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 139 JUNE 1, 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. AMERIKAN'S PLAN FOR THE FUTURE:
ARREST AND IMPRISON YOUTH
2. CLINTON PROMOTES IMPERIALISM IN MEXICO
3. LETTERS
4. SJ MERCURY NEWS EDITOR WEASELS OUT OF CIA
CRITICISM
5. RALLYISTS DENOUNCE U.S.-RAMOS REGIME
6. THEY CALL IT A TAKEOVER:
HONG KONG REUNIFICATION A PARODY AT BEST
7. BRUTUS RALLIES STUDENTS:
DEBUNKS MYTH OF PEACEFUL REVOLUTION IN
SOUTH AFRICA
8. DEMAND FREEDOM FOR IRISH ACTIVIST
9. RED CROSS PROVES STALIN CORRECT IN
ANTI-NAZI WAR
10. IMPERIALISTS ADMIT COLLABORATION WITH NAZI
GERMANY
11. MIM FORMS PEOPLE'S INTERNATIONALIST REAR AREA
ORGANIZATION
12. HOMES NOT JAILS TAKEOVER BUILDING
13. LATINO ANTI-IMPERIALIST MAY DAY CELEBRATION
14. MORE MASSACHUSETTS TRANSFERS TO TEXAS
15. BOSTON PUBLIC CENSORS PROTECT YOUTH FROM
POLITICAL SPEECH
16. UNDER LOCK AND 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
* * *
AMERIKAN'S PLAN FOR THE FUTURE:
ARREST AND IMPRISON YOUTH
by MC53
Legislation passed in the House on May 8 promotes a
stronger offensive in the war against youth. The
bill -- called the Juvenile Crime Control Act of
1997 -- offers states $1.5 billion if they change
state law and require that youth accused by the
pigs of violent crimes be tried as adults in the
white nation's courts -- certainly without a jury
of their peers. The House also voted to stiffen the
penalties against youth convicted of violent crimes
in Federal court.(1)
The police, court systems and prisons are used as
tools of social control and the primary and
disproportionate targets Amerika is trying to
control are members of oppressed nations. In 1988,
the overall incarceration rate for youth was 221
per 100,000.(2) The rate for Latino youth was 481
per 100,000 and Black youth were incarcerated at a
rate of 810 per 100,000. The war against youth is
an attempt to head off social unrest that results
from the oppressive settler nation's capitalist
system. And the youth most affected by the ills of
the system, oppressed nation youth, will be the
primary targets in the increasing offensive.
If (or when) the bill passes in the Senate, it will
mean that not only will youth be tried as adults,
but that they will be incarcerated with adults.
This means subjecting youth to the same or harsher
conditions of slave labor, repressive living
situations, denial of education and brutal guards
faced by adult prisoners.
Studies have shown that youth held in the adult
system commit another crime 30 percent more often
than youth held in the juvenile justice system.(3)
Additionally, some research demonstrates that youth
in adult institutions are five times more likely to
be sexually assaulted, twice as likely to be beaten
by staff, and 50 percent more likely to be attacked
with a weapon than children confined in a juvenile
facility.(3) While MIM does not believe the
juvenile justice system serves the people or
provides any measure of justice, these differences
are important because they reveal how little the
criminal injustice system cares about
rehabilitating people. Youth in particular have
years of potential productive life ahead of them
and the criminal injustice system is happy to just
throw away these lives. This is the result of a
criminal injustice system that serves imperialism.
INCREASE REPRESSION TO GET MORE MONEY
To qualify for part of the $1.5 million in block
grants, the states must: insure that youth "15
years or older who commit a serious violent crime
be tried as an adult; impose escalating penalties
against repeat juvenile offenders; establish a
tracking system for minors who commit a second
crime and make those records public, and allow
juvenile court judges to issue court orders against
the parents or guardians of convicted minors who do
not properly supervise them."(1)
Already in the last three years, 50 states have
changed laws to allow more youth to be tried as
adults. At this time, only five states impose the
measures that would qualify them for the grants.
But the new legislation gives the remaining 45
states the incentive and green light to become more
repressive than they are already, encouraging them
with a financial incentive to radically restructure
the juvenile justice systems to eradicate any last
remnants directed at rehabilitation of youth.
Though the proposed law talks about youth 15 or
older, it also attacks even younger. The bill
requires that states routinely try 14 year olds as
adults if they are charged with a violent crime.(1)
The only way out of that would be if the Attorney
General decided that it would be better (for the
interests of the white nation) to try the 14 year-
old youth as a juvenile. The law also allows the
Attorney General to move the trial of a 13 year-old
to adult court if it pleases the pigs.
This bill pushes the same measures as the defeated
Violent Youth Predator Act of 1996 only now it has
a nicer name. Clinton's administration apparently
was not ecstatic about the bill because it did not
include all of the harsher penalties which
Clinton's Anti-Gang and Youth Violence Act of 1997
sought (which he introduced in Boston on February
18th.)
Part of the Clinton administration's proposal still
pending is the creation of a new Office of Juvenile
Crime Control and Prevention to increase the war
against youth and gangs supposedly to fight crime
and drugs. The OJCCP would have a budget of $500
million per year to lock up and oppress youth.(4)
The OJCCP which would replace the Office of
Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. The
stated goals of the existing office include: the
deinstitutionalization of status offenders; the
separation of juveniles from adult offenders; the
removal of juveniles from adult jails and lock-ups;
and the reduction of disproportionate minority
confinement. The elimination of this office would
remove any facade of justice for juveniles. The
proposal for the OJCCP foreshadows a more draconian
future for Amerika's youth.
The government says that Amerika needs to hurry and
attack this so-called youth crime problem before
the number of youth increases to a record level in
the next few years. MIM says that youth need to
hurry and join the movement to build a society that
doesn't force kids to suffer from the injustices of
capitalism and patriarchy and national oppression.
The Amerikan government is not working in the
interest of youth, especially youth from oppressed
nations. It will take a revolution to achieve self-
determination of the oppressed nations and
continued struggle to ensure that youth are not the
targets of oppression.
EDUCATION IGNORED IN FAVOR OF INCARCERATION
At the same time the Amerikan government was
increasing its power to harass and incarcerate
youth, the government also shot down the part of
the education plan which would have spent $5
billion to repair and rebuild schools over the next
four years.(5)
Even this money would not have been enough to
address fully the need to improve urban and poor
students' schools. The 1995 estimate was that it
would take $112 billion just to repair substandard
and dangerous school buildings. The New York Times
reported that one-third of schools require major
repairs or need to be replaced and that almost half
of the schools don't have the electrical capacity
to support computers. Students in some urban area
schools have to hold their classes in the hallways
because of overcrowding.
Amerikan schools are better than those in Third
World countries where the Amerikan government can
more easily get away with murder and genocide
against the people. But the condition of urban and
poor students' schools is the first piece of
evidence that the government does not concern
itself with the welfare and betterment of youth,
predominantly oppressed nation youth. The
overcrowding of prisons serves as a justification
for the proliferation of prisons. And the
overcrowding of dilapidated urban schools drowns
students out of the opportunities kids receive in
the suburbs and pushes them on the streets
ultimately serving as a justification for the
proliferation of prisons.
ARRESTS AND BRUTALITY AGAINST YOUTH WILL INCREASE
MIM and RAIL have been increasing our coverage and
activism to expose cases of pigs murdering youth
and how this is a result of having an occupying
force within the oppressed nations of the united
snakes. This type of murder and brutality will only
continue and increase with the proliferation of
prisons, increase in pigs and prosecutors and the
growth of for-profit-prisons and prison industries.
Klinton's war on youth will only increase and
result in more incidences like the April 6th murder
of Kevin Cedeno is Washington Heights, NY.(6) The
16 year-old oppressed nation youth was allegedly
carrying a machete and the pig decided that was
enough reason to murder him by shooting him in the
back as he ran away. As evidenced by the criticisms
by the masses at Kevin's funeral, the oppressed
know that these cases are examples of the
systematic and increasing genocide and slaughter of
oppressed nationals. This is only going to get
worse with the increase of the occupying force's
power.
Even the wealthier or more privileged youth are
affected by the increasing numbers of pigs and more
aggressive repression against youth. The Chronicle
of Higher Education conducted a study of all the
four-year colleges and universities which have more
than 5,000 students enrolled. Among these, the
arrests for violation of drug laws rose 18% in
1995.(7) Most of the 'experts' studying this
concluded that this was not because of increased
use of drugs. It was because of increased pig
enforcement and patrolling of the campuses.
No doubt, students that get arrested pay lower
fines and have lower sentences than youth allegedly
involved in gangs in urban areas. Nevertheless,
students have historically played important roles
in revolutionary struggles and increased patrolling
for drugs, whether on the campuses or in urban
areas, serves to control the youth of Amerika.
Whether it's urban youth or oppressed nation youth
being beaten, harassed and imprisoned, or white
nation youth or youth on university campuses who
want to build a society without environmental mass
destruction and constant oppression, the future
revolution will be sped up if you mobilize and work
with MIM. Join RAIL or the MIM-led army and stop
this system that depends on arresting and killing.
NOTES:
1. The New York Times. 9 May 1997. pp. A1 and A19.
2. Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics. As
cited in Criminal Injustice ed. Elihu Rosenblatt.
South End Press: 1996. p25.
3. http://www.aclu.org/news/n050897e.html
4. Youth Today March/April 1997. p. 38.
5. The New York Times. 9 May 1997, p. A12.
6. See The New York Times. 8 April 1997. p. A12 and
16 April 1997, page A20.
7. The New York Times. 16 March 1997, p. A13.
* * *
CLINTON PROMOTES U$ IMPERIALISM IN MEXICO
by MCB52
United $nakes president Bill Clinton recently
returned from a trip to Mexico (followed by more of
the same in Costa Rica) where he rallied the
comprador forces and told lies that the Mexican
people know far better than to believe. The people
responded with protests which were harshly
repressed.
The whole visit was seeped in neo-colonial means
and ends. Mexicans, like all other oppressed
nations, will only get the imperialists out of
their country through revolutionary armed struggle
to achieve self-determination.
One thing that Clinton did shortly after arrival
was visit the Ninos Heroes memorial to soldiers who
fought in the Mexican-American War of 1846-48 where
Mexico lost half its territory -- what is now New
Mexico, Arizona, California, Colorado and Texas. An
American flag was flown next to it especially for
the occasion. Needless to say, Mexicans were
offended.(1) The ceremony was an eerie suggestion
of Amerika's further expansionist goals.
