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         THE MAOIST INTERNATIONALIST MOVEMENT

  MIM Notes 171                 October 1, 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.  COLOMBIAN REVOLUTIONARY FORCES GAIN GROUND: 
    U.$. MILITARY BACKS UP COLOMBIAN REGIME
2.  LEWINSKY RAISES CONTROVERSY FOR FEMINISM
3.  LETTERS
4.  NATIONALIST & COMPRADOR BOURGEOISIES VIE FOR MINDS                
    OF BLACK NATION YOUTH
5.  NORTH AMERICAN PETIT-BOURGEOISIE STRIKES FOR MEANS     
    OF PRODUCTION
6.  IMPERIALIST MEDIA STILL BEATS WAR DRUMS IN KOREA
7.  INTERVIEW WITH SOUTH KOREAN STUDENT
8.  UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN PANDERS TO CRIME FEARS
9.  NO IMPROVEMENT IN MATERNAL MORTALITY RATES IN THE 
    U.$.
10. DC-RAIL ENDS PRISON TRANSFER PETITION DRIVE, TURNS
    TO EDUCATION
11. ONE CALCULATION OF PRISON LABOR PROFITS
12. INJUSTICE FIRST, DRUG TREATMENT LATER-TO-NEVER
13. UNDER LOCK & KEY: NEWS FROM PRISONS AND PRISONERS


* * *


WHAT IS MIM?

The Maoist Internationalist Movement (MIM) is a 
revolutionary communist party that upholds 
Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, comprising the collection 
of existing or emerging Maoist internationalist 
parties in the English-speaking imperialist 
countries and their English-speaking internal 
semi-colonies, as well as the existing or emerging 
Spanish-speaking Maoist internationalist parties 
of Aztlan, Puerto Rico and other territories of 
the U.S. Empire. MIM Notes is the newspaper of 
MIM. Notas Rojas is the newspaper of the Spanish-
speaking parties or emerging parties of MIM.

MIM is an internationalist organization that works 
from the vantage point of the Third World 
proletariat; thus, its members are not Amerikans, 
but world citizens.

MIM struggles to end the oppression of all groups 
over other groups: classes, genders, nations.  MIM 
knows this is only possible by building public 
opinion to seize power through armed struggle.

Revolution is a reality for North America as the 
military becomes over-extended in the government's 
attempts to maintain world hegemony.

MIM differs from other communist parties on three 
main questions: (1) MIM holds that after the 
proletariat seizes power in socialist revolution, 
the potential exists for capitalist restoration 
under the leadership of a new bourgeoisie within 
the communist party itself. In the case of the 
USSR, the bourgeoisie seized power after the death 
of Stalin in 1953; in China, it was after Mao's 
death and the overthrow of the "Gang of Four" in 
1976. (2) MIM upholds the Chinese Cultural 
Revolution as the farthest advance of communism in 
human history. (3) MIM believes the North American 
white-working-class is primarily a non-
revolutionary worker-elite at this time; thus, it 
is not the principal vehicle to advance Maoism in 
this country.

MIM accepts people as members who agree on these 
basic principles and accept democratic centralism, 
the system of majority rule, on other questions of 
party line.

"The theory of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin is 
universally applicable. We should regard it not as 
dogma, but as a guide to action. Studying it is 
not merely a matter of learning terms and phrases, 
but of learning Marxism-Leninism as the science of 
revolution."
-- Mao Zedong, Selected Works, Vol. II, p. 208


* * *


COLOMBIAN REVOLUTIONARY FORCES GAIN GROUND: 
U.$. MILITARY BACKS UP COLOMBIAN REGIME

In early August guerrillas in Colombia carried out a nationwide 
offensive that demonstrated the weakness of the government and the 
strength of the revolutionary forces. One of the Colombian 
government's main anti-drug bases at Miraflores was destroyed and 
many police officers and soldiers were killed or taken prisoner in 
an attack by the largest rebel group in Colombia, the 
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).(1) 

FARC, as well as the second largest rebel group in Colombia, the 
National Liberation Army (ELN), has carried out a series of 
offensives this year which have meant embarrassing defeats for the 
government's military and serious interest from the United Snakes 
which does not want to lose a valuable colony like Colombia. As a 
result of these military victories for the rebels, the 
imperialists are getting nervous and beefing up their defenses.

Military gains by rebels

"This is one of the worst military catastrophes against the 
insurgency," said security analyst Alfredo Rangel. "It's one more 
loss in a chain of defeats for the armed forces in the last three 
years." "What we know is that the offensive was a complete 
disaster from the military point of view," a U.$. official said. 
"The army got its butt kicked again. It is the worst in a long 
string of defeats, and the guerrillas just seem to be getting 
stronger and stronger while the army just does not seem to be able 
to turn it around."(1) 

In early August the rebels carried out at least 42 attacks in more 
than half the country's 32 provinces.(1) This offensive was 
carried out in the few days before the end to President Ernesto 
Samper's reign and the entrance of Andrés Pastrana as newly 
elected President of Colombia.

In March, a force of 400 to 600 FARC guerrillas crushed an army 
unit near the southern village of Billar, killing 67 soldiers and 
capturing about 30 more. This battle was considered the most 
serious defeat of government forces since the guerrillas began 
armed struggle in the mid-1960s.(2)

New president and peace negotiations

In late June, Andrés Pastrana was elected the next president of 
Colombia with a platform giving priority to negotiating an end to 
the on-going war between leftist forces on the one side and the 
government and paramilitary right wing forces on the other.(3)

Pastrana won the presidency with the largest margin in Colombia's 
history. Clinton praised the election of the new president and 
lifted economic sanctions that had been imposed on Colombia for 
two years out of dissatisfaction with former President Samper.(4)

After winning the election, Pastrana met with leaders of the FARC 
and promised to remove security forces from five municipalities 
and start peace talks with rebel leaders within 90 days of taking 
office. Pastrana offered to dialogue on "the national problem of 
reaching peace with social justice."(5) It appears that both the 
FARC and the ELN are prepared to enter into peace talks with the 
government although it remains to be seen how far they will take 
these talks.

The FARC had called the government of former President Ernesto 
Samper "illegitimate" and refused to negotiate with it.(5) It is 
not clear what they hope to gain from negotiations with Pastrana 
and MIM does not have access to any public statements by FARC or 
the ELN on this question. Revolutionary forces can sometimes 
negotiate with the imperialists from a position of strength 
without putting down their arms and without compromising their 
ideology. But these negotiations will not bring about a just and 
lasting peace for the people. The best revolutionaries can hope to 
gain from negotiations with the imperialists are a few concessions 
to make their organizing work and the lives of the people easier. 
In addition, such negotiations often give the people clearer 
understanding that the government does not really care about peace 
as they carry out their usual treachery while pretending to 
negotiate in good faith.

The FARC-EP (FARC popular army) has captured a large number of 
prisoners of war in the past few months and offered to exchange 
these soldiers for members of their organization held in 
government jails. There are approximately 720 guerrillas who have 
been or will be sentenced. As a part of their planned negotiations 
with President Andrés Pastrana they are using the change in 
government and the popular outcry from the families of the army 
members held prisoner to strengthen their position.(6)

Cocaine production

Estimates suggest that FARC controls close to 50% of the country 
in Colombia. Much of the area they control includes coca 
production fields (coca is the raw material for cocaine). The 
government has used this fact to put out propaganda suggesting 
that FARC is just an army protecting drug production. 

While FARC does not deny collecting taxes from the drug producers, 
they make clear that their goal is to protect their territory and 
the peasants who have allied with their struggle, not to promote 
drug production. A FARC spokesman stated that the rebels do not 
protect coca fields to make money so much as to defend peasants 
with whom they are allied. "The idea is simply to label us as 
delinquents, to reject us as people with a political struggle," 
the spokesman said in an interview in New York. "It's a way to 
legitimize a military intervention."(2)

Similarly, the ELN makes clear that they do not support drug 
trafficking at all: "For a long time, the Colombian government 
(yes, the same one that received millions of dollars from the Cali 
Cartel for its election campaign) has been trying to associate the 
ELN with drug trafficking. The contrary is true: The ELN 
fundamentally rejects drug trafficking and cultivation for moral 
reasons and on principle."(7)

The preponderance of drug crops in the remote regions controlled 
by rebel forces has provided a convenient excuse for military 
attacks against the people and the rebels and for increased U.$. 
aid to the military. Colombia's fight against the production of 
the coca leaf receives strong U.S. logistical support in Guaviare 
province, where the coca crop is concentrated. American pilots who 
perform surveillance and coca-spraying missions rotate through 
Colombia's principal anti-drug base at San Jose del Guaviare, and 
U.S. military personnel conduct training missions there.(1)

In a country where other options are hard to come by, it is no 
wonder that one of the few cash crops is a popular choice for 
farmers. After long refusing to pay for programs to help 
Colombia's coca growers switch to legal crops, Clinton is now 
proposing increasing assistance for an "alternative development 
program." 

Some of the money for this program would go to helping coca 
growers find other jobs. But rather than focusing on crop 
substitution, some U.$. officials have suggested this will involve 
getting these farmers involved in industry. This is important 
because imperialist economic involvement in Colombia destroyed the 
market for traditional domestic crops so there are few realistic 
alternatives for these farmers. Rather than encourage self-
reliance and agricultural development, the U.$. will likely 
encourage multinational corporations to take advantage of the 
cheap labor displaced by the removal of the last cash crop 
available to these peasants. This program would give aid only to 
areas where the government has firm control and would strengthen 
the state presence as another front in the war against the 
rebels.(8)

In spite of the insidious intent of this alternative development 
program the imperialists are pursuing, the very existence of the 
program reveals the fear of the imperialists. Ordinarily they 
would prefer to deal with the threat of revolution strictly with 
military force, but they now recognize that this force, being used 
against the coca growers and the rebels, has created an obvious 
alliance between the two. And between the peasants and the rebels 
there exists a force strong enough to defeat the Colombian 
military. 

In the past the Colombian government has had little interest in 
eliminating the coca leaf production in their country since it 
brings in a significant amount of cash. But in recent years the 
U.$. threats to cut off aid and the political control the u.s. 
wields over it's Latin American colonies in addition to the 
growing power of the rebels in the coca production areas has led 
to a significant expansion in the fight against drug production. 

The U.$., of course, has never minded drug production or importing 
drugs into the united snakes so long as the profits are going into 
its own hands. But the instability of a country so close to its 
borders and the existence of such a large economy (coca 
production) outside of imperialist control is enough to raise the 
importance of this so-called war on drugs.

