the Black Panther Party. What they stood for was
correct and MIM, as a Maoist party, holds the Black
Panther Party up as the best historical example of
revolutionary Maoist organizing in this country.
You're right that some Panthers were put in prison.
In fact, a lot of the Panthers were either
imprisoned or killed by the FBI's COINTELPRO work
which was aimed at destroying the very effective
organizing of the BPP. From this we have learned
that revolutionary activists need to organize
underground as much as possible, and when doing
above ground organizing we must be careful not to
give out information that would make the FBI's work
easier.
While the BPP was the leadership of the
revolutionary movement in the 1960 and 70s, MIM is
the leadership of the revolutionary movement in the
1990s and we encourage all people interested in
continuing the legacy of the Black Panther Party to
work with MIM.
RAIL COMRADE DISCUSSES SERVE THE PEOPLE PROGRAMS
Comrades, I've enclosed a check for $1200 to
fulfill a pledge I made more than one year ago. Not
too long ago I sent $300 in an attempt to make good
on what I promised. ... A RAIL comrade was critical
of MIM's Serve the People Food Program, questioning
the program's timeliness, "too soon." In
discussion, I expressed my thoughts that MIM has
continuously raised the BPP as the best example of
a revolutionary Party in Amerika and that many have
challenged MIM to "do something," and now it's
being done. The comrades had the courage to do the
right thing despite whatever shortcomings the
program may have. Self-criticism and continuous
struggle will improve it. The comrade believes we
should possibly work locally with Food Not Bombs.
The only way I can agree with doing this, and the
comrade agrees, is if we can sell or distribute MIM
Notes and RAIL lit.
Please let us know what you think about this.
Should we continue to consolidate our forces here
until we feel strong enough to begin our own serve
the people programs? If we do, I think we should
pick an area of concentration (lumpenproletariat;
nationally oppressed people) where we've
established a presence.
A recent letter suggested that we drop MIM Notes at
housing projects. This is an excellent idea, except
that we need to (and are in the process of)
establishing a credible reputation at certain areas
before we just come in cold and expect people to
take our paper. That's why the serve the people
programs are so exciting. "Theory and Practice."
The people take you more seriously when theory is
put into practice.
Until next time,
A RAIL Comrade
MIM RESPONDS: It is because of committed
revolutionaries like this one that we are able to
fund many of the important projects that MIM
undertakes. We encourage this comrade and everyone
else interested in helping out sustain our work
financially to check out the article in this issue
about financial development and longer term
sustainable projects.
On the question of serve the people programs, it is
first important to recognize that MIM Notes is a
serve the people project. Education is as important
a project as food and housing. And so comrades
should take the paper to the people with the
confidence that we are doing a service by providing
important anti-imperialist news and analysis.
With that said, it is valuable for us to expand our
work into many areas, and this includes things like
the food for the people program. When we engage in
these projects, it is important to keep proletarian
leadership in command. If working with Food Not
Bombs means that a bunch of RAIL comrades go to FNB
events to help hand out food, that would be
subjugating the revolutionary line of RAIL to the
level of a charity type program and you correctly
point out that this would not be acceptable when
there is such a need to educate and organize people
around a revolutionary anti-imperialist program.
MIM does not believe in going into other
organizations and taking over and to turn the FNB
work into something led by the proletariat, you
would have to take over the leadership. Instead,
we'd rather set up our own serve the people
programs that are led by RAIL but which certainly
have room for working with groups like FNB and
others.
Food programs are not the only serve the people
project that you can engage in. There are many
important projects that we can take up. Already
your RAIL branch has carried out important work
serving the people fighting police brutality. It is
possible to extend our work in many areas and we
will follow this letter with some more specifics
about possible projects you may want to take up in
your city.
PRISONER SUPPORTS "BLACK"
***(The following is an excerpt from a prisoner's
letter to MIM, and our response. -ed)***
In the August issue I have [MN119, August 1, 1996]
you present a subject of words, and their
association with what they mean as to gender an or
race because of society and what slavery depicted
as to thing or believe. In this August issue you
seem to try to explain the reason that Black is
less than perfect for its people title. We need to
understand first what is "Black." It is a substance
in this universe that always was here and will
continue to be here. Just like its people they have
always been here and always will be here, so don't
go saying that it not a perfect title for "Black"
people because it is what it is - us!!! the
original people and since all things arrive from
that which was and is first there is no other name
under the sun to call us!!! the originals, only
Black, Black because we are strong, Black because
we are potent, and Black because we are from
everlasting to everlasting, no by help of no other
force but us!!! the originals, Black man. Also
Black people with knowledge of self do not think of
their skin color, it is only the purest form of
existence.
MIM RESPONDS: In the article you mention, we said,
"The term 'Black' is less than perfect because it
implies that we are talking about a group because
of its skin color, but it is the best definition of
the nation within Amerika. The capital 'B' helps to
contrast this legitimate nation with the 'white'
fascist settler nation."
We disagree when you say that Black people have
always been here, and that "Black" is an essential
part of their existence, because we know that
social identities are social in origin: they come
out of social conditions and events, and they
develop in social ways. Africans were the Homo
sapiens, but it was not important that they had
dark or black skin color until they had contact
with people who didn't. The importance of
"Blackness" was largely imposed by Arabs from
northern Africa and Europeans, who seized on
Blackness as the difference between themselves and
sub-Saharan Africans. You correctly say that skin
color is not the most important thing in Black
identity, but if it were not for skin color,
"Black" would not be part of that identity. That is
why we stress "Black" as a national identity, but
we don't pretend that it doesn't have a problematic
origin in racial thinking.
When you say Black is "a substance in this universe
that's always was here and will continue to be
here," we agree. But as long as there has been
light there has also been whiteness as well, and
there "always" will be. Rather than those few
constants in time, dialectical materialists such as
Maoists pay most attention to that which is
changing: the meaning of Black and white in
society, the developing oppression and liberation
of nations, classes, and genders, etc.
For us what matters about "Black" is the nation,
its oppression, its conscious expression, and its
liberation as part of the struggle for a world
without oppression: a communist world. For that
reason, we know that the Black nation does not now
include all Africans and the whole African
Diaspora. In time separate nations have developed
as different groups formed economic, cultural,
linguistic and territorial bonds. We must
understand the real life of social groups if we are
to develop the best way forward to national and
human liberation.
So, our disagreement with you is philosophical: we
consider your view to be cultural nationalism,
which has a religious or idealistic aspect in its
description of Blackness as permanent, original,
and unchanging.
Black Panther Party founder Huey Newton warned that
cultural nationalism can lead to mistakes such as
supporting Black comprador dictators such as the
Duvaliers in Haiti. Malcolm X also warned us that
Black leaders may be wrong despite their Blackness.
When we treat Blackness as an essential part of
people, it is hard to have such a materialist
analysis.
How does this affect our work together? There is no
reason why cultural nationalists cannot work
together with Maoists -- revolutionary communists
attempting to develop revolutionary nationalist
struggles -- in many ways at this point. We agree
on the national oppression of the Black nation and
other nations. We agree on the need for anti-
imperialist struggle for national liberation. We
may even agree on the goal of a communist world
with no oppression of groups by other groups. In
the course of our movement in that direction, we
all need all the allies we can get without
undermining our cause. Specifically, Maoists argue
for the formation of United Fronts, uniting people
of various classes and nations against imperialism
under the leadership of a vanguard party. This is
the best way for the oppressed to combine forces
against common enemies under imperialism.
So we hope you will take our disagreement with your
position as part of a progressive process of
struggle leading to higher unity. As we said in the
article you mention, we want to hear from
progressive people who agree and disagree with us
on language issues and all other important
questions (our use of "Black" itself came out of
correspondence and debate with revolutionary
nationalists). Let's keep struggling as we work
toward the best way out of the cesspool of
imperialism.
* * *
MIM NEWS
MAOIST SOJOURNER WINS SUSTAINERS: WHEN WILL MIM
NOTES?
Three people close to the party but not members of
the party have stepped forward to be financial
sustainers of the Maoist Sojourner. Together they
will put forward resources sufficient to print and
distribute the MIM-led publication for Third World
exiled Maoists.
The agreement in principle by three ordinary
people, including one person in the bottom 20
percent financially, one person on a fixed income
and one person of the ordinary middle-class
represents a stunning achievement of the party's
work with the people. We salute Maoist Sojourner's
three sustainers for their commitment to
internationalism.
The arrangement for the Maoist Sojourner leaves one
question and demonstrates some major points about
building the revolutionary movement in the
imperialist countries.
The first question it raises is when will more
people step forward to support other MIM
publications and institutions of the oppressed?
Already the progress in this area and the MIM Re-
Lease Program (see ad on this page) has been faster
than the party can keep up with. We expect however
that we will work through these details in the
upcoming year with more major achievements. We bid
our readers and future sustainers to be patient
while the party works out details and launches
projects one at a time with the masses' support.
The work of people outside the party to support
Maoist Sojourner has always been exemplary. The
fact that MIM is aware of at least three separate
circles of people across the continent who believe
it should be imitated is the profoundest flattery.
Undoubtedly the recognition by the three sustainers
that MIM "gets the job done" while upholding
principle -- like other vanguard organizations in
the tradition of Lenin, Stalin and Mao -- was a
factor in why Maoist Sojourner is moving forward
and many others are still only talking about
filling the niche Maoist Sojourner fills.
The three sustainers have defeated the notion that
one must be a millionaire to support professional
institutions of the oppressed. Many in the
imperialist countries are unduly paralyzed by the
fear of going up against the professional bourgeois
newspapers. With the support of the people, MIM has
already proved that it is possible to put forward
ever better and more widely distributed newspaper
media.
The contribution of our sustainers is also notable
in the specific internationalist duties of the
revolutionary-minded in the imperialist countries.