At a speech in an auditorium in Mexico City,
Clinton said "I come here today to celebrate the
ties that bind the United States and Mexico and to
help set a course to strengthen them for the age of
possibility before us as we enter the 21st
century."(2) We know what ties those are -- neo-
colonial. Despite the trade figures touted by
Clinton and Zedillo, the bad state of the economic
conditions of the people led to scattered jeers and
whistles of derision as the president's remarks
were translated into Spanish.(3)
Clinton claimed that NAFTA is a boon to Mexican
workers as much as it is to Amerikan ones, but in
fact wages and employment are low and stagnant.(3)
Superexploitation will continue as long as the
price of Mexican labor is set by multinational
corporations (MNCs) across the heavily militarized
border, rather than by the people through
industrial development they choose. This self-
determination will only be possible after the
Mexican people kick out the MNCs and the Amerikan
military industrial complex that supports the MNCs.
Clinton said a lot about democracy during his trip,
claiming "Democracy has swept every country but one
in the Americas, giving people a vote and a voice
in their future." This is a lie. Clinton wants to
single out Cuba as the only non-democratic country
in Latin America in the wake of the Mexican
government's own recent massacre of rebels written
about in the May 1 issue of MIM Notes. His pretense
that Mexico is democratic is particularly gross
since the U$ has propped up successive corrupt
regimes by the one party that ever takes power, the
PRI. He had the gall to praise puppet/president
Zedillo for "vision and courage."
The very lack of democracy and its root in the U$
was part of the reason several hundred Mexicans
protested Clinton's first official visit, burning
an American flag and yelling "Yankee go home!"(4)
Without the support of successive US governments,
the PRI would not have been able to retain power
for almost seven decades, traditionally through
fraud. Its rule is in the interests of the U$
because it promote what the U$ calls "regional
stability:" the PRI brutally crushes dissidents
and radical movements.
And while Clinton was talking democracy with self-
congratulatory tones, "We know from our own 220-
year experiment that democracy is hard work," the
practice of U$ style democracy was evident outside
every Clinton event. Those with something to say
were prevented from doing so. Protesters were
repressed.
Hundreds of riot police controlled groups of
protesting teachers, street activists, students and
leftists by blocking their access to the U.S.
Embassy, Clinton's hotel and elsewhere near the
center of town. Referring to the massive student
demonstrations of 1968, one seasoned activist said
"We haven't seen this kind of police repression
since 1968. The police are doing everything they
can to repress any voice speaking out against Bill
Clinton."(5)
Clinton claimed "Our partnership for freedom and
democracy and for prosperity, and our partnership
against drugs, organized crime, environmental
decay, and social injustice is fundamental to the
future of the American people and to the future of
the Mexican people." The truth is that the
prosperity is hardly "shared," with a huge
difference between the U$ and Mexico remaining.
Nearly 20 percent of the Mexicans do not have
regular sanitation, more than half the population
lives in poverty, and many rely on the marginally
higher wages available to family members at great
personal risk to undocumented workers in the united
states.(6)
Though Clinton denied that there would be mass
deportations, we have already seen the biggest
deportations of undocumented workers ever in the
first three months of this year.(7) And those
hearing Clinton's lies knew this. One housewife
present said "It is terrible the way they treat our
brothers and sisters who go to the United States,
just because they need the money. We need work, and
yet they treat us like animals." A student added
along similar lines, "The treatment immigrants
receive in the US is bad, because they are
undocumented workers. We see it in the news. They
beat them, they even kill them."(6)
Hitting a record pace, the u.s. government deported
42,426 illegal immigrants in the first half of
FY97. The six-month deportation rate keeps the INS
on schedule to achieve its goal of removing 93,000
undocumented immigrants from the Amerika's stolen
land this year, up from nearly 69,000 last year.
This does not include the more than 1.3 million
apprehensions each year of people caught trying to
cross the border or who agree to voluntary removal.
Mexico was the main destination for those deported.
More than 31,000 of those removed were returned to
Mexico. Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala and the
Dominican republic were the other top
destinations.(8)
Clinton went on to lie about the exclusion of the
Latino immigrants from full participation in
Amerikan so-called democracy: "As our cooperation
grows closer, so do our people. For America, that
means pride in the fact that we are one of the most
diverse democracies in the world. That diversity
will be one of our great strengths in the global
society of the 21st century. And Mexican Americans
are a crucial part of our diversity and our
national pride. Now, more than 12 million strong,
they have helped to make the United States the
fifth largest Hispanic nation in the world."
Clinton is right that there exist some of the
world's largest Latino populations in the U$, but
he is covering up the internal colonial
relationship in identifying those nations as a part
of the U$. They are not receiving the Amerikan
dream, they are receiving the Amerikan nightmare.
Their interests are allied with the people of
Mexico and other oppressed nations against
imperialism.
And so Clinton was in some sense prescient when he
said that we are on the verge of something similar
to the Mexican revolution: "Our nations and our
hemisphere stand at a crossroads as hopeful as the
time when Hidalgo and Morelos lit the torch of
liberty for Mexico almost two centuries ago." But
it is not going to be the kind of "justice" Amerika
wants in the end. The Latino nations, together with
other oppressed nations, are going to destroy
Amerika and take the reparations they deserve.
NOTES:
1. The Christian Science Monitor, 9 May 1997, p. 6.
2. All Clinton quotes are from transcript U.S.
Newswire, 7 May, 1997
3. The Baltimore Sun, 8 May 1997, p. 14A.
4. The Independent, 8 May 1997, p. 14.
5. Los Angeles Times, 8 May 1997, p. 38.
6. The Boston Globe, 8 May 1997, p. A2.
7. British Broadcasting Corporation World Service,
13 May 1997.
8. The Boston Globe, 14 May 1997.
* * *
LETTERS
MIM IS BLACK RACIST RAG?
DEAR EDITORS:
I just finished reading four copies of your MIM
Notes. I am a fifty-nine year old black man and
have been a true communist for the past forty
years. I am very disappointed in your newsletters
as it deviated far from the true aim and intent of
communism. Neither is it a true Maoist movement.
From the many articles I have read it is nothing
more than a racist black rag that is used by some
blacks as a forum to whine and cry about their
"plight". I am no "Tom" by any stretch of the
imagination. I am an ex-school teacher and am in
prison of my own doing and refuse to blame "Whitey"
or anyone else for what I have done.
Certainly I see many injustices in prison but
blacks are not the only recipients of them. As long
as there exists the "poor me black mentality" and
all authority figures are white and if black then
they are lackeys of the whites then true communism
will never come into its own. Communism is not a
problem of color or race. It is a struggle against
an imperialist economy and an elitist society. MIM
would better serve the cause if it would dispense
with condoning the fight against "whites" and
attempt to concentrate all that untapped energy
toward the true oppression, the economic system
that exploits our labor. Whites are not our
enemy...capitalism is. A great many of the
communist in the world are our white brothers.
Another thing that irks me is apparently you do not
attempt to verify some of the outrageous claims
made by some of the contributors to "Under Lock &
Key". I have been in the Texas prison system on and
off since March 11, 1960. At one time it was bad
here. Real bad. Today prison is not a country club
for sure, but then it isn't meant to be is it? Some
of the letters in Under Lock & Key is just plain
old b/s. This only serves to cast doubt on
everything else in the paper. If the contributors
would realize that many other inmates read their
letters and know the truth of how things really are
perhaps they would stop that they are hurting
everyone else involved. The point I wish to get
across is for all the inmates to get rid of the b/s
about "white" oppressors, stop whining about how
badly they have it and start channeling their
energies toward what is important to them, their
families and their children and their children's
children.
THINK! JOIN! BUILD! EXPAND! RECRUIT! Let people
know what communism is about! It is not about
racism, bigotry, black, white, or green polkadots!
It is about us making changes for the better. It is
about revolution! It is about justice for the
working man. And when you get out of prisoner DO
NOT RETURN TO THE LIFE OF CRIME!!! Do something
constructive for the cause!!
In the struggle (for forty years),
--A Texas Prisoner, 18 February 1997
MIM RESPONDS: We agree with this prisoner that
people should not just complain about the problems
in the world, they should organize and work to
change it. But it is important that we organize in
the most effective way possible. And to do this, we
must carefully analyze who are our enemies and who
are our friends. MIM believes that Mao was right to
focus on the contradiction between imperialism and
the oppressed nations as the principal
contradiction in the world at this time. And we see
the same principal contradiction within US borders.
As a results, it is important to talk about
differences between nations because different
nations have different relationships to (and
against) imperialism.
If we do not carefully analyze who are our friends
and who are our enemies, which groups have
interests in revolution, and what is the most
effective way to fight imperialism, we will end up
fighting losing battles. We owe it to the oppressed
of the world to do better. If this prisoner, or
anyone else is interested, we offer MIM Theory #1
and #10 as thorough analysis of the white working
class in this country, demonstrating the group's
alliance with imperialism as a result of the
benefits it receives from this system. Such
analysis proves that in fact the white nation is on
the side of the enemy.
As far as the charge that some of the articles
printed in MN about prison conditions are b/s, we
can only respond that we have many comrades behind
bars, and within prisons there are usually more
than one MN reader. We count on our readers to
correct any incorrect information printed in MN but
we don't find blanket charges of b/s useful. If you
have specific criticisms of individual articles, we
welcome hearing your evidence that they were
incorrect.
CORRECTION:
The letter and response in the May 1st issue of MIM
Notes (#137, p. 2) stated that psychologist Sigmund
Freud denied the existence of child abuse. This is
factually incorrect. Freud pioneered the study of
childhood sexual experience, and most psychiatrists
working with theories regarding sexual history or
motivation come from the Freudian school of
thought. Before Freud there was no emphasis on
traumatic childhood experience in psychology,
contrary to the letter-writer's claims.
Knowingly or not, the letter-writer put forward an
ultra-Freudian line. When we say people are used to
being deceived and deceiving all the time, Freud
would say we are "repressing." So the letter-writer
and Freud are in agreement and defend psychiatry
along close to identical lines.
The article which the letter-writer was criticizing
("Amerikans: A People on Psychological Drugs
Rotting Their Minds," MN134) attacked the
psychology industry for supporting national
oppression by legitimizing suggested testimony in
the name of Freudian "de-repression" theory.