U.$. military aid

For many years the U.$. government has been aiding the Colombian 
military in the name of fighting drug trafficking, but even the 
Pentagon acknowledges that the training and equipment is being 
used to fight insurgents unconnected to the drug trade.(3)

A classified Defense Intelligence Agency assessment first reported 
by The Washington Post speculated that if current trends continued 
unchanged, the armed forces could be defeated within five years. 
"The frightening possibilities of a narco-state just three hours 
by plane from Miami can no longer be dismissed," Rep. Benjamin 
Gilman of New York, chairman of the House International Relations 
Committee, said at a recent hearing. In response to these fears, 
the State Department plans to add at least $21 million to its 
"anti-drug" aid program to Colombia this year.(2)

Over the past few months the Clinton administration has 
significantly expanded support for government forces fighting the 
guerrilla war in Colombia. More U.$. training and equipment is 
being sent to the Colombian military and U.$. generals are working 
to reorganize the Colombian army to make it a more efficient and 
effective killing machine in service to the imperialists.(2)

In a letter to Pastrana, sent hours before his inauguration, 
President Clinton pledged $2 million to help internal refugees, 
and promised to seek congressional approval for further stepping 
up aid to the military and police.(8) According to senior U.S. 
officials, the Clinton administration has also been considering 
options that officials said include additional military training, 
provision of more sophisticated helicopters and materiel, and 
creation of a high-tech intelligence center that would be run by 
U.S. officials on Colombian soil.(2)

The U.$. currently spends over a hundred million a year in aid to 
Colombia making that country the largest recipient of U.$. 
military assistance in the Western hemisphere.(2)

The aid first began to increase in 1990 when the Bush 
administration initiated a 5 year, $2.2 billion funding effort 
targeting cocaine trafficking.(2) Attacking the drug trade became 
a code for attacking the guerrillas as the government began to put 
out propaganda about guerrilla fronts involvement in the drug 
trade. This served as the perfect justification for U.$. aid to go 
to Colombian units fighting the guerrillas.

In 1994 Congress began requiring the Clinton administration to 
prove that U.$. military aid would only go to troops that 
"primarily" carried out anti-drug operations. But the Pentagon 
found creative ways around these restrictions. Overall, U.$. 
"anti-drug" aid given to the Colombian military rose from $28.8 
million in 1995 to at least $95.9 million in 1997. And military 
sales during that same period rose from $21.9 million to $75 
million.(2) The Pentagon estimated $207 million in sales to 
Colombia and an additional $40 million in grants of equipment in 
the 1996-97 period alone.(9

Another condition of U.S. aid is that it can only be used in 
regions of Colombia specifically designated that the ties between 
drug producers and the guerrillas are considered to be so close 
that they can be treated as one. But this is meaningless since 
U.S. diplomats described this zone as currently encompassing the 
southern half of the country and in reality having no firm 
limits.(2)

U.$. trained murderers

Another way the U.$. military uses the "counter drug" fight as a 
guise for aiding the Colombian military is through training 
courses. U.$. army trainers lead the Pentagon's Joint Combined 
Exchange Training, or J-Cet program in Colombia, preparing many 
Colombian army units before they go back into battle against the 
rebels.(2) According to a 1991 law, programs such as the 
Pentagon's Joint Combined Exchange Training (JCET) are allowed 
only if the primary purpose is to train U.S. troops.(10) But 
clearly skirting these rules and regulations is a specialty among 
the united snakes armed forces in their devotion to defend 
imperialism.

In 1996 officials "discovered" that anti-drug aid had gone to 
seven Colombian brigades and seven battalions that had been 
implicated in abuses or linked to right-wing paramilitary groups 
that had killed civilians.(2) This is just the official count, the 
reality is that these practices are common for the Colombian 
military. Congress cut off aid to any Colombian units involved in 
human rights violations after this discovery but U.$. trained 
forces continue to be accused of abuses.(2)

In August an agreement was signed which requires Colombian 
military units to have their rosters screened to prove they don't 
have troops known to have violated human rights before they can 
receive U.$. aid. Not surprisingly, only two battalions of the 
army have qualified so far and both of these had to be assembled 
from other forces.(2)

Two senior officers in the Colombian military are under 
investigation for ties to right-wing paramilitary death squads, 
which traffic in drugs. A third, Gen. Ivan Ramirez, lost his U.S. 
visa because of his ties to the death squads.(8) Ramirez was also 
a paid informant for the U.S. CIA.(11)

Colombia's armed forces have one of the worst human rights records 
in the hemisphere, and have been frequently accused of close ties 
with ultra-right death squads.(12) The paramilitaries were 
responsible for 70 percent of the political murders in Colombia in 
1997, according to the State Department's own annual human rights 
report. Intelligence sources in Colombia and the United States say 
paramilitary groups are now operating large cocaine laboratories 
in Casanare and Meta provinces in central Colombia.(12) Yet the 
anti-drug fight aids these same paramilitary groups and focuses 
its fire on the anti-imperialist forces, and in the ultimate 
irony, calls the rebels murderers and criticizes them for abusing 
the people of Colombia.

It's clear that the so-called humanitarian requirements placed on 
U.$. aid to Colombia are just a smoke screen Congress is using to 
make the united snakes look good. In fact, U.$. aid is training 
abusive right-wing military squads who are fighting the rebels, 
often by indiscriminately killing peasants and workers, families, 
and anyone who might get in their path.

What are we fighting for?

The two main rebel groups in Colombia are both fighting against 
imperialism and MIM stands in firm support of their struggle. But 
we will point out our ideological differences with the FARC and 
the ELN because we believe that it is essential that a 
revolutionary movement have a clear vision of what it will 
construct once it has defeated the imperialists or it will quickly 
lose in an imperialist counter-offensive if it ever succeeds in 
seizing power at all.

The history of revolutionary struggle has demonstrated that only 
the strongly defended and self-sufficient governments led by the 
ideology of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism have succeeded in building a 
socialist society. The focoist and anarchist movements which focus 
only on the militarist uprisings without a plan for how to retain 
power and build an egalitarian society have been quickly defeated 
by imperialist and social imperialist economic and military 
intervention. But yet it is these movements which hold such 
romantic appeal to activists in the First World.

The ELN states "We fight for self-government replacing the 
authoritarian, repressive and pseudo-democratic system existing in 
Latin America nowadays." Clearly they are an ally of the anti-
imperialist struggle. But their program does not go much further 
than this in analysis of what they are fighting for and how they 
will achieve it. They state that they support socialism but this 
is with a very broad definition which could just as well apply to 
economic justice: "Socialism means housing, health and education 
for all, social justice, solidarity, exploitation of a country's 
wealth in favor of the people (not the elites) and an end to the 
exploitation of those working."(7)

From what MIM has read of the FARC, their program also lacks a 
clear analysis of history and what has worked in revolutionary 
struggles and what has failed. MIM took up Marxism-Leninism-Maoism 
not as dogma, but because it is a method of analyzing the world 
and learning from history. And these lessons are of essential 
importance if we are to avoid repeating past mistakes and end the 
needless suffering and deaths that result from imperialism every 
day. 

Notes: 
1. Washington Post, Aug 6, 1998. p.A24. 
2. New York Times, June 2, 1998. 
3. NYT, June 28, 1998. 
4. NYT, Aug 11, 1998. 
5. NYT, July 10, 1998. 
6. Agencia de Noticias Nueva Colombia, August 22, 1998. 
7. ELN statement on web 
8. NYT, Aug 14, 1998. 
9. Graduate Voice of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, 
September 1997, Vol 11, No. 1. 
10. Washington Post, July 13, 1998. 
11. Washington Post, August 11, 1998. 
12. Reuters, August 1, 1998. 


* * *

LEWINSKY RAISES CONTROVERSY FOR FEMINISM

"NOW Demands Public Officials Reject Aphrodisiac of Power" is the 
title of an article on the National Organization for Women (NOW) 
web site.(1) It is in response to the Monica Lewinsky scandal. 
Overall the NOW reaction to the Lewinsky scandal was restrained:

"Consensual sex with a White House intern is an abuse of power by 
the president; but consensual sex is not illegal harassment and it 
is not an impeachable offense.  Nor is it in the best interest of 
our country for the president to resign. 

"Whatever Congress decides to do, in all fairness the only ones 
who should vote on this issue are members who themselves have 
never had sex outside of marriage and never lied about their sex 
lives -- either denying or exaggerating!"(1)

The NOW press releases went on to claim that Clinton has had the 
support of a majority of wimmin and he also has a list of 
legislative accomplishments favorable to NOW. MIM believes that 
moderate pro-capitalist men and liberal men who want some reforms 
of capitalism like Clinton and Ted Kennedy receive special favors 
from the so-called feminist movement in the United $tates, mainly 
because they hold power.

The real wrath of phony feminism falls on the relatively 
powerless, especially the oppressed nations. The inconsistency of 
Amerikan feminism stems from a failure to break with 
individualism, national chauvinism and class oppression.

According to NOW, "Whether the boss is a county supervisor or the 
president of the United States, no public official should take 
advantage of the aphrodisiac of power. We must demand that public 
officials, at all levels and in all branches of government, pledge 
to reject sexually intimate relationships with employees and/or 
interns."(1) 

Power corrupts all gender relations

MIM agrees with NOW that power must be an aphrodisiac in the 
currently sick system of patriarchy we have. There is no other way 
to explain the patterns of sexual interactions.

On the other hand, MIM does not believe the only problem stems 
from relationships where men have direct power over wimmin, as in 
the situation where wimmin are employees or interns of male 
supervisors. Likewise, on campuses, the problem is not just 
professor-student relationships.

Ranging from the wealth of millionaires that can be converted into 
power over most wimmin to the power of high-ranking government 
officials, power colors all gender interactions. Only communism 
eliminates the power of groups of people over others. All other 
piecemeal approaches are bound to be hypocritical and racist.

In profit-driven capitalist society, a luxurious consumer 
lifestyle is the goal of millions. Even if supervisor-employee 
relations and professor-student relations are banned, there will 
still be other inequalities behind what we call romance. Wimmin 
will still seek men who guarantee a life of luxury.

Paula Jones case

Individualist reformism typically fails to address all the 
inequalities involved in gender interactions. Moreover, typical 
pseudo-feminist reformism ends up discrediting itself, because 
oppression is difficult to prove on a case-by-case basis. This 
leaves the pseudo-feminists in the position of looking like they 
let Clinton "get away" with something for example.