We believe that while it is as yet inappropriate
for most of us in North America to launch armed
struggle, there is no reason we cannot be the legal
rear areas of base support for the armed struggle
raging in Peru, the Philippines, Turkey, Korea etc.
It is the party's contribution not just to maintain
an internationalist line and "prime the pump" by
having started the Maoist Sojourner, but also it is
the party's responsibility to fashion the specific
arrangements necessary to allow the maximum
effective participation of the masses. The masses
did not step forward with a contract to MIM signed
saying, "we sustain the Maoist Sojourner." Rather
the party's task was to find the non-military
weapons that made it possible for three people to
play their maximum role.
The masses are what give the force to the efforts
of the party, without which the party will be
nothing. In the imperialist countries, the portion
of masses that will contribute to the revolutionary
struggle is very small, but we still have much work
to do to tap the revolutionary energies of our
masses. Concretely, as the masses sustain the MIM
publications, more money will be freed up to
publicize the hard work MIM does in public forums
in conjunction with such fine organizations as the
Revolutionary Anti-Imperialist League. In this way,
the masses will draw attention to themselves and
build their own movement's visibility.
For those still wishing to make some contribution
to Maoist Sojourner in particular because of the
work it does for Third World exile writers, it's
not too late. It can always use more distribution
and advertising funding. Others who would like to
learn how to become Maoist Sojourner sustainers
should step forward.
* * *
MIM RE-LEASE PROGRAM
MIM doesn't have a Re-Lease program, but you are
the one who is going to make that change. Help ex-
prisoners get a new lease on life. Mao said we in
the imperialist countries would have to fight long-
-dare we say it?--tedious legal battles in the
imperialist countries. MIM channels the anger of
the oppressed into revolutionary politics.
We aim to set up independent business institutions
of the oppressed so that prisoners can make a
living in this rotten system--legally--while
staying true to the revolutionary cause. Find out
how you can participate with no financial loss to
yourself.
Contact MIM.
* * *
HOMES NOT JAILS ACTION IN BOSTON
February 22 -- Homes Not Jails, Boston (HNJ) held a
building takeover, their second one this year.
These actions dramatize the homelessness problem in
Boston and the need for affordable housing rather
than prisons.
These takeovers include a rally in downtown Boston
and then a march to an abandoned residential unit.
Homes Not Jails members have already cut the lock
on the designated building and replaced it with
their own lock. When the rally arrives at the
vacant property, some people enter the building,
pry off the boards from the windows and hang
banners while the crowd chants and makes noise
until the cops come and arrest the people occupying
the building for trespassing.
While HNJ's goal is to convert these empty units
into homes for the homeless, the police will never
allow such blatant and illegal anti-capitalism and
no one is under the illusion that these actions
will end with anything but arrests.
Over 200 people, mostly youth, attended the
February action, many people playing drums and
other instruments. The crowd was very receptive to
anti-imperialist politics and MIM and RAIL gathered
many petition signatures to shut down control units
in the Massachusetts prisons and distributed many
newspapers. Homes Not Jails, Boston makes an
important point that with 6000 homeless people, it
makes no sense that there are 23,000 empty housing
units in this city (almost 9% of the city housing
stock).
It is this irrational use of resources that is
symptomatic of capitalism. As long as the housing
industry is regarded as a system for profit and not
for fulfilling needs, there will be homelessness in
cities with many empty and usable housing units.
A Homes Not Jails flyer points out that "The
President's proposed 1998 budget cuts $300 million
from the 1995 funding level for Homeless Assistance
Programs, while the nation spends $26.8 billion
annually to jail 1.5 million persons."
But we would have liked to see more of a focus on
prisons at the rally, drawing the connection
between the building of 3000 new prison beds in
Massachusetts and the plight of the homeless in the
city. In fact, many prisoners become homeless when
they are released because they can not find a job
and have no money to afford housing. This
connection between prisons and homelessness is
important part of what we emphasized in our
discussions with people at the action.
Because of the value in exposing the criminal
injustice system when talking about homelessness,
we were disappointed that RAIL's offer of a speaker
for the rally, was not taken up by the organizers.
We will continue push for more discussion of the
connections between homelessness and the criminal
injustice system in future HNJ actions. And we
invite everyone interested in getting involved in
fighting the criminal injustice system and drawing
connections to the irrational and inhuman nature of
imperialism to get involved with RAIL's prison
activism group. We address prison injustice on many
fronts and have a wide variety of projects going on
that range from organizing a benefit concert for
books for prisoners to holding a speaker series at
local law schools and we need much help with this
important work. If you are interested in getting
involved, write to mim124@mim.org or the address on
page two.
* * *
AMERIKANS: A PEOPLE ON PSYCHOLOGICAL DRUGS ROTTING
THEIR MINDS
by MC5
A study shows that 25 percent of people will invent
memories two weeks after receiving the suggestion
of a memory to invent. In other words, 25 percent
of people lied to themselves about their childhood
when given cues to do so and forgot they had
invented the memory.
Furthermore, fully 50 percent will invent at least
some memories when asked in certain contexts
according to a study. A researcher named Henry
Roediger reveals exactly what MIM has been saying
about the psychiatry-crazed culture of the united
states: "Our memory can bend and distort ... the
past," and Roediger adds in typical fashion of our
day, "Maybe it allows us to live happier lives."(1)
Meanwhile, January, 1997 brought the news -- as
predicted by MIM -- that the United $tates is back
in first place for number of people incarcerated
per 1000.(2) Russia had surpassed the United $tates
briefly while Russia was in its state of emergency
under Boris Yeltsin. However, contrary to the Cold
War image of the united states as the free country,
in reality, at no time in the Cold War did the
Soviet Union have as high an incarceration rate as
the United $tates. If we look at Black
incarceration rates, we would have to look at
Stalin during war time to have anything to compare
it with.
In a previous article in MIM Notes, we showed in
crime enactment studies that large portions of
society will point to a person in a police lineup
to accuse that person of a crime even when none of
the people in the lineup were the real criminal.
Although all peoples in all countries have some
degree of unreliability in eye-witnesses, in the
United $tates, the haziness of the peoples is the
vicious sort that explains why the United $tates is
the leading prison state in the world and will have
to have progress imposed on it from outside.
People inside the United $tates have a proven hard
time keeping a grip on reality and the blasé
approach to being the world's leading prison state
is one sign. Here in MIM Notes we will go past the
news and statistics and explain why this is the
case.
CAUSES OF PUBLIC FANTASY: PSYCHIATRY INDUSTRY ONLY
THE LEADING EDGE
The study cited above brings to mind sensational
stories of child molestation and their recall under
hypnosis or other methods of psychiatry and social
work. Such are the kind of stories that sell
newspapers and encourage copy-cat behavior;
however, what is more important than these
sensational tabloid stories is the general impact
of psychiatry that gains a mystique from probing
childhood experiences.
Psychiatry is a multi-billion dollar industry which
in its increasingly aimless and consumerist form is
a kind of entertainment. Psychiatrists get paid to
make people "feel good." Those analysts engaging
their patients in sex are only more honest than the
majority that won't admit that the profession is a
systematic factor opposing what used to be called
"integrity" -- the willingness to adhere to the
truth at the cost of personal discomfort.
Being depressed about rotten imperialist reality
has become unthinkable and medications are heaped
on the patient -- "the pursuit of happiness" being
the all-Amerikan thing to do. Did your parents make
you unhappy? Bring out the inner child they
crushed; exorcise them; accuse them of molestation;
spend years in "anger control" therapy etc., but do
something to re-arrange your memories. Whatever you
do, don't get angry or unhappy and fight to
transform society including the family. No, that
would be political and you must be mentally ill if
you would become political -- so goes the reasoning
of our whining culture.
The patriarchal system cannot bring about healthful
family relationships, and in fact, we in the
imperialist oppressor nations are not even capable
of knowing what a healthful family relationship is
on our own. Neither the oppressive parents nor the
children raised by such flawed people can set the
system straight from within, especially through
lifestyle practices.
Did teachers damage your self-esteem? Sue them,
skip their classes, beat them or take more
entertaining classes that make you "feel good,"
such is the conscious and unconscious prescription
of those worshipping at the altar of self-esteem
propped up by a nation of middle-class people
obsessed with the individualism of their private
property complete with two cars, individual lawn-
mower, individual snow-blower and better than
anybody else's -- cable dish antenna.
REALITYISM: A RADICAL IDEA
In contrast with our feel-goodist culture, MIM will
lead a government and education system where self-
esteem is not a goal, because it means seeking
approval from others or lying to boost one's self-
image. An excellent early exercise for young
children should be arithmetic puzzles. Students
should see often and early that they themselves and
their peers make mistakes while doing their
exercises; hence, they and others should hold to
the truth about arithmetic regardless of the
opinions of others. In some situations doing things
quickly under pressure or by hand, even teachers
will make mistakes. The student should learn that
being correct is more important than seeking the
praise of either peers or teachers.
At a later age, if we still have a romance culture,
when young people are smitten by the love bug, they
should again learn to hold on to the truth. If a
young person develops a one-sided crush on someone
else, there should be no pressure to become
vindictive or to invent false flaws in the person
in order to escape the pain of a one-sided crush.
Many pressures exist in this "feel good" culture to
come up with some reason not to feel pain about
unrequited love. However, it is at the exact point
where a person feels the most pain that a person
can grow his or her capacity for the truth of pain
in this world riddled with class, national and
gender domination.
The real combat against the romance culture should
occur at the social level, not at the "feel-good-
forget-the-pain" level of the individual. When a
romantic relationship breaks up, severe is the
pressure to claim that you were the one to break it
up instead of admitting the truth if you were on
the suffering side of the breakup. That is part of
the eroticization of power that makes inflicting
suffering on others sexy and mainstream. People
tempted to lie or forget certain things
conveniently should write them down while they can
still keep a grip on the truth. Then when pressure
arises to rearrange uncomfortable memories, one can
return to one's diaries.
