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 146 SEPTEMBER 15, 1997
MIM Notes speaks to and from the viewpoint of the
world's oppressed majority, and against the
imperialist-patriarchy. Pick it up and wield it in
the service of the people. support it, struggle
with it and write for it.
IN THIS ISSUE:
1. TORTURE OF TRANSFERRED PRISONERS BY TEXAS GULAG
GUARDS EXPOSED
2. AMERIKAN MILITARY-INDUSTRIAL GRAVY TRAIN STEAMS
ON
3. LETTERS & REVOLUTIONARY STRUGGLE
4. ANTI-DRUGLORD HYSTERIA, A US-RAMOS REGIME
SCHEME
5. IMPERIALIST INTELLIGENCE AGENCIES DEAL DOPE
6. CUBA CHARGES AMERIKA WITH BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS
ATTACK
7. WHAT ARE YOUR VIEWS ON THE DEATH PENALTY?
8. SHUSWAP GET PRISON TERMS FOR DRAWING RCMP FIRE
9. BALTIMORE POLICE KILL UNARMED MAN:
CITY USES BLACK POLICE FOR COVER
10. AMERIKAN JURY DECIDES AGAINST INDICTING
MURDEROUS MARINE
11. U.S. IMPERIALISM: MERCHANT OF DEATH
12. AMERIKA DRAGGING FEET IN INTERNATIONAL EFFORT
TO BAN LANDMINES
13. WEAPONS DESTRUCTION DANGEROUS TO OPPRESSED
POPULATIONS
14. THIRD PARTIES LOSE IN ENGLAND BIG-TIME
15. ALIENATION OF YOUTH MASKED THROUGH LEGAL DRUGS
16. MEN WANT MONOPOLY ON IMPERIALIST TRAINING
17. NEW INDIAN PREZ NO FRIEND OF THE PEOPLE
18. MASTERS OF ILLUSION: THE WORLD BANK AND THE
POVERTY OF NATIONS
19. PIRAO SUFFERS SETBACKS
20. UNDER LOCK & KEY
* * *
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
* * *
TORTURE OF TRANSFERRED PRISONERS BY TEXAS GULAG
GUARDS EXPOSED
In August a videotape of guards in Texas beating
inmates was made public. On September 18, 1996 this
videotape was made by the guards at the Brazoria
County Jail in Texas for training purposes. This
video reveals excessive force used against the
prisoners, and the surfacing of this video
(approximately one year after the incident) has
forced authorities to act as if they cared. Since
segments of the video appeared on NBC news on
August 18, 415 Missouri prisoners have been removed
from the Brazoria County Jail. The Missouri
officials have also canceled a $6 million dollar
contract with the Capital Correctional Resources
Inc., the private company that runs this particular
Detention Center.
This whole incident has received a lot of coverage
in the mainstream press. Just like with the Rodney
King beating, the brutality of the Texas guards is
being treated as an isolated incident. By acting
like this kind of thing does not happen when the
cameras are off, politicians and the mainstream
media are able to pretend outrage and act as though
the problem is being addressed. Even the transfer
of the Missouri prisoners out of the Texas jail is
just a token gesture: check out the story in this
issue of Under Lock and Key (page 11-12) about the
Missouri prisoner who was beaten into a coma in a
Missouri prison.
Conditions in prisons across the country are
literally a threat to the lives of the prisoners.
Since Texas began selling off the space in their
prisons to other states, many prisoners who were
transferred to Texas have written to MIM Notes that
conditions in Texas are even worse than those in
their own state. Texas has almost tripled the size
of its prison system since 1991, spending $3
billion on nearly 100,000 new beds.(1) Texas has
thousands of empty beds they are now using to
profit from by contracts to house other states'
prisoners.
This is not the first case of state officials being
forced to act on the warlike environment of Texas
jails and prisons. Where there is prisoner
violence, there is most likely excessive pressure
coming from outside forces, namely the guards.
Where there is a lack of institutional security,
there is probably an abundance of "precautionary"
brutality. This is how we look at the removal of
inmates by Oregon and Utah from Texas allegedly
"because of security concerns." Montana issued a
critical review of a facility in Texas after "one
inmate was killed in a brawl with other prisoners
and two others escaped."(2)
The states and officials themselves do not care
about the conditions of prisoners except when the
local communities protest. Wary of mass activism,
local and state officials are quick to quell
protests by token measures, such as bringing the
prisoners back to their state. This does nothing to
change conditions in Texas prisons, local state
prisons, and fails to change the injustice system
one iota.
The videotape which sparked the recent pseudo
concern for prisoner welfare was originally
intended to be used for training purposes for the
guards to be shown how things are done in Texas.
The video shows the guards in riot gear dragging
and kicking the medium-security prisoners.
A stun gun is used on several people, along with
tear gas for no apparent reason. One dog was
ordered to attack a prisoner. The incarcerated
human beings are forced to crawl on their stomachs
away from their cells while the guards ransack
their living spaces under the pretense that they
were looking for drugs.
It is obvious that these guards do not care about
the well-being of the prisoners, the search for
drugs was just an excuse to brutalize prisoners.
Guards directed racial slurs toward the prisoners
as they lie defenseless on the concrete and the
guard dogs lunge and snap at their backs. At least
three bites from the viciously trained dogs are
caught on this half hour video.
This incident has forced other states to pretend
concern for the prisoners they have sent to Texas
and some even claim they are investigating the
conditions. In response to this incident, the
spokesperson for the Massachusetts Department of
Correction said that in recent trips to Texas,
state officials had found no mistreatment of
prisoners. He pointed out that the "only"
complaints the officials heard from the prisoners
were related to the food, lodging and "being away
from home."(1) This twisted definition of torture
fits right in with the mainstream response to the
tape exposing this brutality: if it's not caught
on videotape, it's not torture. As a result, the
Massachusetts DOC is saying that edible food, heat
in the winter, contact with family and friends,
medical care, and access to education are luxuries
that prisoners should not come to expect.
It's important that we take this opportunity to
mobilize people who are outraged at this blatant
brutality. This kind of torture is common in
Amerikan prisons and while we can fight against
specific instances of violence, we need to be clear
that it is not possible to reform the criminal
injustice system into a justice system. Only by
overthrowing imperialism can we establish a justice
system that serves the people.
NOTES:
1. Boston Globe, Aug 19, 1997. P.B1.
2. Kim Bell St. Louis Post-Dispatch Jefferson City
Bureau.
* * *
AMERIKAN MILITARY-INDUSTRIAL GRAVY TRAIN STEAMS ON
In July, the U.$ House of Representatives approved
$248 billion in military spending for the fiscal
1998 budget.(1) For comparison, the Gross National
Product (GNP) of India in 1992 was $252 billion,
and the GNP of El Salvador in 1994 was $9
billion.(2)
The amount approved was $4.4 billion more than the
Amerikan military itself requested.(1) $331 million
of the extra money is "start up money" for nine
more B-2 ("Stealth") bombers. The military already
has 21 B-2 bombers, which were designed to drop
nuclear bombs.
Military officials claimed they do not need and
cannot afford the planes. "Can't afford" and "don't
need" are obviously relative terms, as the military
would rather have different types of weapons.
Completing the planes will end up costing $27
billion.
Congress is buying planes the military claims are
unwanted for a number of reasons. One aspect is a
possible disagreement with the military about
future strategy. More importantly, members of
congress are scared that cutting the B-2 will upset
the capitalists who profit off the bombers and the
labor aristocracy that builds them. Too many
military budget cuts could cost them their re-
election. The B-2 is a huge project with pieces
produced in just about every Congressional
district.
Lenin wrote that imperialism is parasitic
capitalism. He also taught that imperialism means
war. These two aspects of imperialism come together
today in Amerikan imperialism. The enormous super-
profits Amerikan imperialism stole from oppressed
nations over the last fifty years enabled the
imperialists to buy off the bulk of the working
class within Amerikan borders. To some extent, this
requires a measure of redundancy, inefficiency, and
irrationality. At the same time, more and more of
the economy is concentrated in unproductive
sectors, like the military, advertising, retail,
and services. As a result, we see workers in
Amerika willing to fight to preserve jobs producing
weapons of mass destruction.
According to Ruth Sivard, $50 billion would solve
the sanitation problems of the Third World.(3) Poor
sanitation accounts for two-thirds of the premature
deaths in the Third World. Amerika wants to spend
five times this figure just in one year. This is
another reason why MIM works to overthrow u.$.
imperialism: In order to stop the theft of
resources from oppressed nations and give the
resources Amerika stole from oppressed nations
back, so that they might be used to better the
lives of the world's oppressed majority.
NOTES:
1. Boston Globe, 30 July 1997, p. A9
2. Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1996.
3. Ruth Leger Sivard, World Military and Social
Expenditures, Washington DC: World Priorities,
1987/88, p. 14; Sivard, 1993 edition p. 42.
* * *
LETTERS & REVOLUTIONARY STRUGGLE
***The following dialogue took place in response to
flyers that RAIL distributed around the case of an
activist, Richard Picariello, who was arrested and
brutalized by the MIT police for the crime of
sitting in the student center. The September 1 MIM
Notes contains an article which was the basis for
the text of the flyer.***
DEAR RAIL,
As an avid Amnesty International supporter, I'm
always quick to jump to the defense of anybody
unfairly treated by law enforcement officials.
However, your constant use of the slur "pigs" in
this notice not only brings you down to the level
of those who stereotype and insult, but ruins your
credibility as an intelligently concerned citizen,
and makes you sound a bit flaky. No doubt these
officers acted too harshly and should be punished,
but you're doing Mr. Picariello a disservice by
turning what otherwise is a fairly well-written
announcement into a diatribe of scurrilous
gibberish.
To gather support for Mr. Picariello, your task is
to appeal to as wide a range of people as possible.
Most people are turned off by slurs of all types --
are you trying to offend a large group of people
who otherwise would come to Mr. Picariello's aid?
Best regards,
-- AI supporter in Boston
RAIL RESPONDS:
We believe that it is correct to use the term pigs
when referring to those who systematically and
viciously brutalize the people. It helps to make
our political point that this is not just one
anomaly. If you're interested in the history of
this term you should check out some of the Black
Panther Party literature from the 1960s and 1970s.
They explain in some detail why they chose to use
this term. We hope to make a clear political point
to people and we don't think it would be correct to
appeal to people by watering down the seriousness
of the incident or watering down the systematic
nature of the pigs by speaking politely.
Here's an analogy: if you see someone walking
backwards about to fall off a cliff do you speak
politely to them about the potential impending
danger or do you yell "hey, stop!" Some situations
necessitate strong language because of the urgency
involved. We witness police brutality daily in the
communities of the oppressed in this country and
although white college students may think this is
just one small unfair incident, repression from the
police is part of systematic brutality against
specific populations of people.
We don't think that putting incidents like this one
in a larger context of society and making clear our
opposition to the role of the pigs in our society
makes it "gibberish". On the contrary, if it gets
people like yourself thinking about why such
language is necessary that is a good thing. We will
not allow people to sit complacently by thinking
that one small incident of police brutality is bad
but polite conversation will solve the problem. The
situation with the pig occupying forces in this
country is a daily threat to the lives and
livelihood of Blacks, Latinos, First Nations and
people who are politically active in this country.
Such a threat calls for strong language and strong
denouncements.
In spite of your disagreements with our language we
do hope you will support this case as you are right
that we hope to mobilize as large a force of people
as possible. And we appreciate you taking the time
to tell us your disagreements. Only by struggling
over these things will we learn from our work and
move forward.
HELLO AGAIN, RAIL FOLKS --
And thanks for writing back with your explanation
of why you chose to use the language you did in
your original e-mail. I would still, however, urge
you to consider using more conventional language in
your future announcements that are sent out to the
larger community. Your someone-backing-off-a-cliff
analogy doesn't work because, while it's important
to wake people up that things like this are
happening, it still remains counterproductive to
then turn people off by the words you choose to
use. Your description of what happened to Mr.
Picariello was far and away the most compelling
aspect of your announcement. I would urge you to
follow that shocking tale up with some evidence
that you are putting together a serious,
intelligent, persistent effort to win him some
justice. Sell it as a cause that every decent
citizen ought to feel mobilized and proud to join.
Rather, you followed your description of that day's
events with some bitter name-calling. Certainly,
your anger is justified -- but it's just a fact of
life that when organizing large groups of people
some measure of tact is in order.