Just being someone's boss does not mean one is harassing female 
subordinates by the current legal and individualist definitions in 
vogue. It may be true as the court decided that Clinton did 
nothing to damage Paula Jones's career, and perhaps he never even 
cared about her job performance. It is not likely that as Arkansas 
governor he evaluated every state employee. Paula Jones may have 
been embarrassed by Clinton's sexual advances, but such 
embarrassment should not be turned into the substance of feminism. 

Embarrassment is highly subjective. Some wimmin were delighted by 
Clinton's advances; others were not. There was no way in advance 
that Clinton could know. True lesbian separatists or asexual 
females could avoid contact with men completely and there would be 
no issue. Unfortunately, many pseudo-feminists talk as if the 
majority of society is not heterosexual. These pseudo-feminists 
then fixate on one kind of sexual advance that they do not like 
personally, but which is inevitably well-liked by somebody 
somewhere.

No to paternalism 

What NOW left out entirely in its apt phrase "aphrodisiac of 
power" is the role of Monica Lewinsky in the matter. Contrary to 
the outrage from Congress about Clinton's having sex with a 21-
year-old, MIM believes 21-year-olds are at least eight years 
beyond the age required to make sensible sexual decisions. The 
failure to point this out is part of the control of young people 
and their sexual lives -- a part of patriarchy.

Monica Lewinsky was not a starving proletarian bartering her body 
for survival as does happen in many parts of the world.  MIM 
refers to Lewinsky's level of gender power as "gender 
aristocracy."

If it is true that she should have picked a younger and better-
looking sex partner, then Lewinsky chose Clinton, because for her 
power is an aphrodisiac. MIM says this not to blame Lewinsky in 
particular, since it is universally true, either more or less 
consciously. 

Pseudo-feminism finds itself in paralysis and contradiction 
because if Lewinsky's having sex with Clinton is some kind of 
oppression, then Lewinsky and the like are willing participants. 
Criticizing such a sexual interaction would require that wimmin 
universally unite or that individual consent as an issue be 
dropped.

MIM agrees with some wimmin interviewed by the New York Times that 
Lewinsky was being opportunist or knew what she was doing. We do 
not agree with the Manhattan author writing about Hillary 
Clinton's classmates at the pseudo-feminist hotbed known as 
Wellesley College. According to Miriam Horn, she originally felt 
that Monica consented, but now "'thinking back to my own 21-year-
old-ness, I guess that feeling has changed.'"(2)

"'At this point, I think he's completely responsible, almost no 
matter what she did. . . The gap is unfathomable between a 21-
year-old intern and a man more than twice her age who is not only 
the President but a man of famous charisma. I think his obligation 
to exercise restraint is obvious.'"(2)

Miriam Horn makes everything a matter of simply exercising 
restraint -- an easy change of lifestyle. In contrast, MIM is more 
interested in making it impossible for the situation to arise in 
the first place through the achievement of real communism. We do 
not agree with making Lewinsky into some sort of idiot just so 
pseudo-feminists can criticize men "no matter what she did."

Even in the NOW position, "no matter what she did" is implicit, 
because there is no mention of Lewinsky. It is a strain of 
extremism that is incoherent. When the scandal first broke, NOW 
took a very similar position to MIM's on court cases by 
acknowledging that NOW does not have all the facts. Such restraint 
does not go along with a position that says wimmin are correct no 
matter what they think or do.

Disunity of wimmin

The bottom line is that there is a great diversity of wimmin in 
the imperialist country romance culture. Although most wimmin will 
not pursue sexual interactions with men more than twice their age, 
there is a substantial minority that does. Only anti-Liberals have 
the right to talk about wimmin as a group. Individualists 
upholding the notion of "consent" should keep their mouths shut. 
Either sexual interactions with men twice a womyn's age should be 
banned or they should not be.

In pseudo-feminist bastion Cambridge, Massachusetts, Anne Bernays 
told the New York Times, "I think it's gross." No doubt that is 
most of what is behind the pseudo-feminist reaction to Clinton's 
having sex with Lewinsky and much of what is called sexual 
harassment. In other words, something completely subjective, 
unmeasurable and vague is behind most pseudo-feminism, which is 
what makes it so useful to the status quo to manipulate.

MIM does not agree with the Liberals that sexual harassment or 
oppression is simply a matter of "unwanted advances." That is too 
subjective. An older man seen as undesirable by the majority of 
wimmin will on occasion in the current society succeed with a 
womyn who is much younger. That is supposed to be the beauty of 
individualism -- that people can "think for themselves" and make 
their own decisions.

People who are true individualists should not bother voicing 
disgust with Clinton or Lewinsky. Individualists should simply 
admit that other people might have different tastes and tolerate 
those tastes.

We communist feminists are a different matter. We see a lot of 
feminist energy wasted and a lot of energy going into disputes 
that have nothing to do with feminism at all. The Monica Lewinsky 
scandal occupies the time of the public when real issues of 
feminism could be discussed.

MIM would like to consider banning various sexual relations under 
a feminist dictatorship of the proletariat. Such bans would only 
be conceivably necessary in the interim stages on the way to 
communism. We will not hide our considerations for banning certain 
sexual interactions behind vague individual opinions of case-by-
case sexual interactions so fit for pornographic consumption. Men 
with more power, money, age, strength, weight etc. will either be 
allowed to interact sexually with less powerful, less wealthy, 
younger, weaker and smaller wimmin or they will not be. There will 
be no exceptions for powerful politicians, white people or those 
considered more or less desirable by social convention.

Under feminist dictatorship of the proletariat, some sexual 
interactions -- especially between adults and very young children 
-- will have to be banned. The more categories of sex are banned, 
the more there will have to be court cases to prosecute 
individuals. That is a drawback of having more bans in the 
transition to communism where there is no court or government at 
all.

On the other hand, court cases under feminist dictatorship of the 
proletariat will not depend on anything subjective. We will not 
concern ourselves in trying to understand whether sexual advances 
were "wanted" or not. Nor will we examine "intentions." Thus, the 
feminist dictatorship will be simpler and more fair than the 
patriarchy we have now.

Notes:
1. http://www.now.org/nnt/03-98/power.html
2. New York Times 28August1998, p. a14.


* * *

LETTERS

expand distribution of MIM publications

Dear MIM,

I just received your package today. This is great stuff and I'm 
sure that my people will be very interested. I noticed that the 
strike during the summer here in P[uerto] R[ico] made the 
headlines of most of the newspapers. Notas Rojas is a great paper 
that would be a great success if we distribute it here in PR.

Thank you for everything,

Your sister in struggle,

 -- a Puerto Rican friend

MIM responds: We're always trying to expand the distribution of 
MIM Notes and Notas Rojas (our Spanish language publication). If 
you live in an area where you don't see hundreds of distributors 
on the streets every day and copies of the publications in all the 
local stores and schools, we need your help. Contact us to get a 
bundle of papers to distribute in your city.

Dear MIM:

I received your letter and the MIM Notes for distribution. I would 
like to continue this distribution. Enclosed is $25 for the 
September issues. I will send that amount monthly.

I have appreciated the articles on independence and initiative in 
the united front. They are excellent examples of clarity in the 
teaching of politics in command.

--a comrade in the south

MIM responds:

We need distributors in all areas of this country to expand access 
to MIM Notes. We ask our distributors to help with a donation for 
the cost of printing. If you are interested in helping get MIM 
Notes into the hands of more people, contact us at the address on 
page 2.

Islam and Afghanistan

Assalam Aleikum,

This analysis isn't too bad, the Afghanistan analysis looks pretty 
good, but the author fails to mention the warm relationship 
between the U.S. and Sudanese armed forces. Furthermore, the 
author erroneously dismisses Islam as nothing more than a mere 
religion, and not the target of the attacks (understandable from a 
Communist point of view) nevertheless overall it's pretty good. 
Compare this response and condemnation with some of the press 
releases of some garbage-ass groups which claim to represent 
Muslims and Islam both in the U.S. and the world and there is no 
contest (I guess Gulf money is good for something after all).

Salaam Aleikum,

--a reader

MIM responds:

The letter above is in response to our article covering the u.s. 
bombing of Sudan and Afghanistan. We do this work (writing 
articles, publishing a newspaper) to increase the level of 
discussion and agitation in opposition to U.$. imperialism, so we 
are always happy to receive criticism that can help make our 
coverage more complete. 

In light of the very correct statements by some Sudanese officials 
that have come out in the U.$. press (as a way of demonizing 
Sudan, of course), it's always good to talk about the closer 
relationships. MIM plans to continue its coverage of this 
aggression as it is necessary to keep the flow of the anti-u.$. 
perspective going.

In relation to the centrality of Islam, like the writer says 
Muslims and Communists come at this question from different 
directions. But in this case we both categorically oppose u.$. 
efforts to dominate other countries. In the last paragraph of the 
article in question we point out that one Hamas leader and MIM say 
the same thing, that Amerika is sowing the seeds of its own 
destruction. In this way we choose to focus on the points of anti-
imperialist unity that we have in common while maintaining that an 
ideology of Maoism will lead the people in their struggle for the 
liberation of humanity from the claws of imperialism. 

Prisoner opposes language assimilation

Dear MIM,

I am writing to inform you that I have received the latest issues 
of MIM Notes and as always they were very informative.

However, I would like to expound on the article on Bilingual 
Education crushed in California (Proposition 227).

This forced language assimilation requires students to wait until 
they learn english before learning other subjects. If enacted 
however, it is doomed for failure and will hurt the ability of 
immigrant children to learn, isolate them, and punish the teachers 
who reach out to them. Researches of bilingual education indicate 
that when bilingual programs include small classes, qualified 
teachers, adequate funding, and full acceptance students learn 
more english and get higher scores on achievement tests than those 
taught without bilingual instruction. 

The Unz proposal, like other such policies throughout u.s. his-
story, is another dogged effort to wipe out diversity of language 
and culture and will immediately affect 1.3 million children. This 
racism is our crime of the year.

Also, in my last letter I asked if you could send me some books on 
the Black Panther Party, George Jackson, and Malcolm X. I'm trying 
to start a study group and self-awareness class and like to review 
the book for MIM theory, "The Struggle For Zimbabwe".

In Struggle From the Barricades,

--A PA prisoner


* * *


NATIONALIST & COMPRADOR BOURGEOISIES VIE FOR MINDS OF BLACK NATION 
YOUTH

In respective attempts to galvanize and divert the revolutionary 
political spirit of the Black nation youth, the Million Youth 
March in Harlem and the Million Youth Movement in Atlanta each 
staged events over the Amerikan Labor Day weekend. The Million 
Youth March, on September 5, was led by forces that appear to be 
national bourgeois -- the section of the bourgeoisie that is 
revolutionary in its relationship to imperialism as it fights 
against imperialist domination of its national economy. The 
Million Youth Movement, with w weekend-long focus on getting out 
to vote in Amerikan elections, had a distinctly more subservient 
character. 