As a young person leaves these sources of pressure
behind in school and courtship, new pressures arise
at work. In this parasitic culture where no
oppressor nation people work like Azanian coal-
miners or Florida orange-pickers or California
migrant farmers, there is much bragging and lying
about accomplishment where there is none. It's to
the point now where surgeons of all kinds carry out
unnecessary surgeries and emergency services let
people die on the streets while they argue over who
has jurisdiction and hence the almighty dollar from
the taxpayer to tend to the emergency. In
socialism, these financial and job-security
pressures on the truth will be eliminated. People
who are basically paper or electron-shufflers fill
themselves with stories all day how they work so
hard and deserve their wealth while others starve.
The starving will have to impose their will against
the coalition of oppressor nation people opposing
the right to eat.
When they get home from work, the oppressor nation
people watch fictional cop shows on television, but
they cannot tell the difference between truth and
fiction anymore, because they turn around and vote
for the politician who sounds most like a
vigilante. Voting for Reagan who made them feel
good, seeing the psychiatrist who made them feel
good, doing some cocaine to feel good and taking
anti-depressant medications, getting steamed up by
pornographic television shows and then picking up
the telephone for something called phone sex --
even though there is no sex in phone sex -- the
Amerikans typical of all the latest trends lie to
themselves to such an extent it is hard to be angry
with them anymore. They don't know any better. We
who live this culture and know that we live a lie
long for the transformation that a proletarian
agenda can bring, a real sense of forward-looking
purpose that we do not have.
NOTES:
1. USA Today 17 February 1997, p. 1.
2. USA Today 20 January 1997, p. 5a.
* * *
ALBANIAN ECONOMIC FAILURES DEMONSTRATE FAILURE OF
STATE CAPITALISM
by MC45
Albania made Amerikan newspaper headlines through
much of February as Albanians protested their
government's inaction in response to some collapsed
pyramid savings schemes that have been stripping
Albanians of their life savings. On February 16,
there were 3,000 demonstrators on the streets of
the southern port city Vlore.(1) Several of the
protests have ended in violence between police and
protesters, but even the police are hesitant to use
force because many of them have been ripped off too
and sympathize with the protesters.
MIM doesn't know the class composition of these
demonstrations, although clearly protesting about a
failed capitalist investment scheme is not a
proletarian pursuit. It does seem that most people
who were taken in by these scams had less money
than the petty bourgeoisie as many of them worked
abroad to send money home. Some had the equivalent
of a few thousand dollars invested, or sold homes
to invest, those investors may be petty bourgeois
in Albania. MIM welcomes any additional information
readers have on this.
Albania was socialist at least from 1944-1976 when
Mao died. The Albania of Enver Hoxha, leader of the
socialist Party of Labour of Albania (PLA), had
been firmly in the Maoist camp of the Sino-Soviet
split until Mao died in 1976 and China cut aid to
Albania in 1978, but MIM believes the mistakes
Hoxha made in his lifetime were honest socialist
ones. Hoxha's successor in the PLA, Ramiz Alia, was
a capitalist roader and made Albania state-
capitalist until open elections in 1992 when an
opposition party came into power.
This most recent financial fiasco has given the
state capitalists another chance to discredit
socialism. The Western bourgeois press has pointed
the finger for the current mess at Albania's post-
state capitalist economic disorientation. MIM
agrees that the state-capitalists left the Albanian
economy in poor condition for the masses and that
the current government is clearly not doing very
well by the people, but we disagree with the
bourgeoisie's implication that living under
capitalism all these years would have been better
for the Albanian people.
Albania is one of the poorest countries in Europe,
but during the socialist years it did better at
providing for its people than under any other
social system in recent history. State capitalism
had the chance to set many of the country's
advances back between 1985 and 1992 but this
doesn't discredit the benefits to the Albanian
people of living under socialism for decades.
MASS DISSATISFACTION WITH STATE-CAPITALIST RULE
More than one of the recent protests has led to
violence between protesters and police. In Vlore,
four people died and 150 were injured during the
weekend of February 15-16.(2) But some police said
they did not intend to use violence on the
protesters. "You won't find a man among us who
hasn't been ruined by these pyramid schemes," says
a policemen who asks not to be named. "We have been
cheated ourselves--that's why we are letting them
protest."(3)
The government has also decided to take it easier
on the protesters. Rather than attempt to end the
protests through further repression, which is
bringing much publicity and little result, in the
middle of February the government adopted the
tactic of allowing the protests to happen while
trying to isolate the protesters. Everywhere except
in the capital, Tirana, police allowed protests to
happen without opposition; police did set up road
blocks between two of the big time protesting
cities though, so that protesters could not
communicate with each other so easily.(4)
LOUSY ECONOMY, LOUSY GOVERNMENT
The pyramid schemes--scams by a few individuals who
get rich by running small scams on lots of other
people--found fertile ground in the Albanian
economy. Many of the people who were ripped off by
the schemes had earned their money working
illegally around the European Union.(4) According
to the CIA World Factbook from 1995, 20% of
Albanians worked abroad that year.(5)
The Albanian economy is looking pretty bad.
President Sali Berisha has seen several factories
in Vlore close down since March 1992, and seen
other manufacturing companies and one "well-known
international tour company" decide not to build
factories there because of the lack of basic
infrastructure like good roads and airports.(2)
Citizens of Fier, one of the cities which has seen
a lot of protests, say more than 80 percent of the
population has no regular work while most of those
who do work are in the service industry--working in
the city's cafes and bars. Few children in Fier
attend school regularly, and instead loiter, beg
for money or sell produce at roadside stands.(3)
Berisha, who acknowledged that people had been made
homeless by the schemes, pled the government's
naivete and its newness to democracy and capitalism
as an excuse for not having prevented the scams.
The government has refused to take responsibility
for individuals' financial problems that result
from these schemes.(4)
PHONY SOCIALISTS TRY TO MAKE GOOD ON MASSES' MISERY
The opposition Socialist Party (no relation to the
PLA as far as MIM knows) is calling for new
elections and a new constitution and using the
masses' protests as a springboard for these
demands.(2) But the Socialist Party is also
appealing to the United $nakes and European Union
countries to interfere in Albania, trying to win
Western imperialist support by pointing out the
likely increased "instability" in Southern Europe
if there is no intervention.
MIM has no beef with using the imperialists for
socialist aims, but this does not appear to be the
Socialist Party's program at all. Calling for
elections and a new constitution is no way to
increase justice for the masses. Albania is under
capitalist rule and no amount of reforming is going
to bring genuine socialism back to the country. In
this light, calling on the imperialists for
intervention is opportunism. Taking cheap illegal
labor from Albania does not mark the EU states as
the friends of the Albanian people but rather as so
many more blood suckers ready to exploit the
people.
Even though the P.S. newspaper, Zeri i Popullit,
wrote that "the current crisis requires a
political, not a military solution," the warning
about "instability" is a good indicator that the
P.S. is not after genuinely peaceful and
progressive goals. Instability is generally a
buzzword for all the things capitalists try to stay
away from: civil war, revolution, bad investment
risks all around. So P.S. calling on the
imperialists to help keep things in Albania stable
is akin to offering cooperation with Western
imperialism in exchange for the imperialists
upsetting Berisha's rule.
The P.S. went on in its statement flattering the
Western imperialists saying that it "particularly
appreciates the statements by the U.S. State
Department and the governments of the E.U. member
states, and appeals to them to intervene urgently
to prevent the total destabilization of Albania and
the region."(6)
ALBANIA WAS ON THE MAOIST ROAD
From 1944 until March of 1992, the Party of Labour
of Albania (PLA) was in power. From 1944 until
1976, it was genuinely socialist and led tremendous
advances in the conditions of the Albanian people.
Following the Sino-Soviet split in 1960, Albania
was the only socialist state to side firmly with
the Chinese Maoists in criticizing Soviet
revisionism and supporting the Great Proletarian
Cultural Revolution in China. Albania defeated
Hitler militarily independently of the Soviet
Union, partly by organizing 6,000 wimmin into the
anti-fascist armed forces. This in a country where
previously only a few hundred wimmin had worked
outside their homes. In 1978, wimmin were 33.3% of
deputies in the People's Assembly, Albania's
highest governing body, and 41.2% of the leaders of
mass organizations. Albanian wimmin were also 26%
of the Supreme Court and 25% of the members of the
PLA, while Amerikan wimmin were 1% of the United
States Congress.(7) So clearly socialism worked
well for Albania and socialism was not the cause of
Albania's current problems.
But after Mao died in 1976 and by-then-revisionist
China withdrew aid from Albania in 1978, Hoxha
retracted his support of Mao's theory of a new
bourgeoisie arising from within the Communist
party. Hoxha also said at that time that China's
revolution had never been socialist but was only
bourgeois--criticizing both the Chinese socialist
revolution of 1949 and the GPCR. While it was a
very difficult time for Albania after Mao died, and
while MIM believes that these errors on Hoxha's
part were honest and not outright revisionist,
these errors and the failure to have a cultural
revolution did open the door for state-capitalism
in Albania.
Hoxhaites (named after late-PLA leader Hoxha) like
to say Mao was liberal for not shooting people like
the recently departed Chinese revisionist Deng
Xiaoping, and instead letting them expose
themselves and their revisionist line to the
masses' scrutiny. But the principal thrust of Mao's
theory of a new bourgeoisie emerging from within
the communist party is that the masses will need to
face such individuals and groups and oppose them to
fully rout all forms of capitalism from socialist
society. Attempting to kill off the emerging state-
capitalist bourgeoisie as Stalin did and as the
Hoxhaites advocate does nothing to prevent future
individuals from taking up the bourgeois line
because it fails to recognize the material basis
for capitalism in the Communist Party's
relationship to the means of production.(8)
In Albania the result of this incorrect line is
visible today: the bourgeoisie was never thoroughly
uprooted from within the PLA, it forced the PLA off
the socialist road and today has been replaced with
open Western-style capitalism.