Good luck in your struggle --
RAIL RESPONDS:
The language we use is not just intended to wake
people up to the fact that cases like this one
exist, it is intended to make a larger point about
society. This is the point that the letter writer
above does not respond to. It is true that
sometimes using kinder language will get more
people's support, but we were not using the word
pig just to call the police names. Instead we were
making a political point about the role of police
in Amerikan society. Police serve to enforce the
criminal injustice system by keeping the wealth and
resources for white privileged Amerika and keeping
the same resources out of the hands of the
oppressed nations and political activists.
We do not think that cases like this one are
unusual. On the contrary, it is common for the
police to harass and brutalize the people: this is
their job. By using the term pigs, we are making a
statement about the role that police play in
imperialist society. This larger message is
important because we do not believe that fighting
individual cases like this one is the solution to
ending police brutality. Instead we fight these
battles because they are important but we always
put them in the context of the larger problems with
imperialist society and the need to overthrow
imperialism if we are to achieve justice for all
people.
In the mean time we do hope to work with people
like this Amnesty International supporter because
we hope to unite all who can be united in these
battles against imperialism.
* * *
ANTI-DRUGLORD HYSTERIA, A US-RAMOS REGIME SCHEME
***MIM prints the following essay from the New
People's Army (NPA) in the Philippines in order to
further illustrate how Amerika's so-called "war on
drugs" is actually an international war on
oppressed people. Furthermore, imperialist agencies
like the u.$. CIA and DEA claim to be leading the
"war on drugs," but in actuality these agencies and
their lackeys abroad are the biggest druglords
around.***
The much avowed anti-drug crusade that was declared
by President General Ramos as "primary threat to
the security" in his SONA (State of the Nation
Address) last 28 July in the Congress is a
political offensive and calculated psy-war campaign
under the baton orchestrated by the CIA and the US
embassy; and, with the blessing of General Ramos
himself. This is one of the desperate attempts to
prolong the reign of power of Ramos and his ilk.
This is all part of a grand scheme. Just like
Ramos' plan to pass a few fascist laws like the
"national ID system," "anti terrorist bill" and
others, the US-Ramos regime also plans to legalize
extra-judicial killing ("salvaging"). The
Philippine National Police (PNP) and Armed Forces
of the Philippines (AFP) are inutile in the
implementation of laws and as protector of the
people. Instead, it allows criminality to worsen
and take[s] advantage of the unfavorable political
and social situation that arises.
It is the desire of the Ramos-DeVilla clique to
destroy its political enemies by implicating them
with the drug syndicate...
PSYWAR AND TERRORISM CAMPAIGN
...The reason is clear why the ISAFP PSC
[Intelligence Service of the AFP - Presidential
Security Command] - National Intelligence
Coordinating Agency (NICA) [is] keeping the
arrested drug lords Rey Parena, Atty. Ruiz, and Art
Sampana of Luzon Pen. These people are being used
by military intelligence to vilify the political
enemies of Ramos and his clique. This is also a
show to lead the people to believe that the
military intelligence is doing something against
the drug syndicate...
In fact, ... military officials are not only
involved in the drug syndicate but they are also
into kidnapping and arms smuggling...
In the Cordilleras, Ilocos and Cagayan Valley, the
troops of the PNP Cordillera Regional Command
(CRECOM) under Chief Rogelio Aguana and the CPLA
(vigilante-gun-for-hire) of Conrado Balweg openly
harvest marijuana in the marijuana plantations of
Ilocos Sur, Benguet, Ifugao, and Kalinga. These
marijuana plantations are being guarded by the
Citizen's Armed Forces Geographical Unit (CAFGU [a
paramilitary death squad]), CPLA and AFP troopers.
It is not coincidental that where there are
military camps, there are also marijuana
plantations.
In order to "kill two birds with one shot," the PNP
CRECOM promote that the military launches operation
against marijuana plantations or "counter
insurgency operations" against the "NPA who plants
marijuana." This is being publicized in the media
as "confiscated plants" and are supposedly burned.
The military dubbed this as so-called, "Operation
Greengold." The truth is that, Operation Greengold
of the PNP CRECOM is not an operation to bust
marijuana plantations; instead, it "legalizes" the
harvest and transport of marijuana by the military
for the open market throughout the country.
Harvested marijuana plants are transported by
military helicopters and sold in the local market.
CIA CONTROL AND DRUG CARTEL
Prohibited drugs like cocaine and heroin come from
Los Angeles, California, USA and from Hong Kong-
Taiwan. These are smuggled to the "ports of entry"
under the direction of the CIA and Drug Enforcement
Agency(DEA) and this is the reason why these drugs
are openly sold to people in high societies and in
the localities. Some personalities like Congressman
Jinggoy Roxas and screen actor Miguel Rodriguez,
died of overdose of these prohibited drugs.
In Manila, according to Senator Juan Flavier:
"(police) precincts and the barangays (district or
village center) are used as the centers of
distribution and sale." This is because the oldest
son of Manila Mayor Lim is the head of the drug
syndicate in Manila. In San Juan, the son of Vice
President Joseph Estrada is the primary pusher
among his fellow actors and, in Quezon City, Ace
Vergel, another former screen actor, who is a big
time pusher is also under the wings of high ranking
military officers.
It is true that the proliferation of prohibited
drugs is a "threat to the nation." The truth is
that, the drug problem is actually a threat to the
security of some government officials who [vie] for
the control of the drug business and the rivalry
between the military officers and the police. The
people cannot be fooled to expect anything from the
rhetoric of the regime to go after the drug
syndicate; in the first place, this is a creation
itself by the US-Ramos regime and the CIA.
-- New People's Army Cagayan Valley
* * *
IMPERIALIST INTELLIGENCE AGENCIES DEAL DOPE
MIM Notes has extensively covered the San Jose
Mercury News exposure of the CIA role in bringing
drugs into the U.$ in order to fund imperialism's
illegal wars. We have also covered the howls of
indignation from every other bourgeois media outlet
aimed at the San Jose Mercury News, and the
continual cover-up and burial of follow-up stories
by author Gary Webb.
You wouldn't know it from the Amerikan media, but
as a result of the Truth Commission, a neo-colonial
amnesty program for the criminals of the apartheid
period, but the South Africa government's
intelligence service has been exposed for dealing
drugs too. The South African spooks were
manufacturing "Ecstasy, mandrax and other drugs in
secret labs and then ... [flying] them to London,
raising cash their for other secret ops."(1)
The story did not appear in the New York Times or
the Los Angeles Times. Apparently, these media
outlets don't want to add more evidence to the
popular consciousness that drug dealing is
precisely the kind of thing that intelligence
services do.
The Associated Press wire service covered the
arrest of Wouter Basson, "the criminal government
scientist at the heart of the affair." But only a
few local papers picked up the story. When the
Washington Post and the Chicago Tribune wrote of
Basson's arrest, they were more interesting in the
possibility that he sold chemical weapons
information to Libya and other "rogue states" not
entirely under Amerikan influence.
COUNTER PUNCH, AN ALTERNATIVE NEWSLETTER, WROTE:
"Basson's revelations about systemic, officially
sanctioned torture and mass killings of Blacks (and
white anti-apartheid activists) was less newsworthy
than the possibility that South African military
technology may have been allowed to fall into the
hands of states the US had branded as international
outlaws.
"Those asking themselves the obvious question: how
much did the South African secret service and the
CIA collude, should recall that it was a CIA tip
that put the police onto Mandela, enabling them to
arrest him and put him away on Robben Island all
those years."
MIM received the Counter Punch newsletter from an
ally who thought we would find it useful. From this
issue, we learned several things we had not known
before, including this story. There are many
different media sources and story ideas out there.
We need more people to write stories for MIM Notes
and our other publications which help to build
support for revolution. But it also helps in our
exposure of imperialist treachery when friends send
information to be covered in stories. it when
people send us story ideas. So send in those
stories!
NOTE: Counter Punch, July 1-15 1997, p. 3. PO Box
18675, Washington DC 20036. Counter Punch "tells
the facts and names the names."
* * *
CUBA CHARGES AMERIKA WITH BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS ATTACK
by MC234
On August 25, to a United Nations meeting, Cuba
presented pictures of an alleged u.s. operation to
plague the island with a crop-eating pest and
called for an international investigation.(1)
"This is the first time the Biological Weapons
Convention is dealing with a complaint under a 1991
provision which lets a nation that believes it has
come under biological attack seek a meeting to
investigate." The Biological Weapons Convention was
signed in 1972.(1)
"Cuba says a U.S. government crop-dusting plane for
anti-narcotics operations sprayed a substance over
Cuban potato fields last October that led to the
appearance of a crop-eating insect."(1)
The United Snakes denies the charge, and is
currently trying to explain to the other countries
investigating what an Amerikan State Department
anti-narcotics plane was doing flying low over Cuba
emitting smoke.(1)
This would not be the first time Amerika has used
dirty tricks against its smaller state capitalist
neighbor. Biological weapons were used against
Cuban agriculture during the Cold War, and the CIA
hired the Mob (who were upset anyway that Castro
shut down the Cuban casinos) to kill Castro.(2)
The thrips palmi infestation was discovered in
December, and the plane was seen over the area on
October 21. "The State Department acknowledges such
a plane flew over western Cuba during a flight from
Florida to the Cayman Islands in October, but says
it emitted smoke to identify its position to a
Cuban commercial airliner."(1)
"Cuba countered that smoke emissions are not used
in standard aviation practice and asked Washington
why its aircraft did not seek guidance from air
traffic control instead. It said the crew of the
Cuban plane said they saw a liquid, not smoke,
being emitted."(1)
Cuba presented evidence "including photographs,
maps and laboratory reports on the bug.(1)
The Convention recessed until 27 August to study
Amerikan documents about the plane and the
migration patterns of the thrips palmi. The
Convention does not have a mechanism for
verification, and some so-called experts Reuters
talked to say that the thrips palmi can be easily
carried by the wind. Whether Amerika is innocent in
this one case, or whether it picked the biological
equivalent of the pigs beating a man in the stomach
where he won't bruise, the oppressed masses of the
Third World know that Amerika regularly tramples
its own "ethics" against its enemies.
Cuba is a state-capitalist country, not a socialist
or communist one, and was a Soviet neo-colony for
many years. MIM supports Cuba against u.s.
imperialism because Cuba is a victim of imperialist
aggression and colonialism even though Cuba is not
a socialist state. MIM opposes Amerikan aggression
everywhere, but we don't mislead the people into
believing that Castro has established socialism in
Cuba.(3)
The lack of a verification mechanism in the
biological weapons convention shows the weakness in
relying on agreements with (or among) bourgeois
states for lasting justice. Amerika can poison the
oppressed and get away with it because its own
rules allow it to do. While exposure of atrocities
in bourgeois forums is politically useful, the most
effective struggle against imperialism comes from
Maoist revolution: MIM calls on the people of Cuba
and people around the world to join us in
organizing for the day when imperialist aggression
will be defeated for good.
NOTES:
1. Reuter 25 August 1997.
2. Mark Zepezauer, The CIA's Greatest Hits, 1994,
Odanian Press, Box 32375 Tucson AZ 85751.
3. Send $6 to MIM to order a copy of MIM Theory 4:
A Spiral trajectory; the failure and success of
Communist development for more on this issue.
* * *
WHAT ARE YOUR VIEWS ON THE DEATH PENALTY?
by a prisoner in the Michigan gulags
August 17, 1997, on a Christian Sunday night, the
television program Prime Time showed a special
about a black man named Antonio James, who had
spent 16 years in Louisiana's death row for an
armed robbery/murder.
Accordingly, Antonio James has always maintained
that he was not the shooter in the crime and never
participated in the murder of the victim of
victims, but did admit to being at the scene.
Prime Time cameras showed Antonio James in his
death row cell; him spending his last visit with
family members and his lawyers. They shoed him
having his last meal (a seafood dish) with the
warden and some prison guards. They showed the last
moments of his life as he was led from his cell to
(the room of death) to be strapped on a gurney for
lethal injections and all the while proclaiming his
innocence. They showed the guard who came out to
the prison gates to inform James' family, friends
and supporters, as well as the victim's family,
friends and supporters that "Antonio James expired
at 12:27 a.m." At that point i turned off my
television (here in my prison cell) in disgust,
anger and sadness. By the way, Antonio James was 41
years of age when he was murdered by the state of
Louisiana.