In their own demonstration against the New York State court that 
granted the Million Youth March Organization permission to use New 
York City's streets on September 5, NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani and 
Police Commissioner Howard Safir agreed to storm the peaceful 
demonstration as it was ending. A day of obstructing the legal 
demonstration -- by blockading streets to the point of interfering 
with pedestrian traffic to the rally, and by interspersing a Thick 
Blue Line between the official rally participants and observers in 
the streets of Harlem -- capped months of official attempts to 
stop the march from happening.

The New York City cops' action at the Million Youth March 
demonstrates the need for Black nationalism rather than 
integrationism. MIM argues, as the Black Panther Party did, that 
Blacks are a distinct nation, occupied and constrained within U.$. 
borders. As such, the Black nation has the right to self-
determination and liberation. Just and peaceful integration is not 
possible when Blacks are forcibly prevented from demonstrating in 
support of their basic human rights -- even while public assembly 
and free speech are ostensibly rights under the Amerikan 
constitution. We approach both the New York and Atlanta 
demonstrations from the perspective of the international 
proletariat, with a deep respect for the right of nations to self-
determination.

Both the March and Movement organizations spoke out against the 
NYPD. The March leader, Khallid Abdul Muhammad, was closing the 
March as New York City's most vicious massed behind the speakers' 
platform. He admonished the crowd to go as they had come, in love 
and unity, but to defend themselves against the attacks of police 
officers. Reverend Jesse Jackson, a leader of the Movement in 
Atlanta, also criticized the police for their excessive force. But 
co-organizers of the Movement were also quoted in the bourgeois 
press as saying that they had rejected invitations to work 
together with the March organizers because of their "nationalist 
rhetoric." In helping to paint nationalism as dangerous, 
integrationists contribute to the Amerikan political climate that 
makes attacks on revolutionary nationalists acceptable.

Bourgeois press distorts political reality

News about the March and the organization behind it since the 
demonstration was forcibly ended has been diluted through 
bourgeois news media. These mouthpieces of imperialism have used 
incomplete quotes and paraphrases to confuse the marchers' 
political line in the minds of readers, and have painted the 
Harlem Marchers as dangerous firebrands compared to the ever-more-
civil Reverend Integrationist's Labor Day weekend event in 
Atlanta.

A vile report in the New York Times titled "Atlanta Rally 
Unburdened by Ills of Harlem's" goes so far as to attempt to split 
Black youth from the Million Youth March and direct them towards 
the Jackson flock. This article reports that organizers of the 
Atlanta Million Youth Movement rejected Khallid Abdul Muhammad's 
proposal to unite their demonstrations "because of concerns about 
his exclusionary black nationalist rhetoric." MIM prints its own 
newspapers because we never want our political line to be in doubt 
-- the people should always be able to come to our newspaper and 
find our genuine position on events that we have held. Similarly, 
we look to the March and Movement organizers' publications to 
learn more about their politics.

Million Youth March raises revolutionary demands

The basic positions of the Million Youth March include: "release 
of all political prisoners, full and complete reparations for the 
descendants of slaves, Black Power, Black Nationalism and Pan 
Africanism, the establishment of Black power conscience cadres and 
study groups to meet the needs of our people nationally and 
internationally, the establishment of Black Liberation/Self-
defense and security units to patrol and control Black 
communities, [and] the Holding of a Plebiscite." The March 
platform also includes opposition to "police brutality, 
conspiracies to permanently criminalize Black Youth, government-
sponsored drug dealing [and] Supreme Court decisions and state 
propositions that destroy attempts to remedy past discrimination."

While some of the March's goals touched on reformism, like the 
call for "White corporate responsibility," the tenor of the 
demands as a whole is toward Black nationalism. While the 
practical program of the Million Youth March is not clear to MIM 
from materials that we have seen published or from the event's 
speeches, the platform of the March is clearly stated on the 
organization's website and there is nothing in it that precludes 
revolutionary nationalism. This is not proletarian nationalism -- 
as the positions include support for Black businesses. MIM also 
does not join in the call for Pan Africanism, although we firmly 
stand by the importance of revolutionary internationalism and 
cooperation where possible among revolutionary nationalist 
movements. But the platform includes all most important basics of 
calling for Black economic and territorial self-determination, 
including sovereignty in the face of police, reparations and a 
plebiscite.

Million Youth Movement -- progressive demands cushioned in 
integrationism

The basic positions of the Million Youth Movement, which held its 
events in Atlanta, also include working to free political 
prisoners and a belief that Blacks are entitled reparations as "a 
matter of international law and justice [that] acknowledges 
formally that a wrong has been committed." Yet the discussion of 
reparations goes on to talk about Blacks and whites as being of 
the same "society," which undermines the assumption that relations 
between the two groups are international. The Movement website 
states that it "is being planned and organized by young people 
that is; students, youth leaders, and community activists with the 
guidance of elders. There is no one leader or organization 
spearheading this effort."

While the Million Youth Movement's website calls for "liberation," 
there is no clear platform on how this will come about or what 
liberation entails. The Movement also calls on people to vote and 
suggests vaguely that youth should mobilize themselves into 
government positions so that they can make "policy." This is a 
garden path for young people and no responsible leaders should be 
trying to get them to take it. The Million Youth Movement's basis 
for organizing young people is that "there has been no movement 
throughout the annals of history which did not involve the active 
participation of young people. As time dictates agenda, we 
recognize the time is ripe for young people to carry on the legacy 
of our struggle."

Adopt a revolutionary program to organize the youth

Young people are drawn to revolutionary and progressive politics 
because they can see the hypocrisies of the political system in 
which their elders participate. For this reason, young people are 
an important organizing base for any progressive movement. But 
politics must come first. If the politics claim to be progressive 
but are really only a continuation of the current system of 
national oppression, political imprisonment and imperialism, the 
youth will see through this and will seek out something genuine. 
Youth should not be conned into thinking that if they get into 
politics while they have few enough wrinkles and grey hairs that 
will make the difference. The Amerikan government is at the head 
of a system that enforces oppression. Funneling more young people 
into that system will not change it. Young people need organizing 
to overthrow the system. 

The Million Youth March addressed youth in more thought out way 
than the Movement did. Throughout the March rally, organizers 
called out to the hip hop generation, in recognition of the fact 
that Black youth in tremendous numbers already show their concern 
for the issues of drugs and gangs and pigs and reparations through 
cultural expressions. As organizers correctly pointed out though, 
it is necessary to channel this concern into political action. 
Giuliani and his kops showed that imperialists will quickly run 
over potential revolutionaries who are attempting to organize. The 
people need strong and serious organization to overthrow 
imperialism.

While MIM is impressed just with the list of demands we've seen 
from the organizers of the Million Youth March, we look to learn 
more about their level of organization and their programs for 
genuine and thorough social change. We welcome comments or 
additional information about all organizations claiming 
revolutionary nationalism.

Sources: New York Times 6 Sept., 1998 and 8 Sept., 1998. All 
information about the Million Youth March was taken from its 
website (http://www.millionyouthmarch.com/) and speeches at the 
rally. All information about the Million Youth Movement was taken 
from its website (http://www.millionyouthmovement.com/)


* * *


NORTH AMERICAN PETIT-BOURGEOISIE STRIKES FOR MEANS OF PRODUCTION

by MC45

In late August and early September, the pilots of the Northwest 
and Air Canada passenger airlines have gone out on strike against 
their companies. With slightly differing sets of demands, each 
pilots' union is demonstrating for what it refers to as "job 
security." The pilots of each airline have been flying planes 
without a contract -- at Northwest for the past two years and at 
Air Canada for the five months since April, 1998.

MIM calls these strikes cases of the imperialist nations petty 
bourgeoisies negotiating for a bigger piece of the imperialist 
pie. With University educations and salaries generally in the 
hundreds of thousands of dollars (the average pilot's salary at 
Northwest is more than $200,000, at Air Canada it is $100,000), 
these so-called workers have all the security they need. In salary 
alone these petty bourgeois have enough money to own their own 
homes, and to buy stocks -- on top of feeding themselves and their 
families at a high and decadent First World lifestyle.

Even without their new contracts, the airline pilots are paid more 
than their salaries alone. As is typical of First World 
professionals, the pilots are also paid chunks of the means of 
production in the form of stock options in the companies they work 
for. This means that without laying out any of their salaries to 
buy stocks, they own a portion of the company that employs them 
and can sell that portion at any time, or buy the stocks well 
below market prices. First World corporations also butter their 
professional employees with hefty benefit packages. Benefits are 
free or very cheap health care, and a retirement "plan" -- which 
enables imperialist country paper shufflers to stop working long 
before they are old and infirm, and to spend a continuing salary 
on vacations and other decadent luxuries.

The Air Line Pilots' Association (ALPA, an umbrella union that 
represents 50 airlines' worth of pilots) reports that most 
airlines require pilots to have a four-year college degree.(1) Of 
the seven Northwest union officers whose biographies are printed 
on the pilots' association website, all have completed a four-year 
college degree and four have a master's degree as well.(2) In a 
global economic system in which education is a predictor of 
personal wealth, the airline pilots are a highly educated, highly 
privileged group of people. In a country where more young Black 
men are in prisons than colleges, Northwest pilots would be 
correct to recognize their position of wealth in Amerika and 
demonstrate on behalf of people who suffer genuine oppression.

Instead, the pilots belong to the AFL-CIO, whose president John 
Sweeny had the gall to claim that "our hands built this country, 
our unions put this country on the high road, our votes keep it 
there and we can rightfully say, 'Everything good about this 
country was, and is, UNION MADE!'" and that "American workers are 
the most productive workers in the world!"(3)

The Prez seems to be saying that kidnapped Africans brought to 
this country as slaves were unionized. Any Amerikan who does not 
remain forcibly ignorant of their own country's history, or who is 
willing to look at history objectively can see that wealth in this 
country was built by Black hands, and on First Nation land. Into 
this century, Amerikan wealth continues to be bled from the hands 
of any peoples but those in the white nation.

Ironically, AFL-CIA Prez went on in his remarks to argue "When 
employers respect free choice, we are all raised up. When workers 
are free to join unions, living standards rise for everyone." (3) 
MIM says this is ironic because Sweeny's union has earned its 
derisive nickname from Third World workers, who have seen AFL-CIA 
union "freedom" in action. The Amerikan-grown organization has a 
practice of forming yellow unions in Third World countries to 
compete with and split the genuine unions that represent the 
workers.