NOTES:
1. Agence France Presse 16 Feb, 1997.
2. Ibid.
3. Reuter 16 Feb., 1997.
4. Reuter 15 Feb., 1997.
5.
http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/95fact/al.html
6. Zeri i Popullit, Tirana, in Albanian 12 Feb.
1997, printed in British Broadcasting Corporation
wire service 14 Feb., 1997. 7. MIM Theory 2/3:
Gender and Revolutionary Feminism, p. 20.
8. MIM Notes 44 1 Sept., 1990, p. 3.
Other MIM sources on Albania: MIM Notes 52 May
1991, p. 7, MT2/3, p. 4, MA Pack 6 August 1990.
* * *
THE MASSES DON'T MOURN THE DEATH OF SOCIAL-FASCIST
DENG XIAOPING
***"All men must die, but death can vary in its
significance.... To die for the people is weightier
than Mount Tai, but to work for the fascists and
die for the exploiters and oppressors is lighter
than a feather."***
--Comrade Mao Zedong, "Serve the People," 8
September 1944
On 20 February, the so-called paramount leader of
the social-fascist Chinese regime, and key
architect of capitalist restoration in China, Deng
Xiaoping, died at the age of 92. Deng Xiaoping's
life and death are indeed lighter than a feather.
At the start of the Great Proletarian Cultural
Revolution, Deng Xiaoping was identified as a
"leading person in authority taking the capitalist
road" and was attacked as the number two target of
the Cultural Revolution. Overthrown by the masses
in the late 1960s, he was allowed to make a self-
criticism and was restored to leading posts in
1973.
No sooner was Deng returned to office than he again
exposed his reactionary line of prioritizing profit
over politics and abandoning economic self-reliance
in favor of importing technology from imperialist
countries. The Maoists emphasized the political
factor as being the key in unleashing the potential
of the people, not an undialectical reliance on
technology.
After the death of Chou Enlai in January 1976, Deng
Xiaoping turned the April memorial rally into a
counter-revolutionary riot in Tiananmen Square and
was removed from his posts by Mao shortly before
Mao's own death in September.
In October, Hua Guofeng led a military coup against
the Maoists, the so-called "Gang of Four". Still
officially disgraced, Deng stayed in the
background. Even before Deng could be rehabilitated
and restored to his posts in July 1977, the
counter-revolutionary content of Hau's coup was
shown through swift changes towards the very same
capitalist line that was under attack during the
Cultural Revolution.
MIM can't say for certain how involved Deng as an
individual was in planning the coup against the
"Gang of Four", but it is quite clear that the
bourgeois political line for which he was the
leading proponent during the later stages of the
Cultural Revolution was the prime impetus for the
coup.
Within two years of the coup, Hua was eased out of
the top posts, and replaced with Deng. Deng oversaw
the further gutting of the gains of socialism and
the Cultural Revolution.
DENG'S LEGACY SINCE HIS RETURN TO POWER
***"It doesn't matter if a cat is black or white,
as long as it catches mice."***
--Deng Xiaoping
Deng's famous phrase that politics and methods
don't matter as long as results are achieved has
led the restoration of capitalism in China. Such
short sighted development has lead to some
bourgeois defined progress, and the New York Times
has triumphantly printed graphs of "Gross National
Product per capita" rising skyward as if this
represents an increase in the people's wages. With
huge profits being reaped by foreign companies and
the capitalist class, there isn't much to be had
for the majority of the population. Nor do such
graphs account for huge income disparities between
city and countryside. (Note also that almost all
Western interviews with Chinese people about their
views on Deng have been with the minority in the
cities.) Much like an already ill person who sells
an organ is "rich", so is China for the moment as
it sells everything to the imperialists.
When Deng became the leader of China, the process
of dismantling the progress of the socialist period
accelerated. Guarantees of income to the ill or the
elderly were abolished. "To get rich is glorious"
and "A few must get rich first" were Deng's
slogans, but so far that "few" has only been a few.
Time Magazine's cover story on Deng's life reports
only a few grim statistics in a black box:
"Criminal gangs have reappeared, as have
prostitution, child labor, drugs and the selling of
women into bondage.... Shortage of water and arable
land are mounting, while the rapid, unchecked
increase in industry contributes to a degradation
of the country's environment. A floating population
of 100 million people cruises from region to region
looking for work."(1)
The people rose up against Deng. In 1984 and 1989,
Beijing students demanded more political freedoms.
Deng responded with repression. In the 1989
incident, hundreds or thousands of people were
killed.
Such fear of the masses and willingness to use
force is nothing new for Deng. During the Cultural
Revolution, Deng also repressed the student
movement which criticized him. In 1966 Mao
declared: "it is anti-Marxist for communists to
fear the student movement.... The Central Committee
of the Youth League should stand on the side of the
student movement. But instead it stands on the side
of suppression of the student movement."(2)
Mao's June 1968 criticism of Deng clearly exposes
Deng and his methods in the capitalist camp: "To
protect or to suppress the broad masses of the
people -- that is the fundamental distinction
between the Communist Party and the Guomindang,
between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, and
between the dictatorship of the proletariat and the
dictatorship of the bourgeoisie."
Deng was always one to suppress, because his
political line was one of oppression and the people
recognized this.
The Amerikan bourgeoisie's praise for Deng knows no
limits. Clinton said of Deng: "He spurred China's
historic economic reform program, which greatly
improved living standards in China and modernized
much of the nation." In a congratulatory tone, Time
Magazine named Deng Xiaoping "Man of the Year"
twice. The first time was in 1978, recognizing that
Deng's rise to power and "Four Modernizations"
program made further consolidation of capitalism
inevitable.
The bourgeoisie likes Deng because they see through
the ever-thinning socialist rhetoric to the
capitalist reality. Clinton isn't concerned about
increasing inequality or the 1989 massacre in
Tiananmen Square because oppression and
exploitation are the concerns only of the
proletarian masses. As long as the capitalists and
their system are defended, neither Clinton nor Deng
are too concerned how high the price is for the
rest of society.
The bourgeoisie makes some muted criticisms of Deng
that while economic freedoms were granted, there
was no political freedom in Deng's China. The
bourgeoisie sees this as a temporary contradiction;
MIM sees it as a textbook example of fascism.
THE FUTURE OF SOCIALISM IN CHINA?
In 1962, at the Tenth Plenum of the Eighth Central
Committee, Mao warned of the potential for
capitalist restoration, but also predicted that
such setbacks can only be temporary: "If our
children's generation go in for revisionism and
move towards their opposite, so that although they
still nominally have socialism it is in fact
capitalism, then our grandsons will certainly rise
up in revolt and overthrow their fathers, because
the masses will not be satisfied."(3)
In the cities of China, there is a growing middle
class of young people who no doubt support
capitalism. But when the process begun by Deng of
selling China to the highest bidder ends with China
being firmly under the thumb of foreign companies,
the boom of Chinese growth will look more like
sweets given to control an unruly horse on an
auction block. In the countryside, revolutionaries
will not need to wait for a third generation, as
the people have already had enough of Deng's
capitalist reforms that have cut yields and raised
taxes and expenses for the laboring masses.
While many Chinese supporters of Mao, the Cultural
Revolution, and the "Gang of Four" have been
repressed or given up the struggle, many supporters
and activists still exist. Deng's fascism has also
breed new resistance amongst the student movement,
some of who have taken up true Marxism in response
to Deng's "socialism in words, fascism in deeds."
Despite some fears expressed by bourgeois pundits,
thanks to Deng's policies over the last 20 years,
no new leader within the government will be able to
reverse political course and restore socialism. The
stage for a new Communist Revolution against
bureaucrat capitalism has been set. The future is
bright for China. The people of China will rise up
again.
NOTES:
1. Time Magazine. 3 March 1997, p. 54-55.
2. Stuart Schram ed., Chairman Mao Talks to the
People (New York: Pantheon Books, 1974), p. 253.
3. Ibid., p. 190.
* * *
TOKEN REVISION OF REPRESSIVE LAWS DOESN'T CUT IT
FOR SOUTH KOREAN MASSES
by RCZ10
25 February 1997 -- President Kim Young Sam's New
Korea Party and the United Liberal Democrats
presented joint bills to merely revise repressive
labor legislation which the New Korea Party rammed
through the south Korean parliament late
December.(1)
Mass demonstrations and the first nationwide labor
strike since the establishment of the Republic of
Korea lasted longer than one month and pressured
President Kim Young Sam to reopen the National
Assembly to revise the legislation.(2) Revision
rather than a complete withdrawal of the repressive
mechanisms disregards the demands of the Korean
Confederation of Trade Unions(KCTU) and the
Federation of Korean Trade Unions(FKTU). The scale
of the strike has been the largest in the country's
history: 1.7 million workers in these unions and
millions of south Korean masses who demonstrated in
support of the nationwide labor strike demand the
labor laws and the National Security Planning
Agency Act be repealed completely.
Some revisions concern recognizing multiple
umbrella unions and the issues of workers' lay-
offs. Politically repressive parts of the
legislation were not mentioned -- specifically
restrictions of involvement in labor disputes to
"umbrella organizations of employers and trade
unions" and "persons whose assistance is requested
by trade unions and employers and of whom the Labor
Minister is notified". This means that any
political organization or party that becomes
involved in a labor dispute has to notify a south
Korean government official. This is an anti-Red
law, as well as an anti-any political group the
south Korean government doesn't like law.
