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 154 JANUARY 15, 1998
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. FREE OUR COMRADES IN AMERIKAN GULAGS
ORGANIZE TO END THE AMERIKAN LOCKDOWN
2. ALL PRISONERS ARE POLITICAL PRISONERS:
IS THIS A DIVIDING LINE QUESTION IN 1998?
3. MISSOURI PIG CLEARED IN MURDER OF UNARMED INNOCENT
MAN
4. LETTERS
5. HONDURANS FIGHT DEPORTATION FROM U.$.
6. HONDURAN WORKERS TAKE OVER FACTORY
7. ACTIVIST FORCED TO PLEA BARGAIN BECAUSE PIGS LIE
8. WHITE YOUTH DRUG USE RISES -- OPPRESSED NATION
YOUTH ARRESTS INCREASE
9. PIGS ADMIT THEY HARASS AND LIE TO IMPRISON
OPPRESSED NATIONALS
10. PEOPLE'S TRIBUNAL FINDS MUMIA'S OPPRESSORS GUILTY
11. AMISTAD REVIEW: SOME GOOD HISTORY AMIDST SETTLER MYTH
12. MANDELA STEPS DOWN AS ANC LEADER:
ANC CONTINUES TO SELL OUT THE PEOPLE
13. KIM DAE JUNG KISSES IMPERIALIST ASS
14. KIM DAE JUNG KISSES MILITARIST ASS
15. POLITICAL REPRESSION OF BASQUE IN SPAIN
16. ADVANCES AND RETREATS FOR MIM'S BOOKS FOR PRISONERS
PROGRAM
17. MURDER STATISTICS IN DOUBT AS DEATHS ARE CALLED
'UNDETERMINED'
18. MANDATORY MINIMUM SENTENCES PROMOTE NATIONAL
OPPRESSION
19. IMPERIALISM KILLS: LIFE EXPECTANCY LOW FOR OPPRESSED
NATIONALS
20. UNDER LOCK & KEY: NEWS FROM PRISONERS AND PRISONS
* * *
FREE OUR COMRADES IN AMERIKAN GULAGS
ORGANIZE TO END THE AMERIKAN LOCKDOWN
Jericho'98 is a march on Washington, D.C. on March
27th, 1998. The march, primarily organized by
various nationalist and progressive groups, is
aimed at exposing the incarceration of leaders and
activists who are imprisoned because of their
political beliefs and actions. Jericho'98 calls
attention to the demand for amnesty for these
prisoners and is part of broader campaigns to build
support for these prisoners.
MIM urges all supporters of prisoners and opponents
of oppression to build Jericho'98 and other
educational events which expose the crimes of the
Amerikan bourgeoisie against the people. Amerika
has imprisoned political leaders and continues to
steadily build the Amerikan police forces and
prison system as tools of social control and
national oppression.
Through education and mass practice, the
Revolutionary Anti-Imperialist League (RAIL) builds
support for all struggles against oppression. This
includes supporting the release of those
incarcerated because of their political beliefs and
actions. RAIL is organizing contingents from
various locations to attend the Jericho'98 march on
Washington, D.C. and is also hosting a teach-in the
following day in D.C. The teach-in will include
information on specific prisoners' cases and on the
Amerikan INjustice system in general. We will also
discuss tactics for activism. There is still room
for organizations and individuals to participate in
the teach-in. So write to the address on page two
to donate time or money or to talk with us about
facilitating a discussion on a particular topic.
WHY THE CALL FOR AMNESTY?
Organizers of Jericho '98 wrote: "There are over
150 political prisoners in US jails. They are in
jail because they are committed to taking action
for social justice. They are Black, Puerto Rican,
Native American and progressive white people who
have dedicated their lives to fighting against
racism, colonialism and exploitation. Some of them
have been in jail for over 26 years. This makes
them some of the longest held political prisoners
in the world.
"Through history, whenever the dispossessed have
risen up, they have come under attack. They are
assassinated, imprisoned, and harassed. The last
few decades in this country have been no exception.
"Many of the political prisoners are locked up as a
result of the FBI's Counter Intelligence Program
(COINTELPRO). During the 1960s and 1970s the FBI
developed COINTELPRO to attack, frame, assassinate,
and imprison participants and leaders of the Black
Panther Party, the American Indian Movement and
other powerful social movements. Others have
received excessively long sentences because of the
political nature of their actions."
Communists, pacifists, anarchists and nationalists
should support the call for amnesty and release of
political leaders and activists. We can wage
winnable reformist battles to free some of the
people's leaders and activists. Even if you
disagree with the political or ideological stance
of these prisoners, you can see that they are
imprisoned because of these beliefs and that this
is undemocratic. Amerika's so-called democracy is a
hypocrisy. It frames and imprisons people for
working to reform or eliminate capitalistic
exploitation. Anyone who says these prisoners
should remain locked up for their political beliefs
and actions is saying that it should be illegal to
struggle against oppression.
STRUGGLES AGAINST OPPRESSION ARE CRIMES IN AMERIKA
Ed Poindexter and Mondo we Langa have been
imprisoned for over 26 years because of their
political involvement in the National Committee to
Combat Fascism (an off-shoot of the BPP.) These
comrades were framed to serve the settler nation's
interest in breaking up and slowing down the
struggle for oppressed nation self-determination.
In 1971, they were convicted of killing an Omaha
cop despite the great deal of evidence which proves
otherwise. The cop was killed after he accidentally
triggered a suitcase and it exploded.
The primary evidence against the comrades came from
Duane Peak who was himself a suspect in the case.
Peak allegedly confessed (after being threatened
with the possibility of facing the electric chair)
that he, Poindexter and Langa were responsible for
leaving the suitcase for the pigs to discover. When
Peak took the stand, he denied planting the bomb
with Langa and Poindexter. The prosecutor
immediately called for a recess and when that was
over, Peak returned with clear signs of physical
abuse. Despite the obvious coercion and lack of
credible evidence in the case, Langa and Poindexter
received life sentences. Their kangaroo court
trials and imprisonment demonstrate what happens
when even the legacies reminiscent of the BPP are
perceived as a threat to white Amerika.
Another case of a Black male leader is Kojo Bomani
Sababu who has been imprisoned since 1975 after the
state attacked and destroyed his Black Liberation
Army unit. His sentence of multiple life terms was
handed down because he fought for self-
determination of the Black nation. His unit engaged
in bank expropriation and liquidated dealers
bringing drugs into the Black community. These are
political activities intended to strengthen the
Black nation (though MIM argues that engaging in
such political activities at this time is incorrect
inside Amerika.) This is the real reason that he is
imprisoned though the state would deny it. If you
disagree that these are political actions, ask
yourself why Amerika considers his actions a crime
and why it allows MNCs to extract super-profits
from workers in oppressed nations and why it allows
pig units to receive kickbacks from drug dealers
throughout the United Snakes.
Another leader of the Black nation, Albert 'Nuh'
Washington has spent over 16 years in prison, seven
of them in solitary confinement to deny him the
ability to conduct political education among the
prison masses. He stated, "As a former member of
the Black Panther Party and a member of the Black
Liberation Army, it is my position to struggle for
the right of self-determination for Black people in
the United States. Historically, our political
rights have been determined not by our own national
will, but by the needs of the political system that
enslaved us. Therefore, as any other colonized
people, Black people must be free to decide their
own national, political, economic and social
destiny." It is because of his work to build self-
determination that he was sent to prison for the
trumped up charge of killing two New York City
pigs. "The district attorney, by his own admission,
stated he couldn't say or prove what part Nuh
allegedly played in the killings, but asked a jury
to convict him based on his beliefs, which they
did."
Hanif Shabazz Bey has been subjected to continued
confinement in the Behavior Modification Program at
Marion federal penitentiary. He was told by an in-
house shrink that his chances of leaving Marion
would be better if he toned down his political
views. He said, "what I see as the main factor as
to why I am persistently being held at Marion is
the fact that I was convicted in a Virgin Islands
court in 1973 for the armed attack on the Nelson
Rockefeller-owned golf course on the island of St.
Croix in 1972, and the Bureau of Prisons now finds
it convenient to keep me here so they can point to
my case in their media interviews to show what type
[of prisoners] is being housed at Marion. This way
they can justify spending the tax payers' dollar on
this high security operation whose sole purpose is
to impose terror tactics on the rest of the BOP as
well as the state prisoner population."
First Nation leader of the American Indian
Movement, Leonard Peltier has been in prison since
1975 after false evidence justified his extradition
from Kanada. There still has been no evidence which
shows that Peltier killed the two FBI agents who
Oglala land. In fact, the so-called evidence was
obtained through force and coercion and later
denied when the witness was allowed to tell the
truth. And the rest of the so-called evidence only
reveals what a contrived frame-up the case against
Peltier is because it is contradictory to basic
facts.
The above are only a few of the people's leaders
locked up because of political action to end
oppression. Several Puerto Rican leaders have been
sentenced to outrageously disproportionate
sentences, tortured while in prison and denied very
basic needs. The reason? Amerika says that they
committed seditious conspiracy. What this means is
that they were sentenced because they organized the
people to expose and stop the domination of the
Puerto Rican nation by Amerika. MIM continues the
struggles to stop Amerika's control over the Black,
Latino and First nations. But the battle to
eventually have the power in the hands of the
people will be more quickly achieved if we are able
to press the Amerikan bourgeois to stick to its own
terms of war which appear on paper.
PROLIFERATION OF PRISONS EQUALS MASS REPRESSION
MIM and RAIL see that it is the entire prison
system in Amerika that is a tool of oppression. It
is not only the tactics of COINTELPRO and the
imprisonment of political leaders and
revolutionaries which have been tools to perpetuate
oppression. We are committed to building support
for prisoners incarcerated specifically for
political beliefs and actions, but the majority of
our work more broadly builds support for all
struggles against oppression. And in this, we see
that the disproportionate imprisonment rate of
oppressed nationals alone necessitates a broad
struggle against the current Amerikan prison system
in its totality.
The rate of imprisonment in the united $tates
increased more than fourfold from 1972 to 1990,
from 100 per 100,000 to 455 per 100,000. Currently
the u.$. imprisons people at a higher rate than any
other country. Black men are imprisoned at a rate
seven times that of white men, and one in three
Black men is either in prison, on parole, or on
probation. Private prisons are a growth industry.
And politicians try to out-do each other with their
proposals for more cops, more arrests, tougher
sentencing, and more prisons allegedly to combat
crime.
But a closer look shows that more cops, more
arrests, and more people in prison does not deter
crime. Using u.$. government definitions and
statistics, the violent crime rate in the u.$. has
remained about the same since the 70s, despite a
600% increase in the budget for cops, courts, and
prisons. Furthermore, the very definition of crime
and the application of anti-crime laws are used
selectively. Why is it a crime to possess a small
amount of crack cocaine, while it is business as
usual for the CIA to import cocaine by the ton? Why
are sentences for powder cocaine mostly affecting
whites lighter than the sentences for crack cocaine
possession which almost entirely affect Blacks? The
answer is that the prison system in the u.$. is
designed to maintain the systems of capitalist and
national oppression. That is why oppressed
nationals and poor people are disproportionately
represented in prison.
The Amerikan settler nation does not consider it a
crime for the bourgeoisie to exploit the labor of
the masses. Nor is it a crime in Amerika to be a
white paper or button pushing labor aristocrat who
produces no value but lives on the land and off the
sweat of the masses. But it is considered the crime
of a poor womyn to steal piddly amounts to
supplement her inadequate income she uses to
support her family. It is considered a crime for
oppressed nationals to sell drugs to make money
when they live in areas which offer no productive
job opportunities, but it is not a crime for rich
white college students to use drugs or rape wimmin
when they are drunk and at parties.