* * *
SJ MERCURY NEWS EDITOR WEASELS OUT OF CIA CRITICISM
by MC45
In a predictable display of the lengths to which
the bourgeoisie will go to discredit honest
exposure of its corrupt and violent practices, the
Editor-in-Chief of the San Jose Mercury News has
printed an editorial casting doubt on its expose of
the CIA's drug trafficking in the Black nation. MIM
is not surprised by this action, which is an
excellent demonstration of our reason for
independent publishing.
MIM consistently argues, as Lenin and Mao did, that
a newspaper is one of the most important organizing
tools at the Party's disposal and must be
controlled by the proletarian line. A newspaper is
our means of getting out news and analysis to the
masses in an honest and widespread way. But to do
its job, MIM Notes cannot bow interests other than
those of the international proletariat. Because our
job is to serve the proletariat, we must
consistently expose and criticize the bourgeoisie
and all its repressive apparatus. The SJ Mercury
News has now given us another lesson in the
impossibility of doing this important work under
the directorship of the bourgeoisie.
Last August, the California newspaper had run a
series of articles about the U.S. Central
Intelligence Agency's practice of importing drugs
and selling them in Black neighborhoods like South
Central Los Angeles to fund Amerika's wars against
social democratic governments in Latin America. Now
the SJ Mercury News has cast doubt on the series.
While admitting that the series was accurate in
reporting connections between CIA-paid drug
traffickers and the contras in Nicaragua, the
paper's editorial stated that the Mercury News had
no proof that high-level CIA officials were
involved in this corrupt activity or that they were
aware of it.
The SJ Mercury News reporter who wrote the series
has told the New York Times that he has had follow-
up stories submitted to his editors for months but
that none of these stories have gone anywhere. He
has also said that he is almost ready to ask the
paper for permission to print his articles
someplace other than the SJ Mercury News. Printing
in an independent newspaper is the only way to
ensure that the truth about the bourgeoisie and its
army and government will be exposed. Look for the
history of the series in MIM Notes 124 and a more
detailed article on our criticism of the editor-in-
chief's vacuous statement and the history of CIA
penetration of the media in the next issue of MIM
Notes.
SOURCE: New York Times 13 May 1997.
* * *
RALLYISTS DENOUNCE U.S.-RAMOS REGIME
LOS ANGELES, May 6 and 7 -- Over 50 people
protested at the LA Conventions Center where
Philippine President General Fidel Ramos was
promoting his economic liberalization plans and
facilitating deeper imperialist penetration into
the Philippines. Protesters carried banners
denouncing Ramos for pimping and selling the people
of the Philippines and their resources. They also
chanted anti-imperialist and anti-feudal slogans.
Ramos was head of the Philippine Constabulary under
the Marcos Dictatorship and implemented the U.$.-
designed total war policy during the Aquino regime.
Assassinations, indiscriminate bombings of
villages, forced relocations, and other violent
abuses have increased under his presidency. He
claims that "Philippines 2000" will help
industrialize the country, but in reality it simply
encourages the exploitation of the Philippines'
natural resources while keeping the Philippine
economy backward and un-industrialized. What
industrial development "Philippines 2000" does
attract will certainly not serve the Filipino
people.
BAYAN (New Patriotic Alliance) International USA
and several other organizations distributed the
following statement at the rally:
"President General Fidel Ramos [...] has come to LA
as part of a series of junkets to pimp the
Philippine economy and patrimony of the nation.
General Ramos, a genuine and hardcore Amboy
(American Boy) who graduated from West Point, must
prove once again his servility to foreign interests
particularly that of his US masters...
"[Ramos'] policies concocted to satiate the
economic interests of the imperialists only mean
one thing: more oppression and severe exploitation
of the broad masses of the Filipino people. This
further aggravates the landlessness of the
peasantry, massive unemployment and more
exploitative labor practices by the capitalists,
displacement of indigenous peoples, environmental
degradation and plunder of natural resources,
massive human rights violations, and strangulation
of the rights of the Filipino people by the US-
Ramos regime. This means all out war against the
Filipino people! This also means the right of the
people to defend themselves by all means
necessary...
"BAYAN Int'l USA, with support from allied
organizations and individuals in the US, condemns
General Ramos and his ilk in their treacherous
selling of the Philippines.
"BAYAN Int'l USA stands together with the Filipino
people's demand for genuine agrarian reform and
national industrialization. Together with the broad
masses of the Filipino people, BAYN Int'l USA
struggles for genuine freedom, justice, and
democracy in the Philippines and an end to foreign
domination and control."
MIM also condemns Amerikan imperialism for its
brutal exploitation of the Filipino people and its
bloody proxy war against them.
The national democratic movement in the Philippines
believes that the three main enemies of the people
of the Philippines are imperialism, bureaucrat
capitalism, and feudalism. It struggles for genuine
land reform, genuine national industrialization,
and self-determination for the Filipino people.
MIM aids the national democratic movement of the
Philippines by building public opinion for Filipino
self-determination and against u.s. imperialism.
Ultimately, the most effective blow MIM can land
for the emancipation of the Filipino people, as
well as all peoples oppressed by u.s. imperialism,
is to lead the masses in building anti-imperialist
revolution here within u.s. borders. Towards that
end, MIM politically educates the masses and
develops people's organizations like RAIL and the
People's Internationalist Rear-Area Organization.
NOTES: Support the National Democratic Front of the
Philippines, a RAIL Pamphlet, available for $1.
* * *
THEY CALL IT A TAKEOVER:
HONG KONG REUNIFICATION A PARODY AT BEST
by MC45
The reunification of Hong Kong with mainland China,
scheduled for July 1, will be the union of two
capitalist countries and economies -- one private
capitalist and one state-capitalist. For Maoists
everywhere, this union of two capitalist economies
is the principal aspect of England's scheduled July
1 departure from its settlement in Hong Kong, when
Hong Kong will become part of revisionist China.
MIM calls July 1 the date of reunification with our
tongues slightly in cheek. While we never uphold a
Western capitalist government's claim to one of its
colonies, we know that this union cannot bring joy
to the hearts of the international proletariat
because it is the joining of two exploitative
regimes -- a parody of the proletarian struggle for
national liberation and self-determination.
At the same time as we point out how empty this
reunion is for the Chinese masses, it is our duty
to remind the world that in principle national
reunification and self-determination are correct
goals in the era of imperialism, when the
international bourgeoisie attempts to split the
proletariat and the oppressed nations for the
purposes of capital. We cannot let the bankruptcy
of revisionist China's agenda blind us to the
importance of national reunification for the
peoples of Korea, Ireland, Mexico, and every place
else where imperialism has attempted to break
national unity.
On July 1, Hong Kong will become a Special
Administrative Region (SAR), a semi-autonomous
region of China.(1) Part of the reason for Hong
Kong remaining separate from the rest of China, in
what is being called the "one nation, two systems"
policy,(2) is its Western-style capitalist economy.
Hong Kong is quite wealthy and the state-capitalist
Chinese government wants to take part in that
wealth and not interfere with it.
International capital's penetration into Hong Kong
will not be touched when China takes over
administration, so the international proletariat
will continue to suffer superexploitation.
Proximity with and relations with China are a big
selling point for Hong Kong industry. The Tak Shing
Manufactory (a branch of an English company) brags:
"as our plastic toys are produced in China with the
best quality control system under our Hong Kong
management, our products feature both high quality
& competitive prices."(3) This is only a polite way
of saying that the Chinese government allows
foreign companies to come into China and pay
superexploitation wages to the Chinese proletariat,
but that it takes the wealthy Hong Kong
businesspeople to assure good quality products.
At a recent meeting of the Asian Development Bank
(ADB), China's central bank governor and the head
of the Monetary Authority of Hong Kong appeared
together to assure international capital that Hong
Kong would maintain its own currency and monetary
system, and that Hong Kong's foreign currency
reserves would not be used to balance out the
Chinese and Hong Kong economies. Japan, long-time
oppressor of China and many Asian-Pacific
countries, is the single biggest investor in Hong
Kong(2)
This is why MIM says this transfer of Hong Kong
from the English empire to China is a parody of
national self- determination. In 1949, and in the
revolutionary period leading up to China's
socialist revolution, the Chinese people chose
overwhelmingly to push China's economy beyond the
limits of capitalism by establishing socialism. Now
and since 1976 the Chinese regime is mocking the
benefits of state ownership of the means of
production by focusing on the profit motive and
ignoring the importance of production for social
good.
Now in 1997, the Chinese regime is taking in a
semi- autonomous region whose currency trading
rates will be attached to the U.$. dollar.(2) This
is a deeply anti-socialist program to have any part
of a country's economy tied to the largest
imperialist economy on the planet.
MIM looks forward to the day when the Chinese
masses will rise up again and show the imperialists
and their running dogs that they have well learned
the lessons of China's 27 year socialist history.
Each desperate maneuver of the international
bourgeoisie only brings its inevitable demise
closer. In the end, the international proletariat
will be victorious.
NOTES:
1. Reuters 5 May, 1997.
2. Hong Kong Standard 12 May, 1997.
Found at:
http://www.hkstandard.com/online/finance/001/hksfin
.htm
3. Tak Shing Manufactory website.
http://k.com.hk/takshing/
* * *
BRUTUS RALLIES STUDENTS:
DEBUNKS MYTH OF PEACEFUL REVOLUTION IN SOUTH AFRICA
The first week in May, Dennis Brutus gave a number
of talks in Massachusetts hosted by MIM and RAIL.
Many of the talks focused on prisons in Amerika.
Brutus made connections to the use of prisons as
social control in South Africa during apartheid.
The talks led to questions about the current
situation in South Africa in which the government
continues to work against the interests of the
oppressed masses.
Brutus is a well known South African poet and
activist exiled by the South African apartheid
government after serving 18 months on Robben Island
with Nelson Mandela. Active in the fight to end
apartheid in South Africa, he was the primary
organizer behind South Africa's exclusion from the
1972 Olympics.
Brutus discussed the important point of the power
of student organizing in the United Snakes when he
spoke at the universities. Divestment struggles in
the u.s. began on university campuses and succeeded
in getting 150 universities to divest. Brutus
considers this student struggle in the u.s. to be
the most important external factor in the struggle
against apartheid. It was these student struggles
that triggered churches, community organizations,
Black organizations and others to get involved in
the anti-apartheid fight.
Brutus put this in the context of students getting
involved in anti-imperialist organizing today.
Emphasizing the potential power students can wield,
he staid that too many underestimate the capacity
of students to make change.
On the current situation in South Africa, Brutus
said that the Government of National Unity(GNU) --
created with Mandela as president and DeClerk as
second in command -- is far from a government that
represents the interests of the people. When
Mandela came to power in presidential elections,
many believed this was truly a peaceful revolution
that would bring justice and equality to South
Africa. Brutus said that it is important not to kid
yourself about there having been a revolution when
there really was not.