Kim's revisions do not repeal the National Security
Agency Planning Act passed at the same illegally
convened 26 December session. The act gave more
power to the south Korean Department of
Intelligence (popularly known as the Korean CIA) to
investigate progressives in the alleged search for
communist spies. Increased power has spawned
political repression against activists such as
police raids and arrest warrants (See MIM Notes
#131.) The agency now has the legal license to
resume its old tactics of torture to thwart the
protests of students, workers and political
activists.
In a feeble attempt to re-channel domestic popular
discontent and international attention away from
his corrupt, fascist legislative maneuvers of
December 26th and the Hanbo corruption scandal,
u.s.-lackey Kim Young Sam has been trying to whip
up anti-communist and anti-North Korean sentiments.
Government officials attempt to justify these
measures saying that there are 40,000 north Korean
agents in south Korea influencing students and
activists to use violence to further their
cause.(3)
The overwhelming support for the general strike,
the economic and political rights of south Korean
workers and re-unification is not a problem u.s.-
lackey Kim Young Sam can eliminate with weak token
revisions or further repression from the Korean
CIA.
The Korean trade-union leadership announced in mid-
January that the third stage of the general strike
would continue with one-day strikes once a week. On
January 22nd, the KCTU reported that 180,000
workers downed their tools and walked out for the
day.(4) On January 26th, 300,000 workers
demonstrated across south Korea demanding that the
repressive labor legislation be scrapped and that
the government resign. In Seoul, 50,000 people
rallied that day.(5)
Kim Keumsoo, president of the Korean Labour and
Society Institute said, "This general strike raises
political empowerment as an imminent task for the
Korean labor movement. Through this opportunity,
the Korean labor movement is setting up the
following objectives as its strategic targets: to
overcome the class contradiction and to accomplish
national independence, democracy, reunification and
the people's demands for their socio-economic
rights."(6)
President Kim's apology on January 16th for the
secret session resulting in repressive legislation
and now the token revisions submitted show only
that the Korean government is interested in
stopping the strike and resuming business as usual.
The Korean government is not concerned with the
interests of the masses. We support the struggles
of the Korean masses to repeal the legislation and
to end the reign of the current u.s.-Kim regime.
Maoism has proven to be the most successful cure
for imperialist domination and comprador repression
and will also be the most successful path for the
Korean masses to achieve true representation of the
people.
NOTES:
1. The Korea Herald, 25 February 1997.
2. The Los Angeles Times, 22 January 1997.
3. The New York Times, 25 February 1997, p. A3.
4. Agence France Presse, 22 January 1997.
5. Deutsche Presse-Agentur, 26 January 1997
6. http://kpd.sing-kr.org/strike/index-e.html
* * *
SCHOOL AID FOR STUDENTS INCREASES
Talk in the air is that education in the united
states will receive a funding increase, and the
initiative is coming from the ruling class, not the
students themselves. Already, in 1996 Congress made
sure to give Clinton $700 million more than he
requested for the federal education budget.
Clinton himself campaigned all through 1991 and
1992 arguing for tuition tax credits. As president
he is delivering on his promises to push that
agenda: he is asking Congress for a $10,000 tax
deduction on college tuition.
There is an important and growing faction of the
bourgeoisie that seeks an industrial and post-
industrial policy for running the economy. Fewer
and fewer capitalists doubt that computers and
software are necessary investments for the economy.
Some now go the extra step saying that brain power
is more important in the so-called post-industrial
economy. Clinton is part of that ascendant faction
of the bourgeoisie that seeks to make an investment
in brain power.
In addition to asking for a huge tax deduction
worth $2000 or $3000 a year, Clinton is asking for
scholarship funding to make "two years of post-
secondary education universal." His position gives
lie to the social-democratic and revisionist
position that the G7 imperialists have a
coordinated plan of cutbacks in government spending
on social programs. The old social-democratic view
especially prevalent in Europe and Quebec in
organizations like Mobilisation is that there is a
class war between the students of generally working
class background and the government over how much
to fund their education.
The fight for student aid is not an inherently
progressive struggle in the imperialist countries.
It is only progressive when the struggle is used
and channeled the correct way. The social-democrats
and revisionists are making themselves the
appendage of the Clinton-style imperialists and
their view of the post-industrial future. In
contrast, MIM is not surprised to see Clinton put
forward these demands for the bourgeoisified
workers of the oppressor nations. He is fine-tuning
the alliance between the labor aristocracy and
petty-bourgeoisie with the imperialists. We don't
want to help students oink louder for more gravy.
They get enough of that training already.
The struggle for student aid has potential for
proletarian content through two avenues. One is
that student leaders must learn to make full-use of
the fact that their college administrators need
them to lobby for student aid, both in state houses
for public universities and Congress for public and
private universities. If necessary student leaders
must threaten to lobby against research money for
their universities unless they obtain freedom of
operation on their campuses.
On too many college campuses, the student
newspapers are under administration control; cops
have guns and arrest students; people are not
allowed to hand out literature; there is no place
to pick up literature; so-called outsiders are not
allowed to speak to students on campus and getting
a few bucks for a book or magazine is called
"soliciting" in these wondrous paradises of
academic freedom.
Students will find that they have more than enough
power to put their administrators in line, when
students choose to do so. The mere threat of
opposing research moneys or placing a few ads that
would damage college recruiting should be enough to
bring most sensible college administrators to heal.
Right now administrators take students for granted,
unlike in the 1960s and early 1970s, but that can
change with a few examples made of a few
universities that get out of line. The
revolutionary and progressive students should find
the academic bourgeoisie tractable and an easy
mark, because of the contradictory interests of the
academic bourgeoisie.
The other avenue for a progressive agenda is in
public universities where the main competitor for
state funding is prison construction and
maintenance. It's about time these college
administrators and student leaders start
complaining how the united states is the number one
prison state in the world. Once again it cuts right
to the issue of "freedom" and how empty that
"freedom" is.
NOTE: USA Today 6 February 1997, p. D1.
* * *
WILD PIG WIELDING BATON EXONERATED BY FELLOW PIGS
by an RC
Police in Portland, Oregon, came to a settlement in
a lawsuit against police brutality, paying the
victim $126,000. Joseph Bernatche, a postal worker
in Portland, was beaten with a "full force" baton
and thrown from the steps by police, both times
while he was handcuffed from the back.
Bernatche was in a club, when he climbed the cage
next to the dance floor, as a joke. The security
guard, off-duty police officer Gary Hutcheson,
decided to arrest Bernatche.
Bernatche was laying on the ground, outside,
handcuffed when officer James Sweatt leapt from his
patrol car and struck him across the head with a
baton.
Sweatt then unleashed pepper spray on the crowd of
onlookers. Members of the crowd, whom Sweatt
sprayed, were arrested for "failing to disperse."
Later those charges were dropped and the victims
were paid a total of $8,000.
Bernatche was arrested, for among other things,
resisting arrest. Bleeding from the head, with
large cuts above his eyes, he was taken to the
police station to be booked. When it became obvious
that he needed medical attention, Sweatt started to
take him to the hospital. When he went outside,
Sweatt threw him from the top of the concrete
steps. Bernatche lost more teeth and his face was
further cut up.
Despite more than five witnesses willing to testify
in the civil case that Sweatt used the baton while
Bernatche was handcuffed, and dispite another
witness who saw Sweatt throw the handcuffed
Bernatche from the steps of the police station,
"Portland Police Chief Michael Chitwood called the
settlement 'unfortunate' and said he continues to
support Sweatt and Gary Hutcheson."(1)
Chitwood issued an investigation into the beating.
Police, policing themselves (an oxymoron), came up
with a 2,000 page report that interviewed 66
people. The report itself was never released and
its results should be questioned. One of the key
witnesses, Reid Jones who saw Bernatche throne from
the steps of the police station, was interviewed
over the telephone "for less than 10 minutes."(1)
When asked why Jones wasn't interviewed until the
end of the investigation, Chitwood replied that
Jones had "ducked" the police. Even if this were
the case, it seems understandable why he would.
The police can not be held accountable to
themselves. This investigation was held by the
police, looking into one of their own. All it did
was find further reasons to justify the police
officers obviously wrong actions. From this report,
Sweatt was exonerated. To be exonerated, the police
had to not believe the five witnesses that saw
Sweatt use his baton to Bernatches head, a clear
violation of the police's own regulations.
The exoneration also came despite Sweatt's history
of brutality. Sweatt had a pattern of using force
to cause head injuries, according to internal
police records released in a prior civil case
against Sweatt. Prior to arriving at the club,
Sweatt hit a man, Perry Durgin, in the eye with his
baton. Sweatt didn't arrested Durgin at that time,
but Durgin decided not to sue.
The regulations that Sweatt broke are meaningless,
they are only enforced when public pressure makes
them enforce it. In most cases, the police can and
do break their own regulations and are rarely
reprimanded for it. In this case, the Chief of
Police for Portland still, after all the witnesses
and physical evidence, supported the police
officers. Even if the pigs follow their own rules,
the imperialist Amerikan system gives them the
legal power to enforce systematic national
oppression as evidenced by disproportionate
imprisonment rates for members of the internal
colonies.
As MIM has said before, criminality is defined by
those who are in power. As long as the police are
in power, their repressive actions will never be
considered criminal except by the masses. Until the
police are striped of their repressive powers,
until the people take back their streets from the
repressive authorities, the people can't be safe.
NOTE: Portland Press Herald. 15 February 1997, p.
A1.
* * *
UMASS PROFESSOR SERVES BOURGEOISIE
by a RAIL comrade
A UMass political science professor teaching
"American Politics Through Film" quickly revealed
his alliance with imperialism and the bourgeoisie
when his class started this semester. In his
syllabus he calls movies "simple and
reductionist...never [able] to capture fully the
richness of politics." Mao would definitely
disagree and combat such a reductionist
diversionary argument with the dialectical nature
of dominant class ideologies and the way they
penetrate into every aspect of popular culture.