Many prisoners write to MIM explaining that their
actions were taken out of desperation or self-
defense -- of themselves or their peoples. Many
more explain that their sentences are particularly
long under abusive conditions because they become
politically active while in prison. Other prison
comrades have been murdered outright by pigs while
serving sentences for white nation defined crimes.
The Amerikan prison system is a targeted attack
against the oppressed and serves absolutely no goal
of eradicating crime against the people.
The trend towards harsher and broader imprisonment
and repression continues. MIM's recent projections
based on u.$. government statistics show that if
current trends in imprisonment continue, there will
be almost 10 million prisoners in the u.s. by 2020.
Blacks would be imprisoned at a rate of 9,517 per
100,000 if current trends continue that means
almost 1 Black person out of every 10 would be in
prison, not to mention on parole or on probation.
This bleak future in not inevitable, but it will
take the consistent efforts of activists in and out
of prisons to prevent it.
PHYSICAL REPRESSION IN PRISONS
Amerika's prisoners report to MIM that gulag
conditions are dangerous and inhumane. Unsanitary
conditions, inadequate medical care, exposure to
toxins and inadequate heating are among the many
forms of physical torture and repression that
Amerika's prisoners face daily.
Late in 1996, the Michigan state legislature passed
a law requiring prisoners to pay a $3.00 charge for
all non-emergency medical care. Now, Michigan
prisoners are forced to pay $3.00 (more money than
the state pays most of its prisoner employees for a
week of work) every time they see a doctor. The
$3.00 does not include getting prescriptions filled
or any care beyond the visit.
Forcing prisoners to pay for health care is a form
of economic repression and is a fundamental part of
the Amerikan bourgeoisie's war against the
oppressed nations. The state of Michigan already
follows U.$. policy in imprisoning Black men eight
times as much as it does whites. With this new
prisoner co-payment for health care policy the
state is further legitimizing the attitude that
oppressed nationals are a drain on state resources
and not a productive part of society.
Making prisoners pay for sub-standard health care
is equivalent to saying that prisoners who did not
pay for this service were mooching off the rest of
the state. This is a cover for the fact that
prisoners are denied the opportunity to earn any
money while in prison, and that they are being
discriminated against by being scapegoated for the
problems of capitalism.
The reactionaries who make prison policy and run
the prisons promote the idea that prisoners deserve
to be treated as less than citizens. In one
example, prisoners who are of an age to collect
their social security benefits are denied these
benefits for the time that they are imprisoned. The
logic to this law is that while people are in
prison their basic needs are paid for by one arm of
the state so they do not need to receive payment
from its other arm. The reality to this law in
combination with the payment for non-emergency
medical care regulations is that prisoners who
would receive social security payments if they were
not in prison are being made to pay money to the
state for care, and this care is at the same time
being used as the rationale for denying them money
which they would have gotten were they not in
prison.
Another form of physical and mental control over
prisoners is the recent rash in massive transfers
of prisoners between states. The transfers allow
the state to perpetuate the lie that the state
needs more money to build prisons because of
alleged overcrowding. The facilities hosting the
transferred prisoners are then allowed to make a
profit off of the labor of those prisoners or
simply off of the contract from the state sending
the prisoners half way across the United Snakes.
In September, MIM reported on the one incident in
which transferred prisoners from Missouri had been
beaten repeatedly. Capital Correctional Resources
Inc. had a $6 million dollar contract with Missouri
-- 415 prisoners had been transferred to Texas
under this contract. Transferred prisoners were
beaten by pigs and attacked by the pigs' dogs.
Conditions in prisons across the country are
literally a threat to the lives of the prisoners.
But since Texas started to sell space to detain
prisoners from other states, many prisoners have
written to MIM explaining that the conditions in
Texas are worse than in their own states. Texas has
about tripled the size of its prison system since
1991, spending $3 billion on nearly 100,000 new
beds which is uses to profit from the imprisonment
of more and more people.
Massachusetts RAIL has been fighting the
deportation of prisoners from that state since 1995
when over 300 prisoners were transferred in the
middle of the night to Texas far from their
families. Massachusetts continues to send prisoners
to Texas to support the political argument of the
oppressor that there needs to be more money spent
on prison construction. Many other states engage in
this disgusting slave trade. And now, RAIL and MIM
are taking up the struggle to stop the transfer of
prisoners from Michigan to West Virginia which
started during this last week.
PRISONER LABOR EXPLOITED TO FILL OPPRESSOR'S
POCKETS
As if the state couldn't generate enough false
propaganda against prisoners just by exaggerating
the dangers "criminals" pose to society, RAIL and
MIM have recently discovered the first hints that
that the Michigan Department of Corrections (MDOC)
is baldly lying about how much money it pays its
prisoner laborers. In May of 1997, RAIL put out a
factsheet, based on DOC statistical reports, about
how little prisoner laborers get paid in Michigan.
RAIL knew when it did this that most prisoners are
not even lucky enough to have jobs and most do not
even have the low level of income the state says it
provides. What RAIL and MIM did not know is that
the state lies about the wages it publishes.
As so many comrades in prison have pointed out to
MIM over the years, slavery remains legal in
Amerikan prisons under the Thirteenth Amendment to
the U.$. Konstitution. The amendment states in part
that slavery and involuntary servitude are both
acceptable as a form of punishment for crime
"whereof the party shall have been duly convicted."
So if a jury agrees to convict someone for
committing a crime, that person can be enslaved to
the state. But where is the blind justice in this
law? How is it that the oppressed manage to fall
disproportionately prey to the fate of "slavery and
involuntary servitude" even into 1998? It is
nothing short of political repression and
imprisonment when forced labor is extracted from
poor people who have passed a bad check, or been
convicted of doing this; while the heads of state
who invade other countries and kill their people go
free.
According to the MDOC Statistical Report for 1992,
prisoner factory workers were paid $.24/hour for
unskilled labor and $.70/hour for skilled labor.
For unskilled and skilled farm labor respectively,
prisoners were supposed to have earned $1.62 and
$4.94 per hour. Yet one prisoner wrote us recently
saying that the going rate at his low-security
prison is $.71 per eight-hour day for unskilled
labor -- this is less than half what the state
claims to be paying prisoners. The same prisoner
reports that prisoners working the MDOC farms make
no more than $5 per eight-to-ten-hour day -- again
less than half of the minimum the DOC claims to be
paying.
Another Michigan prisoner writes that the average
prisoner with a job earns between $20 and $30 per
month. If we take the lowest rate the DOC claims to
pay prisoners and assume 8 hour work days and five-
day weeks (most prisoners with jobs work more),
prisoners would be earning a minimum of $38.40.
This particular prisoner works much more than 40
hours per week and is still earning less than $40
per month.
In 1995, government agency prison industries had
sales of $1.2 billion and private prison industries
had sales of $83 million. The actual amount that
prisoners are forced to produce and paid little or
nothing for is hard to determine because the
government sales are undervalued.
In 1994, 44% of state and federal prisoners were in
prison work programs and another 6% were in work
release programs. Prisoners are paid nothing in
some states and in the rest are paid very little.
Then in places like Kentucky, prisoners do the work
which otherwise the state would have to pay someone
else to do. Because of the ability of companies and
the state to make incarceration more affordable
through growing prison industries, there is no
impetus for the Amerikan settler nation to decrease
the number of oppressed nationals it imprisons.
MIM believes it is desperately important for pro-
prisoner activists to bring attention to these
types of repression suffered by prisoners. As we
work to bring attention to the plights of those
imprisoned explicitly for their political activity,
we also heed the words of Geronimo Pratt on his
release from prison: "you have political prisoners
on top of political prisoners" in Amerika's so-
called correctional facilities. We must continue to
point to the political repression of ordinary
Blacks, Latinos and First Nationals who are bound
up in U.$. custody for the crimes of being minority
nationalities and/or being poor. We see that the
primary struggle is to fight for self-determination
of oppressed nations. The struggle against the
political use of prisons as a tool in war against
oppressed nations continues and will be strengthen
by Jericho'98 and RAIL's teach-in the following
day. Join us.
* * *
ALL PRISONERS ARE POLITICAL PRISONERS:
IS THIS A DIVIDING LINE QUESTION IN 1998?
MIM has long worked around the principle that under
imperialism all prisoners are political prisoners.
This is an important aspect of our line and of the
work we do in support of all prisoners. Yet we urge
organizations doing genuine work around prisons
issues not to make this a dividing line question.
MIM founded the Revolutionary Anti-Imperialist
League (RAIL) to mobilize anti-imperialist
activists who do not agree with MIM on all things.
Many RAIL members will not agree that all prisoners
are political prisoners. These activists will be
quite welcome to work in RAIL to expose the
imprisonment of specific political prisoners.
RAIL's contingent at the Jerichoš98 march will
fully support the release of those prisoners who
are broadly recognized as being political
prisoners. RAIL is also a revolutionary mass
organization and as such its efforts will be
focused both on the release of individual prisoners
and on general education about imprisonment in the
United Snakes.
MIM recognizes that some organizers of the
Jericho'98 march focus specifically on the freedom
of prisoners incarcerated for their political
actions or beliefs. Others emphasize the link
between these prisoners' battles and the overall
struggle against oppression. MIM urges both camps
not to let this question block unity between
separate organizations in our preparations for
Jerichoš98 or in other pro-prisoner work.
MIM argues that all prisoners are political
prisoners because not one of the over 1.6 million
people incarcerated in Amerika's gulags was
arrested, tried and convicted by representatives of
the people. Even the laws under which prisoners
have been convicted support the material interests
of the oppressor. The intensely disproportionate
imprisonment rate of oppressed nationals further
shows that the prison system perpetuates the white
nation's domination of its internal colonies.
Inadequate education and job opportunities are
social and economic conditions imposed upon the
oppressed. The state, which runs its prisons with
one hand, uses the other hand to commit murder in
the form of militarist aggression and theft in the
form of imperialist expansion. This state is
responsible for the poor living conditions of the
oppressed and so cannot fairly judge the oppressed
for any so-called crimes.
MIM struggles to build a new revolutionary society
under which the state and the people will answer to
the same law under the same standard of proletarian
justice. Current prisoners will be retried and
imperialist criminals will be brought for judgment
before the same people's courts. The masses are
responsible only for building such a revolutionary
society, not for subservience to the laws of the
oppressors.
Mao wrote: "The contradictions between ourselves
and the enemy are antagonistic contradictions. In
ordinary circumstances, contradictions among the
people are not antagonistic. But if they are not
handled properly, or if we relax our vigilance and
lower our guard, antagonism may arise." MIM has
deep respect for the contradictions which may arise
among the progressive forces. Disagreements among
the people should be expected, and it is our
responsibility to ensure that these disagreements
do not turn into deeper divisions among the friends
of the oppressed. For this reason, we seek unity in
all our work against oppression with all those who
will work with us for justice.
While MIM seeks unity with all who can be united
around specific progressive political struggles, we
do believe in having strict dividing line questions
for the Party. For this reason we are clear on our
line about political prisoners. Clarity in our own
line keeps the Party from swinging right and left
with the wind. We assert our independence in
developing a revolutionary Party -- this
independence is the basis for our straightforward
leadership of the masses. But one party's dividing
line questions should not be used to divide it from
other organizations which genuinely share some
goals in common. This is why you will see MIM
working with organizations which may criticize our
general use of the term political prisoners.
MIM's stance is clear. We will continue our work
and join together with others to expose the
imprisonment of comrades locked up for their
political beliefs and actions. We will not work
with organizations which insist that we water down
our political line or mass work, and we will not
work with organizations which are infiltrated or
led by cops or revisionists. We will struggle with
individuals and organizations to build support for
all prisoners' struggles against oppression. We
will even struggle with individuals and
organizations to study Marx, Lenin and Mao and to
support armed liberation struggles internationally.
But we know that support at such a high level is
not inherent at birth. So we will continue to
pursue political struggle and mass work to develop
deeper support for all struggles against
oppression.