The retreats from the not-so-radical positions of
the ANC Freedom Charter have been clear. First, the
Freedom Charter was dropped in favor of the
Reconstruction and Development Program(RDP). The
RDP is a retreat from nationalization demands and
was made in the pragmatist interest of keeping
support of foreign investors. And now even the RDP
has been abandoned in favor of the Growth,
Employment and Reconstruction Program(GEAR), an
even milder program.
One result of the programs which kowtow to foreign
capitalist interest is the growing problem of
homelessness. Mandela has failed to deliver on the
promised 1 million houses for the homeless, instead
so far providing less than 100,000. And the white
property owners made rich through apartheid have
retained their wealth stolen from the Black and
oppressed masses.
Another blatant sign that the South African
government is not working in the interests of the
oppressed masses is its moves towards accepting
loans from the IMF and World Bank. Brutus explained
at length that these institutions, which he
considers the most powerful and important in the
world, only grant loans with conditionalities. The
requirements for loans allow the u.s.-controlled
IMF/WB to determine the economic and political
agenda of the country. Brutus pointed out that the
government of South Africa tries to placate
corporations and foreign investors and as a result
has retreated on helping the people, the homeless,
jobless and workers.
One conditions of these loans is the requirement
that there be no minimum wage. Another is the
guarantee by the receiving government that there be
no labor unrest or demands for increased wages.
These conditions allow corporations to maximize
profits and lower production costs. In South Africa
they also demand privatization of all state owned
companies including an agreement to sell the
electricity system and telecom system. South
African Airways is currently a state owned company
which produces revenue for the government: by
forcing privatization, the World Bank forces the
government into greater dependency on these loans.
The results of World Bank loans are devastating. Of
the 35 African countries that have taken World Bank
loans, 33 are bankrupt. In Zambia, the government
is paying 30% of the GNP on interest on their loan
and they are not even touching the capital. In
spite of the conditionalities, Tabo Mbeki, the man
most likely to succeed Mandela, has said he would
sign a World Bank loan and does not understand why
the government is currently hesitating to agree to
the conditionalities.
Although Mandela has not yet agreed to the World
Bank loans, Brutus pointed out his role in the
ANC's move away from the demands for the people.
Negotiating with the government from within prison,
Mandela did not consult with the ANC and accepted
many concessions. Once the concessions were worked
out, Mandela just announced them to the ANC rather
than allowing the mass membership and other leaders
to have a voice in the process.
Another clear sign that there has been little
change in South Africa is the amnesty being granted
to those who have committed grave crimes against
the people. Men in the police force boast of having
killed Steven Biko. Other murderers from the
apartheid regime have been welcomed into the
military. 200,000 white civil servants kept their
jobs for life post-apartheid -- the same sweet deal
these whites enjoyed under apartheid. While many
pro-apartheid forces repeatedly said that they did
nothing that was wrong and refused to admit their
crimes in front of the Truth Commission, many anti-
apartheid activists were pushed into admitting the
alleged crimes they committed against the apartheid
regime and into admitting that armed struggle to
defend the interests of the masses was a crime. And
meanwhile many Blacks are still jobless.
The economy in South African is in bad shape and is
getting worse for all except the rich. As Brutus
said, the struggle for freedom and social justice
does not end. Workers in the South Africa Airways
have marched to protest privatization and others
have protested against the World Bank, but it
appears likely that the people will not be
successful in preventing the World Bank from
sinking its deadly claws into the country within
the current government.
Following Mandela's election in 1994, we wrote,
"Economically, the ANC promises on the one hand
that little will change - international trade,
foreign investment, open markets, and so on - but
on the other hand the ANC promises increases in
social welfare, such as school, sewage and
hospitals." The current material conditions of the
Azanian people show that such plans and promises
only benefit the interests of the imperialists and
their lackeys. True liberation from the neo-
apartheid system in South Africa, from poverty and
from imperialist and settler plundering will only
come with the successful revolutionary struggle for
national liberation. Activists here in the u.s.
need to work with MIM, RAIL and the PIRAO to expose
u.s. imperialism against the Azanian people and
support genuine revolutionary struggle, not fake
lackey of imperialism.
* * *
DEMAND FREEDOM FOR IRISH ACTIVIST
Roisin McAliskey is a 25 year old activist from
northern Ireland active in the struggle for Irish
freedom. In November 1996, she was arrested without
explanation by the Royal Ulster Constabulary in her
home town. After five days of interrogation (from
8am to 1am every day) she was flown to London and
informed that a warrant had been filed seeking her
extradition to Germany. She has been held for six
months without charge, repeatedly denied bail, and
subject to barbaric conditions in prison for her
refusal to give up her legal rights and personal
dignity.
In British occupied Ireland, the British
authorities exercise the Emergency Powers Act which
denies citizens their right to habeas corpus when
they want an excuse for political repression.
Britain has exercised this power in Ireland for 75
years and special powers also exist under the
Prevention of Terrorism Act, first passed in 1973
and renewed every year since. This act allows
individuals suspected of terrorism to be detained
and interrogated for up to seven days.(1)
By the time this article is printed, Roisin will
likely have given birth. She is malnourished and
suffering from serious medical problems and in this
late stage of her pregnancy she can not walk and is
confined to a wheelchair. She is under permanent
lockdown in solitary confinement, her mail is
censored, and she is repeatedly subject to strip
searches. She has never been charged with any crime
in Ireland or Britain.
German authorities are demanding Roisin be
extradited to Germany for questioning in an attack
on a British army base there. Four weeks ago, on
national television in Germany, the only witness
named in the warrant denied that he had ever
identified Roisin McAliskey as the womyn who had
rented a cottage from him. He could not pick out
her photograph. German police have also changed
their story on the only physical evidence they
have.
Roisin's hearing was scheduled for May 6 but she
was too ill to attend and the hearing was
postponed.(2) Protests around the world have
demanded freedom and justice for Roisin. This case
is very tied up in the demand for freedom for
Ireland. Slogans common at demonstrations for
Roisin include "Brits out of Ireland, free Roisin"
and other variations on this theme. This is a
progressive way to link national liberation
struggles with prisoner struggles. Prison struggles
such as this one help to expose imperialism and it
is important to expand our demands beyond the
freedom of just one prisoner, even while we are
fighting an individual case. MIM joins the call for
Roisin McAliskey's release and the dropping of all
charges against her while recognizing that this
case of repression is a part of the larger struggle
for self-determination for Ireland, a struggle in
which the British government will use all means of
political repression to silence the people.
NOTES:
1. The Village Voice, 6 May 1997.
2. The Irish Times, 7 May 1997. P.4.
* * *
RED CROSS PROVES STALIN CORRECT IN ANTI-NAZI WAR
Recently released International Red Cross documents
from World War II vindicate J.V. Stalin, the leader
of the Soviet Union from 1924-1953, for his
military actions in Eastern Europe in World War II.
Thanks to widespread whitewashing of fascism by
imperialist media and education organs, many
believe only Germans and maybe Italians and
Japanese were fascists during World War II. Many
countries conveniently overlook their own history
and the enemies of socialism assist them in order
to shield fascism from criticism.
The Red Cross documents, now released 50 years
after they were written, show that more than
100,000 Jews died in Romanian death camps taken
from the territory of the Soviet Union.(1) Romanian
troops joined the 1941 invasion of the Soviet Union
on the German side. They obtained Soviet land for
Romania in 1941, including a camp called
Transnistria.
Stalin split Poland with Hitler in World War II but
was unable to seize all of Poland and Romania. Now
we can see that the crypto-fascists were wrong to
criticize Stalin for his aggressiveness in Poland.
In contrast, MIM has said that we wish "Stalin
could have gone further and could have stopped what
happened in Romania. More anti-fascist lives would
have been spared if Stalin had done to Romania what
he did in his own country and in Poland."(2) The
Red Cross documents show why MIM was more correct
than it could know.
"Transnistria was a holding place for local
Ukrainian Jews and for Romanian Jews who survived
massacres by Romanian soldiers that killed 160,000
in 1941-1942."(1) Another figure says that over
100,000 died of starvation, cold and typhus in the
death camps between 1941 and 1943. Some Jewish
orphans only survived because the Soviet Union
claimed them as their citizens.
With the forward march of the Soviet army, the
favors the old oppressors did for the Jews
increased drastically. In December, 1943 when
Stalin had already turned the war to the advantage
of the anti-fascists and it was clear Romania
needed to buy favorable standing with the Soviet
Union and its allies, Romania started to allow
inspections of the camp. But Romania only withdrew
from the war completely in August, 1944 -- after
the Soviet Union had made its coming victory of
1945 apparent.
After World War II, the Soviet Union occupied both
Poland and Romania temporarily and set their
foreign policies. MIM believes both these countries
got what they deserved. National integrity cannot
be respected in the presence of Nazism and
genocide. Although some Polish and Romanians
resisted Nazi rule, the internationalist minority
understands why Stalin did what he did in Poland
and Romania during and after World War II.
NOTES:
1. USA Today 5May97, pp. d1, d2.
2. MIM Theory 6, pp. 36-7.
* * *
IMPERIALISTS ADMIT COLLABORATION WITH NAZI GERMANY
A 200-page Clinton administration report being
called "'a moral milestone in modern American
history'" explicitly admits that the Cold War was
an excuse for the U.$. government to paper over
Nazi injustices perpetrated during World War II.(1)
Over $60 million in gold remain in Amerikan,
English and French hands because the Western
imperialists were too busy propagandizing against
the Soviet Union to return the gold to the Jews
from whom it had been stolen, some of whom lived in
the Soviet Union.
The U.S. government report required 11 agencies and
15 million pages of documents.(1) For MIM, this
admission of a cover-up raises the question: how
many government agencies and pages of text will it
take to find out what else the imperialists have
covered up to keep from giving J.V. Stalin and the
socialist Soviet Union (1917-1953) their due? How
many are owed reparations for their suffering at
fascist hands during World War Two, and when will
the Western imperialists admit to their lack of
vigilance in these matters? We raise this question
to people with Socialist sympathies everywhere:
where have you gotten your information on the Big
Bad Stalin and what do you think of this new
admission? What do you think of your sources now
that some of their motivations for making Stalin
look bad have a dollar figure attached?