This is a moving story but it is not an isolated
one. Unfortunately, this takes place all the time
in Amerikkka and it is happening more and more
frequently as we see this new "tough on crime"
attitude swept the nation by overzealous
politicians.
In thinking about Antonio James' case you have to
ask and wonder "did he really not do it?" And if he
didn't commit the actual murder of another human
being, "did the state take an innocent man's life?"
And then you ask, "did the prosecutor withhold
important information which could have cleared this
man in the eyes of the jury?" Sadly, it is too late
for Antonio James to ever know the answer but it is
not to late for you (the public) to say it is time
to stop state sponsored murders. Murders committed
in the name of "The People." These murders... these
state executions are not committed for justice but
to enhance political careers. To instill a false
security in the public's mind that they are safe
with the accused executed. But what about the
person who were murdered/executed wrongfully? How
do you five back a life taken? How?
And then there are other questions and issues to
consider. Like Joyce Ann Brown (a black womyn who
sat in prison in Gatesville, Texas for 9 years
leaving a young daughter behind) for an armed
robbery she did not commit and later proved
innocent by competent attorneys who discovered that
the prosecution covered-up truth, evidence and
proceeded to give the jury misinformation so they
could win a case. Or what about the four black men
who sat in an Illinois prison (death row) for 18
years only to be discovered that they did not
commit the crime.
The examples can go on but there is no need to do
that because the point has been made. That point
being "we cannot allow this type of judicial
injustice to continue."
Today, we also find more and more wimmin going to
death row for alleged crimes involving the murder
of their children or for protecting themselves
against an abusive relationship. More often than
not, these cases are not properly represented by
competent attorneys an thus wimmin languish in
prison for years.
The kill-crazy mentality of state and federal
government officials has got to stop and only "WE"
can make this happen. Only "The people" can demand
that all executions are hereby stopped and will no
longer be tolerated.
Since the U/$/ Supreme KKKourt has reinstituted the
death penalty state and federal prosecutors have
sought the death penalty with a vengeance. And the
politicians have worked overtime selling fear as
justice to the people. We are only as strong as we
want to be. And these injustices happen only
because "WE" (as a collective) allow it to happen.
MIM adds: We agree with this comrade that the
death penalty under imperialism must be opposed.
Not only is it used to execute innocent people but
it is also used unequally: punishing Blacks and
Latinos disproportionately while ignoring the
biggest murderers, thieves and rapists -- those
running the imperialist government of Amerika.
According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, in
1994 (most recent year available), 49% of those on
death row were white, 41% Black, and 7% "Hispanic"
(non-Black). Since 12.5% of the population within
u.$. borders is Black and 4.3% is "Hispanic," this
means that Blacks and Latinos are imprisoned at
rates 3.3 and 1.6 times that of whites
respectively.
MIM is fighting for a society where no people are
oppressed by other people. On the way to that
society, communism, we need a stage of socialism
where the proletariat is in power: a dictatorship
of the proletariat. This stage of society will
involve some repression since we recognize that the
imperialists will not just give up their power
peacefully. We also know that bourgeois culture has
trained people in crimes against the people and
while we are changing this culture we will still
need to deal with these problems with force. And we
do recognize that death is a part of revolution so
we do not take the pacifist tact of opposing all
killing. In revolutionary China the people executed
some of the former landlords who had been
particularly murderous and the death penalty was
not eliminated from use by the criminal justice
system. The proletariat will use the death penalty
and prisons with the purpose of eliminating the
need for such a system. Rather than kill our
enemies, we will struggle to convince them that
crimes against the people are wrong and there are
good reasons to change.
This comrade is correct that we can stop the death
penalty. But there is a reason why many Amerikans
support the death penalty: they have an interest
in perpetuating the criminal injustice system which
serves to protect the wealth and status of white
Amerika. That is why MIM does not issue general
calls for "the people" to unite to overthrow the
system; "the people" are divided into different
groups based on their relation to the current power
structure. Instead, MIM talks about organizing the
oppressed nations and white nation youth to make
socialist revolution in alliance with the
proletariat in oppressed nations abroad. While
individuals from every social group can join the
revolution, we should not base our hopes on
mobilizing groups which mainly benefit from the
status quo. To do that would be like trying to swim
up a waterfall.
MIM strives to continue the battle against
imperialist sponsored murder while putting it in
the larger context of the imperialist system.
* * *
SHUSWAP GET PRISON TERMS FOR DRAWING RCMP FIRE
by MC45
Thirteen members of the Shuswap Nation surrounded
by British Columbia, Kanada have recently been
awarded prison terms for being victimized by a
state siege of their land two years ago. The only
thing mitigating these unjust prison sentences is
that these brothers and sisters have already been
held captive by the Royal Canadian Mounted
Police(RCMP) before their trials -- in considering
the amount of time each person has left to serve on
their sentence the Kanadian injustice system
credits people double the time they have already
served. Two Shuswap defendants in the same case
were convicted but because they have just recently
given birth were not sentenced to any prison time.
The four defendants who received the longest
sentences were all convicted of "mischief causing
actual danger to lie" and possession of weapons.
The other 11 people were convicted of mischief to
property. Settlers in Support of Indigenous
Sovereignty, a group which has covered much of this
case with essays and press releases, referred to
the Shuswap defenders as "standing on natural,
international and constitutional law."(1)
MIM adds that most importantly, the Shuswap were
standing on proletarian law, which says that all
nations, big and small have the right to national
self-determination and that none should be subject
to occupation or exploitation by other nations. MIM
supports the struggles of First Nations against
imperialist domination because the struggles of the
oppressed for national self-determination are the
first step in demolishing the international beast
of imperialism.
HISTORY OF THE SIEGE
What the white nation calls crimes were committed
when 30 First Nation nationals and their supporters
occupied a ranch at the Sundance ground of Ts'eten,
which the settlers call Gustafsen Lake, claiming
the land as the site for the Sundance. The RCMP
surrounded the land with armored personnel carriers
and within days, mounted what one soldier described
as the largest Kanadian land battle since the
Korean War.(2)
The basis for the siege had been most recently
established six years earlier in 1989 when a
Shuswap Faith Keeper informed Lyle James, a rancher
with grazing rights at Gustafsen Lake that the site
would be used for the Sundance. Every year
following, the Sundance was held on that land for
ten days. In 1991 a Shuswap elder took the land
issue to the Hague, and in 1992 and 1993 took it to
the United Nations, trying to have the land --
which was unceded by the Shuswap -- returned to the
nation.(3)
In what was reported as the protesters trading
shots with armed Royal Kanadian Mounted Police,(4)
one chronology of events says "two police officers
accidentally ran their vehicle into a tree branch
and panicked assuming themselves to be under attack
and fled the scene firing widely. Although there
was no attack, the RCMP gave a press conference ...
and claimed that the officers had been ambushed and
pursued. This non-existent attack was used to
justify the introduction of the military into the
area."(3)
YOU CAN'T JUDGE NATIVES IN THE OCCUPIERS' COURTS
Some defenders refused to offer a legal defense
beyond the fact that because the land is native,
the Kanadian courts have no jurisdiction.(1) MIM
agrees with this stance; this case is a reminder
to the settlers than Kanada and Amerika have no
legitimate claim to the land they occupy. Lyle
James got into trouble because settlers who make
deals with other settlers and with settler
governments for the use of First Nation land are
inherently trampling on the First Nations' land
rights. The land is always contested and it is only
a matter of time before this contest escalates into
a physical dispute.
The initial Gustafsen Lake standoff was one in a
string on Indigenous-Kanada disputes in 1995-96.
Also in September of 1995, Kanadian pigs opened
fire on a group of protesters occupying Ipperwash
Provincial Park in Ontario, killing one and
wounding others. The Mohawk Nation supported the
people at Gustafsen Lake and at Ipperwash with
their own highway blockade and press statements.(4)
Five months later, the Nisga'a won a small land
settlement from British Columbia.(5)
The settler governments and courts have an extreme
military advantage, but their moral stance is weak
and so is their strategic position. The surviving
First Nations in occupied north America understand
that the land belongs to them and that the
imperialists hold no power of law which the
oppressed are bound to respect. While the oppressed
are still militarily weak, MIM will continue to
build public opinion in favor of their just
struggles for self-determination. Continuing to
expose the imperialists' brutal role in the lives
of the colonized nations, we are building
independent institutions of the oppressed -- our
first tool in the decisive overthrow of
imperialism.
NOTES:
1. Settlers in Support of Indigenous Sovereignty
(SISIS) Bulletin 7 July, 1997.
2.
http://kafka.uvic.ca/~vipirg/SISIS/court/reasdef.ht
ml
3.
http://kafka.uvic.ca/~vipirg/SISIS/GustLake/chrono.
html
4. MIM Notes 105 October 1995.
5. MIM Notes 113 1 May, 1996.
* * *
BALTIMORE POLICE KILL UNARMED MAN:
CITY USES BLACK POLICE FOR COVER
by an MC
After Baltimore police killed a Black man in cold
blood on August 11, many Black nation members in
the city and around the country were outraged. But
the fact that the officers were Black has been used
to quell popular anger over the murder. This
illustrates one of the real dangers in the white
nation's use of Black mercenaries to do its dirty
work. It obscures the bloody oppression of Blacks
on the level of nation, and makes it easier to
deflect the masses' anger into reformist and
pragmatic goals instead of towards the movement for
national liberation.
Four Black Baltimore police surrounded a Black man
holding a knife, and ordered him to drop it. After
a short standoff -- watched by a crowd of onlookers
and someone with a video camera -- one pig suddenly
shot him dead. On the videotape, according to the
Washington Post, "the man appears passive, almost
sluggish, his arms dangling at his sides."
But the Post did not see what the eagle-eyed pigs
allegedly saw -- a subtle development in the
situation, according to the shooting officer's
lawyer, who says there was a "slight movement of
the left foot, and [he] appeared to be gripping the
weapon more tightly, flexing up his muscles and
gritting his teeth." Or, according to the officer
himself, "when he gave the impression he was going
to charge, I fired." This contradicts the
statements of the other witnesses, one of whom said
the man "didn't do anything . . . He was like in a
daze."
The victim, James Quarles, was a street vendor at
the market where the shooting took place. He always
used a knife to open packages of goods. He was
holding a package of athletic socks in one hand and
a knife in the other when police arrived in
response to a panicked phone call. Police said his
slow manner, and supposedly blood-shot eyes,
indicated he was on drugs -- but the medical
examiner found no trace of drugs or alcohol in his
body.
The murder of Quarles is the latest in a recent
surge of killings by the Baltimore police. Their
own records show they have fatally shot 26 people
since January 1995, and wounded 45 more. Other
recent cases include the killing of a 22-year-old
driver during a traffic stop, and the murder of a
64-year-old womyn supposedly wielding a knife in
her own kitchen. The Post reports that some Black
pseudo-community leaders say that if the police had
been white there would have been a violent
rebellion by Baltimore's Black population. The
local Uncle Tom leader of the NAACP said although
it appears the shooting was "very questionable,"
and that "it appears the officer lost control and
acted inappropriately," he doesn't think people
should jump to conclusions and demand a murder
charge until "all the facts are in."(1)
The recent incident, and the situation in Black
cities like Baltimore in general, demonstrate the
problem with Black police forces doing the state's
dirty work. Over the years, many progressives have
made the mistake of demanding Black representation
on police forces instead of organizing against the
police force in the first place. The white nation
imperialist state picked up on this right away and
started filling many positions in police forces
with Blacks.
In 1995, although Black's made up only 7.8% of
police and detective supervisors, they were 11.2%
of public police and detectives, 15.4% of
sheriff's, bailiffs, and other law enforcement
officers, and 28.2% of correctional officers. Since
1983 there has been a decline in the percentage of
supervisors who are Black (it was 9.3% then), while
the Black proportion of the other non-desk jobs has
increased substantially.(2) It is a front by the
white nation imperialist state. It wants the Black
kops out on the streets making oppression seem less
nation-targeted and buffer it from the masses'
fury.
The imperialists have seized on Black mercenaries
on a large scale, and for good reasons. They
satisfy the demands of pseudo-leaders in the civil
rights movement for "representation." Hiring Black
pigs helps provide public relations cover, as in
this Baltimore case, because people can say the
pigs aren't "racist" and can ignore systematic
national oppression. Increasing Black pigs provides
better-paying jobs for a large group of working-
class Blacks, boosting some into the middle class,
which undermines political will for genuine self-
determination for the Black nation.