The Jericho march, its preparation and follow-up
are great opportunities for genuine progressives to
educate one another, the masses and community
members about the various tactics of oppression.
Some attending or even organizing sections of the
teach-in may be focusing on specific prisoners'
cases. The principal contradiction in the world and
in Amerika today is the fact that oppressed nations
are controlled by the imperialists. We need the
people to fight against various aspects of this
control as we build deeper unity necessary for
genuine liberation. We look forward to working with
all activists who are steadfastly pursuing any
aspect of the struggle against oppression.
* * *
MISSOURI PIG CLEARED IN MURDER OF UNARMED INNOCENT
MAN
While 25-year old Ravone Thompson rode as a
passenger with his friends on the afternoon of
December 1, 1997, he had no idea that his life
would end on that day. Pine Lawn, MO pig Bryan
Hubbard pulled their car over while looking for
suspects who had robbed a nearby beauty supply and
fashion shop. When Hubbard began questioning
Thompson, he ran. Hubbard chased him into nearby
St. Louis where he shot Thompson in the back in
cowardly fashion.
Thompson was wanted by St. Louis County pigs for
narcotics trafficking. Black people know that
Amerika's criminal injustice system is designed to
victimize them, so it is not too unusual to run
when you know you won't be dealt with fairly. Pigs
later admitted that Thompson was not involved in
the armed robbery and was unarmed when he was shot.
But that didn't matter to St. Louis Circuit
Attorney Dee Joyce-Hayes. She plays judge and jury
when the pigs commit murder. Eleven days after
Hubbard fatally shot Thompson, she said it was an
act of self-defense! This is not the first time
Joyce-Hayes has exonerated a kop for shooting an
unarmed Black youth in the back (Garland Carter,
1994).
As Thompson's 22 year old spouse and their three
and five year old daughters mourn the loss of their
loved one, pig Hubbard is given a psychiatric
review which determined that he is fit to return to
"duty," that duty being keeping the streets safe
for the capitalists and the white settler
community. Hubbard is also Black, which verifies
the old slogan of the Black Panther Party - "A pig
is a pig is a pig." There have always been traitors
and sellouts among oppressed peoples. This makes it
much easier for the oppressors to rule. It makes
things "look good" when they use the oppressed as
pawns against their own people. A lot of so-called
radicals and nationalists still fall for this one.
They demand that under the present capitalist-
imperialist system "we need Black police officers
to police the Black community." That can only work
when the Black nation is truly independent and is
able to exercise self-determination.
After Dee Joyce-Hayes cleared pig Hubbard of any
wrongdoing, Thompson's spouse and relatives
organized a protest march and rally. More than 100
people gathered near the site of the shooting and
marched spiritedly for several blocks shouting "No
Justice, No Peace!" The march took them past the
Pine Lawn city hall where RAIL explained that the
role of the police, no matter what nationality, is
to keep white supremacist and capitalist rule
intact.
When marchers returned to their starting point,
they vowed to continue their struggle against
police terrorism. A relative of 17 year old Garland
Carter, who was murdered by pigs three years ago,
told marchers not to leave without making plans to
continue the struggle. Another speaker, formerly of
the Black Liberators and now a minister, addressed
the youth: "Don't be on the streets when you don't
need to be. It only makes you an open target for
the police - the enemy. When you organize against
the police you have to do it away from the eyes and
the ears of the enemy."
Led by RAIL, the crowd shouted "The people, united,
will never be defeated." A day and time was given
to meet again. RAIL will continue to organize
against police brutality as we put these acts in
the larger picture of the criminal injustice system
and the need for revolution to overthrow
imperialism before police brutality will be
stopped.
* * *
LETTERS TO MIM
THE USE OF "LATINO"
REVOLUTIONARY GREETINGS!... I was wondering what
was up with the word "LATINO" that MIM uses to
refer to Spanish speaking people.
This bothers me b-cuz Latinos are people or white
people from "Latin Europe". A lot of people living
in spanish speaking countries are of pure First
Nation blood and don't even speak Latin languages.
Personally to me it's just a tool to separate the
Indigenous peoples of the Americas; like the
illegitimate borders and their conquistador
languages. Chicano is a better word....
-- An Arizona Prisoner, 16 Oct 1997
MIM RESPONDS: We use the term Latino to refer to
people from Latin America. The word Chicano is
generally used to refer to people of Mexican
descent in both Mexico and the Southwestern u.s.
When we use the term Latino we are not just talking
about Mexicans. So while MIM does use Chicano, the
word does not serve the purpose of a general term
to refer to all Latinos. Of course, there are
significant national differences between Latino
nations, but within the u.s., these nations share
certain characteristics of national oppression, and
frequently information is only collected on
"Hispanics" as a group so that we can only speak in
generalizations.
This comrade is correct to raise the question of
the politics of language and the importance of
revolutionaries using the most progressive language
possible. In this way we use language to expose
reactionary culture while beginning to build
revolutionary culture. For more on MIM's line on
language order a copy of MIM Theory #13 "Culture in
Revolution", available for $7.50.
MAOIST SOJOURNER AND BUSINESSES OF THE OPPRESSED
DEAR MIM, I am in receipt of the October 15, 1997
issue [and will distribute the papers MIM sent in
my area --ed.] I have mailed you funds for MIM
theory and MIM Notes for distribution. I am
interested in "catching up" with what I have missed
in previous years. So, please send me info on the
Philippine revolution. (Rebolusyon, Philippine
Society and Revolution and Liberation
International.) ...
About a year ago I obtained a copy of Maoist
Sojourner. I do not understand what this paper is
about. Could you perhaps send me a copy, plus an
explanation of its purpose. As I recall, it was
"about" Maoists who were not at "home" (their
natural homelands), but who wanted an
organ/journal?
Can you please explain further what you mean on
page 5, issue 148, in the boxed article on
unleashing businesses of the oppressed. I do not
know if this is something I should get involved in,
but I am interested. ...
Thank you,
-- a friend in the South
MIM RESPONDS: The goal of Maoist Sojourner is to
disseminate news and news analyses from Maoists in
the Third World, in their own words whenever
possible. It also includes MIM's analysis of
international news. One difference between this
publication and MIM Notes is that it focuses on
societies where the labor aristocracy does not play
as big a role as it does in the imperialist
countries like the United States, England and
Japan. Hence, the labor aristocracy is not a
dividing line question for the Maoist parties in
the Third World that are published in Maoist
Sojourner.
The Maoist Sojourner is needed in the imperialist
countries to serve the population of both the
imperialist countries and the population that
migrates to the imperialist countries. A sojourner
is someone who leaves a country with the
expectation of returning. In many cases, sojourners
leave, because they have to escape U.S.
imperialist-backed puppet regimes and they hope to
return after collapse of the imperialist-lackey
regime.
If anyone wants a sample copy they can write to MIM
and send 55 cents to cover the postage. If you are
interested in distributing copies of MS in your
city, let us know and we can start sending you
copies.
In response to the question about unleashing
businesses of the oppressed: MIM is developing
financial institutions that can fund our work and
our workers. We need people willing to invest in
these institutions and also people willing to help
out with the work of setting up and working for
these institutions. As this is a new project for
MIM, we welcome ideas about financial institutions
that others think might be worth our investment.
One such project involves setting up housing and
work for released prisoners. We also welcome ideas
about smaller scale projects. If you have any
thoughts or if you are interested in helping out
with this work let us know.
WHERE CAN I GET MIM NOTES?
DEAR MIM: I'm glad that you do freedropping on my
campus, but why are the papers always old ones
(sometimes months old)? Is there anywhere I can
find more recent issues? I know, I know, I could
subscribe, but I'm living on scholarship money and
it's been getting tight.
--a friend in the east
MIM RESPONDS: We don't have any corporate sponsors
and it is only possible for us to give papers away
for free by raising the money somewhere else. If
you want to ensure that you get copies of current
MIM Notes every two weeks you could become a
distributor of the paper on your campus. We will
send you a bundle of papers every issue and you are
welcome to keep one for yourself and distribute the
rest in places they'd be picked up on campus. We do
ask that our distributors make a contribution
towards the cost of mailing them the papers but for
those who can not afford it, we still welcome the
distribution help.
CORRECTION:
In the last issue of MIM Notes and in the many
letters that were sent to all Michigan prisoners in
touch with MIM, we printed a letter titled "The
Political Prisoner/POW Issue." We printed this
because of its correct analysis of the thoroughly
political nature of imprisonment and the line that
all prisoners are political prisons. We incorrectly
credited this to "a Michigan prisoner." The article
represents the political stance of the Political
Prisoners of War Coalition [PPWC] and should have
been credited to this organization which fights for
genuine justice and liberation of the people and
consistently exposes the corrupt nature of the
Amerikan prison system.
* * *
HONDURANS FIGHT DEPORTATION FROM U.$.
On December 16, so-called illegal Honduran
residents in the United Snakes announced a hunger
strike to begin December 22 to pressure the
northamerican government to stop deportations and
grant them legal residency. The hunger strike took
place in front of the offices of immigration in
Miami and included the participation of nine
Hondurans who are coordinators of the group
confraternidad hondurena.
On December 15 approximately 4000 Hondurans held a
protest in front of the offices of immigration in
Miami demanding to receive the same treatment as
other centroamericanos in this country who have
been given amnesty from the deportation laws and
are being allowed to remain in the country legally.
The Amerikan government has no right to be telling
people from anywhere in the world that they do not
deserve to live legally within u.s. borders and
receive the benefits that come from living in this
wealthy country. The people from Honduras who are
being kept out labor for a few dollars a day in
their own country so that North Amerikan
corporations can make huge profits to bring back to
the u.s. This country was built on stolen land and
made wealthy by the exploitation of people around
the world. MIM calls for open borders as one of the
first steps to be taken after the revolution as we
begin the long process of returning the stolen
wealth to the hands of the people in the Third
World.
NOTES: La Prensa Honduras 17 December 1997.
* * *
HONDURAN WORKERS TAKE OVER FACTORY
More than 800 workers of the Korean business
American Transpacific took over the plant the Zona
Libre de Puerto Cortes to protest the business not
complying with the collective contract. The workers
have the support of four thousand workers in other
factories. Like American Transpacific, they are
large foreign businesses.
One womyn who had worked for American Transpacific
for five years denounced the sexual accosting that
the wimmin face from the bosses of the factory.
When the wimmin refuse to accept the propositions
of their superiors they are sanctioned with long
work hours without overtime pay. In addition, the
factories don't allow for maternity leave or even
time off for medical problems. And the workers are
obligated to work on the weekends as well as the
week days.
A number of other workers organizations have
expressed support for the protesting wimmin and the
Confederation of Workers of Honduras sent a group
of their leaders to help.
These conditions are typical of maquiladoras across
Latin America and many of which are run by Amerikan
corporations making products to bring back home to
sell for a nice profit at a still-very- cheap
price. It is important that we support the
struggles of these workers and expose imperialism
as we fight to overthrow the system that is based
on the exploitation and oppression of the majority
of the world's people.
NOTES: Rebelion Internacional 17 December 1997
(www.eurosur.org/rebelion).
* * *
ACTIVIST FORCED TO PLEA BARGAIN BECAUSE PIGS LIE
Richard Picariello, a long time political activist,
was forced to plea bargain at his trial in mid-
December after the cops came up with a number of
"witnesses" who were willing to say that they saw
exactly what the cops wanted them to see.
Picariello was arrested in July for the crime of
being in the student center at MIT and not being a
student. The student center has stores that are
open to the public, and Picariello was sitting in a
chair outside the stores, apparently a crime if you
don't look like a student. A cop out of uniform
approached him, initiated a physical confrontation,
and then when Picariello tried to defend himself,
called for backup so that a gang of pigs could beat
up Picariello. They charged Picariello with assault
with a deadly weapon (the deadly weapon was
Picariello's foot).