We only hear the truth now because the Soviet
social-imperialist bloc (1957-1991) has collapsed
and the Klinton administration wants to spread
Amerikan power everywhere, including the vaunted
secrecy of Swiss bank accounts. In recent years,
U.$. imperialists have broken up some of the
secrecy of Swiss accounts to check for political
activity deemed unfriendly to Amerika. By
embarrassing the Swiss for holding Nazi gold
originally stolen from Jews, the U.$. imperialists
aim to show that Amerikan power reaches everywhere
and there will be no business that the U.$.
Government does not know about.
But even in this climate of exposure, some u.s.
bourgeois media have been careful not to accuse any
imperialist country of knowingly stockpiling
plunder from concentration camp victims. An NPR
report said that while the Swiss bankers clearly
knew that gold they were accepting was plunder from
the Nazi war, it was unclear that this gold had
come from the Nazis' victims.(3) MIM asks: what's
the difference? Why is it better to steal money
from a country you invade for the purpose of
plundering its resources and either murdering or
assimilating its people than to steal money from
the people you murder in that country?
This is exactly the kind of hairsplitting that
distracts liberals from the important questions of
who is a fascist, who is not, and who is
objectively opposed to fascism. By talking as if
the fascist war on Europe, Asia and Africa were
somehow benign but for the concentration camps and
the Nazi genocidal program, the liberals obscure
the dangers of placating fascism, and attempt to
confuse the masses into thinking that in the
absence of death camps, there is no need to worry.
This confused approach comes with the added benefit
to the liberal mindset of being able to both sound
good criticizing fascism, while still avoiding the
responsibility of taking up genuine opposition --
like supporting Stalin's successful anti-fascist
war.
It turns out that American Jewish groups also were
too busy being Amerikan to ensure that gold from
Western vaults would be returned to Soviet Jews.
Only now do they attack the German government for
giving Nazi Waffen S.S. officers pensions while
Russian Jews have received no compensation. The
German Government has replied swiftly and
affirmatively to the demands of the American Jewish
Committee.(2)
Commenting on the July 15, 1994 New York Times MIM
wrote:
"Decades of fighting the Cold War against the
Soviet Union under the guise of anti-communism are
now bearing ample fruit -- strong fascist movements
in Eastern Europe and a fascist government elected
in Italy in March. For 50 years, the U.S.-
imperialist bloc governments and media glorified
every little nationalist noise out of Eastern
Europe in an effort to run down the Soviet Union,
first as a socialist country and then as a
contending imperialist. Now that the competitive
threat from the Soviet Union is much receded, we
see the cracks in the motley coalition the
imperialists put together in Italy -- the Church,
the Mafia, the Christian Democratic Party and the
so-called Socialist Party.
"The U.S. bloc had to cover up and distort every
progressive legacy of the Soviet Union during World
War II, which even Clinton says shaped this entire
century. As a result, fascist movements and fascist
histories were whitewashed, because the communists
did the most to crush the fascists in World War
II."
Anyone with a minimal knowledge of Communist theory
or of Twentieth Century history, and now anyone who
picks up a copy of USA Today, knows that Communists
-- not liberal democrats -- are the real anti-
fascists. The history of World War II and the Cold
War shows us that the genuine Communists were the
only activists around with the political line to
prioritize the anti-fascist war. The western
imperialist bourgeoisie was too busy fighting
Communism to stop the fascists, while the
Trotskyists, anarchists, pacifists and everyone
else failed to show up for the struggle. MIM Notes
urges its readers to investigate this history,
learn more about us, and work with RAIL and MIM to
protect the future from fascism and imperialism.
NOTES:
1. USA Today 8May97, p. 1.
2. AP in Boston Globe 8May97, p. a23.
3. All Things Considered, National Public Radio 7
May, 1997.
* * *
MIM FORMS PEOPLE'S INTERNATIONALIST REAR AREA
ORGANIZATION
The 1997 Congress of MIM decided to form a
revolutionary army -- the People's Internationalist
Rear Area Organization (PIRAO). What follows is a
description of that new organization.
I. TASKS AND GOALS OF THE PIRAO
The PIRAO is the rear area support organization of
the Maoist armed struggle. As in any rear area, the
tasks of the PIRAO do not involve weapons. Instead,
the PIRAO proudly takes up the mundane tasks that
need to be carried out for the fight at the
proletarian front in the semi-feudal and semi-
colonial countries throughout the world. The PIRAO
will substitute its labor for the blood sacrificed
by our comrades in Peru, the Philippines, Turkey,
Azania etc.
The PIRAO will be unarmed and will in fact struggle
with people in the imperialist countries to take up
their proper role at this stage of struggle. A
well-known military metaphor is "peeling potatoes."
We are the potato-peelers of the revolution. There
will be those who laugh at us, and some will say
our tasks are incompatible with revolution, but in
any army there is mundane work to be done under
great discipline, so we say let them laugh. The
more tedious tasks we accomplish, the more our
comrades at the front will have time to accomplish
the glorious tasks of armed struggle.
In front-line armies, much time is spent in the
barracks and preparing for war. Not every day is a
day of decisive battle. Likewise, in the rear area
the pace of action will depend on the support the
army receives and the capabilities of its members.
We aim to build an army of people with long-run
goals, vision and discipline, people willing to do
the equivalent of push-ups and potato-peeling to be
ready. The goal of the army is to speed up victory,
not bring fast and easy glory.
At the front, the leading means of obtaining
weapons is through armed struggle -- seizure of
arms of defeated enemies. In the imperialist
countries, we cannot utilize such methods
appropriately. What we obtain -- books, medical
supplies, computers and other concrete aid -- can
be usually obtained with money. A key element of
the army will be systematic financial work. Other
elements will include intelligence, technical aid
and medical advice.
II. SOCIAL BASIS OF THE PIRAO
We of the army led by the Maoist party of the
English-speaking imperialist countries -- MIM --
will say bluntly to our recruits: "it is not our
turn yet for armed struggle." We follow the
teachings of Mao who said that the people have
nothing if they have no army. Mao also said that
the imperialist country communists must engage in
"long, legal struggle -- not armed struggles." We
must realize that that means we behind enemy lines
have nothing ourselves yet, but we can support the
armed struggle of the semi-colonies external to the
imperialist countries in Asia, Latin America and
Africa.
We say bluntly to the Black, Latino and Asian-
descended peoples of the imperialist countries:
"it is not your turn yet; instead seek to hasten
the blows of the oppressed peoples of the Third
World: take up your tasks in the rear area and do
not seek armed battles until the imperialists are
really helpless as Mao said we should do where the
imperialists have their modern transport and
communications ready for battle on their own turf."
The small neighborhoods where armed struggle can be
carried out successfully are the exceptions at this
time, as is the case of the righteous armed
struggle of the people that occurred during the Los
Angeles rebellion after the Rodney King verdict.
Even in those circumstances where armed struggle
does break out spontaneously and successfully our
task is to guide it into more organized unarmed
forms. The tendency of those involved in armed
struggle at this time in the English-speaking
imperialist countries is to degenerate without
sustained work. It can be much like taking drugs --
a momentary thrill unattached to a real political
plan. It is mainly the fault of the middle-class
intellectuals for isolating the truly oppressed
that such struggles do break out and secondarily it
is the fault of the lumpenproletariat and other
angry oppressed peoples for not seeking out more
systematic forms of struggle.
We say to the First Nations: where you have
overwhelming support of your peoples for the
defense of your borders, we support your ongoing
armed struggle. It is time to utilize the Maoist
party idea to fight imperialism, because the white
man understands nothing but the gun and because you
must communicate with your allies in an
internationalist and coordinated way. It is no
longer true to say that all Indians are equal in
their political understanding. The influence of the
white man and imperialist parasitism infects even
the First Nations. Even on the national
territories, there are those considering leaving
and taking up complete assimilation and
capitulation. Those who are most advanced in their
ideas about First Nation liberation must form the
vanguard party. This has become a universal
necessity because of the class system that the
white man has imposed on the whole world. True, in
the old society of communism in the First Nations,
the vanguard party was not necessary to live
communist life. Now the vanguard party is necessary
to lead the struggle back to communist life which
the world knows about thanks to the First Nations.
To the lumpenproletariat, we say, if you are
willing to sacrifice your lives in a shoot-out or
go to prison, why aren't you willing to spend 60
hours a week for the revolution? We will help you
to gain middle-class camouflage. If you are already
in prison, you must help to keep people out of
prison by getting out the word on MIM and the army.
To the students and petty-bourgeois intellectuals
we say, if the people are dying in the Third World
and going to prison in record numbers in the
imperialist countries, why are you advocating
compromise and "toning it down?" Why are you not
linking up with the oppressed and doing the work of
militant creation of public opinion to tap the
energies of the peoples already so angry with the
system but improperly channeled into crime and gang
violence amongst the oppressed?
III. TYPES OF ARMY MEMBERS
A. IRREGULARS
Irregulars are the most basic elements of the armed
force, because they are most like the people
themselves. We will count them as part of the army;
even though they usually are not counted as such in
the Third World.
In the imperialist countries, an irregular is
someone who lends timely aid to the struggle in
passing, for the instance.
B. INFANTRY: SYSTEMATIC FASHION
A member of the infantry is someone who does
sustained work on concrete tasks. An irregular may
come up with a stash of books, a thousand dollars
or medical supplies. The infantry member scours the
earth regularly for such items and figures out how
to obtain them legally.
The infantry dedicates more time to preparation
work than the irregular. The infantry member does
not regard such preparation work as a 'waste of
time.' Rather the infantry is thankful not to
sacrifice blood in taking small but persistent
risks that a certain percentage of the time will
lead to victories. The infantry works hard without
instant gratification. The knowledge that numerous
small victories obtained without shedding a drop of
blood add up to big victories sustains the
infantry. The infantry member also realizes that
his or her example may inspire countless others to
carry out similar tasks and lead to the inevitable
downfall of imperialism.
C. COMMISSIONED OFFICERS: FULL-TIME
Commissioned officers combine the planned and
professional aspect of the infantry with one
difference. The officer has arranged his or her
material life so that it is possible to work full-
time for the revolutionary army. The officer will
tend to be the main organizer of the irregulars.
IV. DISTINCTIONS AMONGST ORGANIZATIONAL TYPES:
RAIL, MSG, PIRAO, MIM
The question arises, how does the army differ from
other organizations of the oppressed, such as MIM,
MSG and RAIL?
Army leaders must be party members, but most army
members will not be party members. It is extremely
difficult to get into the party. Army recruits need
not wait at all before they begin their work as
army members. The army will serve as a recruiting
ground for the party.