(See Breaking with Old Ideas article in this
month's issue of RAIL Notes).
He also says that "The course ... makes no pretense
of being a complete history of American politics.
That is the business of historians." By segmenting
history, knowledge and politics into separate
entities, the professor easily diverts peoples
attention away from historical consciousness, the
intertwined ways politics play a role in our
everyday lives and easily reduces political action,
such as the Vietnam war, to a matter of personal
opinion and isolated incidence.
During the second class, the Professor revealed
even further his nationally oppressive ideologies
by comparing the Irish to "over populating" rabbits
that because of sheer numbers destroyed the English
democracy, and the wave of immigration that brought
those "that looked different [cringe on the Prof's
face], the Africans with their dark skin [yet
another cringe], the Asians, the Poles, the Native
Americans ... they were different and studied
different religions, with different languages,
there were Jews [sneer]..."
Despite the his obviously incorrect view of the
First Nations and their "place" as immigrants, it's
easy to assert such things when one ignores
history. Seeing such ideologies expressed at an
Amerikan institution isn't so surprising
considering the imperialist rule Amerika holds over
the rest of the world. And when the 99% white
student classroom just laughed along with his white
chauvinist "jokes" it became deeply apparent how
far leader worship has embedded itself in Amerikan
culture.
It is materially profitable to ignore history, to
separate out politics from daily life and to
condemn all those that are physically or
spiritually different from oneself, especially when
you have the imperialist majority in Amerika on
your side. The professor proved his alliance to the
bourgeoisie and the material benefits it gains from
being oppressors and collectors of Third World
super-profits.
The students followed the professor's imperialist
leadership: possibly a sign of choosing the road
to complacence for imperialist stolen material
concessions. However, MIM and RAIL see white youth
as a potentially revolutionary force who can give
up their socialized power in order to fight for
proletarian revolution and a more sustainable world
without oppression of people. Youth are not yet
tied to imperialism with a comfy job that gives
them an interest in maintaining the system. And
youth feel the alienating effects of capitalism and
can see the long term devastation of imperialism.
But still it's a lot easier to laugh along with
racist jokes and agree with imperialist propaganda
than to challenge it, especially when it comes from
people with power over you. We challenge all
students to think critically about the "facts" you
are being taught and the perspective that is being
represented. MIM and RAIL call to all white youth
to commit class, nation and gender suicide in order
to struggle against their imperialist driven power
positions and to work with us to destroy
imperialist oppression here and abroad.
DOWN WITH THE AMERIKKKAN EDUCATION SYSTEM!
BUILD AN EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM THAT SERVES THE NEEDS
OF THE PEOPLE!
* * *
AMERIKAN CULTURE
ROSEWOOD: TRUTH OF SOUTHERN LYNCHING
Based on the true story of a 1923 massacre of a
small Black town in Florida by a neighboring white
town-turned-lynch-mob, the film Rosewood well
portrays how and why lynchings happened in early
20th century Amerikkka. Singleton adopts the line
held by Ida B. Wells-Barnett, the leading turn-of-
the century anti-lynching activist, that lynching
was principally a tool of terror to keep Blacks
from advancing economically in the post-slavery
economy. Also showing that the lynchings were often
instigated by white wimmin claiming sexual assault
by Black men.(1)
In the film, Rosewood is an anomaly, a town
populated exclusively by Blacks (with the exception
of one white shopkeeper and his family) who own
their own land and businesses, and who are
economically better off than the neighboring poor
white town of Sumner. Many of the Rosewood
residents work for whites in Sumner where the class
and gender contradictions are at their absolute
boiling point.
The South was just then beginning to move toward a
"progressive" society based more on the rule of law
than by the lynch mobs prevalent in the 1880-1920
period. Rosewood residents walked a fine line
between subservient postures and outright defiance
of their white neighbors. The local sheriff
embodies the rule of law side of white society, and
Singleton portrays that without a shred of
sentimentality. (The sheriff is, in other words, no
better than the lynch mobs he purports to oppose.)
Rosewood shows the structure of power and
oppression, set up between a newly arrived Black
stranger (a fictional creation of Singleton's) and
an established white store owner's struggle for a
piece of land on the market. The story explodes
when a white womyn comforts herself after her lover
beats her up by claiming that "a nigger did it."
Within a couple of days, that lie results in the
savage massacre of nearly the entire population of
Rosewood.
When "Fannie Taylor" claimed that a Black man raped
and beat her, the citizens of Sumner mobilized in
minutes to systematically murder the men, wimmin
and children of Rosewood, and burn their property
(again demonstrating the truth of Wells-Barnett's
claim that economics underlie lynching, even if
rape was the rallying cry).
Singleton has a good line on gender. Fannie Taylor
may have been less powerful than her male lover who
beat her, but she had and used her gender privilege
to murder an entire town. White wimmin in
Amerikkka, though less powerful then their white
male counterparts, gain a powered position over the
rest of the world through class and nation
privilege, in essence making white wimmin, as a
group, gendered male over the rest of the world.
Singleton further revealed this truth of gender
oppression, as Wells-Barnett did, that the real
"interracial" sex going on was when white men raped
Black wimmin.
Finally Singleton puts forth a very progressive
line on youth. He shows the Black children as
strong and courageous, and the white children as
needing to be taught to hate Blacks. Throughout the
film, a leading lynch mobster teaches his young son
how to tie a proper noose and shoot Blacks in order
to "be a man." His efforts ultimately fail, as the
boy runs away telling his father he hates him,
thereby showing the revolutionary potential of
youth. (The movie credits reveal that one white
witness testified before the Florida legislature in
1993 when Rosewood survivors were granted
reparations for the killings -- and it was likely
because of the testimony of this child.(2)) Other
white parents force their children to watch as they
chop off the ears and testicles of lynched Blacks,
some of whom are still alive.
The film Rosewood may have taken some historical
liberties, such as introducing a character that was
never there, but all in all it is a good exposure
of Amerikan history of this period and of
intertwined contradictions within current society.
NOTES:
1. Ida B. Wells-Barnett, "Southern Horrors." On
Lynchings. Ayer Company: Salem, New Hampshire.
Reprint edition, 1990.
2. See MIM Notes 88 (May 1994) for coverage of the
Rosewood reparations.
* * *
FLYNT MOVIE CENSORS HISTORY OF PATRIARCHY
The People Vs. Larry Flynt documented the life of
Hustler magazine porn-tycoon Larry Flynt. Instead
of a hoped for feminist critique of Flynt's rise to
fame, the movie instead, was no more then a
celebration of male supremacy and imperialist
exploitation. Devoid of the truth of social power
structures, ideas of rights are just another tool
to continue patriarchal oppression. The portrayed
idolization of Flynt's rise to wealth is an
outright acceptance of national oppression, sexual
mutilation and domination, and Third World
exploitation.
Flynt's initial flop as a strip club owner quickly
materialized into a multi-million dollar company
once he started publishing the porn magazine
Hustler. As millions started rolling in, Flynt
found himself in various bouts with the law and
Christian rightists on obscenity and defamation of
name charges. In and out of court, Flynt paraded
around with the Amerikan flag on as a diaper,
holding press conferences upholding each citizens
"right" to free speech. Rather than expose Flynt as
the patriarchal pig who gained millions from Third
World exploitation and female subordination that he
truly was, the film idolizes him as a hero fighting
against "fascist" censorship.
What the movie ignores is that pornography is
itself censorship. The pictures of wimmin going
through meat grinders and laying between sandwich
buns naked with sauce don't get criticized. Instead
the magazine issue is shown as the number one
selling Hustler issue, as though we should worship
such a "success". To make Flynt out to be a hero,
the film had to white wash history by eliminating
the most sexist and racist parts of Hustler. The
film would have us believe that all that's in
Hustler is some tasteless pictures of wimmin
spread-legged and a few cartoons about Santa Claus.
This white washing of the patriarchy only helps
reinforce the power of patriarchal institutions of
pornography.
Female objectification is accepted as a social
norm, and female sexuality is, like Flynt put it
when taking a picture of Courtny Love's vagina
spread wide, "the way men like it!" The only voice
of "liberating" wimmin is a fake one that came from
a religious womyn who tells Flynt she wants to get
rid of "sexual repression" by counseling wives with
marital problems to put on make-up and dress
themselves up a bit. The same womyn looked at porn
as a liberating experience for wimmin because it
allowed sexuality to be an openly accepted
practice, thereby doing away with sexual
repression. She also believed that porn allowed
consenting wimmin to profit off of "their" sex.
What she and "consenting" females ignore is the
patriarchal society that creates sexuality and the
role pornography plays in perpetuating male
dominance.
The explicit subordination to male domination never
makes it way into the courtroom either. Instead the
most famous case of Gerry Falwell suing Flynt for a
cartoon depicting Falwell fucking his mother in an
outhouse goes to supreme court on charges of name
defamation. Wimmin's voices and bodies locked up in
male determined patriarchal norms never makes a
case for the courtrooms or the movie, and never
will under patriarchy. Catherine MacKinnon put it
well when she said, "...pornography
institutionalizes the sexuality of male supremacy,
which fuses the erotization of dominance and
submission with the social construction of male and
female"(1).And "To expose [this] absence of a
critique of gender in this area of law is to
expose...the enforced silence of women"(2). But
under a patriarchal injustice system, this critique
is put aside for acceptance of male supremacy.
While upholding Flynt as the First Amendment Right
hero, the film also chooses to ignore just where
Flynt's millions actually come from. By the end of
the film Flynt is a millionaire who will do
anything to save his wife's life from AIDS, saying
money is no object. His bank account presumably
originated out of savvy business sense, creativity,
and giving the Amerikan man what he wants. What the
film ignores is just where Amerikan "wealth"
actually comes from, Third World exploitation.