As long as the Black nation does not develop its
own institutions to solve its own problems, the
state will always be able to develop some popular
support for these efforts. People do want someone
to call to break up fights or stop drug dealers --
and to stop the police, too. On the videotape, the
shooting officer appeared to be distracted by the
crowd two seconds before he fired the fatal shot.
Pigs would prefer to murder unquestioned. Pigs fear
hostile oppressed nation community presence and
action, because injustice enrages the masses; the
Los Angeles and St. Petersburg Rebellions are just
two shining examples.
The community's involvement in this incident -- as
opposed to just closing the doors and dropping the
curtains -- made the trigger-happy pig nervous.
This community watchfulness when pigs are harassing
and murdering in Black nation neighborhoods is a
good and necessary action for protecting themselves
and policing the pigs.
Point seven in the Black Panther Party's Ten Point
Program states in part, "we believe that we can end
police brutality in our black community by
organizing black self-defense groups that are
dedicated to defending our black community from
racist police oppression and brutality."(3) The
Black communities should be free of brutality and
oppression. But this will never be granted or
reformed into being by the supremacist imperialist
state.
Members of the Black nation shouldn't be fooled by
the black mercenaries employed by the imperialists.
The Black nation must organize to seize self-
determination and national liberation for
themselves by following the powerful heritage of
the Maoist vanguard of the late 1960s, the Black
Panther Party, and learning from its mistakes. The
road to freedom is proletarian feminist
revolutionary nationalism.
The task of genuine revolutionaries is to develop
independent institutions of the oppressed, to
delegitimize the actions of the imperialists'
occupying armies, and use these institutions to
build a revolutionary movement toward genuine
national liberation and self-determination.
Historical experience has shown that Maoist-led
national liberation struggles are the best way to
accomplish these difficult tasks.
Notes:
1. Washington Post 23 Aug 1997, p. B1.
2. Statistical Abstract of the United States 1996,
p. 407.
3. Philip S. Foner, ed., The Black Panthers Speak.
NY: Da Capo Press, 1995. Available from MIM for
$10, see address on pg.2.
* * *
AMERIKAN JURY DECIDES AGAINST INDICTING MURDEROUS
MARINE
A Texas grand jury decided not to indict a u.$.
marine who shot and killed a young man herding his
family's goats, despite the facts that the Marine
lied about the shooting and failed to call for
medical assistance quickly. The marine and three of
his buddies were patrolling the illegitimate
Mexican-Amerikan border as part of a program using
military troops to do the job of the Immigration
and Naturalization Service (INS) when he shot
Esequiel Hernandez, Jr.
District Attorney Valadez said "They believed the
Marines were telling the truth when they said ...
[the dead man] fired the first shot." As MIM Notes
143 reported, there is no evidence that Hernandez
fired his WWI-era rifle. Hernandez probably did not
even know that the marines were there, and the
fatal bullet wound provided evidence that he was
looking away from the marines when he was shot.
Valadez explained, "The grand jury believed the
Marines were following the rules of engagement."
The military suspended use of its troops on the
border until further notice. But whether or not the
military returns to INS duties, the "rules of
engagement" along the border are militarized and
are becoming more violent. People crossing the
border in search of work are routinely brutalized,
molested, and, of course, arrested and deported.
The laws which force so many people to try to cross
the border clandestinely are designed to preserve
the low wage level in Mexico as well as the low
wage level among undocumented workers within u.$.
borders. The borders were created by armed conquest
and are defended by armed force, and the INS is
part of that armed force.
MIM struggles to build a movement to overthrow u.$.
imperialism and create a proletarian, socialist
government. One of the first acts of this
government would be to open the borders.
* * *
U.S. IMPERIALISM: MERCHANT OF DEATH
by MC53
During the so-called Cold War, militarization was
backed with the rhetoric of the need to protect
democracy from the communists. Now, the u.s
imperialists continue militarization under the
guise of the war on drugs and gangs and youth; to
protect Amerika's illegitimate borders; and to back
fascist dictatorships combating alleged terrorism.
Along with militarization to continue Amerika's war
against oppressed nations, Amerika is increasing
its profit from the trade of weapons. This fits
well with the growth of direct war waged through
comprador dictatorships with less direct u.s.
military presence in Third World nations. While
weapons are used to attack the masses, Amerikan
workers and weapons contractors benefit from the
profits from death machine sales and u.s.
imperialism maintains control through puppet
dictators.
A recent u.s. government report shows that the
United $nakes pulled far ahead in 1996 to dominate
the international weapons market. "This was the
sixth consecutive year in which the United States
led the field in arms deliveries, in part
reflecting American success in winning contracts
for arms sales in the Middle East in the aftermath
of the Gulf War."(1)
The annual arms survey by the Congressional
Research Service showed that while the market for
weapons increased five percent last year, the u.s.
imperialist portion of the market increased 23
percent in the same time. That means that u.s
imperialists and their defense contractors sold
$11.3 billion in weapons in 1996. Together with
England and Russia, the u.s contractors sell about
two-thirds of weapons world wide.
The war against the people of Iraq in part served
to increase profits for defense contractors and
help fill the defense industry's pockets. But
seeing that the burst following the war has ebbed
slightly, the United Snakes has changed its policy
regarding the sale of the most advanced weapons to
Latin American countries and has now opened up yet
another market this year.
While the reports maintain that the 19 year old ban
of advanced weapons sales to Latin America
countries was due to human rights concerns, the
reality is that the United Snakes continued to send
arms to Latin American dictators as they fought
against rebels during the 1970s and 1980s. It is a
ruse to conclude that the ban was to protect the
people from human rights violations when the United
Snakes was (and continues to be) one of the more
fierce violators of human rights by funding
dictators and training mercenaries and army leaders
in their war against the peoples of Latin
America.(2)
Regardless of what type of arms imperialists sell
to Latin American countries or which countries are
the main suppliers, the primary victims of the
weapons sales are the masses. While the u.s.
imperialists may maneuver to ensure that the best
puppets receive the most advanced weapons, this is
just a continuation of u.s policy of supplying its
puppets in the war against the people.
The lifting of the ban on advanced weaponry does
open up the market for contractors like the
Lockheed Martin Corporation and the McDonnell
Douglas Corporation which can now take over the
sales of aircraft from other merchants. The lifting
of the ban merely helps these contractors and u.s
imperialists increase the market. For instance, the
weapons market decreased from $54.3 billion in
1990, to $37.2 billion in 1991; and increased to
$42.2 billion in 1992 after the Gulf War. The world
market had decreased to $30.3 billion by 1995 and
the u.s share of this market barely edged out
Russia.
"Weapons manufactures in the United States
benefited last year from well-established defense
alliances with Middle Eastern and Asian
nations."(3) While the manufactures have lobbied
for greater freedoms to sell advanced weapons of
death, u.s imperialism benefits by the assurance
that its puppets are well armed and capable of
conquering mass rebellions and revolutions. While
it is possible that the weapons could lead to an
arms race among Third World governments, the
alleged war on drugs, against revolutionary
movements and against protesting peasants and
workers shows that these weapons will help continue
the propped up illegitimate governments and leave
imperialism maneuvering room for economic
exploitation of the Third World masses.
Notes:
1. New York Times 16 Aug 1997 p. A3
2. New York Times 2 Aug 1997 p. A1.
3. New York Times 16 Aug 1997 p. A3.
* * *
AMERIKA DRAGGING FEET IN INTERNATIONAL EFFORT TO
BAN LANDMINES
Kanada is leading an international effort to ban
anti-personnel landmines, and Amerika is the
leading imperialist to resist joining. China and
Russia are also reluctant to attend the talks to
prepare the ban on the production, use and sale of
landmines.(1) After much international pressure, on
August 19 the Clinton administration finally agreed
to join the talks and sent negotiators to Geneva
for the talks. Amerika wants to exempt the use of
landmines in Korea, which presumably would still
allow their production and then illegal use
elsewhere.(2)
The proposed ban would only eliminate mines
intended to harm people; mines for military
purposes such as anti-tank mines would still be
allowed. Many military analysts quoted in the
bourgeois papers argue that "antipersonnel mines
play a peripheral role, at best, on the
battlefield."
According to U.$. Army Lieutenant General Robert G.
Gard, "[t]hey have a very marginal utility.... The
collateral suffering caused to civilians by these
weapons of mass destruction far outweighs their
military function." In Viet Nam, Gard refused to
deploy landmines because "they caused civilian
casualties, alienated the local population, and in
any event were far more likely to kill a u.s.
soldier than an enemy."(1)
While it's a good thing that Gard didn't deploy the
weapons, this is misphrasing the issue, first by
implying that the intention of landmine placement
is not the targeting of civilians, and then by
getting into a reactionary debate about how to most
effectively control a colonized population.
First, the purpose of landmines, especially in
modern anti-guerrilla wars, is to harm the civilian
population because the civilian population can't be
distinguished from the guerrillas because they are
the same thing. Secondly, some of the more far
sighted imperialists recognize that weapons like
landmines further alienate the colonized population
and make the imposition of more efficient neo-
colonialism more difficult. Finally, landmines stay
dangerous long after the end of the initial
conflict, creating physical and political problems
for decades.
MIM sees the banning of landmines as a progressive
act that will keep from escalating an already
horrible toll on the people. But we have no false
hopes that the imperialists want to stop their
bloody oppression of the people; they merely want
to do it more effectively and with a kinder gentler
face. (And a weapon being illegal has never stopped
the imperialists from using it when they needed it,
anyway.)
Even if landmines are banned today, there will
still be 112 million landmines sown in 71 nations.
According to the International Committee of the Red
Cross, landmines kill or maim 24,000 people a year,
most of them civilians and often children. Mines
from World War I and II still injure or kill scores
of people a year.(1)
NOTES:
1. Boston Globe, 15 August 1997, p. A2
2. Springfield Union-News, 19 August 1997, p. A1
* * *
WEAPONS DESTRUCTION DANGEROUS TO OPPRESSED
POPULATIONS
It should be a good thing that chemical weapons are
being destroyed as a result of the Chemical Weapons
Convention. But since capitalism values profit and
not safety, the weapons are being destroyed in
dangerous ways.
A military contractor named EG&G Defense Materials
is running the first furnace within U.$ borders to
destroy poison gasses at the Deseret Chemical
Depot, on the edge of the Mormon ranch town of
Tooele. EG&G fired its safety officer when he came
up with a list of 3,000 safety violations. To pick
just one, the sensors on the smokestacks don't work
when exposed to heat; meaning that EG&G and the
Army have no idea what is coming out of the stacks
when the furnaces are in operation.
The Army estimates that there is a 1 in 200 chance
that a forklift is going to drop or puncture a
rocket, which contain enough nerve gas to kill
100,000 people. A forklift has already dropped a 1
ton container of sarin gas. According to the
conservative math of the Army, a catastrophic
accident would kill 1% of the people 60 miles away,
50% of the people 30 miles away, and 75% of those
15 miles away. The Tooele plant has been plagued
with leaks internal to the plant.
Tooele is 50 miles west of Salt Lake City and less
that distance east from the Skull Valley First
Nation Reservation. "Here, stored in rounded
bunkers ... are 13,616 tons of chemical weapons,
accounting for 44 percent of the nation's arsenals
of mustard gas, Lewistie, the psycho-active agent
BZ, GB (sarin) and VX nerve gases." The gas is in
"56,000 M55 rockets, more than one million
artillery shells, thousands of mines, cluster
bombs...." Some weapons date back to World War I,
others are much newer.
This is big business, with $10 billion in new
plants scheduled to be built in the next 5 years.
Globally, the market in destroying these weapons is
valued at nearly $75 billion.
"The nerve agents stored at Tooele and the other
sites are the most lethal in the world. VX, for
example, has a toxicity ten thousand times that of
its agro-industrial cognate, malathion. And unlike
sarin gas which dissipates quickly, VX is designed
to persist in the environment at lethal levels for
weeks. All the military nerve agents are closely
associated with chemicals used in intensive
agriculture and in fact were developed by Shell,
Monsanto, FMC and DuPont under contract to the
Army. A deadly dose of VX is about a millionth the
size of a grain of salt. Victims of VX and sarin
poisoning die a wretched and painful death,
typified by excessive salivation, uncontrollable
weeping and urination, followed by seizures and
massive internal bleeding."