In spite of efforts by RAIL and other activists to
help Picariello come up with witnesses who would
testify about what really happened during the
police assault, in the end the cops came up with
many more witnesses (almost all of whom were police
officers) willing to say whatever they needed to
say to put Picariello in prison.
This case came to court just days after a big
expose in the Boston Globe about police
unwillingness to tell the truth when it might mean
implicating one of their own. The Globe story
focused on an undercover cop who was seriously beat
up by another cop who mistook him for the bad guys
(the undercover cop was Black.) After several years
of investigation no one has been able to get the
pigs to tell the truth about even this case where
the person who was hospitalized was another cop.
Instead every cop's story is filled with lies and
contradictions and no one cares.
In fact, this practice of "testilying" is common.
The Mollen Commission studied the problem of pigs
lying on the stand in New York and concluded that
many police officers "commit falsifications to
serve what they perceive to be 'legitimate' law
enforcement ends. In their view, regardless of the
legality of the arrest, the defendant is in fact
guilty and ought to be arrested. Officers reported
a litany of manufactured tales." The Christopher
Commission, which studied the LA Police Department,
found the same problem.(1)
Picariello was in prison for many years for the
political crime of attempting to overthrow the u.s.
government. He never harmed another person, and he
served his entire term, but the pigs are convinced
that he is a criminal who must be put away for the
safety of society. RAIL considers it a great asset
to the revolutionary movement that people like
Picariello continue to be activists and serve the
people of the world even after so many years of
torture by the criminal injustice system. But the
pigs are correct that it is a threat to the safety
of society to have revolutionaries outside of
prison, because even though we are not waging an
armed struggle right now, we are fighting to
overthrow the very system that props up this
decadent, patriarchal imperialist society.
Fortunately, because of the weakness of the pigs
case and the clear contradictions, excessive use of
force, and strong public pressure, the lawyers for
the cops accepted a plea that did not put
Picariello in prison. Although he was forced to
plead guilty to a crime he did not commit,
Picariello was given a 90 day suspended sentence
with a year probation during which time the only
stipulation is that he not be arrested. Picariello
sees it as a "rape of my dignity" to have to admit
to a crime he did not commit, but when we fight on
the turf of the criminal injustice system the
battle will never be fair. We have to continue to
build public opinion around cases such as this one
to expose the crimes of the system.
NOTES: Boston Globe 11 December 1997, p.A27.
* * *
WHITE YOUTH DRUG USE RISES -- OPPRESSED NATION
YOUTH ARRESTS INCREASE
In December, the Washington Post ran a two part
series on white suburban youth drug use in Fairfax,
Virginia. The articles served both to vilify and
demonize the oppressed nation population of the
"inner city" where these drugs are bought and sold,
and to advance the fiction that youth who do drugs
are rarely caught or prosecuted. While this may be
true for white youth -- who when they are caught
are less likely to end up the criminal system than
in the psychiatrist-school counselor-parent system
-- it is not true for youth of oppressed nations,
who are being arrested at higher rates than ever.
The Post investigation found that marijuana use
especially was very prevalent among the white
teenagers in Fairfax Country, in suburban
Washington. Contrary to most media images of the
drug problem, it was good to see research showing
the use of drugs is not limited to oppressed-nation
youth. On the other hand, the point of the article
-- with its focus on how little suburban youths are
prosecuted -- was to increased the repression of
white suburban youth, rather than address the
repression of oppressed nation youth or the
alienation of white nation youth.
In addition to dealing and using illegal drugs in
the suburbs, the Post interviewed high school
students who said they routinely went to D.C. to
buy drugs. The Post reporter described a Washington
neighborhood in Southwest as a "reliable" but
"menacing" place for white youth to buy drugs.
According to D.C. police Sgt. Donald Yates,
suburbanites "are not familiar with these areas ...
They are just a pigeon ready to be plucked."(1)
These same pigs are the ones that complain about
measures that protect juveniles from things like
having their names publicized or their parents
notified by health clinics if drugs are detected.
Their paternalistic concern that youth will be
"menaced" in the city is part of the movement to
erode these measures.
The Post got much of its evidence that youth are
getting away with rampant drug use (mostly
marijuana) from one undercover pig at a northern
Virginia high school, who during his few months
posing as a teenage drug user gathered enough
evidence for only four arrests -- resulting in no
jail time for the arrestees. "The most serious
punishment any of the teenagers got -- and that was
for selling drugs inside a school -- was a year's
probation and temporary loss of his driver's
license," the undercover pig said.(2)
The article blamed a supposedly lenient judicial
system which does not punish first time juvenile
drug offenders and sentences repeat offenders to
probation or drug treatment rather than jail
time.(2)
"We are dealing with an absolutely massive problem
in this country, and at the lowest level, no one
really has time to concentrate on it," said Pete
Grudin, head of the Drug Enforcement
Administration's Washington field office.(2)
Don't believe the hype -- pigs target juveniles at
higher rates. According to a report recently
released by the U.$. Department of Justice,
"between 1992 and 1996, juvenile arrests for drug
abuse violations increased 120%."(3) "Juvenile
arrests for drug abuse increased 90% between 1980
and 1996."(4)
And the report acknowledged that oppressed nations
are disproportionately in the injustice system at
large, and specifically account for a greater than
their population share of drug arrests. While Black
youth constituted 15% of the total youth population
in 1996, in that year "roughly equal numbers of
arrests for violent crimes involved white and black
youth." Since the FBI counts most Latinos as
"white," we don't know how many of the 62% of drug
arrests of juveniles in 1996 were of settler nation
whites.(5)
Finally, in contrast to the picture the Post
painted of a criminal justice system soft on youth,
the Justice Department report stated that "the
proportion of juvenile arrests sent directly to
criminal court in 1996 (6%) was the highest in the
last two decades."(6)
Drug use is a "crime" like speeding -- millions
more people do it than get caught. Power to enforce
the law is arbitrarily wielded by the pigs on the
street -- and up the chain of command to
prosecutors and judges. These Post articles
demonstrate some of this arbitrary enforcement, and
reveal the agenda of national oppression behind it.
NOTES:
1. Washington Post 15 December 1997.
2. Washington Post 16 December 1997.
3. "Juvenile Arrests 1996," Office of Juvenile
Justice and Delinquency Prevention, p. 1.
4. IBID, p. 8.
5. IBID, p. 5.
6. IBID, p. 6.
* * *
PIGS ADMIT THEY HARASS AND LIE TO IMPRISON
OPPRESSED NATIONALS
An article published in the December 15 Time
magazine shows once more how Amerikan criminal
injustice system fails to live up to its own
standards of due process. The article tells the
story of two Philadelphia cops, "Ryan and Blondie,"
who routinely fabricated probable cause and
harassed residents of the poor, Black neighborhood
where they worked. They were eventually exposed and
confessed to "more crimes than anybody suspected."
Usually, when some cops get caught brutalizing the
people the bourgeois media will argue something
like this: "The vast majority of cops are good.
There are a few bad cops who do things which are
sort of wrong. But the courts and the police
themselves can spot these bad cops and punish
them." This article in Time refutes that argument.
For starters, Ryan and Blondie implicated more than
50 other cops in their crimes. Furthermore, every
police expert and every police officer interviewed
for the story say that Ryan and Blondie's methods
are the norm, not the exception.
MIM reprints excerpts from the article here in
order expose the pigs' daily crimes using their own
words.
BRUTALITY & "TESTILYING"
Ryan and Blondie took a young Black man who was
lost and had asked them for directions to an
abandoned house and beat him with fists,
nightsticks, and long-handled flashlights. Blondie
placed his revolver against the young man's head
and said, "If you don't tell us what we want to
know, I'm going to blow your head off." To this
day, Blondie defends the tactic. "I viewed it as
kind of a humane alternative. It was less hurtful
than beating [of course, they had already beaten
this man -MIM], and it usually got us the
information we wanted." This young man's testimony
later started the investigation which led to the
conviction of Ryan and Blondie.
Another cop in the Time article said, "Folks get
whacked around a lot. You get used to hearing about
that."
Blondie had this to say about the police academy.
"They taught a bit about things like probable cause
- just to say they had taught it - but the message
was clear: What you really do as a cop you learn on
the streets from the veterans, and you could be
sure, as they said, that it was nothing like what
you learned at the academy."
The Time article describes Blondie's first arrest.
"'Nothing fit,' Blondie recalls now. 'The clothes
description over the radio wasn't like what our guy
had on, and he wasn't sweating. He said he was just
standing outside his home, which turned out to be
true. But the victim ID'd him, so we took him
anyway. She was so hysterical; she would have
identified anyone.' When Blondie vociferously
questioned the arrest, he was told to 'shut up,
listen, and learn.' He then watched as the original
description was altered to fit the suspect, who was
held for eight months until the victim recanted her
identification." MIM has reported earlier on
studies which show that 21% of the time an
eyewitness will pick someone from a lineup when the
actual criminal was not in the lineup.
The Time article continues: "'Basically, the first
thing you really learn as a cop is how to lie' says
Blondie... 'Now say you see some guy driving who
you think is wrong [i.e. Black -MIM]... You stop
him on no basis that could stand up in court. So
you lie if you have to. You say he ran a stop sign
or didn't signal or had a broken taillight that you
had to break after you've determined he's bad. That
makes the initial stop legal.'"
Of course, cops can't do this to everybody, Blondie
explains. Only people from oppressed nations. "The
first [rule] is, keep it in the ghetto. In the good
areas, you don't go stopping people without cause."
Another cop describes how they fabricate grounds
for a raid. "[Y]ou drop a dime, which means you
call in a 'shots fired' alarm to 911. Sometimes you
even fire your own gun. Then you wait for the
shots-fired call to come over the radio, and you
respond to your own call. It's all made up, but
that makes it legal." Blondie adds, "[S]ometimes
we'd laugh and say, 'Gee, which story should we use
today? How about No. 23?'"
Ryan and Blondie's supervisor admits that "almost
all of our [2,233] arrests were bad."
Time again: "'Prosecutors and judges know a lot of
testimony by cops is false,' says Alan Dershowitz,
the Harvard law professor and criminal defense
attorney who has popularized the term testilying.
'But they only know it generically, rather than in
any particular case. So in a battle of conflicting
testimony, cops are given the benefit of the
doubt.'"
Bourgeois reality refutes bourgeois ideals. The
judge who convicted Ryan and Blondie told them,
"You've squashed the Bill of Rights in the mud."
Indeed, given that the cops admit they regularly
beat innocent people, harass oppressed
nationalities, ignore the bourgeoisie's own due
process, and lie to get convictions, the sentiments
expressed in the Amerikan Bill of Rights aren't
worth the paper they're printed on. That's the
beginning of the Marxist-Leninist analysis of the
bourgeois state. Whatever ideals it may cloak
itself in, the bourgeois state is an instrument of
rule by force: The dictatorship of the bourgeoisie
over the oppressed masses. In Amerika, this
dictatorship is principally aimed at the oppressed
nations. That's why Black males are imprisoned at a
rate nine times that of white males, for example.
That's also why cops like Ryan and Blondie will be
the norm until the political and economic system
which creates them is overturned.
* * *
PEOPLE'S TRIBUNAL FINDS MUMIA'S OPPRESSORS GUILTY
On December 6 in Philadelphia, a People's Tribunal
found "those charged are guilty of criminal
conspiracy to deny Mumia Abu-Jamal's Human Rights
and we call for his immediate release, with
exoneration and compensation." Those charged
included Gov Ridge, the PA Supreme Court, the PA
Department of Corrections, Philadelphia Mayor
Rendell, the Fraternal Order of Police,
Philadelphia Police Department, Judge Albert Sabo,
the Philadelphia District Attorney, the FBI and
Janet Reno. The accused were also found guilty of
"criminal conspiracy to deny justice and take the
life of Mumia Abu Jamal".