Amerika gets rich from stealing labor and resources
from the Third World. The movie never even mentions
the Third World, nor the rampant child prostitution
existing around Amerikan army bases because most
Third World families have no other means of
survival. So the Amerikan businessman and soldier
who can't fulfill their sexual desire with the next
issue of Hustler can just go around the colonized
corner and rent out a peasant girl for an hour --
all right in fashion with Flynt's magazine.
The material reality of this literal and monetary
rape of the Third World and its pictorial
embodiment in Hustler with Asian wimmin hanging
naked from trees a-la-lynching, Lester the Molester
cartoons showing young girls being lured into
molestation by an old man, and Flynt being
prosecuted by his daughters for sexual abuse,never
make the movie. Only the story that the Amerikan
imperialist male wants told is shown by the movie,
leaving the rest of the truth of the world silent.
The only way to let the oppressed of the world be
heard is through feminist, nationalist,
proletarian, revolutionary practice and ideology
aimed at destroying the current power structure and
relations. The imperialists will use all the
weapons they have, from guns to patriarchy, to
dominate the world's people. If you want to end
oppression and ensure power to all those oppressed,
you must meet the imperialist head on with
revolutionary practice. Work with RAIL and MIM and
release the power of the people.
NOTES:
1. Catherine MacKinnon, Feminism Unmodified.
Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1987, p.148.
2. Ibid, p.146.
* * *
UNDER LOCK & KEY
PRISONERS DEBATE THE QUESTION OF UNITY
***The following letters address prisoner unity and
several were written responses to a letter in the
Under Lock and Key section of MIM Notes #126,
titled "Prisoner Unity in Michigan Questioned." MIM
considers prisoners a tremendous potential
revolutionary force. Prisoners feel the brunt of
abuse from imperialism which often causes them to
organize to end the brutal system. One purpose of a
discussion on unity is to identify the obstacles
that prevent prisoner unity and determine
strategies to overcome these obstacles. Another
important element is to assess who should be
unified by clarifying who are friends and enemies
in struggle. The letters below demonstrate the high
level of consciousness and dedication to the
struggle of our comrades behind the walls.***
"i am STANDING with You!"
Revolutionary Greetings; Clenched-fist Salute &
Power Forward!
My Dear Michigan Comrade:
i read your article entitled: "Prisoner unity in
Michigan Questioned," and thought obliged to
respond to you. i am also a prisoner within one of
Michigan's death kkkamps and have experienced the
same frustrations as you. In fact, i am able to
identify with you 100% which is way i am
responding.
Though i am not in one of the Max death kkkamps and
therefore cannot speak on the "non-unity" you have
there, i can say that from the Level 2 death
kkkamps i have been at the same problem exist. But
we don't have comrades that are struggling and
suffering for political/revolutionary change. In
fact, right here within the death kkkamps of
Michigan is a movement called: Political Prisoners
of War Vanguard Coalition (PPWVC), that has been in
existence for a little while, that i am very much a
part of and instrumental in creating.
Due to the security necessary to protect myself and
other comrades, we are not prone to do a lot of
above ground work. Primarily because (as you so
eloquently described) there are prisoners within
the system that will do all they can to attack you,
bring you down, snitch on you and even murder you
because you attack the system. They (these lack dog
prisoners) have the tendency to think that if
someone like you or i attacks the system it will
cause them more hardship in their doing time. They
want to do "sissy" time. They want to live under
the illusion that they have it good and don't want
you and i to upset the balance of things. So we
work below the surface and work daily and hard.
Not long ago i was the subject of an attack by a
prisoner at the Egeler Correctional Facility. MIM
knows of this for i told them and others. The
attack was done because one prisoner (who is truly
misguided) took the word of a pig over mine and
...well you know how it goes. The sad part about
that incident is that this prisoner was doing
nothing as far as political/revolutionary struggle,
but i was and am.
So i know your frustrations and disappointments,
but "WE" cannot allow the inactivity of one or many
to deter "OUR" duty. And our DUTY is to expose,
agitate (when possible), de-program and re-educated
these brothas and sistas within these death
kkkamps.
Our DUTY is to de-program and re-educate our family
and loved ones. Our DUTY is to NEVER GIVE IN when
the pressure is upon us and to always STAND OUR
GROUND.
For years i have toiled and struggled against this
oppressive/repressive nazi regime and many times i
have stood alone in these battles, because i
couldn't find anyone unafraid to stand with me
against the full weight of the MDOC. However, i
stood and that's what's important. It is important
for you to continue to STAND and not BEND no matter
what comes at you.
No matter what you have to face. STAND because i am
STANDING with You!
i am (and many others) are STANDING and the time
will come when we will be in "masses power" to do
what we need to do and what hasn't been done, in
Michigan's death kkkamp system in history. See what
I'm saying? But to move on that type of scale it is
going to take true sacrifice, time, study,
education and commitment. We (you and i) can and
will get there but i need soldiers like you not to
stop fighting and to continue moving...for in move-
ment comes progress.
i am not going to suggest to you to stop your solo
act. Solo acts are good, but don't make any solo
moves that could cause you harm without anybody
knowing how to speak on what happened to you and so
forth. Comrade, i am extending my hand and my love
out to you. If you'd like please contact me and i
will stay in serious contact with you and let you
know (more personally) what you can do and what i
and the PPWVC are doing. If you want this then
contact me through MIM...
As to my other Michigan comrade who wrote the
article, "Prisoners must wait hours for the
bathroom, while pigs go in the food" dated Aug. 26,
1996 [MIM Notes#126]. Dig comrade, the same thing i
mentioned to our brotha also applies to you. Do not
give up. You can contact me also. As for the pig
pissing in the food...i have no doubts over what
you said because I know of pigs committing MURDER,
which I wrote about in MIM Notes, i also know of
pigs beating a womyn at the Scotts Wimmin facility
into a coma and of pigs doing all sorts of acts.
But what i want to say to you is this...there is
redress....
In the trenches,
A PPWVC Michigan Prisoner, 3 Dec. 96
MIM ADDS: We agree that prisoners should be
educating and organizing themselves and others; and
exposing the atrocities of imperialism. While the
pigs are able to buy off some prisoners, remember
the pigs and imperialists are the principal enemy
not the misguided prisoner. It is good that this
prisoner has been able to find other prisoners to
work with and found an effective way to minimize
the pigs' destructive influences. We hope that
Under Lock and Key provides many comrades behind
bars with connections to others engaged in the
struggle, both inside and on the outside.
"WAKE UP AND UNITE TO THE REVOLUTION OF THE PEOPLE
OF ALL SHADES"
Hello Comrades, ...I liked most of what I read in
as far as your general attitude toward imperialism
and the fascist capitalists, however, I felt that
you are attacking a group of people instead of a
type of people. Allow me to explain where I am
coming from then perhaps what I am saying will make
more sense to you.
I was born a white of the proletariat class. As I
was growing up, we had little to nothing. I never
had shoes or clothes without holes and patches. I
was looked down upon because I was not of the
bourgeoisie class. I became anti-establishment and
have remained such all my life. It was when I
finally got a break and got to go to college that I
began to learn of all the real truths and lies of
this imperialistic/capitalistic regime I live in.
During my two semesters of Russian history, I heard
of and began to learn of and about Carl Marx and
Lenin. The more I studied about them the more I
began to appreciate the fact that there is a better
way out there. I began to learn the truth about
socialism and communism. I could then see the lies
and unfair propaganda this imperialistic/capitalist
establishment has spread about socialism in their
attempt to stifle the growth of power to the
people. I believe the key term here is THE PEOPLE.
I believe that before a successful revolution
against the establishment,
(imperialistic/capitalistic fascist police state)
we must stop behaving in the like manner, not as
races, as we are all of the human race. It must be
a state of mind not a state of culture. Who knows,
just maybe we can even undo some of the
brainwashing of the bourgeoisie done by the
aristocracy that makes up this fascist police state
establishment. Remember the bourgeoisie are also
oppressed and repressed, they just refuse to
recognize it or admit to the truth of the matter.
...I am an overt socialist communist. I am a
student of Marxist/Leninist socialism. I mention
this because I too run into the same adversity as
the comrade from Michigan. In the Under Lock and
Key section of the MIM Notes "Prisoner Unity in
Michigan Questioned." Well I just want to say that
Michigan is not the only state in which this
disunity exists.
I am doing a life bit in a maximum security
facility in Wisconsin and the Inmates here are more
worried about their tv's and gym shoes than they
are about their human rights. When one of us
litigators tries to do something to protect their
rights, we are met with opposition or apathy. It is
literally bucking the establishment alone.
This little fascist regime here does all they can
to keep us litigators segregated from one another.
If we attempt to pass a petition around, anyone and
everyone connected goes to the hole. And it is the
inmates helping the establishment [who] keep us
convicts with heart from organizing any form of
revolutionary resistance against this fascist
regime.
Most of the inmates simply want to sit by passively
as the establishment strips them of every human
quality they once had. They are content to lay back
passively watching their tvs as the establishment
strips them of their human dignities. They also
fall into this far too wide spread of racism which
the establishment strives to keep stirred up. They
do not get it, as long as the establishment has the
races at each other's throats we are too busy
resisting each other to resist their fascism.
Isn't it time we all woke up and unite to the
revolution of the PEOPLE OF ALL SHADES?
I would be very interested in your response to my
views, as I too am always open to good constructive
criticism.