That such weapons were developed and stockpiled in
the first place speaks volumes about the
reactionary nature of the capitalist war machine.
Such weapons cause huge amounts of human
destruction, yet show no ability at all to
distinguish between combatants and non-combatants.
To the imperialists, such a distinction is
irrelevant because of the political necessity to
crush an enemy population.
The plants planned for Anniston, Alabama and Pine
Bluff, Arkansas are in areas more than 50% Black.
The siting of toxic facilities on the land of the
oppressed is nothing new. First their land and
labor was stolen, and now, the continuation of
genocide for the profit of imperialism. The Atomic
Energy Commission justified nuclear tests in the
Southwest by calling the residents "a low-use
segment of the population." President Eisenhower
was even more blunt: "We can afford to sacrifice a
few thousand people out there in the interests of
national security."
Weapons of mass destruction serve no positive
political purpose and should be destroyed. But they
should be destroyed in a way that increases the
safety of the people, not in a way that continues
the past practice of enriching military contractors
while jeopardizing the people's health. Before, the
contractors got rich making the weapons and the
Army aimed them at the oppressed. Now the
contractors are making a bundle by ignoring safety
issues and threatening the lives of the oppressed
and the less influential residents of North
America.
NOTE: Counter Punch, July 1-15 1997, PO Box 18675,
Washington DC 20036. Counter Punch "tells the facts
and names the names."
* * *
THIRD PARTIES LOSE IN ENGLAND BIG-TIME
The election of the Labour Party in England by an
overwhelming majority meant savage losses by the
so-called alternative parties and put them on par
with their pitiful Amerikan electoral cousins. The
Green Party suffered so badly it only polled over
1000 votes in 10 seats it was running for in
Parliament. (The total population of the so-called
United Kingdom -- including England, Scotland,
Wales, northern Ireland -- is 58.5 million.)
The point of Labour's victory after 18 years of
Conservative Party rule is to offer an alternative
to organizing from the far left. The capitalist-
class is always taking a risk of being on the wrong
side of certain issues in such a way that the
communists (in the worst case for the capitalists)
seize on the issues and monopolize them. For this
reason, when a communist is working alone on a big
issue which is a matter of justice, s/he can be
sure the bourgeoisie is getting a nervous feeling.
Eventually, the bourgeoisie and the middle-classes
move in to co-opt the issues taken up by those
building institutions independent of ruling class
institutions.
The typical middle-class activist only works on an
issue so as to attract ruling-class attention with
properly self-censored language. In this way, the
petty-bourgeois liberals concede the heart of most
political questions to the bourgeoisie and never
challenge the ruling class's political control. It
is only the proletariat that will work on an issue
to its logical end and raise political
consciousness, because that is the only way the
proletariat can win. In England, we see now that
the middle-class voter is the vast majority of
voters. The supporters of the various so-called
socialist groups and Greens abandoned ship the
moment a "new" Labour Party appeared. The so-called
alternative organizations and the Labour Party are
appealing to the same base of the labor aristocracy
and traditional petty-bourgeoisie.
Meanwhile, a magazine called Red Pepper is an
example of the mixture of middle-class and
proletarian issues. It has generally focused on how
Tony Blair is a Clinton-clone and a spineless non-
socialist.
In the June, 1997 issue, MIM can hardly object to
Gary Younge's article saying that England's flag
should be abandoned for a new one, because of its
colonialist and militarist past. He is complaining
about the celebrities such as Jarvis Cocker, Naomi
Campbell, Liam Gallagher and Geri from the Spice
Girls appearing in photos clothed in the Union
Jack. We only object that Younge let Amerikans and
French off the hook too easily in order to vilify
England's imperialism. Those flags are also symbols
of oppression.
Another excellent article was by what MIM calls an
internationalist social-democrat named Job Rabkin.
Rabkin says England should not join the likes of
Buchanan and Le Pen as the Communist Party USA
advises in its alliance with non-monopoly capital.
The graphic for the article is typical left-wing
fantasy with 330 million Europeans and 330 million
having jobs in the "New Europe." This typical bit
of oinking on behalf of the middle-classes of
imperialism is so exuberant that it forgets it is
assigning work to infants, retirees and the infirm.
At some point the middle-classes are going to have
to realize that we should not just want more people
employed; instead we want to eradicate parasitic
jobs predominant in the First World and want those
unemployed to be leading productive lives in study,
art etc. Even more important is that there should
be a movement to end the parasitic consumerism at
the expense of the Third World, not as a matter of
altruism, but as a matter of peace and
understanding the flaws of the capitalist-system.
Though we disagree with his core concerns of the
middle-classes, Rabkin advocates for jobs, welfare
and public services in an internationalist way by
opposing those chauvinists such as Le Pen afraid of
European Union. Rabkin wants cross-border
alliances.
As such, Rabkin is more of a potential ally than
the CP-USA, DSA and other chauvinist scum. In
England, provincialists of the Socialist Labour
Party and the Greens campaigned against the single
currency plan for the European Union. In contrast,
we at MIM believe there is no progressive role for
economic nationalism and most other kinds of
nationalism in imperialist countries. These
provincialist fools are paving the way for a
national socialist movement, which is what the Nazi
movement was called.
On the other hand, despite some fairly decent
articles, Red Pepper is mostly dedicated to the
middle-class. We receive a special insert upholding
the peace agreements in Guatemala, Palestine and
South Africa as successes that should be followed
by the Six Counties of Ireland.
As higher percentages of wimmin seek to imprison
men instead of thoroughly attacking patriarchy, Red
Pepper calls for more incarceration for alleged
rape by complaining about the decline of rape
conviction. On the other hand, we should admit that
Red Pepper does pay some attention to prison issues
in a middle-class way by demanding of the new
Labour government early release for non-violent
offenders, an end to phone tapping, support for
undocumented immigrants, a ban on CS spray and
long-handled batons and an end to anti-Terror and
public order laws used against protests.
Under the new regime in England, it is important to
understand the vacillation of the middle-classes.
That shines through in the election results in
which a Clinton-clone carried the day and now has a
69 percent approval rating. We urge the English,
Scottish and Irish comrades to rally around MIM as
an unwavering proletarian pole to sort out the
inevitable maneuverings of the imperialists and the
middle-classes in the new government.
NOTE: Red Pepper, No. 37, pp. 7, 13, 18-20.
SELLING THIRD WORLD WORKERS SHORT
LIST OF ORGANIZATIONS SELLING THIRD WORLD WORKERS
SHORT:
Committees of Correspondence
Democratic Socialists of America (DSA)
League of Revolutionary Struggle (LRS)
Progressive Labor Party (PLP)
Revolutionary Communist Party (USA)
Revolutionary Internationalist Movement (RIM)
Socialist Party
Socialist Workers Party
Solidarity
Spartacist League
Unity & Struggle
Workers World Party
(etc. many more and their counterparts in Europe,
Australia and Japan)
LIST OF THOSE WHO EVEN TRIED TO JUSTIFY IT:
Doug Henwood, magazine editor
(rebutted in MT#1)
Victor Perlo, Communist Party-USA
(rebutted in upcoming MT article available now to
comrades outside the U$A, $5)
LIST OF THOSE WHO GOT IT RIGHT
African People's Socialist Party (APSP)
J. Sakai, anarchist author
H. W. Edwards, unknown author
(Help us add to this list!)
The silence is deafening. In 1985, Third World
workers averaged 48 cents an hour in pay**. So why
do so few people calling themselves socialist or
communist calculate the total of imperialist
exploitation? Why do they seek to sell the Third
World workers short instead of giving them their
due?
The imperialists sell them short because they
profit and live off the exploitation of Third World
workers. The comprador puppet leaders of Third
World regimes sell the workers short, because they
are on CIA and multinational corporate payrolls --
much more lucrative than anything their own people
can afford to pay them. The nationalist anti-puppet
bourgeoisie sells them short, because the national
bourgeoisie also wants to exploit Third World
workers, just not quite as much as the imperialists
and compradors or so they claim when they are out
of power.
The bought-off workers known as labor aristocracy -
- a new kind of petty-bourgeoisie -- sell Third
World workers short, because a calculation would
show that Third World workers are exploited so much
that it adds up to several times more than the
capitalist class of the imperialist countries rake
in each year. The rest of the gravy from exploiting
Third World workers goes to the bourgeoisified
populations of the imperialist countries. When
bought-off workers have political representatives
making excuses for parasitism or evading the issue
entirely, those representatives are "labor
bureaucrats." The list of labor bureaucrats above
is long, because the vast majority of political
organizations seek to represent the capitalist-
class and the petty-bourgeois majority in the
imperialist countries.
There are no two ways about it: those who do not
admit that the U$A, Japan, Germany, France, England
etc. are parasites are selling the Third World
workers short. That's what MIM's third cardinal
principle means. We do not allow anyone to join our
organization who is selling Third World workers
short. People who cannot face up to facts once
presented -- that the Third World workers are
exploited so much that imperialists live and gain
all their wealth off just that exploitation with
the rest going to buy-off the oppressor-nation
workers -- such are not even half-way Marxist and
they do not belong in a real communist
organization. If such revisionists, chauvinists and
their lackeys in the Third World come to power, the
Third World workers will still be exploited.
Isn't it time you ended the deafening silence and
forced your organization to take a stand or
affiliate with MIM? If you are not in an
organization affiliated with MIM, send in your name
or your organization's name saying, "Yes, I/we want
to be counted with those not selling Third World
workers short. There is no excuse for the failure
to calculate the total exploitation and the lack of
effort to rebut MIM. List us as endorsing your
position on this when you update this ad."
NOTE: Adrian Wood, North-South trade Employment and
Inequality (Oxford, ENGLAND: Oxford University
Press, 1994), p. 400.
* * *
AVAILABLE NOW!
"IMPERIALISM AND ITS CLASS STRUCTURE IN 1997"
This is an unofficial booklet available now for
discussion outside the U.$.A. We continue the work
started by Lenin of eradicating the influence of
the labor aristocracy, a new petty-bourgeoisie in
the international communist movement. To do this we
must know how extensive the petty-bourgeoisie has
become so as to avoid becoming its spokespeople
unintentionally.
This booklet reviews the concept from Marx to Mao,
examines current evidence for the integration of
finance capital, the existing trade blocs, the new
trends and sources in surplus-value extraction that
have bailed out the capitalists and the evidence
that there is no surplus-value extracted from the
bought-off oppressor-nation majorities in the
U.$.A., Japan, Germany, France, England, Italy,
Netherlands, Switzerland, Belgium, Sweden and
Australia.
We challenge our readers in the imperialist
countries to read and support or rebut this booklet
and we promise to publish serious replies.
Available to residents outside the U.S. borders
only! $5 for xerox copy from the address on page
two.
* * *
ALIENATION OF YOUTH MASKED THROUGH LEGAL DRUGS
by MC53
All the patriotic Amerikan hype in the alleged war
on drugs rings hallow in the face of repression
against oppressed nations internationally and
within the illegitimate borders of the United
Snakes. Militarization and the proliferation of
prisons shows that the war on drugs is merely a
cover to murder and imprison the oppressed. As the
sector of the white nation with the most to gain
from revolution, white nation youth also have
become a target in the alleged war against drugs
and gangs. Locking up youth who are organized and
individual youth who rebel fits well within with
the plan to protect Amerikan interests.
Besides increased harassment and imprisonment of
youth because they are not working in the interests
of Amerika, youth are targets for Amerikan
pacification. If a youth is angry as a result of
patriarchal control or the alienation of living in
a society which reeks of wealth stolen through
genocide and domination, according to Amerikan
psychology the youth has something wrong with him
or her. MIM urges youth to take up the struggle
against systematic oppression and wage
revolutionary struggle. But we are battling against
Amerika which is attempting to either buy off youth
or pacify them. Last year, Amerika pacified 217,000
13 - 18 year olds through Prozac alone.
Under socialism, drugs will be used to help adults
and children with severe chemical imbalances which
inhibit their ability to become productive members
of society. But depression diagnoses and other
pseudo-scientific diagnoses run rampant under the
current system. This is because the medical
industry makes money off of such mis-diagnoses. The
real cause of many of the so-called psychological
disorders is the alienation that people experience
an imperialist society which provides useless
parasitical jobs and a meaningless existence that
is focused on material wealth and power over other
people.