The people's tribunal was an important event
because it was the first public forum to air the
evidence gathered that proves Mumia's innocence and
government misconduct in the case. A significant
portion of Mumia's appeal of his verdict centers
around the bias of the presiding judge, Judge Sabo.
Sabo is also the same judge was has been overseeing
Mumia's appeals.
From June 26 through July 1st, Judge Sabo presided
over a remand hearing for a higher court reviewing
Mumia's appeals. At this hearing, Sabo denied the
majority of the defense's motions and objection and
halted all potentially important witnesses.
MIM sees this case as symbolic of the political
repression that used against the Black Nation in
general and its revolutionary leadership in
particular. The People's Tribunal brought the
information on Mumia's frame-up to the masses, and
the people spoke: Mumia must be set free!
NOTES: For coverage of the June/July remand
hearing, see MIM Notes 142, August 1 1997.
* * *
HISTORICAL DATES FOR CONTEXT:
#1839: Amistad uprising
#1841: U$ slaves seize slave ship Creole -- Amerika
badgers England for their return to their "rightful
owners."
#1857: Same Supreme Court justices who freed
Amistad uprisers wrote Dred Scott decision,
declaring that Blacks had "no rights which a white
man is bound to respect."
#1861: Civil War breaks out, NOT as a result of
Amistad
AMISTAD REVIEW:
SOME GOOD HISTORY AMIDST SETTLER MYTH
by MC17 and MCB52
This three hour historical account of the Amistad
slave story gives a glimpse of how captivating
history can be when removed from dry textbooks and
memorization of names and dates. Unfortunately, the
story is not all historical fact. It was taken from
the written accounts of white men involved in the
case and then embellished (further) presumably to
make it more entertaining and palatable to Amerikan
audiences. But in spite of the historical problems
and the clearly white perspective, this movie
provides some valuable insights into history.
The most important contribution of the movie
ultimately will be its depiction of the horrors of
the slave trade and the passage from Africa to the
Americas in particular. The movie shows slave
traders who brutally chain rows of Africans to the
lower decks of their ships, where they are left for
weeks or months of the trip. Then, when the slave
traders realize they were running short on food
they start denying food to the Africans who are
less healthy-looking. Finally, they chain 50
Africans to a net full of rocks and throw them all
overboard, while the rest of the Africans watch. In
response, the movie also correctly shows some
slaves throwing themselves into the ocean to avoid
slavery.
The filmmakers decided to use subtitles for some
parts of the Africans' dialogue, and this was used
to show that they were intelligent and aware of
their surroundings (such as commenting on the
ridiculousness of the abolitionist carolers who
came to their cell window.) However, most of the
Africans' dialogue was not subtitled, so most
viewers have no idea what they were saying. This
was used to create emotional effect, such as when
they were all shouting and upset about their
oppression, but it also made sure that viewers had
the English-speaking perspective at all times,
primarily the white perspective. This is in the
tradition of "noble savage" literature, in which
select Africans are shown to have powerful and
noble emotional reactions but are not accorded
human complexity and intelligence by imperialist-
nation writers. Despite token attempts to break
with this tradition, in the main Spielberg stuck to
it.
The film's hero is Cinque, who emerges as leader of
a group of forty Mende people (from the English
colony of Sierra Leone West Africa) who were
captured for slavery and transported through Cuba
for the now illegal slave trade. After leading a
violent rebellion on the ship, leaving two white
folks alive to navigate back to Africa, the ship is
captured by British soldiers who bring it to New
Haven, CT. There, Cinque and all the other Africans
are the subject of legal proceedings weighing the
claims of the British finders, the Spanish sailors,
and through an upstart lawyer funded by
abolitionists, themselves.
The white lawyer who defended the Africans,
Baldwin, was a good character who understood that
dealing with cases like this, pragmatism in the
courts is the best approach. If we expect to win
battles on enemy turf, we may have to play by the
enemies rules. Baldwin used those rules to force
the court to decide in his favor. This was contrary
to the white idealist abolitionist who stood his
moral ground and repeatedly argued that the case
should only be tried on moral issues. This white
man was quite happy to sacrifice the lives of the
Africans if it meant he would have some good
martyrs for his cause. This position is typical of
the white pacifist left who say that the morally
superior position of no violence at all will win in
the end without thinking that they are telling the
oppressed that they must be slaughtered in the name
of morality. This position is only taken by those
comfortable enough in their lives that they won't
be slaughtered themselves.
Amistad distorts the history of the truest
abolitionists -- Blacks themselves -- by creating
just one composite character from many involved in
the case. Where we see subtleties of white
perspectives, we hardly see any Black perspective.
The composite character does call the Amerikan
pacifist on saying that matyrdom for these Africans
might be a good thing, but cannot get the focus on
correct Black ideas.
Cinque is often wiser than the lawyers and
abolitionists who sought to defend the Africans. We
get a good picture of how jailhouse lawyers quickly
develop skills and knowledge out of necessity.
His analysis of leaders was better than the white
perspective. Cinque correctly said, contrary to the
constant individualistic assertions of the white
folks, that it was circumstances that had made him
a hero and led him to slay the lions in his path
but that he was not superior to any other man who
would attempt to do the same in similar situations.
He did not see himself as a hero but he did
understand the importance of leadership.
The treatment of religion in the movie was mostly
added fiction and from MIM's perspective this did
not add much to the story. The lawyer was very
cynical about religion saying that he would need to
do better than Christ's lawyer in order to save the
Africans from the same senseless death. Throughout
the scenes in Amerika we see a small crowd of
religious people praying over the Africans,
apparently trying to save their souls. One African
takes a copy of the bible and reads the story by
looking at the pictures. He gets pretty close to
the main story in the bible and concludes that when
people in Amerika die their souls go to heaven so
being killed in Amerika would not be such a bad
thing.
Most of the major historical figures of the time
were portrayed as either heroes or idiots.
President Van Buren came off as a man who didn't do
much until political pressures forced him to act.
Queen Isabella II of Spain was shown as a stupid
little girl (she was only 11 at the time) and it
was implied that she didn't grow up much as she got
older. Of course the movie does recognize that she
was acting in the interests of her country who
would have done well to have the Amerikan court
system serve Spain. John Quincy Adams was one of
the main heroes of the story, as he eventually
stood up and defended the Africans in front of the
supreme court. Overall Adams was a libertarian
abolitionist who, for some reason, was inspired to
action on this specific case. In one scene of
refined northerners in the Amerikan government we
see their hypocrisy as the Black servants bring
them dinner.
Overall the movie does a good job of showing how
the executive and judicial branches of the
government in Amerika are far from separate. First,
the judge on the case is removed when it looks like
he will rule in favor of the Africans. Then, when
the President's hand picked judge still rules in
favor of the Africans, the President appeals the
case to the supreme court. And there we learn that
7 of the 9 justices are slave owners themselves.
The fact that the case was ultimately won is not a
testimony to the workings of our criminal justice
system. It is just the opposite, a demonstration of
how these cases can sometimes be won but only on
loopholes and pragmatic arguments. In this case the
supreme court did not rule that slavery is wrong,
instead they ruled that the treaty governing these
particular Africans was not applicable in this
particular case.
Viewers should take from the movie the message that
while we should fight legal battles when we can,
the real battle against oppression is going to take
place in the streets. And on this message another
of the failings of the white perspective in this
movie is found. The liberation of slaves is shown
as an act of white people saving Africans. The
final scenes of the destruction of an African slave
trading fortress by English soldiers and of white
northerners fighting the civil war in Amerika are
presented as the final word on slavery. While there
were certainly acts like that of the English
liberating the fortress that contributed
significantly to the battle against slavery, the
fights against injustice have always ultimately
been won by the oppressed themselves, not by
superior saviors running to their rescue.
The English in the movie are shown to oppose
slavery. And the U.$. government at that time
officially opposed the slave trade and banned it,
although it clearly continued. The fact that the
English and U.$. governments did not oppose slavery
primarily on moral grounds is made clear by the
fact that they banned the slave trade at first
without banning slavery itself. The whole point of
the Amistad court case was that if the Africans
were born in Africa they would not be considered
slaves because the slave trade was banned, whereas
if they were born in Cuba they could be considered
legal slaves. In fact, the Amerikan and the English
governments opposed the slave trade as a way to get
the upper hand over the Spanish. In the liberation
scene, in which the English free the slaves from a
fortress and then destroy it, viewers are led to
believe the English morally opposed slavery, when
in fact the act had more to do with the imperialist
rivalry with Spain. There were moral political
currents among some whites opposed to slavery, but
they never dominated the mainstream political
scene.
* * *
MANDELA STEPS DOWN AS ANC LEADER:
ANC CONTINUES TO SELL OUT THE PEOPLE
The African National Congress (ANC) week long
convention that began December 16th marked the end
of Nelson Mandela's leadership as president of the
ANC. Mandela opened the convention with a speech
that attacked a wide range of South African
individuals and organizations for impeding the
country's progress towards democratic majority
rule. While there is truth in the criticisms he
made of various groups and individuals, this attack
ignored the fact that the main responsibility for
South Africa's stalled progress towards greater
equality for all its people lies at the feet of
Nelson Mandela and the ANC. It is the people who
must overthrow reactionary rule and put in place a
government of the people, the ANC claimed to
represent the people but it failed to overthrow the
apartheid government, instead compromising and
leaving them with significant power (both inside
and outside the government) and wealth.
Mandela criticized the white reactionaries who are
resisting the move towards majority rule, in
particular naming the reactionary National Party
under whose rule apartheid was maintained for many
years: "This counterrevolutionary network -- which
is already active and bases itself on those in the
public administration and others in other sectors
of our society who have not accepted the reality of
majority rule -- is capable of carrying out very
disruptive actions," he said. "It measures its own
success by the extent to which it manages to weaken
the democratic order."(1) This is quite true and
demonstrates why it is necessary to have a
dictatorship of the proletariat OVER the
bourgeoisie if we wish to keep them from fighting
(through illegal and violent means) to return to
power.
Mandela also attacked nongovernmental organizations
dependent on international subsidies, stating that
some NGOs had become instruments of foreign
governments and institutions trying to influence
South African politics.(1) This criticism is
hypocritical considering the negotiations between
South African and the World Bank which would give
South Africa a significant amount of aid in return
for enacting very restrictive economic and
political policies. Thabo Mbeki, Mandela's
successor as head of the ANC has stated that he
would sign these agreements with the World Bank
without delay.
Mandela, will remain president of the country until
the 1999 vote but has turned over the day-to-day
business of running the government to Mbeki, his
deputy president.(2) It is generally accepted that
Mbeki will succeed Mandela as President in the next
election. Mbeki has been a guiding force of
"market-friendly economic policies," encouraging
foreign investment and selling off state assets.(3)
Clearly he is a friend of the imperialists in the
u.s. and elsewhere who welcome the opportunity to
continue to exploit the South African people with
the pretty face of the ANC to tell people that all
the evils of apartheid have been eliminated.
Although the overthrow of Apartheid in South
African represents progress, this is progress
towards a more liberal free market capitalism, not
progress towards a system of equality and justice
for all people. As MIM Notes pointed out in June of
1997:
"The retreats from the not-so-radical positions of
the ANC Freedom Charter have been clear. First the
Freedom Charter was dropped in favor of the
Reconstruction and Development Program (RDP) which
was a retreat from nationalization demands made in
the pragmatist interest of keeping support of
foreign investors. And now even the RDP has been
abandoned in favor of the Growth, Employment and
Reconstruction Program (GEAR), an even milder
program. As a result, homelessness is a growing
problem, Mandela has failed to deliver on the
promised 1 million houses for the homeless, instead
so far providing less than 100,000. And the wealthy
white property owners continue to retain their
wealth that was stolen from the Blacks of the
country.