MSG is for people with worked out differences with
the party who are nonetheless close to the party.
The members will tend to be intellectuals and may
believe that vanguard parties, MIM in particular or
just MIM's leadership is overrated. In contrast,
army members don't make a big deal of their
differences with the party if any. Army members
have less trouble with the concept of discipline
and concrete action. Army members tend to think the
ideas of MIM are the most correct or plenty close
enough to being correct and the leadership of the
party is if anything underrated, so there is no
problem with proceeding to concrete action under
the leadership of the existing MIM line.
RAIL members acknowledge party leadership like the
army, but RAIL members are under limited
obligations of discipline and they focus their work
on building public opinion. The army's work is the
furthest removed from building public opinion. As a
natural consequence, in the army, there is less
focus on arguing over line and winning public
debates. Army members may be quiet but decisive
actors.
The army will have its share of right opportunists
who simply avoid political struggle, but it will
also have its share of people who simply don't like
working with the intellectuals necessary for
building public opinion on a continuous basis. The
army's work will support the work of those building
public opinion and the army will defend the party,
but its main task will be concrete and logistical
support to building the independence and material
presence of the institutions of the oppressed. To
carry out this task effectively it is absolutely
essential that the army member accept the
leadership of the party. The army member will be
content to carry out action and will not demand
constant political struggle and explanation. The
pride of the army is that it will carry out actions
more quickly than any other organization and with
less talk. At the same time, the army member will
realize that no pace of action is ever fast enough
for the genuine revolutionary.
There will be less emphasis on learning from
discussion and more emphasis on learning from years
of concrete activity. Every legitimate
revolutionary is impatient with the pace of action
here in the imperialist countries. We must not
become so impatient as to lose our heads or burn-
out. One way to do that is to follow a leader who
will keep us in check. The army member understands
that the party may not be able to lead fast enough
for anyone's likings including the party's, but the
more people there are willing to follow leadership
without question, the less time is spent bogged
down in political details.
Relative to other organizations, there is less
emphasis on all-pervasive study in the army;
although all organizations of the oppressed require
some level of political struggle. Army members will
be able to follow directives of the head of the
army quickly and without question, by focusing on
an area of concrete agreement if necessary before
joining the army. The party leader of the army will
be the final decision-maker and there will be no
jostling for leadership or political votes for
leadership. The army's leader will certainly
consult with the irregulars, infantry and officers,
but the army member can be assured that such will
be cut to the barebones minimum.
It will be the head of the army's decision whether
or not someone is working within army discipline or
should be in another organization or no
organization of the oppressed at all.
The PIRAO is especially organized for the many
people ready to recognize MIM leadership and stop
wasting time in political debate. They have made up
their minds in the short-run and they seek to do
concrete work with less emphasis on building public
opinion and more emphasis on building independent
institutions of the oppressed. Some people
concentrate on writing books and struggling over
the content; in a nutshell, the army will focus on
getting the money to print the books and then the
means to lug them around -- concrete needs.
Material aid to Third World immigrants and exiles
will be included. Internationalist material aid is
the most important.
People may belong to both RAIL and the army, but
while carrying out army functions, they will follow
army procedures. MSG members will not be allowed in
the army.
The army is inconceivable without an already
established party leading the creation of public
opinion. Now that we have a core of people carrying
out the tasks of the party it is possible to form
the army to do supplemental work. Without a party
the first task would not be to form an army but to
engage in political struggle over the formation of
a line. Now that there is a Maoist line embodied in
the MIM party, there are further gains to be had in
concrete work. Army members will learn from
practice their personal capabilities for
contributing to the struggle at the front and
making a difference.
V. LEADERSHIP
The party guarantees to the army as in any Maoist
party that the lives of the army will not be
wasted. In our conditions that means the work of
the army will not be wasted. Instead, the party
leadership will go about maximizing the effect that
the army's work will have by gauging the conditions
of each member of the army and how that member may
best contribute to the struggle.
Not wasting the work of the army means that if
there are already enough potatoes peeled for
upcoming weeks and anymore peeled will just rot,
then the leadership should not ask for more
potatoes to be peeled. On the other hand, if our
comrades from the front might visit us for dinner,
then we better do some extra work.
The leadership should ask for work to be done,
including repetitive work when that work might
uncover significant gains for the proletariat.
There are important calculations in determining
when to continue pursuing certain work. The
leadership of the army will answer the question:
is this action worth it?
The party also guarantees to the army that the head
of the army will be empowered to handle all
political issues without ongoing interference in
daily affairs from the party that would bog down
the army. For example, whether a suggested means of
struggle is too politically impure to use, the
army's leader will be able to decide. The party
will in fact sanction the army leader's impure
methods from the beginning to make it clear that
learning from action will be paramount in this new
undertaking.
Without party leadership seasoned in effective
tactics and the proletarian line, the army member
would never learn how effective s/he could be in
practice. For this reason, the party takes very
seriously the job of appointing a leader to the
army. The leader of the army must have a proven
record of establishing new undertakings and finding
new methods of struggle against the bourgeoisie.
Furthermore, the head of the army must have
bourgeois training in at least one major field of
concrete endeavor -- business, finance, computers
or medical. The army's leader will be expected to
utilize bourgeois expertise while knowing when the
assumptions of bourgeois experts are not
appropriate for revolutionary struggle. This will
be known as being "both red and expert." For this
reason the army can have faith in its leader chosen
by the MIM Congress.
* * *
HOMES NOT JAILS TAKEOVER BUILDING
Homes Not Jails, Boston, held their third building
takeover this year on May 10 in the wealthy
neighborhood of Beacon Hill. 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. This time the building being occupied
was the former home of Charles Sumner, a member of
the U.S. Senate in the 1800s and an outspoken
abolitionist in the anti-slavery movement. Speakers
at the rally included Howard Zinn, author of A
Peoples History of the United States, who suggested
that Sumner would have wanted the people of Boston
to have his former home to help address the problem
of homelessness in a city with 23,000 empty housing
units, many boarded up and completely unused like
the one HNJ took over.
At this takeover six people were arrested, carried
out through the crowd of hundreds of mostly young
people shouting at the pigs. Unlike past takeovers,
this actions attracted the attention of a lot
mainstream media, with local TV stations and NPR
radio shows covering the takeover as a part of
their local news broadcasts.
The Homes Not Jails message about the
contradictions of capitalism that allows empty
housing units to exist in the face of 6,000
homeless people is important. And the connection to
prisons is particularly crucial as many of these
homeless people are former prisoners. But it will
take more than just dramatic building takeovers to
end the problems of homelessness and to fight the
criminal injustice system. This is why MIM builds
independent power of the oppressed through a
revolutionary party that will ultimately overthrow
capitalism and seize power for the people.
Actions that educate people and pressure the
government are an important part of this work, but
without the context of an organization that is
fighting imperialism systematically drawing
connections between homelessness, prisons,
militarism and imperialism, we will never be able
to take on this system. Everyone serious about
overthrowing imperialism needs to be arrogant
enough to fight both local, continental and
international battles. Work with MIM and RAIL to
end homelessness and end imperialism.
* * *
LATINO ANTI-IMPERIALIST MAY DAY CELEBRATION
MIM attended a May Day celebration in East Boston
hosted by Latinos y Latinas Por el Cambio Social
(Latinos for Social Change), an anti- imperialist
organization of Latinos and Latinas organizing in
the Boston area. The event combined political and
cultural acts for a celebration of International
Workers Day that was both educational and
entertaining.
A speaker from the organization opened the event by
describing the history of May Day. May Day is
celebrated by the proletariat around the world but
largely ignored in this country which now has a
government created "Labor Day" on September 1st.
The speaker pointed out that the history of factory
workers in this country is one of immigrants and
that this situation has not changed: still the
immigrants are working the worst jobs and do not
enjoy the job security, 8 hour days, or benefits
that white workers have gained. This is an
important point to recognize because it speaks to
the differences between the different nations in
this country.
Latinos for Social Change does not go far enough
with its analysis of the working class in this
country. The speaker at the event slipped in a few
statements about the need for unity among the
working class (including whites in this country) in
spite of his overall excellent analysis of and
focus on the situation of Latino immigrants and the
connections to international imperialism.
Other speakers from UNITE, a union organization
that is working to organize Latinos in Boston who
are undocumented and faced with conditions often as
bad as those in Third World countries, echoed the
theme of the need for organizing these oppressed
and exploited workers. But again these speakers
called for unity with white workers rather than
recognizing that white workers in this country have
gained a position of privilege at the expense of
the international proletariat which pits their
interests against the interests of the proletariat,
including the Latino workers that UNITE is
organizing.
Songs were performed by Sergio Reyes, a well known
local Latino activist and performer. The politics
in the songs mirrored the general line of the
event: overall good anti-imperialist content but
an incorrect focus on uniting everyone regardless
of their political position. This came through most
clearly in his song commemorating the recent MRTA
take over of the Japanese embassy and the
subsequent massacre of the MRTA members by the
Peruvian government.
The song correctly pointed out that this massacre
was not a victory over terrorism but rather a
victory for state terrorism. But the chorus lumped
the MRTA, the Senderos, and the people together as
all forces fighting for progressive change without
making any distinctions between organizations or
their political lines. As has been reported in
recent issues of Maoist Sojourner, the MRTA has a
history of collaborating with the imperialist-
supporting government parties in Peru in between
its focoist attacks like this one on the embassy
which succeed in getting many people killed and
winning nothing for the people.
The focoist line and strategy have been proven a
failure while the Communist Party of Peru has
gained control of much territory and the support of
the people through its strategy of peoples war. It
is important that anti-imperialists take seriously
the need to study and analyze history and current
events rather than just lumping anyone calling
themselves leftist into the same camp. Some lines
and strategies are more effective than others and
we owe it to the international proletariat to take
up the ones that mean the fewest deaths and the
greatest victories, anything less is selling our
comrades short.
* * *
MORE MASSACHUSETTS TRANSFERS TO TEXAS
On April 28th the Massachusetts DOC shipped another
25 prisoners to Texas, this time driving them on a
bus the 1915 miles to Dallas County Jail. For this
trip the prisoners were provided with metal cages
within the bus.
This is the second time in two months that the Mass
DOC has sent a group of prisoners to Texas. The DOC
spokesperson said that these prisoners were being
sent by bus to save costs (the past two shipments
were sent by plane.) The DOC says that 25 other
inmates will be brought back to Massachusetts on
the return bus trip. They are planning an ongoing
revolving door in Dallas where inmates are sent
down and brought back regularly so that 300 are
maintained in Dallas.