The adult market for Prozac and anti-depressants
decreased by 5% last year and is seemingly
saturated. But the market for anti-depressants
given to youth is wide open and being pried further
by zealous drug companies. Overall, Prozac sales
were $1.73 billion in the United Snakes last year.
And the sales to youth 13 to 18 years old increased
46% in 1996. This is even prior to a formal F.D.A.
clearance of anti-depressants for children. Drug
companies want a formal clearing so that they can
directly market their drugs for youth.
Eli Lilly, the company which makes Prozac, has
submitted data recently to the F.D.A. in an attempt
to receive a formal approval for this drug for use
on youth. In addition, SmithKline Beecham, the
company which produces Paxil and the Bristol-Myers
Squibb Company as well as the American Home
Products Corporation are all preparing studies and
research to persuade the F.D.A. to approve anti-
depressants formally for youth. Last year about
600,000 children in the United Snakes were
prescribed anti-depressants. The Prozac
prescriptions for 6 - 12 year olds increased 298%.
Youth under 18 years old do not even have the legal
power to say that they do not want to take such
pacifiers. These pacifiers are forced upon them to
hide the disgust-filled reaction to patriarchy and
domination. Many youth are labeled with various
psychological problems because of their class or
nationality as well. When a female youth is sad or
confused because her father raped her, she should
organize against patriarchy, she should not be
forced to take a happy pill. When a Black youth is
pissed that he saw his brother shot by the pigs, he
should organize against settler nation domination,
not take a quiet pill or face prison. Pills will
not indefinitely cover up the inequities and
systematic domination under imperialist patriarchy.
As the contradictions continue to unfold, we will
organize youth and the masses in general to turn
their anger and disgust with the current system
into rational, well-thought out and organized
actions against the oppressors.
NOTE: The New York Times 10 August 1997, p.A12.
* * *
MEN WANT MONOPOLY ON IMPERIALIST TRAINING
by MC45
Now that 31 wimmin have begun training at Virginia
Military Institute(VMI) -- the second formerly
men's-only military academy to lose a lawsuit to
restrict admissions of wimmin -- graduates of VMI
and the Citadel (which started enrolling wimmin
last year) are planning to found a new men-only
school. VMI and the Citadel lost their rights to
exclude wimmin because they are public
institutions. The new school planned by the VMI and
Citadel alumni will be private.
This proves what MIM has always said: wimmin or
no, gays or no, the Amerikan military is an
imperialist and patriarchal institution. So the
military men have lost the right to keep state
institutions free of wimmin-folk? Doesn't matter.
Luckily the state still protects their right to
have more wealth than the majority of the world's
population -- enough wealth to consider spending
some of it, and a whole lot of time, building their
own school when the state schools won't cut it
anymore.
While MIM opposes discrimination, we do not support
struggles fought to allow wimmin, gays, or
oppressed nationals to serve in an oppressive
military. The Amerikan military forces currently
occupy south Korea, keeping the Korean peninsula
divided and enforcing the famine in the north.
Amerika props up Israeli displacement, confinement
and murder of Palestinians on their own land. The
U.$. military backs up the oppressive u.s.-Ramos
regime in the Philippines and slows the inevitable
victory of the People's War against imperialism.
MIM considers all of these activities to be much
greater gender oppression than the exclusion of
wimmin from a couple of imperialist state-run
colleges. MIM calls out to young wimmin in the
imperialist countries: if you want to fight gender
oppression, come work with us. Struggle alongside
the forces of the Third World sisters and brothers,
expose and agitate against imperialist interference
in the Third World and help bring an end to all
gender oppression, not just the discrimination you
see here at home.
NOTES: New York Times 18 August, 1997, p. A8.
* * *
NEW INDIAN PREZ NO FRIEND OF THE PEOPLE
The neo-colonial government of India has chosen a
new president -- a ceremonial leader where the
prime minister is more influential. Amid the
celebrations of India's fifty years of so-called
independence from English colonialism, there has
been much hullabaloo following the choice for
president, Narayanan. He is a "dalit," the Hindi
word for "oppressed" which refers to those groups
formerly considered "untouchables." Does the rise
to power of this man mean that India has in fact
become an egalitarian place? No. Anti-imperialists
know that despite his caste background Narayanan is
a friend of the imperialists and an enemy of
India's masses.
According to the New York Times, Narayanan
"declared his elevation as proof that 'the concerns
of the common man' have finally taken precedence in
the nation's affairs." In fact, he is hardly a
common man. He started out as an impoverished dalit
in the southern state of Kerala facing oppression
based on class, nation and caste. His initial roots
make him the perfect bourgeois model to show that
'the oppressed only have to work hard and as a
result can pull themselves up by their bootstraps.'
But statistically speaking, fairy godmothers don't
reach down to India's majority. Narayanan is an
exception who rose from his caste because of his
collaboration with imperialism.
After some schooling abroad, Narayanan played an
important part in anti-progressive organizing by
India's ruling class. First, he joined the foreign
service and was a diplomat in Burma, Thailand, and
in 1976 in China. (While China was Maoist, India
severed ties; it was only after capitalist-roaders
took power that India sent Narayanan in to make
peace.) He also served in the United Snakes.
Narayanan's role as a henchman for the government
then turned to internal anti-communism. He was
chosen by the country's ruling party, the Congress
Party, to run for one of the seats in the
representative body reserved for people of
"scheduled castes" against a phony communist from
his home state. Even though he lived far away in
the country's capital, New Delhi, he still won.
That was a victory for the Congress Party, which
has a hard time maintaining dalit support.
The bourgeoisie uses this story as propaganda -- to
convey the myth that anyone can become president if
they just study hard. The imperialist mouthpiece
New York Times referred to the pro-capitalist
Indian Express as having "expressed the hope that
Mr. Narayanan's arrival as President would quell
the turn toward caste-based politics. It said in an
editorial that the appointment 'advertises the fact
that social mobility is no mere directive principle
-- it can be an actual fact.'"
This sort of tokenism is a trick that the
bourgeoisie uses a lot. 'If some individuals can
rise to the top, surely any individual can.' This
is a lie. Just because one individual dalit who is
particularly useful to India's political elites
helps to operate the imperialists' businesses and
rises up does not mean that any dalit with drive
can become the leader of the state. It certainly
does not mean that the oppressed have seized power.
Nearly 350 million of India's 960 million people
still live in deep poverty. Improving the
conditions of 350 million requires more than
tokenism. It requires a whole new system that
produces for the good of the masses rather than the
upward mobility of the few. India must be freed of
the tethers of the imperialists who limit the
potential of the oppressed to solve their common
problems.
NOTES: The New York Times, July 26, 1997, p. 3.
* * *
MASTERS OF ILLUSION: THE WORLD BANK AND THE POVERTY
OF NATIONS
by Catherine Caufield
(NY: Henry Holt and Company, 1996), 432 pp.
Book review written by a MIM comrade
Upon the recommendation of Dennis Brutus, MIM
reviewed Masters of Illusion. We recommend this
book as if it were an extended and thorough
journalistic account of the World Bank from its
beginning. Learning about the World Bank from this
bourgeois source should be eye-opening to anyone
considering communism.
The World Bank is an institution funded by the
industrial countries to lend money for large
projects in the Third World that no commercial bank
would loan money for. The plurality of its staff is
Amerikan economists.
Environment not counted Catherine Caufield
correctly points out that bankers and economists by
training and predisposition naturally incline to
giving the environment short shrift. If there is no
price on polluting or even killing, then economists
do not usually take pollution or premature death
into account. As a result with is large capital for
large projects, the World Bank is behind some of
the world's most destructive economic projects.
Throughout the Third World, bourgeois ideas of
development have come along with environmental
catastrophes sponsored by industrial country
"experts" and bankers. Caufield provides the
details and shows how difficult it is for the World
Bank to change.
Agency of neo-colonialism The World Bank is to neo-
colonialism what the missionary was to colonialism.
Unwilling to work with local experts and government
officials in the Third World, the World Bank
provides the funding to establish entirely new
agencies that fill the role that governments
usually do in industrial countries. "By the early
1970s, more than half of all its loans went to
autonomous agencies it had helped to establish in
scores of countries."(p. 60) For this reason, some
have seen the UN as a competitor of the World Bank,
because both organizations set up their own
branches in the Third World and both have
pretensions of being world governments.
THEORETICAL PROBLEMS
While we recommend this book sheerly on a
journalistic level, it has numerous theoretical
flaws. The most grating flaw is to read this book
as an indictment of the intelligence of bourgeois
economists and Third World government officials, as
if becoming a wealthy country the way these
economists want is just a matter of applying the
expertise of a handful of people.
MIM has to agree with Caufield that the Harvard,
MIT and Oxford trained economists at the World Bank
are especially stupid, because they tend to have
little creativity and confuse their theories with
the scientific and mathematical methods they
learned in graduate schools. However, the ultimate
underlying problem is the system arranging economic
education and rewarding it to be removed from
practical reality. Otherwise, these economists
would notice that capitalism has a far bigger
record of failure than socialism.
Based on the reports of World Bank staff,
Caufield's report never rises to the level of
thinking of systems that influence the behavior of
large numbers of people. Hence, she lightly reports
that bank insiders believe they undercut themselves
by having quotas of loans to make. These quotas
reduce their bargaining power with regard to the
strings attached when it comes to working with
government officials in the Third World. We are
asked to be concerned that the "true rate of
erosion in the Bank's bargaining power was more
like from 50 to 35 percent [of what they want--
ed.]."(p. 103) This is despite the fact that no
systematic evidence comes forth to show that
increasing the Bank's power would be good for
anyone but the Bank.
Even more neo-colonial in outlook is her comment
that the Peruvian people were victims of
demagoguery when some protested ceding control of
the economy to the World Bank. (p. 136) Here the
obsession with intelligence applied to rational
policy merges with neo-colonialism of the sort that
says the Peruvian people should just accept the
supposedly more intellectually sound leadership at
the World Bank.
Elsewhere Caufield sides with the bankers wondering
if investments in education, housing and health pay
off.(p. 125)
Typical of her whole atheoretical approach to
development is her statement quoting one World Bank
officer on why education projects fail : "'The best
and the brightest' in government end up in the
finance ministries and not in the education
ministry." (p. 295)
LENIN VINDICATED
If the reader reads Lenin's "Imperialism" before
reading this book, the reader will see Lenin's
theory vindicated by the facts throughout the book.
Most interesting is the picture of commercial banks
in the Third World, begging to make a loan, so that
they can collect interest, and then having multi-
lateral agencies like the World Bank clean up after
them. According to Lenin, the capitalist system
develops into finance capitalism and the finance
capitalists must find some outlet for their surplus
capital. It turns out that the World Bank annual
meeting is a great chance for commercial bankers to
meet Third World clients.(pp. 136-7) Observing one
such meeting gives the reader the sense that Lenin
had about what imperialists with surplus capital
lying around have to do.
Even the World Bank itself feels pressure to
release capital to the Third World, and its top
leaders have adopted a sham planning system to
reach their goals of loans made. Seeing this, the
far right has labelled the World Bank a socialist
plot. Caufield caters to this militia-type rightist
throughout the book.
In reality, the World Bank is not just an
"adjustor" for Third World economies: it is a
central actor in rationalizing the flow of capital
from the industrial countries (imperialist) to the
Third World. According to one Kidder Peabody
executive, the World Bank "earned its keep" during
crises of the private sector.(p. 143)
While some right-wing militia types may not like
being involved in multi-nation organizations like
the World Bank, the truth is that Amerikan
corporations are even more involved abroad than the
World Bank and they are the ones requiring the
World Bank to go on. In this way, taxpayers of the
imperialist country middle-classes subsidize the
failures of the bankers. After all in 1977, the top
nine U.$. banks received more than half their
profits from loans to the Third World.(p. 128)
Moreover, "By 1982 Citibank's loans to just five of
its Latin American clients amounted to twice its
net corporate assets."(p. 129) On account of these
profits sometimes the private bankers complain
about the World Bank's stealing business, but on
the other hand, the World Bank is bailing out the
commercial banks and spurring economic
infrastructure projects that the commercial banks
would be afraid to undertake. Nor is it just U.$.
capital at stake. The Bank of Tokyo has the
equivalent of 80 percent of its net assets at stake
in Mexico. (p. 138) From the point of view of these
banks, the World Bank may be a failure, but not
relatively speaking. The bankers themselves know
what it is like to have to find large profitable
outlets for their capital or accept losses, and
they cannot think of any better way to do what the
World Bank does within the existing system. If the
World Bank is eventually replaced, it will be by an
institution that is very similar.