The Air Canada Pilots Association claims a similar sense of 
entitlement to its members' high standard of living. A 
spokesperson for the pilots said: "I can tell you that our CEO and 
President told us recently that the Air Canada pilots played a 
pivotal role in turning this company around. Having shouldered 
some of the burden, all we want now is to have our fair share of 
some of the benefits as well."(4) But there is no "fair share" of 
imperialist plunder to be had by First World workers, because the 
profits their employers make are all in goods stolen from the 
Third World.

Liberals, Trotskyists and other apologists for the petty 
bourgeoisie will put "labor" disputes like the ones at Northwest 
and Air Canada in terms of choosing sides. Liberals have said to 
MIM that "if you have to choose a side, then the pilots are the 
better side to pick than the big corporations." The Trotskyists 
are so confused by years of tailing First World union struggles 
that they believe anyone who works for a salary instead of signing 
the salary checks is the proletariat. There is also a third 
apologist position, proffered by the pilots' union, that 
commercial pilots are noble individuals who spend years and 
thousands of dollars training to fly large jet aircraft and then 
graciously assume responsibility for hundreds of lives every time 
they step into the cockpit. In exchange for their tremendous 
sacrifices, the union argues, pilots are "worth" their fat 
salaries. 

MIM responds to the liberals that we do not have to pick sides in 
these pissant disputes among privileged First World peoples 
squabbling over what percentages of the means of production they 
can own. To the Trotskyist and pilots' union arguments, our 
response is the same. Marx's labor theory of value is the only 
correct and scientific tool for studying the exploitation of the 
working class. And the exploitation of the proletariat -- the 
embodiment of class struggle under capitalism -- is and must 
remain the fundamental concern of communists.

Under imperialism, airline travel is overwhelmingly restricted to 
the exploiting classes. Rich people use airplanes both for 
business and leisure. This business travel does not involve 
productive labor, and leisure is unnecessary to life -- a perk of 
those who make enough money to take time away from work and use 
that time to spend money. Marx pointed out that labor must be the 
source of all value; no value can be extracted, packaged or 
realized without labor. While they do take on great immediate 
responsibility for human lives when they fly commercial jets, 
airline pilots cashing in on one of the many service industries 
developed out of extraction of superprofits can hardly be said to 
be creating value.

In building a party and its anti-imperialist mass organizations 
for the overthrow of imperialism we must stay focused on our 
central goals. We must consistently build public opinion in favor 
of the just struggles of the oppressed and build independent 
institutions of the oppressed. Building public opinion in favor of 
the wholly gratuitous struggles of the petty bourgeoisie is 
anathema to our goals. Communists must consistently remain true to 
the goals and the interests of the international proletariat.

Through this revolutionary activity, we will create a society in 
which airplane technology -- and all other transportation 
technology, communications, medicine and many other fields 
currently dominated by the bourgeoisie -- is used to its fullest 
capacity, in the service of the broad masses of people. We call on 
all people who seek justice and self-determination for the world's 
people to unite in the goal of restoring the earth's resources to 
the people.

Long live the struggles of the Third World Proletariat against the 
imperialists!

Notes:
1. http://www.alpa.org/
2. http://www.nwaalpa.org/
3. John Sweeny, Labor Day Remarks in Seattle, 
http://www.aflcio.org/publ/speech98/sp0907.htm
4. http://www.newswire.ca/releases/July1998/02/c0238.html


* * *


IMPERIALIST MEDIA STILL BEATS WAR DRUMS IN KOREA

Two recent stories in the imperialist media raised the bogus 
specter of north Korean support for "nuclear terrorism." First, an 
article in the New York Times on 17 August claimed that north 
Korea was building a secret underground nuclear reactor in order 
to develop nuclear weapons. Second, the launch of a rocket from 
north Korea was widely reported in Amerika and Japan as a test of 
a warhead-bearing ballistic missile.

Both of these stories have turned out to be ill-founded and rash.

The Amerikan government itself has downplayed stories about the 
north Koreans building a secret reactor. "Defense department" 
spokespersons including "Defense" Secretary Cohen have said there 
is no evidence to support the claims that the north Koreans are 
expanding their nuclear program.(1) Of course, the NYT's 
accusations were widely publicized, while the Department of 
Defense's retraction was not, so the net effect is dangerous 
rumor-mongering. The imperialists figure that if you throw mud at 
a wall, some of it will stick.

Initial reports on the rocket firing claimed it was a missile test 
which landed in the sea between Japan and mainland Asia. Later it 
became clear that the rocket had at least two stages, the second 
of which splashed down off of the eastern coast of Japan. North 
Korea says that the rocket was a satellite launch, its first 
ever.(2) Imperialist media have quietly dropped the story while 
the imperialists' intelligence services seek to confirm the 
satellite launch (if they haven't already).

Of course, even if north Korea was building a nuclear reactor and 
testing ballistic missiles, the Amerikan imperialists and their 
partners in Japan have no right to criticize. As a MIM 
correspondent and a south Korean student recently discussed (see 
article on this page), the imperialists are incredibly 
hypocritical when it comes to north Korea (or other so-called 
"rogue states"). After all, there are nuclear weapons on the 
Korean peninsula right now -- and it was the u.$. who put them 
there and controls them! The u.$. continues to develop new nuclear 
weapons and conventional missiles, and last we checked it was the 
u.$. who terrorized peoples from the Sudan to Iraq to Afghanistan 
with them, not north Korea. 

Notes:
1. "Clinton Adm. Downgrades NY Times Story on DPRK Nuke Complex," 
People's Korea website, http://www.korea-np.co.jp/pk. 
2. Korean Central News Agency press release, 4 Sep 98.


* * *


INTERVIEW WITH SOUTH KOREAN STUDENT

A correspondent for MIM Notes recently talked at length with a 
south Korean student activist visiting the u.$. The student agreed 
with MIM's positions on many topics: from the united $tates' 
military's unjust and destructive presence in Korea to the 
political economy behind the IMF's record "bailout" loan to south 
Korea. This article sums up some of their discussions.

Kim Dae Jung

There has been a lot of hooplah over south Korea's new president, 
Kim Dae Jung, who was a critic of earlier military dictatorships. 
Bourgeois apologists praised his election as a sign that south 
Korea had truly broken away from dictatorship and crony-ism. To 
boost this image, Kim granted a sweeping amnesty earlier this year 
and released many political prisoners. However, many of those who 
were released were reactionaries who had been imprisoned because 
of corruption or even bloody crimes against the people. (See MIM 
Notes 154). Kim released these anti-people creeps under the slogan 
of "national reconciliation."

The south Korean student could not confirm or deny that there were 
still some prisoners being held because of their socialist or 
anti-imperialist principles. But s/he did say that Kim's offer of 
amnesty was merely an attempt to put a new, happy face on a regime 
that had not fundamentally changed. The MIM correspondent pointed 
out that Kim is the latest in a line of "democratic" puppets who 
have followed on the heels of open fascism. E.g. Aquino in the 
Philippines, and Mandela in South Africa. "Democratic" puppets 
like these do undertake some bourgeois democratic reforms, but 
they remain mostly on paper, and do not address the fundamental 
problems of the people. Slogans like "national reconciliation" 
paper over the fact that the these "democratic" toadies place the 
interests of the powers that be (and even the former ruling 
cliques) above any true democratic advances. Hence the impotence 
of South Africa's truth and reconciliation commission; hence the 
fact that human rights abuses in the Philippines actually 
increased under Aquino.

North Korea 

The MIM correspondent also asked if the south Korean student had 
any information about reports of famine in north Korea. MIM is 
suspicious of these reports, since they are being used both to 
vilify north Korea and stoke up support for more u.$. military 
aggression in Korea and as tool to put political pressure on north 
Korea (e.g. "We'll give you food 'aid' if you do as we wish.") The 
Korean student told the MIM correspondent that accurate 
information was hard to come by in south Korea as well, and added 
that even if the stories of famine were true, north Korea is not 
the only place in the world short of food -- although that would 
be hard to tell from Amerikan or south Korean media. In fact, the 
majority of starvation deaths occur in the Western-style 
capitalist world, but the Amerikan media isn't complaining that 
Amerikan farmers are subsidized not to grow food or that billions 
of dollars which could be spent on food are going to the bloated 
and oppressive u.$. military. It's a double standard: If the u.$. 
imperialists want to take the speck out of north Korea's eye, they 
need to take the log out of their own, first.

The IMF "bailout" 

The south Korean student mentioned homeless people are now common 
in Seoul, which is a big change from even a year and a half ago. 
The government estimates that four million people (out of a 
workforce of less than 21 million) will be jobless by the winter. 
This does not count people who are forced to work part-time. Even 
white collar workers have been affected. There is no unemployment 
insurance or official "social safety net" in south Korea. 

The south Korean student said that the IMF "bailout" was basically 
a bargain basement sale for foreign monopoly capitalists. The 
conditions on the IMF loan robbed many Korean firms of any chance 
to compete with the big foreign monopolies, while at the same time 
ending restrictions on foreign ownership of Korean enterprises. 
(See MIM Notes 154). The end result is the further impoverishment 
and oppression of the Korean proletariat.


* * *


UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN PANDERS TO CRIME FEARS

Ann Arbor, MI-- The United $tates is the world's leading prison-
state per capita, and contributing to the problem are towns of 
100,000 like Ann Arbor, where Mondale beat Reagan 60% to 40%, 
smoking pot is a $25 fine and libertarians make it on to the city 
council from time to time. The University of Michigan has taken 
back its admission of Daniel Granger after it learned he is facing 
statutory rape charges involving 14-year-old girls. 

MIM is in favor of reducing the age of consent to 13. Older adults 
spread mysticism about sex to younger people in order to increase 
their control of the younger people. There is nothing about sex 
that older people do better than younger ones. Both older and 
younger people often have ordinary sexual relations, sometimes 
expect too much from sexual relations and sometimes damage social 
relations while having sex.

The University of Michigan Provost informed Granger that the 
University of Michigan was revoking his admission for this fall 
and changing it to 1999. If convicted Granger will face 15 years 
in prison.

The upper echelons of the university administration were not the 
only ones on the wrong side. Proving MIM's theory about the gender 
bureaucracy, Sarah Heuser of the Sexual Assault Prevention and 
Awareness Center (SAPAC) also supported the patriarchy's delay of 
Granger's admission into school: "'Common sense dictates that the 
university community will rest easier knowing that he's not 
coming.'"