This revolving door is something of an admission by
the DOC that these transfers to Texas are bad for
the prisoners and counter to any claims of
rehabilitation the prison system makes. But this
change in policy is not a victory for the
prisoners, it means that even more prisoners will
be forced to endure the terrible conditions and
long distance from family and friends in Dallas
County Jail. Ironically, the contract with Dallas
says that only "model prisoners" will be accepted.
Prisoners are being punished for behaving in
prison.
According to the DOC, it costs $42 a day to house a
prisoner in Texas, compared to $80 a day in
Massachusetts. If these cost savings are real, MIM
has to ask what exactly it is that costs less in
Texas. The Dallas facility does not offer any
educational services. Men there are kept in "tanks"
with up to 28 other men, lights are left on 24
hours a day, and prisoners leave their cells for
only one hour a day. This kind of prisons for
profit are really just torture units destroying
human beings. MIM and RAIL continue the fight
against this and other aspects of the criminal
injustice system as we build our forces to
overthrow the system.
For more information on prison privatization, see
MIM Theory #11.
NOTE: Boston Globe, 04/29/97, p. A1.
* * *
BOSTON PUBLIC CENSORS PROTECT YOUTH FROM POLITICAL
SPEECH
MIM received the following message from the
Industrial Worker, the newspaper of the Industrial
Workers of the World (IWW). All forms of content-
control on the Internet, even those supposedly or
actually targeted against pornography, which MIM
opposes, will end up being used to censor political
speech. In the case of software censorship, the
"rules" may be programmed in without the computer
users even knowing that they are. We oppose the
censorship of the IWW newspaper, and invite
concerned readers to send email to the Boston
Public Library tyrants who would "protect" children
by censoring the political materials they would
read, even though we have fundamental disagreements
with the IWW (See MIM Theory 8 and 10, $6 each).
April 17 -- Please read this even if you do not
completely oppose the Boston Public Library's
censorship of pornography, because they are also
censoring us (on the left) as "political
extremists." And we can each do something rather
quickly in protest -- e-mail the Chief Information
Officer and let them know that this is a travesty.
The details: as you probably are already aware,
the Boston Public Library has paid CyberPatrol
corporation big money for the tools to censor
various "inappropriate" Internet sites from the
children's area of the library. What you probably
do not know is that "political extremism" is one of
the categories for censorship. And I'm not talking
about fascist sites here, I'm talking about the
newspaper of my union, the Industrial Workers of
the World (IWW, also known as Wobblies). I and
other Wobblies are furious about this, and I want
to use our experience as evidence that censorship
in the Boston Public Library runs counter to
democratic access to information, including vital
information critical of the status quo such as our
newspaper. So please e-mail the Chief Information
Officer and let them know that we are part of the
community, we are not going away, and we will not
allow ourselves to be censored. (As it turns out,
soon after we started protesting directly to
CyberPatrol, our newspaper was removed from the
censor's list, however many anarchist sites remain
on the list and this list may grow along with
right-wing influence generally. We need to speak up
now!)
Cheif Information Officer e-mail (via world wide
web form):
http://www.ci.boston.ma.us/mismail.html
Info on CyberPatrol and the Boston Public Library:
http://www.peacefire.org/censorware/Cyber_Patrol/
* * *
UNDER LOCK AND KEY: NEWS FROM PRISONERS AND PRISONS
REBELLIONS AND VIOLENCE IN PRISONS
This issue of Under Lock & Key is a collection of
letters around the role of violence in prisons.
Instead of responding to each letter separately, we
print MIM's position on violence in prisons up
front.
First of all, prisons themselves are organized
violence. They are tools of social control for the
ruling class. In Amerika, this means violence
against oppressed nations. Prisons deprive
oppressed nationals of their freedom -- and lives -
- at a rate many times that of the dominant white
nation.
Furthermore, as prisoners and readers of Under Lock
and Key know too well, pig violence against
prisoners is common. Any prisoner resistance,
organized or unorganized, big or small, runs the
risk of provoking a beating. The pigs also provoke
prisoner on prisoner violence, as even mainstream
news stories coming out of Corcoran state prison in
California confirm.
Thus, the Amerikan prison system is a concrete
example of why MIM believes violence is justified
and necessary to overthrow the oppressive,
imperialist Amerikan state. The oppressors
consistently use violence, terror, and brutality to
prop up their festering, evil system, and the
oppressed must defend themselves by any means
necessary. Anybody who advocates "turning the other
cheek" as a strategy is not serving the interests
of the oppressed.
That said, we should be clear that revolutionaries
do not engage in armed struggle in order to feel
good about themselves. Revolutionaries engage in
armed struggle to win. To paraphrase Fred Hampton:
'Kill one pig, get a little satisfaction. Overthrow
this entire fucking system, get complete
satisfaction.' All of our efforts are geared
towards speeding up the impending victory of the
people over u.s. imperialism.
This is why violence against pigs and prisoncrats
is a difficult question. Prisoners often find
themselves in lose-lose situations. If they don't
defend themselves, they die; if they do defend
themselves, they die. Prisoners involved in
rebellions are abused, lose privileges, face severe
retaliation, and are often murdered.
Still, there are situations where a stout but
losing battle is better than nothing. The Attica
Prison Rebellion is one case in point. MIM supports
the Attica Prison Rebellion as an organized attempt
to improve conditions for prisoners. It brought
media attention to the problem and inspiration and
hope to other prisoners (See MT5, "Losing Battles,"
p. 51). Note that one of the reasons the Attica
rebellion was so effective was that prisoners were
organized and united to some extent around a
political line. This organization and unity was
forged before the rebellion.
MIM advocates that prisoners actively organize and
educate themselves to determine the best way to
struggle in prisons. Practice dialectical
materialism and let theory lead your practice.
Write to Under Lock and Key to expose the
conditions of your struggle. Even in prison there
is much room for nitty gritty legal struggle.
But the bottom line is prisoners are in the
trenches and it is they who will lead the struggle
in prisons.
MICHIGAN PRISONER WANTS TO BE TREATED LIKE A HUMAN
BEING
An Article was written on June 29, 1996 entitled:
Call for prisoner to become politically motivated,
and was printed in the Under Lock & Key's section
of MIM Notes 121. RCG1 agreed with most of the
article but was in disagreement with the article
stating that prisoners ought to stop the violence
among ourselves and become violent with our
captors. Comrade RCG1 felt this was wrong and
suggest that prisoners look at historically
revolutionary figures such as George Jackson, and
El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz (a.k.a.: Malcolm X) and
learn from the COINTELPRO war against the Black
Panther Party (BPP). We agree with the historical
look but we vehemently disagree with passivity. We
have seen for too long how oppressors will not stop
oppressing unless and until one stand up and be
counted. No one is going to stop oppression by
passive low-toned conversations. It is not going to
happen.
Comrade RCG1 is not in the death camps and thus,
not experiencing the hardships comrades within the
death kkkamps are experiencing. In fact, when the
pigs slam a brotha against the wall and call in
goon squad friends to help him bash a brothas head
in, what are you suggesting one to do? Accept it?
Are you saying that we should lick the boots of
these racist pigs and not defend ourselves? Are you
suggesting that we sit and wait for you or some
other outside group to come and stop our heads from
being bashed in? How do you figure? Even a dog has
the right to defend itself from attach and we are
saying is no different. We are saying that we
should and must defend ourselves against the
brutality that aggresses us. We are saying that we
have a right to be treated as human being
regardless of us being prisoners.
The days of We Shall Overcome and accept being
beaten, kicked, knocked down, spit upon and abused
is over. Sure, we agree that conversation is always
good but there comes a time when there is no room
for talk, and that is all we are saying. We are not
suggesting that comrades go crazy and start
attacking pigs. However, we do say that if a pig
assaults you or your brotha to defend yourselves by
all and every means. Meantime, comrade RCG1, if you
want to accept someone smashing you head in, then
by all means accept it, but we aren't buying it.
In the trenches
--A Michigan Prisoner, 6 Dec. 96
AN EYE FOR AN EYE? A PIG FOR A PRISONER?
More information about this situation in Texas can
be found in MIM Notes, 131 "Texas Prison Activist
Launches Hunger Strike" and MIM 135 in ULK , "Texas
Prisoner exposes the Murder and Brutality in
Prison."
Sirs, I was very surprised to see in [MIM Notes]
No. 131, page 10, The Texas Prison Activist Article
because I was there in the fields less than 50
yards away Daniel was shot, in the head. Don't you
know that boy's hands were raised in surrender when
the bullet tore though his brain. That incident
totally fucked me up. I saw a puff of red mist pop
out of that dudes head and he hit the ground and
did not move. And to top it off the Sergeant rides
over with his horse, gets down and flips Daniel
over and handcuffs him. How do we know that wasn't
the move that killed Daniel.
Now again 6 weeks ago, give or take some, an inmate
by the name of Gary Crenshaw, had a major use of
force done against him. At which time the pigs
broke his neck. He is also dead. Both officers [who
killed Gary] are still at work. Daniel's killer is
also at work here still. Four or five weeks ago
about 50 inmates stormed the front desk from the
rec. yard and smashed down on seven pigs. (Good for
us) I did get to be involved. Wish I could have
seen how now I am suffering a major lockdown of all
of us closed custody inmates. We should have killed
two of theirs like they killed two of ours.
Well Again, Thanx. In Struggle,
--A Texas Prisoner, 12 Mar, 97
RACISM CAUSES REBELLION IN UTAH'S MAXIMUM SECURITY
The Maximum Security wing of the Utah State Prison
explodes with pent-up aggression and ugly hatred as
the guards run for shields and gather
reinforcements.
This latest battle was small-scale and nothing new
to the pigs who place racist skin heads and
minority gang members on the same tier, knowing
without a doubt that blood will be spilled as a
result of the intolerance and stupidity of both
parties involved.
Instead of joining forces to make a stand against
the murderous pig oppressors, the various hostage
groups held captive inside of this hate factory
would rather fight amongst themselves for their
racist ideology.
By word of mouth and whatever literature I receive
it is my intention to open minds up to the ideology
of the Communist beliefs. I struggle to spread the
word and to gather comrades together to stand equal
in unity.
The goose-stepping pigs who keep us under lock and
key spread hate, fear, and terrorize the people. It
is because of Mr. and Mrs. Pig that the hate and
intolerance level is at an all time high here in
this facility.
The pigs will not prevail!