The World Bank is also a means of outlet for the
overproduction of capital goods in the imperialist
countries: "Most of our money doesn't go to the
South, it goes straight from Washington to
Pennsylvania, where they manufacture the turbines,
or Frankfurt, where they produce the dredging
equipment."(p. 242) For this reason, the World Bank
has its patrons in the super-elite.
Despite all the efforts of the bankers both multi-
lateral and private, the capitalists fail to export
away their crisis. "In 1994, for example, the
developing world received $167.8 billion in foreign
loans and paid out $169.5 billion in debt service -
- a net transfer from the poor to the rich nations
of $1.7 billion."(p. 335) This is a small token of
the imperialists' worst nightmare -- surplus
capital lying around with no profitable place to
invest it. This sort of mechanism is typical of why
imperialism is always in crisis.
ADJUSTMENT FAILURE
Caufield has the facts showing that World Bank
economic policies imposed on Third World countries
do not work. So-called adjustment loans have
failed. Such loans go to countries willing to
change their economic policies to the likings of
the World Bank.
In Mexico where the money has been dumped by the
international banking community, economic growth is
only keeping pace with population growth. Thus
Mexico has stabilized for now to the likings of the
banking community, but it has not accomplished
anything worthwhile to the proletariat by following
the imperialist-dictated course: "In 1992, average
wages were - in real term - half what they had been
ten years earlier. . . Investment in health,
education, and basic physical infrastructure was
cut roughly in half, with predictable results.
Between 1980 and 1992, infant deaths due to
malnutrition almost tripled."(p. 153) The poorest
20 percent of Mexico receives less than 5 percent
of the income. "The country's richest man, Carlos
Sim, had more money than the country's 17 million
poorest people combined."(p. 153)
In conclusion, we do not agree that hiring more
staff at the World Bank or increasing the number of
ecologists there is going to help the systematic
problems underlying the World Bank. It should be
abolished like many other imperialist entities that
block the initiatives of the toiling classes for
their own economic well-being.
* * *
PIRAO SUFFERS SETBACKS
The MIM-led People's Internationalist Rear-Area
Organization suffered a series of logistical
setbacks in the past month. Attempts to complete
the second and third stages of permanently funding
Maoist Sojourner, the MIM-led newspaper for Third
World exiles failed.
The political commitment of all concerned in the
Maoist Sojourner project remains strong. We expect
that despite logistical difficulties we will find
another way to accomplish our goals.
In the imperialist countries, where Maoists utilize
peaceful methods of struggle, the risks of struggle
do not entail as much sacrifice of blood as in
oppressed nations where there is armed struggle.
Hence, suffering setbacks is a sign also of
struggle. Those not seeking to take advantage of
every opportunity for the revolution will suffer no
setbacks.
In a military situation we want to be 90 to 95
percent sure of winning each offensive battle
because blood is at stake. In a non-military
situation, the struggle is more painstaking and
requires a different kind of proletarian
discipline. PIRAO is more like the wave of the
ocean crashing on the rock than the anti-aircraft
weapon fired at the imperialist helicopter. We know
that the ocean wave must win over the rock and
create sand, but the effort must be continuous.
* * *
UNDER LOCK & KEY
MISSOURI PRISONER BEATEN INTO COMA
Greeting Comrades, I write this letter requesting
your assistance, not for myself but for a fellow
comrade who was damn near beat to death.
... The key aggressors are: Lt. Vance, Sgt.
Cavanaugh, C.O.[Correctional Officer] Malone and
C.O. Aducchi.
... On Monday, March 3, 1997 at approximately 9:30
a.m. prisoner X proceeded to see the doctor for
serious medical conditions. While at the doctor's
office, X was told by the doctor that no medical
assistance could be offered while he was in prison,
due to the high cost of treatment.
X then left the doctor's office and went back to
his cell. About ten minutes later, he entered the
doctor's office again producing a knife (homemade).
He told the nurse to get out of the office. He then
grabbed the doctor and told him that unless he
helped X he was going to stab him.
About that time, the officers mentioned above
rushed into the office, ordering X to drop the
knife and let the doctor go.
After several seconds, X did drop the weapon,
leaving EVERYONE unharmed. After the guards
collected the knife and the doctor left the office,
Lt. Vance ordered [the other officers] to get X. It
should be noted that X did not present any type of
resistance or hostility once the knife was dropped.
C.O. Malone and Aducchi began swinging batons at
X's head like they were hitting a baseball. Sgt.
Cavanaugh kicked X in the face while X was on the
ground. The kick caused blood to spatter.
Then Lt. Vance grabbed X's head in a choke-hold and
rammed X's head into the steel sink, busting X's
head open. [There was] blood everywhere from X's
face and head.
At this time X laid unconscious on the floor but he
was still being beaten by the guards.
X was eventually left alone, bleeding, with no
medical assistance. Only when several other inmates
began crowding around the guards, making threats,
did a medical staff call for an outside ambulance,
due to the seriousness of the head trauma.
Upon doing some investigation on the injuries he
received, I did find the medical report. X suffered
from: a ruptured spleen, 6 broken ribs, and 38
stitches in his head. X presently lays in a coma
from the beating, in a hospital (prison) with
severe head trauma.
The very next day all four guards are back at work,
and no investigation was ordered.
There is a guard who will testify to this incident
if it ever goes to a court of law, to prosecute the
four guards who almost murdered an unarmed man.
I have reviewed the policy on use of force in a
life threatening situation. It states any and all
force shall be used to UNARM a person threatening
the life of another. But X was already unarmed when
he received his beating. Upon talking to various
officers, they admitted that X dropped his knife
and he should have simply been handcuffed and taken
to the hole.
... Letters demanding the suspension of the four
guards and an investigation of the incident can be
directed to: Mrs. Dora Shriro, Director, Missouri
Department of Corrections, 2729 Plaza Drive, P.O.
Box 236, Jefferson City, MO 65102-0236
In Struggle,
-- A Missouri Prisoner, 10 March 1997
MIM RESPONDS: Comrade, thank you for educating us
and MIM Notes' readers about this attack against X
by the Missouri prison pigs. It helps in the work
that is necessary in building the foundation for
revolution - the work of building public opinion
against the proliferation of prisons and the
systematic torture and repression against the
masses which results from imperialism and settler
nation domination.
This example once again shows that the Amerikan
prison pigs are not going to meet the needs of the
masses in prison. And the example should lead
people to analyze the best path toward ending the
denial of basic medical care and the ending of pig
brutality. Comrades under lock and key must study
the proven methods for liberation of Marxism-
Leninism-Maoism and organize. We must be careful
not to take on losing battles. Individuals taking
up armed resistance as X did will be met with
further repression and as we have seen, such
isolated acts of resistance often set the pigs off
to commit murder, in the end bringing no justice
for the oppressed.
Similarly, activists on the outside must study and
organize. Many liberals on the outside still
maintain that justice for the masses in prison and
oppressed masses in general can be achieved by
working within the Amerikan system. This has not
once proven to be a path which liberates the
oppressed. So while we print this comrades' request
for readers to write to the prison director, we
have learned from historical struggles that the
only way to end the injustice is to tear down the
Amerikan system in general, including the Amerikan
prison system and fight for people's victory
through revolution. The suspension of specific pigs
will not change the Amerikan structure which
systematically oppresses the masses, it will only
leave the door open for the next generation of pigs
to fill in.
PRISONER DENIED PROTEASE INHIBITORS
I'm in close management and I'm locked up 24-7 and
get two days of yard with 3 hours of yard time, and
3 showers a week.
I'm HIV positive and I'm having problems trying to
get the new life saving drug called protease
inhibitors because they don't want to give it. It's
very expensive, but at the same time, there's a
white dude here that is receiving the life saving
cocktail called protease inhibitors. If I get this
new medication then I have a chance to live longer.
I have filed two lawsuits on the medication because
they refused me but it's FDA approved and Prisoner
L is getting it. There's no reason why I can't get
it....
In struggle,
-- A Florida Prisoner, 16 April 1997
MIM RESPONDS: This letter demonstrates the lack of
access to medical care that is a problem in prisons
in the United Snakes. In this case, even within the
prison, national oppression is playing a role in
who gets medicine. Because medical care is a for-
profit industry in Amerika, there is no such thing
as a right to lead a healthy life. Those with
wealth (predominantly whites on the outside of
prison) can buy access to drugs that save their
lives, while those without money die of preventable
diseases, or in the case of HIV, die sooner for
lack of medical care.
PRISONER DENIED ACCESS TO MEDICAL RECORDS
I am an inmate at the Fishkill Correctional
Facility [FCF] and I have a serious problem
concerning my health. I was given a shot that they
claim was a TB[Tuberculosis] shot. And all of
sudden my life has changed for the worse.
Since then I have been experiencing life
threatening symptoms such as: numbness of the
head, feet and hands; a massive amount of weight
loss; sores in my mouth; face burns; and hands
sweat heavy. The back of my head has a dent in it
that is still sinking in on me. Both sides of my
face are also sinking in on me.
I weigh no more than 175 pounds, if that. The
medical department is tampering with their scales,
because they keep putting in my records that I
weigh 198 t0 202 at times. All the above symptoms
are all true but the medical department at FCF keep
denying it. I can prove all my complaints but the
medical staff just looks the other way and just all
out lies to cover up what they did to me.
I have my medical records which the medical staff
are putting in a lot of foul stuff. For example
[they say] I've got a mental problem, but that's
another way they are trying to cover up this
problem. I am also having a problem getting my
mental health record from this facility. They tell
me the only way they can give them me, is if they
send them to somebody on the outside....
-- A New York Prisoner, 10 April 97
PRISONERS WORK WITHOUT PAY AND BILLED FOR BASIC
NEEDS
DEAR MIM, Georgia Prisoners are now mandated to pay
a medical co-payment of $5.00 per visit for any and
all medical and dental care which prisoners of the
Georgia Department of Corrections make. This law
was passed by the Georgia General Assembly and
enforced as of December 1, 1996 (OCGA 42- 5-55).
Under this new law, a visit which is initiated by a
prisoner to any prison physician, medical staff for
examination or treatment the prisoner is required
to pay $5.00 medical co-payment.
It matters not that a prisoner in Georgia should be
poor or without funds, he or she will be and are
billed for the $5.00 medical co-payment. However,
upon the first visit to the medical or dental
section, all prisoners are charged $15.00 and $5.00
for each visit there after. If you are hurt in some
manner with respect to a sport's injury, the
prisoner will be charged full fees as if you were
free and had to seek medical care.
On the 1st of June 1997, the Georgia Department of
Corrections cut 28 prison dentists and dental
assistants, citing fewer requests by prisoners for
dental treatment since a $5.00 co-payment is
required.
...Fact is, the workload is very high level and
there is not, nor has there ever been enough dental
care that could be accessed in Georgia. The
Department has also just made a new medical
contract whereby it can be said that medical staff
will also be cut in the same manner.
This all started when the Governor of Georgia, Zill
Miller had ordered former Corrections Commissioner,
Dr. Allen L. Ault to "find a way, even if he had to
charge inmates for medical services, so that
correctional personnel could receive an additional
5% pay [raise] over what they were being paid."...
Georgia prisoners are not paid for any work
performed. They are paid no attention and placed in
the hole if they do not work as ordered. Thus, it
is the indigent prisoners that are effected most
cause they have no family or friends to pay or send
in money so that the medical co-payment can be
paid. Thus forcing indigents to become imprisoned
to the Department for medical costs.
Also, it is the families and friends who are
actually billed because they are the ones who work
[and get paid]. They send in their money to the
prisoner for personal up-keep (which Georgia does
not pay for), but the prisoner isn't allowed to use
the funds due to the medical co-payments. This is
what is called poll or love tax. The families pay
state and local tax for the very reason of
supporting government. Part of those taxes go to
the Department for the up-keep of prisoners and
prisons -- that means medical care as well. But
with the new law, those people sending money into
prisons are actually paying twice for the same
services.
There is still more: Any prisoner in Georgia who
has a minimum balance of $11.00 at the end of each
month will be assessed a monthly account management
fee of $1.00.