The root word of "patriarchy" is a word meaning "father." The 
system of fathers' control of young people in this country and 
others has spread all kinds of mystical and sometimes outright 
religious rubbish about why teenagers cannot have sex. 

When teenagers have sex, grumpy patriarchs tell them they were 
"out of control," "drunk" or "drugged" and then they stigmatize 
the whole event, to such an extent that inexperienced young people 
believe their elders sometimes.  While forced drugging of people 
is one thing, it is a rare occurrence. People who had a good time 
should shut out the voices of the patriarchal Establishment.

The patriarchy's control of young people is not the only motive in 
this case. It also contains an element of pandering to crime fears 
of the redneck population that loves being the world's leading 
prison state. 

Whether or not fearful patriarchs will worry less now that Granger 
is not at the University, the University of Michigan has 
demonstrated its second-rate intellectual nature once again.

In recent years, the University of Michigan has switched to its 
own police force. Doing so, it never showed (and it cannot show) 
that police deter crime. Instead of proving its point 
scientifically as one might expect at a university, the 
administration caved in to irrational parents and wannabe police 
lobbyists.

MIM considers crime hysteria at the University of Michigan to 
reflect poorly on the teaching at the University of Michigan, 
because education and truth are not a matter of what is popular.  
Although there are many non-faculty members hired into lower-
ranking administration jobs, the highest ranks of the 
administration are faculty members.  Apparently the faculty cannot 
yet discern that education should not be something like boosting 
television ratings or selling newspapers.

The delay of Granger's admission reeks of the patriarchal 
reasoning that caused students to back the formation of a Sexual 
Assault and Prevention Awareness Center (SAPAC) bureau of the 
administration. Students initially held a sit-in to draw attention 
to rape when administrators tried to downplay the existence of 
rape at the University of Michigan out of fear of what talking 
about it would do to the University's image.

Here again, Granger is being denied by the patriarchy essentially 
to control the sex lives of young people and to protect its own 
image. Because the SAPAC was not created as an independent 
institution of the oppressed, but instead is a wing of Michigan 
state government, MIM expected this negative but dialectical 
development. An agency formed with popular input putting substance 
above image is now supporting putting image first and issues 
second. 

In the coverage of the issue, it was only the student newspaper 
called the Michigan Daily that even mentioned that the rape charge 
was "statutory": 

"'He's been charged with statutory rape and there aren't any 14-
year-olds on this campus,' Mayk a Grosse Pointe native, said." It 
was the only sensible thing said in all of the Ann Arbor News's 
hysterical front page story.

Note: Ann Arbor News 2 Sept 1998, p. a1, a10.


* * *


NO IMPROVEMENT IN MATERNAL MORTALITY RATES IN THE U.$.

New statistics released by the Centers for Disease Control and 
Prevention show that the proportion of wimmin who die from 
pregnancy or childbirth has remained the same since 1982, despite 
medical advances that could prevent half of maternal deaths. The 
large disparity in maternal mortality between Black wimmin and 
white wimmin remains as well. Black wimmin are four times as 
likely to die of complications from pregnancy as white wimmin.

The striking risk of maternal mortality for Black wimmin relative 
to white wimmin is evidence that the problems facing Black and 
white wimmin are qualitatively different. The principal struggle 
for Black wimmin today remains the national struggle -- which 
includes the struggle for access to and control of health care 
facilities and the money and other resources to run them.

Partly because of the high maternal mortality rates in the 
oppressed nations within u.$. borders, and partly because of the 
anachronistic individualism and naked profit motive in the 
Amerikan health care system, more than 20 countries had lower 
maternal mortality rates than the u.$. in 1990. "We estimate that 
50 percent of maternal deaths are preventable given the technology 
that we have today," a researcher from the CDC's National Center 
for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion said.

Under socialism, economic resources will be allocated according to 
human needs, not profit. This means that technology and human 
resources could be used to save people's lives, not build 
"smarter" bombs. Furthermore, socialist North America will be able 
to pay reparations to the oppressed nations in the world for 
decades upon decades of Amerikan imperialist super-exploitation. 
Part of these reparations could come in the form of  
pharmaceutical and medical products, from industries which 
currently ignore the medical needs of the majority of the world's 
people, whether by selling their products at outrageous prices or 
by ignoring the basic medical needs of the oppressed masses 
altogether (starving people don't need plastic surgery or Viagra). 

The lifetime risk of maternal mortality in Africa is about 1 in 
16, while the lifetime risk of maternal mortality in North America 
(Canada and the u.$.) is 1 in 3700. In other words, wimmin in 
Africa are more than 200 times more likely to die in childbirth or 
because of complications from pregnancy than wimmin in Canada and 
the u.$.(1)

Note: All facts from Reuters, 3 Sep 98 except (1), WHO Weekly 
Epidemiological Record, 19 April 1996.


* * *


DC-RAIL ENDS PRISON TRANSFER PETITION DRIVE, TURNS TO EDUCATION

Private prison drive comes to D.C. in the name of "the family"

With more than 600 signatures collected, DC-RAIL has concluded its 
petition drive to oppose the transfer of D.C. prisoners. Judging 
from the very positive response, we think most people agree that 
the policy of transferring prisoners to distant prisons is cruel 
and runs counter to the supposed goals of rehabilitation because 
it cuts people off from their families and other sources of 
community support on the outside.

The reason we are stopping the petition drive now is that the 
argument for keeping prisoners close to their families and 
communities, which DC-RAIL helped to popularize in the city, is 
now being used to justify building a big new private prison in 
Southeast D.C., to be run by the Corrections Corporation of 
Ameri[k]a, the same company that runs the Youngstown Ohio prison 
where several D.C. prisoners died, and where guards routinely use 
mace and electric shocks to control and torture prisoners.

Supporters of the CCA prison include City Council member Jack 
Evans, a white candidate for mayor, who got $7,000 in campaign 
contributions from CCA officials and their law firm this year. 
Evans has used the close-to-the-family argument to justify the 
private prison, which is probably going to get final approval this 
fall, as CCA beats out Wackenhut for the deal.(1)

A lot of politicians are on the close-to-the- family bandwagon. 
Mayor Marion Barry recently took credit for a deal to send more 
than a thousand prisoners further into Virginia on the argument 
that it was closer than Ohio, "so the families of these inmates 
will be able to visit them in a relatively short period of time," 
a three-hour drive.(2) The point of this deal is to help out 
Virginia, which went on a poorly-planned prison building binge for 
hundreds of millions of dollars, and now has empty cells because 
"crime" and arrest rates are lower. Shipping prisoners down to 
Sussex, Va. will also hasten the day when D.C.'s old Lorton prison 
can be closed and the prisoners moved into the new CCA prison to 
be built.

DC-RAIL doesn't regret the work we did to help build opposition to 
the prison transfers, because that was part of the task of 
building public opinion against the injustice system in general, 
and the D.C. machinations in particular. But we don't want to 
become advocates for the expansion of the private prison industry, 
and the ever-closer bonds between the repressive state and capital 
which are on the cutting edge of the growing fascist trend in 
Amerika. In fact, we struggled with some people on the street over 
this, when they responded to our petition by saying they wanted a 
new prison built in D.C.

Now instead, DC-RAIL is developing a new petition drive to build 
public opinion for free, voluntary, and complete access to all 
levels of education for prisoners in the Washington, D.C. area, 
including access to outside college and university programs and 
uncensored access to all reading materials inside prisons. We will 
also call on regional schools, colleges, and universities -- 
including teachers themselves -- to cooperate in providing 
educational support for prisoners.

With the number of prisoners in this country at more than 1.7 
million and growing, governments are cutting back on education 
programs for prisoners, including prisoners in the Washington, 
D.C. area. The injustice system already unfairly imprisons those 
with less education, especially members of the Black, Latino, and 
First Nations. Now they are making it even harder on prisoners, 
and eliminating one of the last "rehabilitation" aspects of the 
system.

In a just society, all prisoners would be engaged in some sort of 
education and reform program - because the society would want to 
solve the problems that led people to commit crimes against other 
people. On the other hand, in a just society the prisoners would 
not be filled with people from oppressed nations and the 
relatively poor and uneducated groups in society, imprisoned for 
property and drug crimes - while the worst criminals, like the 
people who bomb medicine factories in Africa, wield state power 
and ride around in limos all the time. We can tell a lot about a 
society from looking at its prisons.

In 1995, just 23% of state and federal prisoners were enrolled in 
some type of education program, even though a majority of prisons 
say they offer some type of program.(4) Only about half of all 
prisoners in 1991 had ever gotten any academic education during 
their time in prison.(6)

But education programs are being cut across the country. From 1990 
to 1995, while the number of all state and federal prison 
employees increased 31%, along with the number of prisoners, the 
number of education employees increased less than 1%. As a result, 
educational employees fell from just 4.2% of prison employees in 
1990 to an even lower 3.2% in 1995. In 1995, there were 4 
prisoners per guard in state prisons, but 93 prisoners for every 
educational employee. Federal prisons were a little better, with 8 
prisoners per guard and 70 prisoners per educator. Now, we're not 
champions of any one group of prison employees, but in general we 
think a prison system is better with more educators and fewer 
guards, so this is just evidence that things are getting worse, 
not better.(4)

About 25% of the adult population in the country has completed 
college(5), compared to only 2% of state prisoners; 82% of all 
adults have finished high school, compared to 59% of state 
prisoners. (Federal prisoners have higher average education levels 
because the federal system pursues more white-collar types.) In 
the year before their arrest, one-third of state prisoners were 
not employed, and more than half had incomes less than $10,000 per 
year.(6)

It's not news that the relatively poor are over-represented in the 
injustice system. The point here is that the state takes people 
who have lower education and lower income, and then imprisons them 
in a way that reduces rather than increases their chances of 
success when they get out. This isn't just devastating for the 
prisoners. There are also about 900,000 children whose parents are 
in state and federal prisons, children more likely to end up in 
poverty and prison themselves as a result of the oppression of 
their parents. Further, in 1991, 750,000 prisoners had immediate 
family members in prison also.(6) The injustice system thus simply 
increases inequality and oppression, for prisoners, their 
families, and their whole communities and nations.

DC-RAIL's new education campaign supports MIM and RAIL's books-
for-prisoners program, which is constantly being confronted with 
reactionary censorship policies that deny prisoners access to 
political reading material. We are doing all we can to build the 
books program, including sending any prisoner MIM Notes 
subscriptions for free, but we can't offer complete education to 
so many prisoners. If prisoners can have access to education 
programs on the outside, it will give them the chance to develop 
their political education, too. We don't expect prisons to provide 
revolutionary educational opportunities, but by building public 
opinion for expanded education access, we hope to increase the 
chances that prisoners can get ahold of more of the resources they 
need to build the revolutionary movement.