Comrades world-wide held hostage in dirty piss
boxes will not be silenced. From sea to polluted
sea we shall rise and revolt. With mass assistance
from our Brothers and Sisters in the Anarchist,
Green and other Anti-Pig movements, we will be
victorious in our struggle. These Utah pigs are
totally out of control. This Utah state Prison
(KKKlansville) is so out of line that it's even
taking verbal heat from the big pigs at the state's
capital.
You are not forgotten. We shall not be silenced.
--A Utah Prisoner, 8 Mar. 97
MIM NOTES: Many anarchists are indeed allies in the
struggle against imperialism. But we have strong
disagreements with them about how to make
revolution. For more information check out MIM
Theory #8, "The Anarchist Ideal and Communist
Revolution."
VIRGINIA REBELLION
Dear MIM: On December 26, 1996, an inmate stabbed a
Warden. Thereafter, at least 200 inmates gathered
on the recreation yard in unity. All the staff
members exited, for safety, into the watch
commander's office. The law library was destroyed,
regular library, gym and grievance division
damaged, and the commissary looted, during the
incident.
In the front entrance to the dining hall, the
officer in the master control room deliberately and
intentionally pushed the control button opening the
gate. The officer attempted to shut it. As inmates
stopped him, the racist H. Ponton directly shot 4
inmates, wounding them in the hand, torso, back and
chest. These were 2 officers armed, 2 dogs and
other members standing and controlling the entrance
area. As the inmates asked for medical attention,
he forced them to lay on the ground and then
handcuffed them. He directed the medical staff out
of the facility.
The process taken: no visitation, no telephone
calls, tampering of out- going mail and legal mail,
[and] no money orders. Prisoners receiving money
orders in the mail as of Dec. 20, 1996 have not
received a receipt.
Two inmates must be separately handcuffed in the
cells as one can leave while the other remain to
take a shower under 3 officers [supervision]. it
was required that under the new Federal Court
hearing, the facility must comply with issuing
balanced meal, but to no avail have they acted.
Armed officers with dogs escort prisoners to other
sections in the facility.
No cleaning supplies for cells, no inmate workers,
unsanitary conditions remain. Staff makes walk-bys
or security checks every 2-3 hours. the regular
housing block, 950 total, built for 500. There was
no violence before the uprising.
Within his 5 months as Warden there have been 3
lockdowns. Staff act highly disrespectful and no
disciplinary action is taken. Inmates served
institution warrants do not have the right to ask
for witnesses. On October 15, 1996, an officer
claimed that inmates attempted to hang him and
robbed him. It was false.
-- A Virginia Prisoner, 3 Jan. 97
ACTS OF VIOLENCE IN VIRGINIA
Greetings Comrades: I write you from Buckingham
prison camp where there was cause to celebrate. The
overseer warden being served his daily bread on
Dec. 26, 1996. Prisoners reacted to this situation:
burned the library which took five hours to put
out, and the commissary was expropriated (looted
and vandalized). Prison guards were attacked -
prison flunkies didn't [expect] this - Virginia's
prisoners reacting to their oppression.
On May 4, 1996, a prisoner at Maklenburg
Correctional Center stabbed a guard in apparent
retaliation for the stun gunning days earlier, of a
prisoner in the yard. In July 1996, two more guards
were stabbed about nine times at Greenville
Correctional Center. On July 6, 1996, there was a
fracas between prisoners and prison guards at the
prison's segregation unit recreation yard at the
Nottoway Correctional Center. During which time it
is alleged several guards suffered superficial
wounds, and a number of prisoners say they were
cornered and beaten. On Aug. 9, 1996, two guards
were stabbed at Nottoway and four hostages were
taken. More than 250 prisoners rioted. One day
later, prisoners set fire to a building forcing the
evacuation of 56. Only one of these Aug. 9,
incidents, the hostage standoff, was reported to
the public.
Since Dec. 26, 1996, prisoners have been given very
small portions of food. No telephone calls until
Jan. 9, 1997. Visitation has been suspended since
Dec. 26, 97. The Department of Incorrections had
its strike force and canine units within the
compound for intimidation. If prisoners had to be
escorted to the prison infirmary, the dogs were
used to escort prisoners along with prison guards.
The canine units were discontinued on or about Jan.
18, 97.
The restrictions of what prisoners cannot have,
beginning 1-1997, concerning property: no
typewriters, 1 pair of tennis shoes, state clothing
exclusively, 5 inch TV sets, no more 12 inch
screens. This is a concept that has been in
planning stages along with social cutbacks.
Solidarity,
--A Virginia Prisoner, 18 Jan. 97
AFTERMATH OF OCTOBER 1995 REBELLIONS THROUGH-OUT
THE FED BOP
As you may be aware on or around Oct. 18th, 1995
the U.S. Congress shot down passage of a bill that
would have balanced out the disparity in the
sentencing laws for Crack-Cocaine, a bias law that
has victimized an extremely large portion of
minorities, mainly African-Americans and Latinos.
Whereas, all the whites arrested/convicted for
Crack sales have resulted in State cases Vs.
Federal cases and longer sentences for the
minorities.
On Oct. 19th, 1995, in the Federal Correction
Institution - Talladega, Alabama, a rebellion
occurred. [Which resulted in] nearly seven million
dollars in property damage and numerous injuries
for both staff and inmate alike. This was the
beginning of a rash of rebellions which began to
occur instantaneously through-out the Federal
Bureau of Prisons. (There are nearly 90 federal
institutions across the U.S.)
On October 20th, 1995, the Director of the b.o.p.
sent a communiqué to the Wardens of all secured
institutions, ordering a nation-wide lock-down.
Some of the rebellions occurred before the lock-
down, at the announcement of the lock-down, and
after inmates were released from lock-down.
Around Jan. 1996, the b.o.p. designed a program to
further punish the alleged main participants of the
rebellions (as all of those found guilty received
various sanctions from the discipline hearing
officer in the range of loss of good-time, time in
disciplinary segregation and disciplinary
transfer.) and to deter the non-participants from
massive rebellions in the future. They designed ten
institutions that would house 465 inmates (alleged
main participants) for up to one year. These
institutions are being run in CONTROL UNIT fashion,
whereas: inmates are on lockdown status 22 _ hours
a day, inmates must be shackled upon leaving their
cells for any reason, visits are non-existent,
being that everyone was sent to institutions on the
opposite of the u.s. from their legal residence,
and we are allowed one 15 minute phone call a
month. The Control Unit has always been used for
BEHAVIOR MODIFICATIONS purposes and the general
methods that are still utilized to achieve the
objective are:
1. ISOLATION - Deprives inmates of all social
supports of his ability to resist, in turn causing
him/her to become dependent upon correctional
staff.
2. MONOPOLIZATION OF PERCEPTION - Fixes attention
upon immediate predicament; foster introspect.
Eliminates stimuli completing with those controlled
by staff. Frustrates all actions not consistent
with compliance.
3. SLEEP DEPRIVATION - Bright lights, or darkness,
barren environment, restricted movement, and
monotonous food, slamming of doors, shaking of keys
loudly in front of an inmate's cell, loud clicking
of handcuffs as passes an inmate's cell.
4. DEGRADATION - Denial of privacy. Insults and
taunts makes cost of resistance appear more
damaging to self-esteem than capitulation. Reduces
inmates to "animal level" concerns.
5. OCCASIONAL INDULGENCES - Occasional favors,
fluctuations of interrogation attitudes, promises,
rewards for partial compliance, tantalizing.
6. DEMONSTRATING "OMNIPOTENCE" - Confrontation
staff to inmates, pretending co-operation taken for
granted, broken promises, demonstrating complete
control over an inmate's fate.
There are 25 of us at this institution for alleged
riot participation. Being under these conditions
creates instances of "double jeopardy," as we have
already served sanctions for our alleged wrong acts
and being on lock-down for one year was not one the
sanctions melted out to any of us. However the
b.o.p. has attempted to cover themselves from legal
attack on these grounds by claiming, "they have no
bed-space at the HIGH institutions to house us and
once bed-space is available we will be designated."
This is the official position of the b.o.p., but
upon arrival here and at the other institutions the
staff made it know that we would be held here for
punishment up to one year and that we have nothing
coming, and that each time we violate any rule the
year will re-start from the date of the infraction.
During the later part of June 1996, we were told
that due to structuring problems at the High
(presently being constructed) institution in
Beaumont, TX that we would be here for 18 - 24
months. This information created a "food strike,"
which lasted four days and one inmate didn't eat
for 10 days and became ill. He was force fed in a
brutal manner by staff and repeatedly threatened by
staff. These type of situations are occurring at
all ten of the institutions that are housing 465 of
us.
In between Oct. 19, 1995 and April 1996, many
inmates were brutally beaten by staff without
provocation, as retaliation for their alleged
involvement in the rebellions. These beatings have
been silenced and no charges, administratively nor
criminally have resulted in the staff on inmate
assaults. However, a large number of inmates were
charged in federal court with MUTINY, ASSAULT, AND
DESTRUCTION OF GOVERNMENT PROPERTY. The staff
continue to mentally and physically abuse us, and
pit other inmates (we are housed with pre-trial
detainees) against us by telling them we are the
reason for them being locked-down at this
institution, we're vicious killers, etc.
We (all 465 of us) are placed in a hazardous,
biased, unconstitutional and subjective situation
simply because of our skin color. For the most part
many of the administrative staff, at many of the
institutions which had rebellions, over-played the
rebellion situations. And to put themselves in
better position for promotion, they targeted
inmates who were not wanted at their institution
for whatever reason and gave them up as agitators
or leaders of the rebellion, when there was no
evidence to support these findings other than
fabricated evidences. It is a well known fact, that
the crack-cocaine laws have suppressed a large
percentage of minorities. The longer sentences are
in fact stagnating out reproductive years and
creating a genocide against the people. This is a
crime in itself, but the ones instituting the laws
are apparently ABOVE THE LAW, as no one has been
charged for its implementation. Prisons have become
BIG business and I say it's time that someone take
a closer look at the matter
There has been a media black-out on this situation
even though there is a major need for public
exposure, as their tax dollars are involved in a
large way. Many of us accused of involvement have
supported many organization, Famm, Million Man
March, Cure, etc. but we have received little or no
support in return. Has solidarity died in these
times of mass prison building?
Thus far there have been three legal challenges to
the incident reports and about four more challenges
forthcoming. It's my hope to re-alert the people to
the after-math of the b.o.p. riots and to see if we
can generate some form of support
Free the Land! Respectfully,
--A Federal Prisoner, 8 Dec. 97
***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.