There is even more: As of June 15, 1997 the
business office of each prison within Georgia has
been instructed to take and hold $10.00 from each
prisoner's account to establish a "Contingency
Fund" to pay for any debts incurred during the
prisoner's incarceration.
...The Georgia Board of Corrections, Rule (25-4-4-
.01) states in part that "In no instance shall one
inmate, his family, or other individual be required
to pay any portion of the fee or expenses for the
inmate's medical or dental treatment." This rule
has been added to Georgia law OCGA 42-5-2-(G) and
is still on the books.
...There are a number of these rulings and I have
initiated a civil action to try and force Georgia
to pay its prisoners or not bill them.
...It will be a dog-fight for anyone but the only
answer is the courtroom. It seems the only thing
Georgia officials understand. Prisoners must take
corrective action and fight for their civil rights,
if they don't who knows what we will face next.
-- A Georgia Prisoner, 9 June 1997
MIM RESPONDS: The author of this letter shows a
clear understanding of the laws and history
relating to prison medical care. This comrade has
been able to expose the imperialists breaking their
own rules in order to line their pockets. This
letter demonstrates the comrade's hard work, good
research and serious dedication.
This prisoner is right to take this battle to the
courtroom but we have to be clear in exposing that
there are no guaranteed "rights" for the oppressed
in Amerika. Instead we recognize that inherent
rights do not exist under imperialism and the
dictatorship of the bourgeois, privileges which the
oppressed gain, are won only through power
struggles.
Legal battles are one reformist way to win small
gains for the oppressed. While engaging in these
battles we must also expose the oppression and
hypocritical rules of the imperialists. This helps
put pressure on the system and aids in our legal
battles while also building public opinion for
ultimately overthrowing the system. This is one of
the main goals of MIM Notes.
BLACK PRISONER SENT TO S.M.U. AFTER FILING
COMPLAINT
...I'm at a place in Waynesburg, Pennsylvania
called SCI]-Greene [State Correctional Institution]
Special Management Unit (S.M.U.). I've just
finished doing two years being locked down at
Huntingdon.
This program is like that Camp Hill, a modern day
psychological deteriorating tool used mainly for
black inmates like myself who petition the courts -
- both federal and state -- to have our problems
heard.
I was transferred here not long after I filed a
legal petition over a problem with an officer at
the previous jail. I was being constantly racially
harassed, provoked and given misconduct reports
(write-ups) for two years of verbal offenses
(answering back). During this time I was told I'd
be transferred on three different occasions to a
place like the present one -- as a tactic to
intimidate me.
In the summer of 1994, I was attempting to have a
lump on the inside of my eyelid removed. The
condition is commonly known as a sebaceous cyst. I
used all the institutional procedures available to
have this problem resolved but the Huntingdon
administrators refused, ignoring my complaints and
procedures until I contacted an outside lawyer.
Then I was sent to an outside hospital. I believe
this is why I am being held in the SMU and
continued to be locked down now. I still have the
eye problem and am currently addressing it to those
in the medical department.
The prison staff convinced the media that they're
correcting a problem inmate here. It looks more
like old-fashioned racism to me. There are 22 of us
on this block. 18 are black. About nine of us are
being targeted for harassment and retaliation for
filing legal petitions with the courts.
I don't have one write-up for laying a hand on
anyone for the past two years, nevertheless [I am
here]. The Warden and two white lieutenants and a
sergeant are here who used to work at Huntingdon.
This doesn't seem like a simple a coincidence to
me. The Common Pleas Court has one Judge who is a
very close personal friend with the Warden.
When an inmate is locked behind a door for 23 hours
a day and sometimes for the full 24 with the
exception of a 5 minute shower or an hour in the
yard exercising, hand-cuffed from behind his back -
- how much harm can he do to anyone?
Here at Greene, the big game is called level
phases. They slowly advance us black inmates at a
turtle's pace while the few white inmates go
through all the phases in a short time -- as if by
"magic". All these various phases and levels were
created by the warden together with top management
people at the Corrections Department. These are the
people who need to be challenged about how racist
system works. These are the people responsible for
treating us unjustly. These are the people who need
to change this rotten system so that we are treated
humanly and fairly and paroled or moved onto
another destination....
May the struggle find justice continue to grow
stronger.
-- A Pennsylvania Prisoner, 2 June 97
MICHIGAN PRISON PIGS:
SMOKE-FREE HYPOCRITES
Dear Comrades in Struggle; We (Prisoners in
Michigan) are experiencing more oppressive and
reactionary attacks by Michigan's so-called
political and prisoncrat officials.
It has been reported that by January 1998, all the
death KKKamps in Michigan will be "cigarette smoke
free". Now, some would advocate this a "good
thing". They will say that this will save lives,
prevent deaths and establish a healthier
environment. However, i see it differently.
The prisoncrats have been selling prisoners
cigarettes ever since there was a death kkkamp in
Michigan. Now all of a sudden, they have this
conscious-raising change of heart? i don't' think
so. This is just another move by politicians to
make themselves look good, at the expense of those
prisoners who smoke and have no other enjoyment in
their miserable condition of confinement, other
than a cigarette.
Michigan's Attorney General, Frank Kelley, has
joined other attorney generals who are suing the
tobacco industry for monetary damages on behalf of
Michigan citizens who've been hospitalized or died
as a result of tobacco indulgence.
Frank Kelley knows it would politically make him
look bad to have a suit against the tobacco
industry while his prison/death kkkamps sold
cigarettes. Kelley knows he can't stop or restrict
the free citizenry from smoking, but he knows he
can strong-arm prisoners from smoking, by having
tobacco banned within the death kkkamps.
Meantime the Michigan Department of KKKorputions
has made BILLIONS off the backs of past and present
prisoners who bought cigarettes from the death
kkkamp stores. Prisoners became addicted to tobacco
and view this plant as the only real means of
personal gratification left to him/her in here.
The PPWC [Political Prisoners of War Coalition]
finds this hypocritical, mean-spirited and
irresponsible. Whether tobacco is right or wrong is
not the issue for PPWC. Whether one should or
should not smoke is not the issue for PPWC, and
therefore we won't get ourselves bogged down on
these issues. Whether you like or hate smoking, we
are simply pointing out that it is a damn shame
that prisoners are again being used as pawns and
sacrificial offerings for the political pursuits of
politicians and prisoncrats.
If these politicians are so concerned with the
health of prisoners then why don't they offer us
better health care employees and services? If these
prisoncrats are so concerned with the health of
prisoners, then why did they sell tobacco in the
first place? And why have they forced prisoners to
buy simple medication such as aspirin, cough drops,
eye drops, Tylenol and the like?
The PPWC advocate political awareness and re-
education among prisoners and the general public.
We advocate this so that one can see bullshit for
what it is and then take collective action to sling
the bullshit back at those who are trying to rub it
in your face.
Tomorrow it won't be about tobacco. Tomorrow it
will be coffee, or typewriters, or ink pens, or
whatever they decide to take next. Meantime, what
are WE going to do about it?
In the trenches.
-- A PPWC Prisoner in Michigan, 8 April 1997
MIM ADDS: We oppose all smoking because we know it
is bad for the health of the people but we agree
with the PPWC that this issue of banning smoking in
prison is not about health but about power
struggles with the administration. In this case we
encourage our comrades inside to live as long as
possible so that they can contribute to the
revolution for a long time. As a release from the
oppression of prison we encourage prisoners to take
up a martial art rather than smoking. We must
resist the imperialists attempts to weaken our
bodies and minds.
SMOKING IS MORE THAN A HEALTH ISSUE
Dear MIM, ...Right now this other brother is
fighting this no smoking policy the ADOC [Arizona
Department of Incorrections] has. The DOC has
decided to include burning of sacred herbs in our
cells.
Fucking stupid pigs, act like it is a health
hazard. So now we American Indians have to sneak
around and do the ceremonies in secret to make sure
the pigs don't catch us. Just like the old day,
huh?! Please ask around and see if anyone is
willing to help us fight this free of charge.
I would like to send out an urgent message to all
the Indian Communities who are fighting and killing
each other over this new gang beef. "Divide and
Conquer" was their plan. Don't live up to their
plan. We are too strong for that. One nation, One
fight, Stop Spilling your brothers blood and unite!
-- An Arizona Prisoner, 8 May 1997
GULAGS DENY SOCIAL SECURITY AND FORCE MEDICAL CO-
PAY
Dear Friend: ...Since my last letter to you the
state legislature here has enacted a co-pay law for
"non medical emergencies." There are no exceptions
to paying. I am almost (75) years of age and been
incarcerated for (17) years. I'm denied my Social
Security Benefits, "money I worked for and paid
into Social Security" because I'm a convicted
felon.
It's my understanding that the law states "one
can't receive Social Security Benefits" while
incarcerated, because the state provides all my
needs. "I'm trying to find the statue, Public Act,
or Case law containing that specific language, it's
imperative to have. Your aid in this matter will be
sincerely appreciated.
Enclosed you'll find a copy of the Social Security
Act which says in essence one's basic needs are to
be provided free. My understanding this is a Public
Funded institution-money my social security from my
social security. So why should the state be
permitted to also charge me for medical service
which is suppose to free during my period of
incarceration....
-- A Michigan Prisoner, 4 May 1997
TEXAS PIGS ATTACK SICK PRISONER
Dear MIM, ...Lately I've been having problems with
the pigs that work here. On the 12th of May a
sergeant and a lieutenant has a five man team run
into my cell and assault me while I lay sick in my
bed. Of course they were in full riot gear and made
it look real good for the video camera's benefit,
telling me to stop resisting. Due to an overdose of
psychiatric medication, I couldn't even control my
bladder, let alone my arms and legs.
As a result of the attack I suffered some minimal
damage to the tendons in both my thumbs. But I
didn't find this out until June 20th -- more than a
month after the incident! I would have found out
sooner if the medical department had bothered to
check me out right after the assault, which is the
policy. There was no medical exam, no pictures of
the bruises and cuts that I had suffered or
anything!...
Yours In Struggle,
-- A Texas Prisoner, 23 June 1997
* * *
MIM ON PRISONS AND PRISONERS
MIM seeks to build public opinion against
Amerika's criminal injustice system, and to
eventually replace the bourgeois injustice system
with proletarian justice. The bourgeois
injustice system imprisons and executes a
disproportionately large and growing number of
oppressed people while letting the biggest mass
murderers - the imperialists and their
lackeys - roam free. Imperialism is not opposed to
murder or theft, it only insists that these crimes
be committed in the interests of the bourgeoisie.
MIM does not advocate that all prisoners go free
today; we have a more effective program for
fighting crime as was demonstrated in China prior
to the restoration of capitalism there in 1976. We
say that all prisoners are political
prisoners because under the dictatorship of the
bourgeoisie, all imprisonment is substantively
political. It is our responsibility to exert
revolutionary leadership and conduct
political agitation and organization among
prisoners ñ whose material conditions make them an
overwhelmingly revolutionary group. Some prisoners
should and will work on self-criticism under a
future dictatorship of the proletariat in those
cases in which prisoners really did do
something wrong by proletarian standards.
***WHAT NON-PRISONERS CAN DO TO SUPPORT
PRISONERS***
*1. Struggle with, work with, finance and join
MIM.
The best way to support prisoners is to overthrow
the system under which capitalists profit from the
exploitation of prisoners. History shows that the
best way to do this is to build a Marxist-
Leninist-
Maoist party. The oppressors will not give up
their
power without a fight.
*2. Finance MIM's prison work. Our biggest bill
each month is postage. Most of the prison comrades
who read MIM Notes have no way of paying for it.
So
if you have money, send what you can afford. Every
cent helps, and stamps are as good as cash to us.
*3. Distribute MIM Notes and Notas Rojas. Bring
the
voices of prisoners and their supporters to as
large and wide an audience of people as possible.
Contact MIM for bulk rates and distribution tips.
*4. Start or join a prison support group. MIM can
provide advice and resources to help you build
public opinion for prisoners and their struggles.
*5. Fight censorship, beatings, torture and other
fascist outrages. Under Lock and Key often
features
the addresses of prisoners' friends and enemies.
Work with the friends and let the enemies know
you're watching. (Don't expect to win the fascists
to the side of humanity, however. See #1 in this
list).
*6. Stay in touch. Keep us informed of pro-
prisoner
work you do. Our readers might find it educational
or inspirational
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