A Wisconsin Prisoner, 1 December 1996
MIM RESPONDS: MIM agrees that prisoners should not
fight each other and instead should work together
against the imperialist establishment. We also
agree that the pigs benefit from the disunity of
prisoners and are the number one cause of disunity
of prisoners. While some prisoners may be passive
or work against revolution, prisoners are not the
main force keeping "convicts with heart from
organizing any form of revolutionary resistance
against this fascist regime." Please keep in mind
that the pigs are causing the distrust between
prisoners. It is the pigs who bribe and pay other
inmates to sell out the revolution. And as you
yourself demonstrate, many prisoners are not
passive and cannot be bought. Check out last
month's MIM Notes (No. 133) where a prisoner who
was paid to kill another instead signed a statement
against the pigs. [ULK article "South Carolina
Prisoner Collects Evidence on Injustice System"].
Please remember your comrades who know it is
revolution not television that best serves their
interests. You and all the authors published in
Under Lock and Key are proof of that many prisoners
will not stand by and let pigs take their humanity.
On the question of skin color, MIM does not buy
into identity politics, i.e., because you are white
you cannot be revolutionary or because you are
Black you are automatically revolutionary. MIM does
recognize that Amerikkka is made up of many
nations: hundreds of indigenous nations, the Black
nation, several Latino nations, and the white
nation, along with other national minorities who do
not yet make up coherent nations. While MIM does
not discount individuals from the white nation, MIM
has determined that the white nation as a whole is
not a revolutionary force. The white nation,
working class included, has benefited from the
spoils of genocide, slavery and the extraction of
wealth off the backs of most of the world. So while
you as an individual are a friend of the
revolution, the white nation as a whole has an
interest in supporting imperialism.
A UNITY OF SMARTNESS NOT IGNORANCE
Dear MIM, In response to the November 15th, Under
Lock and Key, by a comrade who claims to find no
unity amongst prisoners. In part it could be agreed
to [that there is no unity], when you try placing
yourself as being one who wishes to judge his
fellow man as not on equal footing as oneself.
I have come to an upper prison here in michigan, 14
months ago. And I have found quite a few comrades
who have had enough of the corruptive behavior by
administrative pigs by letting these sacrificial
pigs do as they please. [We are] beginning to start
a campaign to put an end to it by working with an
outside force, as well as inside.
Going into my 15th year [of being political], one
must be conscious of what's going on around him,
cause not just anyone can become a part of a
unified body who seeks to go up against this well
organized, corrupted group of the MDOC [Michigan
Department of Corrections].
We will not be amongst those who fall apart from
the inside. If you are a worthy comrade who
believes as we do and have learned there are no big
i's and little u's, then you are welcome amongst a
strong group of brothers who will seek your
assistance. No longer will our plans make it to the
officials before acted upon.
Comrade you must not think that because one does
not jump up and act when someone else decides that
because of a happening, it's time to tear things
up.
It is not a unity of ignorance, stupidity or
foolishness. It is smartness that we practice today
because we will not be defeated. We will be
organized. Destroying objects is not the practice
we uphold.
My words to you comrades, who think there is no
unity, you better wake up before you are left
behind. Because those who are left behind are the
ones who have to accept their conditions. Although
there are those who are weak and can't make the
stand we are your allies and are standing for you,
as we are standing for ourselves.
Remember just as they (the pigs) stand together, so
must we if they are to be defeated.
No more putting your comrade down because he is not
like you.
No more fighting and arguing amongst yourselves.
And definitely stop alienating people because of
race, because we are all in it together if change
is to be made...
Sincere in the Struggle,
A Michigan Prisoner, 26 Dec. 96
MIM ADDS: This letter asks a good question, "Do you
as a revolutionary, consider yourself on equal
footing with your fellow prisoners, or do you think
you are above them?" It is good to consider that
one may be feeling isolated because s/he has put
him/herself above his/her peers. It is important
not to discount prisoners who may not be doing
revolutionary work. As the PPWVC comrade above said
it is our duty to educate and organize for
revolution.
Another important point addressed in this letter
is, What are we organizing to do? This comrade is
sharing his strategies on how to successfully
organize, without pig infiltration, to make changes
toward revolution. The letter writer and MIM do not
advocate random acts of violence or destroying
things, but a planned strategy to organize and
fight winnable battles.
"WHAT CAN I DO?"
Revolutionary Greetings, ...Your papers offer me
enlightening information on injustices nationwide
and how to strategically alleviate and rebel
against these inequities.
My only problem is extending this knowledge amongst
my peers, who are zealously devoted to helping each
other fall face down without any practiced tactics
to put the oppressor on their back.
I feel abandoned in a vacant state of helplessness
when I witness my fellow brothas fight each other
over trivial matters and engage in meaningless
disputes.
These potential warriors misdirect their energy,
thus becoming lifeless when sparks fly from
sporadic revolutionary performances.
I've tried and tried again to united the masses and
illustrate to my brothers that it is essential that
we rise up against oppression. However, my attempts
are futile. What can I do?
Much Love,
A Wisconsin Prisoner, 10 December 1996
MIM RESPONDS: Comrade, you are not alone. The
words of you and your comrades printed in Under
Lock and Key are just a small testimony to that
fact. It is true that "potential warriors misdirect
their energy" and engage in trivial disputes, at
times. MIM would suggest trying to engage other
prisoners in political debates. Often times sharing
MIM Notes can often generate discussion of
political ideas. Organize a study group to discuss
MIM Notes so that you can have the opportunity to
struggle with people about these ideas. And in the
mean time, don't lose heart if your organizing
efforts don't pay off right away. You are fighting
alongside many comrades in other prisons and on the
outside and there are many contributions you can
make to the revolution from behind bars.
RESPONSES OF SUPPORT TO TEXAS WOMYN'S SEXUAL ABUSE
***In accordance with this discussion of unity. The
following letters were written in support of the
Texas prisoner whose letter, titled "Unwanted
Sexual Advances Behind Texas Prison Walls" was
printed in MIM Notes issue #128.***
KEEP YOUR HEAD UP HIGH AND STAY STRONG
Dear MIM, ...I'm the RHU [Restricted Housing Unit]
for 90 days . . . I was on the gate talking to my
neighbor and he gave me your paper to read. The
issue he gave me was MIM Note, #128, December 15,
1996. On page 8 I say an article about a lady in
prisoner in Texas, dated October 12th. She wrote
you guys saying she was sexually assaulted.
Well I think that the captain that did this to her
should be found and sent to prison so he can see
what it's like on the other side, meaning being
locked down. He probably would get his ass beat for
doing what he did, because word gets around behind
these walls. I could imagine what this lady is
going through. I bet it's hard for her to get
letters out to people and places. I just wanted to
say I believe they will find this pervert and make
him pay for what he has done to this lady's mind
and life.
If you're reading this letter, "Mrs. Texas", hang
in there. Keep your head up high and stay strong. I
know it's hard for you, but they will get this
captain and he will pay for what he has done to
you. Stay strong.
Your friend and first time reader of MIM,
A Pennsylvania Prisoner, 4 January 1997
JAILHOUSE LAWYER OFFERS ASSISTANCE TO TEXAS COMRADE
Dear MIM, ...I'm concerned about the lady who wrote
the "Unwanted Sexual Advances Behind Texas Prison
Walls" article in the December 15, 1996 portion of
MIM Notes' Under Lock and Key. I am concerned
because she is proceeding Pro Se without any real
knowledge of Federal Procedure. It is clear that
she has been damaged and I would hate to see her
lose her action simply because she is
unknowledgeable in the law.
Although she has a de facto claim, it is another
story all together to be able to put those facts on
paper so as to state a prima facie cause of action.
I noticed that the lady stated that she was
concerned that the defendants may be entitled to
"qualified immunity" because they were action under
color of state law.
This in and of itself, demonstrates to me that she
has most likely failed to state facts in support of
her claims that would entitle her to relief. If the
facts are properly alleged in black and white, the
defendant would not be entitled to "qualified
immunity" under any set of circumstances because he
was acting outside of his job duties and violated
clearly established law.
In connection, if the other defendant acted in
concert to cover-up the sexual assault, she may
have a claim under Title 18 U.S.C. 241 and 242, as
well as 1983 of Title 42. The Title 18 claim is
criminal conspiracy charges which carries ten years
each. At any rate it is very possible that she
could collect damages as well as seek several
different types of criminal action.
It is unusual that I get involved in other people's
claims because I have so many of my own to keep me
occupied. However, I could not allow myself to sit
back and allow this lady to proceed Pro Se by
herself. While sexual assaults are not my
specialty, I would like to assist in any way I can.
Normally the issues of law concerning the
defendants "affirmative defenses" are boiler plate
and would apply to her case as well....
Additionally, I have numerous concerned citizens on
the outside, that may help in finding the
defendants location for service if they have not
yet been served....
A South Carolina Prisoner, 8 January 1997
***WHAT NON-PRISONERS CAN DO TO SUPPORT
PRISONERS***
*1. Struggle with, work with, finance and join MIM.
The best way to support prisoners is to overthrow
the system under which capitalists profit from the
exploitation of prisoners. History shows that the
best way to do this is to build a Marxist-Leninist-
Maoist party. The oppressors will not give up their
power without a fight.
*2. Finance MIM's prison work. Our biggest bill
each month is postage. Most of the prison comrades
who read MIM Notes have no way of paying for it. So
if you have money, send what you can afford. Every
cent helps, and stamps are as good as cash to us.
*3. Distribute MIM Notes and Notas Rojas. Bring the
voices of prisoners and their supporters to as
large and wide an audience of people as possible.
Contact MIM for bulk rates and distribution tips.
*4. Start or join a prison support group. MIM can
provide advice and resources to help you build
public opinion for prisoners and their struggles.
*5. Fight censorship, beatings, torture and other
fascist outrages. Under Lock and Key often features
the addresses of prisoners' friends and enemies.
Work with the friends and let the enemies know
you're watching. (Don't expect to win the fascists
to the side of humanity, however. See #1 in this
list).
*6. Stay in touch. Keep us informed of pro-prisoner
work you do. Our readers might find it educational
or inspirational.
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