"An even more blatant sign of the selling out of
the South African government is their moves towards
accepting loans from the IMF and World Bank. These
two organizations only grant loans with
conditionalities which allow them to determine the
economic and political agenda of a country. They
require no limit or floor to wages (no minimum
wage) and a guarantee that there will be no labor
unrest or demands for increased wages. These
conditions allow corporations to maximize profits
and lower production costs. In South Africa they
are also demanding privatization of all state owned
companies, and an agreement to sell off the
electricity system and telecom system. South
African Airways is currently a state owned company
which is producing revenues for the government: by
forcing privatization, the World Bank forces the
government into greater dependency on these loans.
"The results of World Bank loans are devastating.
Of the 35 African countries that have taken World
Bank loans, 33 are bankrupt. In Zambia the
government is paying 30% of the GNP on interest on
their loan and they are not even touching the
capital. [The] government of South Africa is trying
to placate corporations and foreign investors and
as a result they have retreated on helping the
people, the homeless, jobless and workers."
NOTES:
1. Los Angeles Times 17 December 1997.
2. AP 17 December 1997.
3. AP 15 December 1997.
* * *
KIM DAE JUNG KISSES IMPERIALIST ASS
On December 18, Kim Dae Jung was narrowly elected
as the new president of south Korea. There has been
much hooplah in the Amerikan press about Kim Dae
Jung's history as strong critic of the militarist
regimes in Korea in the 70s and 80s and what it
might mean for his presidency. Here MIM sums up
Kim's stances on issues we think are essential to
revolutionaries and anti-militarists:
(a) Amerikan troops on Korean soil "Kim supports
the continuation of u.$. military presence in
Korea, where 37,000 u.$. troops are now
stationed."(1) There has also been some talk that
Kim will be more open to peace talks with north
Korea, but there can be no meaningful resolution to
the Korean war until there are no Amerikan soldiers
on the Korean peninsula. Some analysts have
suggested that the u.$. state department prefers
Kim's stance to the current regime's harsh stance
towards north Korea, because it thinks that now is
the time to cut a deal with north Korea.(2) Kim Dae
Jung may end up playing good cop after the current
regime's bad cop, but he will still be serving the
same master.
(b) The IMF Kim Dae Jung said that he would
"faithfully implement the agreement with the IMF
[International Monetary Fund]"(1) which south Korea
just made. In return for a $57 billion loan, south
Korea will follow IMF dictates, many of which
require south Korea to dismantle its independent
industrial capacity. "Reform without pain is not
possible," said Kim. Businesses which could not
compete in the international market economy "shall
surely perish because that is the cold, harsh
reality of globalization."(1) Of course, in
general, Korean businesses will not be able to
compete with the monopoly capitalists in Amerika,
Japan, and Europe. The IMF dictates will increase
the imperialists' control over the Korean economy.
MIM's assessment: Thumbs down on both counts.
NOTES:
1. Los Angeles Times, 20 Dec 97.
2. National Public Radio, 19 Dec 97.
* * *
KIM DAE JUNG KISSES MILITARIST ASS
As MIM Notes went to press, president Kim Young Sam
of south Korea and president-elect Kim Dae Jung
granted amnesty to former dictator Chun Doo Hwan
and former president Roh Tae Woo. Both Chun and Roh
were recently convicted by bourgeois courts for
leading the Kwangju massacre of 1980, which killed
over one thousand civilians. Chun was originally
sentenced to death for his crimes. Kim Young Sam
and Kim Dae Jung also granted amnesty to 23 other
former politicians who were convicted of
corruption.(1)
Korean activists swiftly condemned the amnesty,
pointing out that many militant opponents of Chun's
military regime still languish in prison. "Why
should laws exist if they fail to punish the most
ugly criminals." said Lim Ki-ran, a spokeswoman for
human rights group Mingahyup. "The amnesty is a
backward step in our history and will not help heal
national wounds inflicted by Chun and Roh. So many
people were imprisoned, tortured and murdered under
Chun and Roh's military regimes. How dare the
government think about freeing the two former
presidents."(2)
Kim Dae Jung spent most of the 70s and 80s in exile
or under arrest for his vocal opposition to the
military regime in Korea. The Amerikan bourgeois
media is already hailing Kim as "the Korean Begnino
Aquino" or "the Korean Nelson Mandela" for
conceding to the militarists. MIM finds these
analogies correct. Just like Aquino and Mandela,
Kim turned his back on any meaningful opposition to
militarism and anti-people dictatorship in order to
play the bourgeois political game.(3)
Upon his election, Kim Dae Jung said, "I respect
and love all regions and all classes in this
nation." But pardoning the most reactionary
representatives of the Korean bourgeoisie and the
Amerikan imperialists does not show respect or love
for the working class or those regions neglected by
the so-called economic miracle.
Bourgeois commentators in Korea and in the u.$.
have praised Kim Dae Jung for his willingness to
"reconcile" with the militarists he formerly
opposed. One Kim supporter said, "In the past, when
people who sided with the oppressors talked about
Chun and Roh, we were angry. But now the victim
wants to pardon them, so we will go along with the
idea."
This kind of talk is based in the idea that with
the election of Kim, the oppressed in Korea have
actually robbed the militarists of their power.
This, however, is not true. The militarist clique
which Chun and Roh represent still controls the
army, and there are still more than 30,000 u.$.
troops on Korean soil. Kim's formal election will
do little to stop the military from seizing power
again if he steps too far out of line. Pardoning
these creeps gives the militarists concrete aid and
sends a clear signal that Kim Dae Jung will treat
them with kid gloves.
NOTES:
1. Los Angeles Times, 20 Dec 97.
2. Kim Myong-hwan for Reuters, 21 Dec 97.
3. National Public Radio, 20 Dec 97
* * *
POLITICAL REPRESSION OF BASQUE IN SPAIN
In a strike against the legal organizing of
political activists around the world, at the
beginning of December a three-judge panel in Spain
sentenced 23 Basque politicians to seven years in
prison for airing a video of armed ETA [Basque]
guerillas in an election broadcast. French
President Jacques Chirac, Spain's partner in crimes
against Basque self-determination, praised the
sentences as "good for all."
Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, "echoing
the reaction of most mainstream Spanish
politicians, welcomed the verdict, saying it showed
'everyone is equal under the law.'"
But the verdict, against members of the Herri
Batasuna party, which had recently won 15% of the
popular vote in the Basque "region," is clearly a
verdict of political repression against legal
struggle of the Basque people. The lie of the
capitalist government -- from the United Snakes to
Spain -- is supposed equal justice under the law.
MIM does not have enough information on the Basque
struggle to say whether or not this is a true fight
for self- determination against national
oppression. We would need further information about
the Basque economy as well as the economy of Spain.
We encourage our readers who support the Basque
struggle to send us more information.
NOTES: CNN Interactive, December 2, 1997.
(http://www.cnn.com)
* * *
ADVANCES AND RETREATS FOR MIM'S BOOKS FOR PRISONERS
PROGRAM
MIM's Books for Prisoners program sends in copies
of MIM Notes, MIM Theory and a wide variety of
political theory and history books to prisoners.
The demand is tremendous and we are unable to keep
up with money or books. The end of the semester on
college campuses meant some sizable donations of
books and finances to our program this year.
We took advantage of the semester's end at Boston
University by setting up a collection point in
front of the main book store. Because this was
public sidewalk, the bookstore could do nothing to
stop us from asking students to donate their books
rather than return them for the few dollars the
store will give. At BU we collected over 400 books.
Many of these were textbooks and fiction books that
we were able to sell to raise money to send in the
political books we collected. This book collection
caught the attention of several students who
donated their time to help staff the collection
point. And at BU and other campuses across Boston
people also donated money in addition to the books
they dropped off. A lot of the political books that
have been donated are not revolutionary and some
are not even progressive. But these books are also
useful for people to read and we have began a book
review program where prisoners are invited to write
reviews of these books for publication in MIM
Theory, giving readers an overview of the useful
information in the book and the points of political
agreement and disagreement. Response to this
program has been very good and we've already
received a number of reviews back from prisoners
excited to do more.
Unfortunately, our Books for Prisoners program is
also faced with a tremendous amount of censorship
that means many prisoners are unable to receive any
literature. The following is one example of a
typical letter from the prison administration, this
one was sent in response to a book we sent in for
the prisoner to review.
***From the Texas department of criminal justice
programs and services division Director's review
committee decision form for incoming enclosures***
The Director's Review Committee has rendered the
following decision regarding your appeal: The unit
decision not to allow you to receive the following
item(s) received in contradiction to the rules:
Book not from vendor of paperback books
(correspondence to offender) from MIM. Upheld. You
will not be allowed to receive the above referenced
enclosure(s).
MIM needs more donations: finances as well as
books. The books most in demand are Marx, Lenin,
Mao, and political history of the Black Panther
Party, Latino revolutionary struggles and
revolutionary struggles around the world. We also
need help fighting the censorship. Any lawyers
willing to help out with this struggle should
contact us. This is a battle we can win but we need
your help.
* * *
MURDER STATISTICS IN DOUBT AS DEATHS ARE CALLED
'UNDETERMINED'
by MC12
New revelations about the Washington, D.C.
government's recording of hundreds of deaths calls
into question the definition of murder and the
official statistics for murders in the U.$. capital
city.
In the past MIM has said we think murder statistics
are the most accurate crime statistics because the
crime is most likely to be reported and accurately
counted by the government -- unlike more subjective
crimes like rape or underreported crimes like
bribery.
Many deaths that the international proletariat
would consider murders are not counted as murder in
the legal sense -- just like the bourgeoisie
doesn't call exploiting labor "theft" or sex under
patriarchy "rape." But we have argued that the
legal murder rate does measure something important:
by looking at trends in the murder rate, for
example, we know that incarcerating hundreds of
thousands of people doesn't "work" to reduce murder
(See MIM Theory 11).
However, the Washington Post has reported that "an
average of three people a month ages 15 to 44 have
died in Washington since 1990 under circumstances
that have never been fully determined by the
medical examiner's office or the police
department." Many of these deaths may have been
murders in the legal sense, and there were many
more in the 1980s.
The scandal came to light when it emerged that as
many as five Black wimmin had been killed in one
neighborhood -- possibly by the same killer -- but
their deaths were not ruled homicides because the
government didn't determine the exact manner of
death. In one case, only the torso of a woman was
found, and they still didn't call it a homicide.
Residents are enraged that the medical examiner's
office didn't call the deaths homicides and the
police department didn't care to pursue the cases
until there was a scandal. The wimmin were Black
and poor.
The D.C. department of health reported to the
federal government that from 1984 to 1994 at least
1,800 deaths of people ages 15-44, which are most
likely to be homicides, resulted in "negative
autopsies," meaning the circumstances of their
deaths were not determined (or reported). Since
1990, the government says 276 more deaths have been
labeled "undetermined." Experts from around the
country said the rates of inconclusive results were
extremely high. Medical examiners from other cities
blamed the D.C. medical examiner's office as well
as D.C. police for not coming up with the
information the doctors would need to determine
what led to the deaths.
It appears to MIM that the medical examiners and
the police cooperate to keep homicide rates down:
the doctors don't come up with conclusive results,
and then the police don't have to pursue murder
cases they wouldn't be able to solve; and the
police help by covering up or not providing
evidence to the doctors.
A similar scandal broke in 1995 when two young
wimmin were found strangled near each other within
three weeks in Black Southeast Washington. At the
time police admitted that there were 42 similar
unsolved homicides in that part of town, and 46
more deaths that were "undetermined." For a while
the FBI was involved, as they said they might link
the murders to 17 similar cases in Florida, in
which wimmin were raped and strangled. Then, the
Post reported: "Last year, police and FBI agents
who were examining the cases in Southeast
Washington abandoned the joint effort because of
the city's fiscal restraints and because 'concerns
shifted somewhere else,' said Susan Lloyd, the
spokeswoman for the FBI's Washington field office."