* * *


SIDEBAR 1:

ONE CALCULATION OF PRISON LABOR PROFITS

To add insult and exploitation to the injury of punishing the poor 
with prison, the injustice system imprisons these peoples, and 
then gives them "jobs" at an average "pay" of $.46 per hour in the 
federal system and $.56 in the state system (in 1991).(6) And 
increasingly, as we and others have reported elsewhere, prisons 
then charge prisoners for their necessities, such as health care 
and even food.

Let's do a little calculation, assuming these statistics are 
accurate (they're the best we have). In 1991, 481,979 state 
prisoners worked jobs in prison, at an average pay rate of $.56 
per hour. Some didn't get paid, or got only "nonmonetary" 
compensation (such as good time or other benefits), but we don't 
know the details of that so we assume it averaged out to $.56 per 
hour, the paid wage rate, though it might well be even less. From 
the figures in the report, we can estimate how many paid hours 
these prisoners worked in 1991: 10,278,194 per week. At $.56 per 
hour, that would be $299 million per year in wages. If those 
workers had been paid even the minimum wage of $4.25 in 1991, it 
would have been $2.3 billion, or a "savings" for the states of $2 
billion. In fact, the average wage in 1991 for the whole country 
was $11.41 per hour.(8) Compared to that rate, the state 
governments saved $5.8 billion. Because prisoners are doing work 
that doesn't pay as much as most work on the outside, we can maybe 
split the difference, so the state governments saved $3.9 billion 
in 1991 by paying prisoners $.56 per hour instead of a wage rate 
halfway between minimum wage and the average wage.

That's just one year, and it's just state prison inmates. Back 
then, there were only 700,000 state inmates altogether. Now, as of 
1997 there were 1.1 million state prisoners (and 1.7 million 
including federal prisons and jails).(7) If this were the same 
every year, that $3.9 billion in 1991 would be $27 billion from 
1991 to 1997. But if we assume a steady annual increase from 
700,00 to 1.1 million over these years, and nothing else changes, 
the total would increase to $35 billion from 1991 to 1997. And 
that's just for seven years.

That state-prison $.56 per hour works out to $1,120 per year if 
you assume 50 forty-hour weeks, which is more or less in line with 
Third World wages in most of the world. Of course, these work 
conditions are very different, but there are some similarities. 
State governments have to spend a lot of money to get these 
conditions. They have to staff police departments to grab 
prisoners, and build and run prisons, and so on. They do this, 
even though it costs more than the profits they get from prison 
workers, because the capitalist system gets other benefits from 
it, such as ruined communities and lots of future lower-wage 
workers with less political power. This is not too different from 
conditions in the Third World outside North America, where the 
imperialists have to spend billions of dollars on military budgets 
and "aid" to keep the labor conditions the way they are, and the 
imperialists benefit from these conditions many times over.

* * *

SIDEBAR 2:

INJUSTICE FIRST, DRUG TREATMENT LATER-TO-NEVER

In Washington, D.C., the federal government and their local 
government enforcers would never dream of allowing large numbers 
of prisoners out of prison just because they didn't have enough 
money or space to humanely care for them. Instead, they just pack 
them into a giant run-down prison, or ship them hundreds or 
thousands of miles away, for hundreds of millions of dollars over 
the years.

So, they move heaven and earth to get enough prison cells - but no 
one does anything about there being drug treatment for only 10% of 
drug addicts in the city, according to the Washington Post. The 
city's annual drug treatment budget has been cut by more than 37% 
in the past five years. And since 1996, federal funding for D.C. 
drug programs has been cut more than 50%, leading to combined 
losses of treatment for 890 outpatients, 820 methadone patients, 
70 detoxification beds and 220 residential treatment beds.

Not only are people with serious problems going without treatment, 
many prisoners are not being released because their parole 
conditions require entering a drug treatment program; other 
untreated addicts end up having their parole revoked when they are 
suspected of drug use after their release.(3)

The approach of a drug treatment center is miserably limited in 
the first place, because they don't do anything about organizing 
to end the oppression and alienation and availability of harmful 
drugs that all lie behind the problem. Then, they don't even 
seriously pursue this incredibly weak approach to a large social 
problem - while they'll do anything to keep up the number of 
prison cells.

There are good people working on helping people with drug 
problems, and they are aware of the inadequacy of this approach. 
We urge them to get involved in a revolutionary movement to uproot 
the underlying causes of these and other problems.

Notes to all three stories:
1. The Common Denominator, 10 Aug. 1998, p. 1.
2. Washington, August 27, 1998. p. D4.
3. Washington Post, August 25, 1998. p. A1.
4. Census of State and Federal Correctional Facilities, 1995. 
Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), U.S. Department of Justice, 
NCJ#-164266. This and other reports can be had for free from the 
BJS Clearinghouse, 800-732-3277, or  http://www.ncjrs.org.
5. U.S. Census Bureau, 29 June 1998. http://www.census.gov/Press-
Release/cb98-105.html.
6. Comparing State and Federal Inmates, 1991. Office of Justice 
Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. NCJ#-145864.
7. Prisoners in 1997, Bureau of Justice Statistics, U.S. 
Department of Justice, NCJ#-170014.
8. U.S. Statistical Abstract 1994, p. 433

*  * *


UNDER LOCK & KEY

Attention prisoners:

Please make sure that you write MIM at least once every three 
months to ensure that we keep you on the mailing list for MIM 
Notes. If it is your first time receiving MIM Notes, you need to 
write within one month and then write every three months after 
that. MIM Notes is often censored and our comrades are transferred 
continuously, so this mailing list policy is necessary to avoid 
wasting limited funds. Also to use resources more efficiently, we 
will no longer be mailing out reminders along with the paper. If 
the envelope label has a number (7) on it, that means our last 
record of your correspondence was from July and the October issues 
will be your last unless we hear from you. Similarly, if the 
number is (8), the last time we heard from you was August and 
unless you write, the November issues will be your last issues 
until you write again. 

Please write to P.O. Box 3576, Ann Arbor, MI 48106-3576 to 
maintain your name on the mailing list. 




Marxism-Leninism-Maoism vs. Oppression

...The conditions here are horrific! The atrocities we prisoners 
face are numerous. This koncentration gulag specializes in 
psychological warfare with the use of chemical agents. I must add 
sadly that the prisoners here are losing the battle. They are 
being turned in to children and their minds are being ruined.

The Amerikkkan government and the Bureau of oppressing people 
(BOP), along with the injustice system has designed this 
supermadness to break the spirit of the men here! I have witnessed 
brutal beatings by the pigs and seen prisoners made to eat feces. 
Yea, feces. It's like the dog who messes on the house carpet and 
his face is smeared into it. This is done to the men who throw 
feces.

The repression is so offensive that the prisoners here are cutting 
their wrists, hanging themselves, fighting among each other with 
feces.... This is why we must destroy this imperialistic country 
and correct our brothers and sisters, who are being destroyed. We 
people of color represent 50% of the prison population and only 
13% in this country. We will lose now if we don't start now 
politically, consciously teaching our brothers and sisters in 
prison. 

Only through Marxism-Leninism-Maoism can we change the structure 
and ideologies of the masses of the oppressed! They must learn 
that under Capitalism we will be forever exploited, subjugated, 
oppressed and poor! The prisoners must learn that to sell drugs is 
genocide and if we are going to sell anything let it be 
Revolution.

... Study your history comrades. Study George Jackson, Black 
Panther Party, VI Lenin, Marx, Engels. Then study capitalism. See 
how it's designed for the proletariat and working class to stay in 
poverty and a state of dependency. Through incarceration we 
prisoners are being used for labor to help pay off the national 
debt, and keep the bourgeois rich!

It is time to unite my brothers and sisters. In the time of peace 
we must prepare for war. We must unpopulate the prisons and stop 
bulging these capitalists' pockets. We are Great People with a 
superb history. We are strong. We need to start acting and 
demonstrating our intellect and stop being fools. Long live the 
Revolution....
- A Maryland Prisoner, 15 May 1998

Michigan Labor Conditions

...Jobs are hard to get and if you don't have a GED you can't work 
at all. I got lucky and got a job as a midnight porter in the 
Control Center. I make $1.14 a day for 60 days, then my pay goes 
to $1.31 a day because I have a porter certificate.

Which brings up a point I want to clear up for you. That report, 
from the MDOC [Michigan Department of Incorrections], you sent out 
to us regarding prison pay was way off the mark. I was the form 
clerk a few years ago at X prison. One of my jobs was to do 
payroll and the top pay there was $1.71 a day and that was for 
skilled farm workers. If you weren't skilled the top pay was $1.14 
a day. You made $35.91 for a month of 21 days at 8 hours or more a 
day.

...In addition some people would make jewelry boxes and sell them 
for $7.00 and up depending on size and design. Each box would take 
around 50 hours to make.
- A Michigan Prisoner, 9 February 1998

...I took a look at the fact sheet you sent to me and I couldn't 
believe what the MDOC was claiming they pay prisoners. Personally 
I've been through many prison facilities, ranging from level 1-5, 
and I never heard or saw any MDOC prisoners being paid $1.60 an 
hour for labor work. 

The most I've seen was 17.5 cents to 32.5 cents per hour. After 60 
days on a work assignment you are qualified for a bonus but that 
doesn't mean you're going to get one. Also you only get bonuses 
for certain jobs like MSI factories, kitchen and farm workers. 
Everyone else doesn't get bonuses....

- A Michigan Prisoner, 29 March 1998

Profits Run Amerikkkan Prisons

...The prison industry has become a Big Business in this 
capitalistic society. Profit has been placed about rehabilitation. 
Big name corporations are now profiting off slave wages. There is 
no unionization, and there is no form of compensation if prisoners 
are injured while working.

What these institutions need are programs designed to prepare one 
to be a productive individual once leaving prison. 95% of the 
prisoners in South Carolina will eventually return to society. A 
third of them will commit another crime and return to prison. 
Instead of prison being a warehouse, it needs to be a place where 
one can get the help he/she needs. 

This country is taking pride in the their motto, "Lock them up and 
throw away the keys". The politicians are using the prison 
population as pawns to win elections. Society is not aware of the 
injustice that is occurring in prisons all over the country. Some 
people believe prisons are like country clubs. That is one of the 
Biggest misconceptions a person can have about prison. All across 
the country prisoners' rights are being violated daily. In prison 
there is no Freedom of Religion, Freedom of Speech, etc.