MIM does not join the critics who demand more
police action to catch murderers. But we do think
it is important to expose the police and the
government when they blatantly apply double
standards in the treatment of deaths depending on
the basis of the nation, class, and gender of the
people who died. In Washington, hundreds of deaths,
especially of Black wimmin, are being misreported,
"undetermined," or -- quite possibly -- covered up
through a combination of factors that may or may
not be accidental.
We conclude from this, first, that the state and
the police cannot be counted on to protect the
lives of oppressed nation wimmin, and, second, that
we must again remind ourselves that even when we
use official statistics because they are the best
we have, there are many ways that these statistics
also distort or conceal the truth.
NOTES: Washington Post 22 December 1997, page A01;
http://www.washingtonpost.com
* * *
MANDATORY MINIMUM SENTENCES PROMOTE NATIONAL
OPPRESSION
by an RC
Recent research on the United Snakes policy on
mandatory minimum sentencing has shown that it
promotes national oppression. This is nothing new
for those of us who are familiar with the Amerikan
legal system, but it is a good sign that this kind
of unjust policy is being revealed as such to the
general public. Harvard medical school researcher
William N. Brownsberger is extremely critical of
the mandatory minimum sentence policy. He points
out that those who can afford the best lawyers
don't go to prison.
MIM knows that this phenomenon is not only a
characteristic in mandatory minimum sentencing, but
the exposure of the bias in our legal system is a
move in the right direction. This Harvard
researcher found further evidence of national
oppression from the disproportionate use of
mandatory minimums on oppressed nationals.
Mandatory minimum sentencing is a policy which
requires a set length of sentence for certain
crimes. This means that no matter what the
circumstances, even first time offenders will be
given the mandatory minimum sentence on conviction.
In many states a third conviction for a minor
offense can put a person away for life because of
this relatively new policy. This policy which
requires longer prison terms is a result of the
tough on crime hype that has surfaced more and more
since the Reagan administration in the 1980s.
The associated press quotes the Harvard researcher
saying: "mandatory sentencing laws are wasting
prison resources on non-violent, low-level
offenders and reducing resources available to lock
up violent offenders." MIM believes that locking
anyone up in the Amerikan gulags is a waste of
resources because of the horrible conditions and
treatment within the prisons and the unjust
practices of the legal system. The structure of
Amerikan society as a whole perpetuates and creates
crime through its oppressive conditions. Add this
to a criminal injustice system devoted to social
control and it is not hard to understand why the
United Snakes has more people in prison per capita
than any other country in the world.
Another study by the RAND corporation shows that
the mandatory minimum sentencing policy has not
been proven to reduce crime in any way. Research
shows that people convicted under the old-order
sentencing of shorter term lengths are two to three
times less likely to re-offend after release. This
is just another piece of evidence which shows that
prisons in the u.s. are not for rehabilitation and
therefore cannot effectively reduce crime. In fact,
research results from the RAND corporation show
that rehabilitation centers are seven times more
effective in convictions where substance abuse is a
factor. An independent English researcher released
information which shows that rehabilitation
programs within prisons are much less effective
than those in the community.
Research also shows the federal sentencing laws
blatant discrimination through its differential
sentencing for equal amounts of crack and powder
cocaine. This discrimination shows the
disproportionate targeting of oppressed nations as
opposed to the white nation. Powder cocaine is more
popular with the white nation but it is too
expensive for oppressed nationals. This research
also shows that there is no evidence that substance
abuse is encountered more frequently among lower-
income groups. This means that the disproportionate
amount of low- income, oppressed nationals in
prison for drug offenses is a direct result of
discrimination by the Amerikan legal system.
It is important that we take this opportunity to
point out that this kind of discrimination is used
throughout the u.s. prisons system. Mandatory
minimum sentencing is one method to control
internal colonies within u.s. borders, but it is
definitely not the only oppressive policy in the
system. The findings of this recent research are
useful in showing the bias of this policy and could
prove to be helpful in putting an end to the use of
this particular oppressive policy of mandatory
minimum sentences. However, it is not possible to
reform the criminal injustice system into a just
system. Only by overthrowing imperialism can we
establish a justice system that serves all the
people.
* * *
IMPERIALISM KILLS:
LIFE EXPECTANCY LOW FOR OPPRESSED NATIONALS
Results released in December from a study conducted
by Harvard University professor Chris Murray
bolsters MIM's argument that national oppression
leads to death within u.s. borders. While the
Amerikan government and its propaganda machine are
quick to jump on individual cases of murder or so-
called terrorism as tragic for prematurely taking
someone's life, rarely does the government or even
academics mention the premature preventable deaths
that are a direct result of imperialism.
Murray's study looked at life expectancies in
counties across the united states and found
tremendous variation, much of which can be
explained by the nationality of the county. Life
expectancy was lowest in South Dakota among First
Nation men, who can expect to live only 56.5 years.
Black men living in Washington D.C. have a life
expectancy of 57.9 years. This is contrasted with
the highest life expectancy for men in the u.s. of
77 years in Stearns County, Minn., a relatively
wealthy county.
Overall, the ten unhealthiest areas were in inner
cities and in the South and in areas which settlers
have relegated First nations. This is no surprise
for anyone who recognizes that national oppression
has been leading to the death of indigenous people
and Blacks ever since settlers invaded the First
Nations and brought Africans over as slaves.
Dr. Murray found that high income whites lived only
about two years longer than poor whites and income
made little difference among Blacks. This
demonstrates what MIM has been saying for years:
within u.s. borders national oppression is the
principal contradiction.
The united states has a bigger spread in life
expectancies than any other "high income" (a.k.a.
imperialist) country. The life expectancies of
Black and indigenous men are comparable to those in
Third World countries like India or parts of
Africa.
These years of lost life should be easily
preventable all over the world where simple and
cheap preventive and curative health measures could
save many lives. And MIM holds the imperialists
responsible for all these premature deaths
happening while they refuse health care and create
unsanitary conditions in the name of profits. These
findings within u.s. borders should make clear to
even the white nation chauvinists that national
oppression kills. For all those living comfortably
within u.s. borders claiming to oppose injustice
but opposing the violence of revolutionary change,
MIM hopes statistics like these will make it clear
that imperialism is violent and murderous, whereas
armed revolutionary struggle seeks to install a
system of equality and justice.
NOTES: The New York Times 4 December 1997, p.A24.
* * *
UNDER LOCK & KEY: NEWS FROM PRISONERS AND PRISONS
WAGES END IN SOUTH CAROLINA'S GULAGS
... I am going to end this short note by informing
you of yet another one of SCDC's [South Carolina's
Department of Corruptions] schemes to hoard more
and more capital. As of January 20, 1998, if you
are in lock-up or unemployed, you will not be paid
for the rest of your sentence. Any new prisoner
entering the South Carolina Department of
Corruptions after January 19, 1998 will not be
paid. If you are found guilty of a major
disciplinary or criminal offense within SCDC, you
will lose all of your pay for the remainder of your
sentence. Even though it costs more money to keep
someone incarcerated than to send them to Harvard
University, still yet they find it necessary to cut
costs by cutting our pay. Business as usual! I
guess the privatization of South Carolina's prisons
is next (like in Texas).
-- A South Carolina Prisoner, 18 November 1997
EXPOSING THE WAR ON URBAN COMMITTEES
I am a Black revolutionary being held political
prisoner in a concentration camp called Garner
Correctional Institution in Newtown, Conn. I've
been placed in what they call close monitoring
(gang units). I was taken out of population and
placed in this gang unit. Not for fighting, not for
stabbing another prisoner, or taking of other
prisoners' property. But for pictures; pictures I
took in another state, not Conn. And because my
pictures have a very expressive body language, that
makes me a gang member [in the eyes of the state].
The only hand sign in my pictures is the peace
sign. That's right! The peace sign. When white
people used it at Woodstock, it meant "peace and
love." But when young African-Americans use it, it
means gangs. Many of my young comrades are also
here for the same thing.
The state of Connecticut's law enforcement along
with correctional institutions have declared war on
all of Connecticut's urban communities and have
said that these low income areas are to be
considered gang territories. Let me explain this
skillfully designed, corrupt Security Risk Group
(SRG) system. SRGs are considered to be gang
members who pose a so-called threat to the
Connecticut Department of Corrections. Information
will be gathered on an individual, whether it's
true or not. Most information is provided by
institutional snitches and is not accurate. An
individual will be given a hearing to inform him
that he will be removed from general population and
placed in a Close Custody Unit where this
individual will be locked up 23 hours a day,
whereas in population, he's out most of the day
working or in school, learning a vocational skill,
taking college classes, or trying to better himself
by going to Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics
Anonymous meetings.
It should be mentioned that once this individual is
placed in these concentration camps called Close
Custody, none of the above-mentioned programs are
available to said individual. However, he is forced
into these group gang programs, and maneuvered into
spilling out his feelings as to why he would join
an organization (which they call a gang). They are
using us; dissecting our minds in these
experimental, psychological, genocidal labs; having
us give them more information they can use against
us. This information is then turned over to the
office of the Governor of Connecticut, John
Rowland, who will address concerned taxpayers as to
why the state needs more money to build high-
security prisons. You see, there's big money at
stake for local police and correctional departments
that target gangs. Law enforcement along with
prison systems are using gangs as a means of
keeping their financial stability. Connecticut's
prison system has become industrial business.
Prisons with 1,158 beds are worth $25 million a
year and 350 jobs to the community.
Some officials sent out for color brochures
promoting prison economics. And these gang units
are one of their most brilliant. I've been in these
units for two years. I have not yet eaten a hot
meal. All the meals here at Garner are as cold as
the outside. We are served very small portions of
food. And this is only to bring the commissary
sales up. They overcharge us for generic products.
Officers in these units are constantly showing
aggressive behavior towards my comrades and me in
these units. We are not receiving proper medical
attention. Some of the brothers go weeks sick.
Brothers like myself who speak out about this
corruption are sent to segregation (the hole) on
bogus prison charges. In these units, we are not
allowed to talk with one another. We go to
recreation with only eight brothers for one hour a
day. The program is supposedly for one year. But if
a prisoner receives an infraction, he must begin
all over. The conditions here at Garner are at
times intolerable. My brothers and sisters of MIM,
I write to you in the faith that you will support
your brothers who are being held political prisoner
in these concentration camps called gang units....
Power to the people!
Your brother, -- A Connecticut Prisoner, 27 October
1997
NEW CONCENTRATION CAMP IN MISSOURI
... This library is poorly equipped. This is a new
concentration camp that has only been open for only
seven months and the book selection is extremely
week and watered down. These modern day slave ships
called correctional facilities will never make
available the literature that is needed to open
ones eyes to the injustices that are committed
everyday against the oppressed nations of the
world.
That is why it is so imperative that MIM and other
organizations of liberation like it, continue to
pour the waters of revolution over the walls,
gates, and electric fences of the slave labor
camps. Camps that have been set up by this very
wicked government to subdue and brake those who
cannot and will not adapt to America's racist,
sexist and oppressive rules that govern this
illegally founded country. As of now, I am in the
administrative segregation unit for an assault on
an inmate. Although I am for the people and I
believe in uniting together in struggle against the
pigs, sometimes there are situations where one has
to defend themselves by going on the offensive.
Under these savage conditions prisoners are
constantly exposed to the old divide and conquer
scheme of the settler nation. One group of
prisoners is pitted against the other. Inmate
informants are constantly observing the militant
minded soldiers and reporting everything that they
see and hear to the pigs. The pigs spread false
propaganda to disorient and stagnate political and
religious groups in the institutions. Anyone who
stands up and speaks out against the wrongful
treatment of the inmate body is instantly locked up
in the ad-seg unit.
For instance there was a minor rebellion that took
place three months ago, where two pigs were
hospitalized in critical condition. After the camp
was locked down the pigs locked up an estimated
ninety prisoners and transferred an estimated forty
inmates to other concentration camps. These inmates
who were locked up and transferred had nothing to
do with the rebellion. In fact most of them were in
their housing units when the rebellion happened.
The institution was locked down for the mandatory
count. After the count, housing unit four was
released for mainline and that is when the
rebellion sparked. All of the inmates involved in
the rebellion were from housing unit four and none
of the other housing units had been released for
mainline yet. So why did the pigs kidnap inmates
from housing units three, five and six, if they
were not even on the yard when the rebellion kicked
off? I believe it is because any and all
individuals who are perceived as a threat to the
pigs and this uncivilized government are marked and
targeted for termination or ostracization.
As long as we have radical free thinkers who
believe in the empowerment of the people we will
have federal and state establishment whose sole
purpose of existence is to destroy, persecute and
imprison those who dare to challenge this monster
called the system.
The administration's lame excuse for locking up the
inmates who were in their housing units during the
uprising was because they had so-called aggressive
institutional records. The inmates who had the so-
called aggressive institutional records ... had
committed no infraction to warrant their lockup for
the rebellion. They did not even participate in the
uprising. This only show that whether active or
non-active all revolutionaries will meet the same
dreadful fate if we do not stand together in
solidarity and overthrow this terroristic regime
that we are under in this beast of a country.
In Revolutionary Love, -- A Missouri Prisoner, 21
November 1997
TIGHTENING THE CHAINS IN WISCONSIN
I am writing to you regarding the corruption of the
Wisconsin Department of Corrections system. I have
sent tickets for which I have been falsely accused,
and Inmate Complaints in which I have been
mistreated -- all go unresolved. I am referring to
the Jackson Correctional Institution in particular.
The Institution is a breeding ground for a riot. I
am a white man who associates with the Black people
for the most part. I am called racial things as
well as others by a group that calls themselves the
Aryan Nation. The group's leaders were beaten up
for calling my cellmate a "nigger-lover". The
leaders were released into General Population
status but my cellmate was given an eight-day
adjustment and 360 program segregation.
The guards themselves are liars and racists. I have
seen swastikas on their arms and I have heard them
direct racist comments at my friends. Something
needs to be done. We are also Tommy Thompson's
political prisoners. He is trying to ban any nudity
from the prisons. I do not look at pornography.
However, it is our right and it soothes the
prisoners. I am a Christian and that is why I do
not look at pornography, but I am not the one to
judge, God is. If Tommy Thompson takes our
pornography, what's next? Our electronics,
clothing, our only real contacts with life? He only
wants to be re- elected, not help us. I agree that
people that have any sex crimes should be banned
from pornography and segregated to a different
prison, but to take it away from everyone is wrong.
The man needs to be stopped. He has already
overcrowded the Wisconsin prison system and wants
to start a "truth in sentencing" law which would
cost taxpayers $14 billion more. That much money
could be used to house the homeless population and
create jobs for people, but no, Tommy Thompson
wants to stick the inmates in prison and build more
prisons. What's going to happen when roads and
schools, etc., need replacement ten years from now?
Obviously, the state will lie, but the truth is
they spent all their money on prisons. I want to
put a stop to Thompson's charade.
I am rated medium security and am in a maximum
security institution which is against Wisconsin DOC
policy, but they don't care. Inmates need to help
one another before it's too late. Tommy needs to be
put on a leash....
-- A Wisconsin Prisoner, 17 August 1997
MIM ADDS: We agree with your assessment that Tommy
Thompson is not banning pornography to improve the
morals of prisoners, but to further punish them. We
like you do not condone pornography. Pornography is
a tool of patriarchy in which wimmin are viewed as
sexual objects and not equal human beings. Porn
distracts potential revolutionaries from the
important anti-imperialist work at hand. As Maoist
revolutionaries we work towards the destruction
imperialist patriarchy. Instead of just banning
porn a revolutionary society through struggle and
thought reform would demonstrate the harm and
destruction of pornography.
We disagree that people convicted of sex offenses
should be banned from viewing pornography and
segregated in a different facility. The state is
not capable of judging who is a sex offender. This
nation has a history of lynching Black men for just
looking at a white womyn. So one cannot assume that
a person convicted of sex crimes is any different
from any other prisoner. It is the imperialists who
are the real criminals here.
EXPOSING BRUTALITY IN TEXAS
... The James V. Allred Unit opened up back in 1995
at which time the guards under Warden L. W. Woods
saw fit to use verbally abusive language to create
physical altercations by several guards'
aggressiveness to use force on inmates while they
were still handcuffed on the floor.
The current excessive force rate is usually 200 to
400 cases a year throughout the Texas prison
system. Guards' family members and friends working
at the TDCJ-ID Medical Departments cover up most of
these incidents.
There are prison guards who come to work with an
authority problem. These guards take their job
overboard when they yell or spit in an inmate's
face. In thanks, these inmates will not lose
control to zero- tolerance by physical force.
We as prisoners seek to return to our family and
friends and do our time. We didn't come here to be
abused like animals, but to be rehabilitated and
not relapse into recidivism.
The Texas prison system needs to be given an
independent investigation by the Justice Department
and the American Civil Liberties Union.
On May 22, 1995, Lieutenant James McCormick
assaulted me with major excessive force while on
the Eastham Unit. This Lieutenant has a history of
excessive force, but the state prison Internal
Affairs Department says that it was an accident.
I am one of many prisoners who fight the system for
change in a struggle for humane conditions, a
struggle to be free from force, spit, and yelling
and abusive name-calling by TDCJ-ID guards. I will
name a few that has total immunity from policy
disciplinary by General Rules of Conduct PD-21.
The guards listed below have a history of excessive
force or verbal assault toward prisoners when they
are handcuffed by security guards before the
yelling assault takes place. These assaults are
mostly done on minority prisoners who don't have
legal or family support. These guards will
maliciously, sadistically, and wantonly violate
contemporary standards of decency with verbal or
physical force to cause harm:
Captain Clyde Hargrove; Major Cary A. Cook; Belinda
Gentry, Admin Tech; Wade King, Lt.; Brenda
Wilkinson, Law Librarian; Ronald Stephens,
Correctional Officer; Carl Spencer, Correctional
Officer; James Sutton, Sgt.; Marty D. Carlock,
Correctional Officer; Johnny Mabe, Correctional
Officer; Sandra Campos, Correctional Officer; Keith
Surney, Correctional official; Terry Torbert,
Correctional Officer; A. Kalmanov, M.D.; Kent
Fullerton, Correctional Officer; James Anthony,
Correctional Officer; and Sgt. Douglas McCaffery.
There are more of them, but they cover up their
nametags with tape to hide their names from inmates
so they won't be filed on through the grievance
system, which doesn't work for any inmates.
I ask people of Houston, Texas and all other cities
and counties to write letters to Warden Leslie W.
Woods at James V. Allred Unit, P.O. Box 1860, Iowa
Park, TX 76367-6568 and let him know that you have
knowledge of the incidents that are occurring in
this prison unit. I truly appreciate all the
support the people of Houston have given to the
care, custody, and control of the human condition
of prisoners rehabilitated support.
-- A Texas Prisoner, 10 October, 1997
REVOLUTIONARY POLITICIZATION
Greetings from within the belly of the beast. After
years and years of studies and consideration, I've
come to the point in my life where I want to jump
100% into the struggle/movement to some great
benefit for myself and my people/comrades. I'm an
ex-gang member. For years, I have committed my life
and my efforts towards uplifting and representing
the set I am from. Suddenly, it has become apparent
to me that I am wasting my valuable ideas, work,
and life for something that leads to the grave or
to being locked-down forever. The gang I am from
represents no political stand and has no positive
future goals besides harming and self-destructing
my own people.
I have arrived at the point where I have been made
conscious of what is more important than drive-bys,
dope trafficking and gang-banging. I have always
had a militant, revolutionary, rebellious side to
me, and I've always wanted to represent something
big, powerful and strong, something to help my
people, something right and something needed. I've
spent ten years here, ... I've read Black Panther
material, Revolutionary Workers, MIM Notes, The
Militant, books by and on Lenin, Marx, Stalin, Mao,
etc. And I always felt a strong relation and
identity with this material in some way or another,
as if finding my cue. I am in Texas prison. Texas
has no truly significant prison organization that
represents 100% and gonna bring all prisoners
together to stop this prison brutality and
undercover genocide, racism, and extreme
discrimination. There are gangs here, groups, etc.:
Texas Syndicate, Mandingo Warriors, Crips, Bloods,
Pirus, Latin Kings, 5%ers, Mexican Mafia, Aryan
Nations, Aryan Circle, TAB, Texas Bad Boys,
Pistoleros, Raza Unida, Self Defense Family,
African Nation. And the list goes on. The only
problem is it seems that we fight prisoner against
prisoner and no one has come up with the idea to
fight the system that has us fighting and killing
each other. Fight the system legally, collectively
and fearlessly like we do one another. This Texas
system seems to be full of snitches, perpetrators
and phonies. But this is one thing that I have seen
here and Texas, and this is my main reason for
writing: There are thousands of comrades here in
prison with a true heart of warriors for a cause,
but because there is nothing real here, they like
myself are hooking up with things that serve no
real political stand and are no benefit to our
people in the way we need. And until we get
something, we're never going to be able to conquer
this system. I've been studying the history and
platform of the Black Panthers hard, so hard that
I've been dreaming of it. Now I've been hearing
that there are some BPP groups about, but none of
them true to the party's Maoist roots. Here in
Texas prisons, we have none. No BPP. But we want
it. Me and some of my comrades want to start a
Black Panther Party true to the original Maoist
principles, for us here inside, because you have an
army of brothers here just waiting to have a chance
to represent something true, real and no-nonsense.
I personally am putting forth the initiative to
found this program's start, for which I will commit
my life and every effort. I want to offer my
comrades something stronger and deeper and more
meaningful than having to join a gang and gangbang
against one another. There is something far better
that you can represent. And I want to make it
available to every comrade in Texas prisons ASAP.
Can you hook me up with someone who can give me the
permission, the guidelines, the material and
whatever it takes to set up our own Texas internal
Black Panther Party? I have some comrades that will
be working with me on this. We want to make it
official and correct, because it's time for some
real leaders to step up and lead with something
that's gonna be respected by these people as no
joke. So I would appreciate your response to this
letter, and if any outside comrades would, please
contact me in reference to this letter and what
we're seeking. We just want to legally set it up,
so we can set it off.
Unity, love, honor, respect,
-- A Texas prisoner, 16 October 1997
MIM RESPONDS: We commend your call to unify Texas
prisoners in a progressive and political way. The
Maoist vanguard of the late 1960s, the Black
Panther Party is certainly one of the best sources
for building revolution in an imperialist nation.
Though there are some groups claiming the name of
the BPP, MIM knows of none which have continued the
Maoist revolutionary legacy of the original
Panthers to put you in touch with. We suggest that
you work with us to form a Maoist Revolutionary
group in Texas prisons. We would be more than happy
to help you create an organization true to the
legacy of the Black Panther Party.
HIGH SECURITY HELL
... The pigs here are also out of control. I'm on a
High Security Unit ... and that is the name of this
unit -- no bullshit. They have cameras on the
outside of the cells so I can't pass nothing to the
other brothers, including the reading materials I
got from you all, but I'll keep trying. This unit
just open up, so later on there will be ways to
overcome the pigs.
Also did you know that the state of Texas is now
going to start charging us for every time we go and
see the medical staff (Doctor, dentist, nurse,
etc.). Man, on the first of January 1998, they are
going to start charging $3.00 for each visit. We
gotta go to work for free and now pay for the
doctor too. Man, they are out of control. Can they
do this?
Also this unit is brand new and we don't have no
heat. They have the A.C. [air conditioning] on all
day. Right now I'm wrapped up in my blanket as I
write this. I'm telling you. ...
-- A Texas Prisoner, 17 November 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 -- 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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