Prison guards and officials beat prisoners and place prisoners on 
lock-up for years because of their religious views. Because you 
don't follow the Christian belief, you're discriminated against. 
Because you strive for intellectual enhancement you're pointed out 
as a troublemaker. The atmosphere that is created in prison is 
that everyone is ignorant and incapable of changing. This is 
another misconception that society has. We must remember that 
great minds (Malcolm X, Nelson Mandela, etc) have come from behind 
prison walls. With the correct information one can bring about a 
transformation in her/his life.

In Japan, when a person is convicted of a crime it is seen as a 
failure of that society to provide the proper nurturing 
environment to mold that person into a productive human being. 
This country takes pride in its "Lock-Them Up and Throw Away the 
Keys" mentality. The crime rate should tell a person a lot about 
this county.
Money matters and nothing else is important.
Peace,
- A South Carolina Prisoner, 23 July 1998

Frequent Transfers and Slave Wages in Pennsylvania

...There are transfers every week. They usually send transfer 
inmates from the westside of Pennsylvania to the eastside and 
eastside inmates to the westside of Pennsylvania. This is to 
separate inmates from family and loved ones, dig me? The pigs 
justification for this, "they are trying to stop drugs from coming 
into the prison" - Get Real!

The concentration camp I'm at does offer jobs to prisoners but at 
slave wages. They start you out at 18 cents an hour. I believe the 
most you can earn is 42 cents an hour. As for myself, I refuse to 
work for these malicious pigs. They have kitchen, plumber, and 
block jobs. If you don't work, you get a misconduct report and you 
go to the hole. 

Medical care is a joke. You have to sign a cash slip for $2.00 
just to sign up for a sick call. And if they give you medication, 
that's an additional $2.00. They don't have too many good in their 
store, and their prices are outrageous....
- A Pennsylvania Prisoner, 20 July 1998 [City X]

...Yes, there are transfers in this prison often. They are being 
sent to different prisons, but with the same racist mentality. 
Their justification is to get rid of all person-people that are 
radical and unmedicated (not on any kind of their drug-narcotic). 
Yes, this prison offers work. You name the jobs and the prisoners 
do whatever they are told to do immediately. The slave wages that 
I get is 18 cents a day for sitting idle, because I refused to 
work. Nevertheless you have those that are on death row out in 
general population because they are working with the 
administration as confidential informers [CI]. I have heard that 
of a lot of the Snitches make $99.00 a month. Some of them 
nincompoop CI's make more that too. Snitches get privileges and 
can come out of their cells at all times without having handcuffs 
and shackles on. In general population if you don't work you get a 
misconduct [report].
They have a Bogus medical care system in practice here. You have 
to pay two dollars to get to sign up for a sick call to see the 
doctor....
- A Pennsylvania Prisoner, 21 July 1998 [City Y]

Wisconsin Transfers Prisoners to Other States
...First off they are sending inmates to other states. They plan 
on sending 3000 prisoners. They have sent 300 to Minnesota, 700 to 
Texas, 300 to Oklahoma, 600 to Tennessee, and more to go to each 
state.

I received a letter from one guy in Texas, telling me that one of 
the Wisconsin inmates was raped in Texas by an inmate from another 
state. I have heard stories from other prisoners who say that two 
Wisconsin prisoners were killed in Texas.

...They have a prison industry, a company called fabray, they sew 
gloves. They pay $5.25 an hour, then the prison makes you sign to 
give them back 50% of your pay to help build other programs like 
it. You must also sign another paper giving up to another 5% of 
your pay to victims, even if you don't have any victims. That 
money is put in a state run fund for victims. They change your 
taxes and social security, which is illegal. You can't collect on 
social security while in prison so they should not be able to take 
social security out. 

Also they have to pay health insurance. The law says anyone 
working in Wisconsin must pay Health Insurance to the State. So by 
the time they get done with your check, you have about $1.0 per 
hour at most. When the federal government told them to pay the 
inmates $6.40 an hour, the institution fired all the old prisoners 
and hired some back a few days later as new employees. That way, 
they only had to pay them $5.25 an hour. But if they had not fired 
them they would have had to pay them $6.40 an hour. That was their 
way of getting around paying $6.40 an hour.

The prisoners here do not stick together. They don't even know the 
meaning of it. No guard had ever killed in the Wisconsin Prison 
system, so guards are not afraid of prisoners. They feel safe in 
the prison. The state does not need a supermax but they are 
building one for 600 prisoners. I believe most of the prisoners 
who will go there will be paralegals. It is hard to get a law 
library pass unless you have a court deadline. Do not print my 
name on this because anyone who tries or tells anyone how they 
work things on transferring prisoners goes to the hole for a long 
time. They don't want anyone to mess up their process of shipping 
out prisoners. 
There are some families of prisoners protesting, by having marches 
in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. I heard it was about 75 people. 

The prison is also trying to make a deal with a private prison in 
Ohio. The only reason that prison has room is because Washington 
[state] was sending them prisoners, but within 48 hours two of the 
prisoners were dead. So Washington took all their prisoners back. 
Now Wisconsin is trying to work out a deal with them.
- A Wisconsin Prisoner, 27 July 1998 

1 out of 20 in Prison in Amerikkka

I committed a crime in South Caroling and was sentenced to 12 
years. They want to oppress me under the new 85% laws, and without 
parole. How long do we as prisoners have to pay for crimes? The 
CIA commits drug crimes daily, Judges and courts break their own 
laws, or they decide something completely wrong. There are 
injustices when the law had nothing to do with fairness or 
justice. 
The government has stated that 1 out of every 20 people in America 
will serve time in prison. Those making the laws or enforcing them 
could be the one out of twenty. The public says get tough on 
crime, well I was part of that public. I am a son and father, just 
like many of us are. The public is being guided by the government 
and what they see on tv. They are told we are "Undesirable 
Parasites" to quote Bob Dole, but we are someones: sons, fathers, 
sisters, mothers, etc. And yet we are treated like Shit!

The food in prison doesn't meet government food pyramid guides. 
The health care is poor and many cases not free... The spending in 
this country has increased 700% in the department of corrections, 
but ask yourself where is the money going? The prisoners don't see 
it. Training and rehabilitation programs have been taken away. 
State pay has been taken away. All the prisons are overcrowded. 
Each inmate should legally have so much living area, but they do 
not. ...Someone is getting a good paycheck, we keep losing 
privileges, but the taxes increase!!

I know what I did was wrong, but how long do I have to pay for my 
crime? The sentences that are being dealt out today are too long 
for most of the crimes. Something needs to be done. I am being 
dehumanized every day. The public needs to know the truth! And the 
prison system needs to change.
- A South Carolina Prisoner, 25 June 1998

Behind Walls in Virginia

...We have to pay for our own medications and dental [costs]. The 
wages are 23 cents an hour for the recreation, kitchen, yard crew 
and cellblock workers. They do have an industry here that produces 
beds, lockers, chairs, etc for other institutions. It's called the 
sheet metal shop. Since I do not work in the industry, I don't 
know the exact wages, but it does pay the highest in this 
institution. I do not know what the work conditions are like, but 
I know that they have two different work shifts that each work for 
12 hours a day.
The health care here is very bad. They have prisoners with HIV, 
AIDS, cancer and other heath problems in population. What I see is 
they have to be almost on their deathbed before they really get 
treatment. 
- A Virginia Prisoner, 24 May 1998

Struggle

Armed with Billy Clubs and Mace,
they sprayed the Brotha in the face,
No sound was heard but the thump, thump, thump
of blows... Heavy blows. Fracturing and rupturing
the bones of the vertebrae... His skull.
Broken, beaten, spit on - lied on - taunted and teased
by fools contaminated with a disease.
No, not cancer or AIDS, but the disease that is 
Most Destructive: Racism, Fascism, Oppression and Obsession.

They are obsessed with the Power one feels...
The power to dominate another helpless individual.
Obsessed with the screams, blood and pleas
of a poor one's lost soul, an innocent victim
of an unnatural environment. A sad weary soldier
beaten down from battles past - Still standing up!
And defending his Ass!		One who would choose 
to refuse to lose his pride and dignity
to a giant Black Bruise	No sir it was not a ruse.

They set him up, they plotted and they planned 
they listened not to this humble man
but a number, a timeless meaningless statistic raising static
because he chose to oppose	
their colonial and imperialistic Shitstem. A victim
of the ills of a corrupted society that breeds perversion.
Like the sickening and sadistic joy they attain
Through someone else's pain. 	

A Human being no doubt.
He wears the clothes of a man, he walks upright
And his back is always so straight, but not as of late...
You can see him, strolling the hallways, stooped and drooped
romped and stomped, by a cyst'm of maggots that revel
in the melee of victory. 
Their small physical victory of a lynching on a tree....

Prism of Prison

Razor wire and iron doors
Sloppy food and dingy drawers
Armed with guns and tear gas bombs
Politically corrupted power structure
Chain of command?
Well I'll be damned!

Rooms of Gloom to call my home
with peeling paint and inches to roam.
Visions of violence from Riots past
when the pigs took charge and shot the gas.
Killing my brothers in the quiet of the night
I hear their screams and fight for what's right!

But don't be mislead and don't be no fool
'cause Lucifer's the chief and a fool is his tool!
If we band together and stand for our cause
Like Ruiz-N-them did the power would pause.

Instead of fighting and killing one another you see
Let's join hands and embrace, show some unity!
And then the odds would change this rhyme
and maybe, just maybe I could do my time.

But I am a dreamer and dreams are driven away
by reality of the society and social existence
with persistence and resilience and "Oh" I might cry
or better yet die! But No!
I'm only trapped in this transparent prism
A Hellhole on Earth that's simply called prison!

- A Texas Prisoner, 22 July 1998

MIM responds:
These poems expose the violence and oppression that is a part of 
the criminal injustice system. The next step is a discussion of 
how to fight it. MIM believes that the next step is organizing for 
revolutionary change. We work with our comrades behind the bars to 
fight for reforms which will save lives and make organizing work 
easier while building a movement that can take on the 
revolutionary struggle to overthrow imperialism.

Censors Relinquish BPP Speaks

Comrades,

As i stated in my last report from SCI plantation Smithfield, the 
pigs refused to give me the, "Black Panthers Speaks", which the 
MIM organization sent me in the mail! Well i'm proud to report 
that after appealing this decision to the Superintendent, it was 
overturned and i received the "Black Panthers Speaks" today....
In Struggle,
- A Pennsylvania Prisoner, 30 July 1998