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Hello!
Is MIM currently involved in any direct action re: the corporate media? I am extremely disgusted by the fact that the corporate media has chosen to ignore the fact that government documents were released yesterday PROVING that Henry Kissinger and Gerald Ford intentionally lied about their complicity in the genocide in East Timor.
What is even more nauseating is the fact that these documents contain statements by Ford and Kissinger in which they expressed their confidence in their ability to control public opinion. Bill Clinton has an affair, and CNN gives that non-issue 24 hour coverage and detailed analysis. However, the declassification of government documents which prove that the U$ is responsible for what is arguably one of the worst atrocities in history doesn't even warrant a soundbyte?!?!?! Pardon my French, but what the FUCK is wrong with these so- called "journalists". When I first encountered MIM Notes, I initially thought that language such as "the united snakes" and "amerika" was unnecessarily incendiary, although I did find myself agreeing with most of its politics and analyses. At this point, however,I feel like it's time for a good old-fashioned flag burning.
I also initially took issue with MIM's position that the amerikan working class was in some way culpable for the atrocities resulting from amreikan imperialist aggression. However, I have grown thoroughly disgusted by the intellectual laziness of the average amerikan "Joe Six Pack."
It seems that the amerikan working class doesn't care who the ruling class slaughters as long as the miserable capitalists can continue to dispense cell phones, cable tv, and Nike tennis shoes at affordable prices. I apologize if I come accross as being a little nutty, but I am truly infuriated right now and I guess I just needed to vent. In spite of my ranting, I assure you that I really am mentally stable. I'm just feeling angry and impotent right now. I almost wish I had never picked up that first Chomsky book several years ago. Now that my eyes have been opened, they can never be shut again. I've finally understood the meaning of that old cliche, "Ignorance is bliss". Anyway, I need to focus my anger or I'm going to go insane, and I like what I've learned about MIM so far. I'd love to get involved however possible. I'm not necessarily 100% ready to declare myself a full-fledged Maoist, but that's partially because there is a lot I still don't know about Maoism.
However, I am in total accord with your mission. I am an ardent socialist, but I'm still exploring the many incarnations and interpretations of socialism that have been presented to me. As a social worker, I have seen firsthand the ravages and inhumanity of this capitalist nightmare called amerika, and I want to be a part of any organization that is fighting to see it come to an end. As a queer person and a latino, I have experienced it to some degree myself.
Sincerely,
-- A reader in the west
MIM responds: It is not nutty to be infuriated at the murderous nature of Amerikan imperialism. Anger is the only correct response to the truth about the united states. And you don't have to be a Maoist to get involved with the anti-imperialist work that MIM is doing. There are organizations like the Revolutionary Anti-Imperialist League (RAIL), led by MIM, for you to join. And there is endless work that we can do together.
A seed of discontent took root; the fruit of resistance ripens
Dear MIM Comrades:
Blind patriotism is no less demented than religious fanaticism. A patriotism that defies logic, a patriotism that defies truth, a patriotism that ignores reality, a patriotism that deifies ones own government while simultaneously demonizing those of other sovereign nations which just happen to have alternative political ideologies, such patriotism is not a virtue; such patriotism is a sickness and should be classified as a psychosis and listed among the names of other mental illnesses. It is an aberration, a disease.
America's self-righteous outbursts after the September 11 bombings which destroyed the World Trade Center's twin towers is to me astounding. America must not delude itself now into believing that it was the victim of some unwarranted attack. That is not the case at all. The bombings were a direct and natural consequence of Americas exploitation of oppressed people around the world. America has soldiers stationed in over one hundred nations around the world. It currently uses Puerto Rican territory for missile testing despite the anguish and debilitation to the indigenous people whose health and safety are threatened as a result. America has indirectly killed 1.8 million Iraqi children because she disliked their president and has attempted to starve the people of Cuba by placing a blockade around their nation, preventing them from buying or selling needed materials to and from other nations. The Cuban refugees flee the island braving shark infested waters, not so much to escape Castro but because they wish to escape the hunger and shortages imposed upon them from America's embargo. America has trained the torturers and despots in the infamous School of The Americas who then use this training to torment their own brothers and sisters abroad; she has destabilized governments for her own political advantages and has unseated popularly elected leaders of other nations through subterfuge, insurgence,coups, assassinations and the instigation of civil unrest-- America has no moral ground to stand upon in her protests against those who have decided that what is good for the goose is indeed good enough for the gander. Americans must not feign innocence at this moment.
She cannot assume the guise of the victim after she has been the cause of so much unrest, so much upheaval, so much instability, and so much violence throughout the world. When you realize that the land mines that kill or maim one innocent man, women, or child every twenty seconds in developing countries are made and patented in the USA; when you stop to reflect upon the fact that the helicopter gunships, assault weapons, and missiles used by the Israelis in their subjugation of the Palistinian people, whom they have outright assassinated in cold blood, are U.S. weapons and that their hostile campaigns against the Palestinian people are sustained only through the financial backing of the U.S. then you will see, if not blinded by the mental disease of blind patriotism, that much of the death and destruction around the world, much like the implements used to commit them, are "made in the good ol' USA."
The U.S. has historically snubbed her nose at any world body which she disagrees with. She reneged on signing the Kyoto Accords in order that she may continue to be the leader in air pollution which she attains great profit from; she backed away from signing an agreement to stop biological weapon testing; she refused to pay United Nations dues until it conceded to her unjust demands; and she walked away from the World Conference Against Racism. This leaves the people no choice in their actions other than outright force. America is not above re- interpreting any law she doesn't like if called before World Courts and will refuse any other means of democracy if she finds democracy too burdensome. With no other recourse, people will express their grievances with whatever means are left. Until those who abuse you feel your pain, literally, they are unlikely to desist from inflicting that pain; until those who strike you unjustly likewise learn the pain of being struck they will most likely continue to strike with impunity and continuously.THOSE WHO REFUSE TO NEGOTIATE PEACEFULLY BY NECESSITY CHOOSE TO BE PERSUADED VIOLENTLY. It's that simple.
In the absence of compromise there must inevitably be the presence of conflict. When the pain you cause abroad is significantly less than the pain they inflict upon you at home; when it cause you more suffering to hurt others than it gives you pleasure to hurt others, when the horrors you inflict boomerangs to afflict you and yours, when what you do abroad have repercussions at home, you will rethink your hostilities. How easy it is to exploit those you cannot see and whom you keep at a distance. The bombings disturbed Americans not only by the mere act itself but also because it made that which they thought of in the abstract tangible. The roots of hostility which they thought were planted at a safe distance beyond their shores blossomed instead within their own garden. It is hypocritical to play the martyr!
It is too much of a simplification of a complex issue to simply say it was an unwarranted attack by extremists. America, as a nation of reactionaries, will most certainly bomb another country in retaliation for the bombings, kill yet more innocent men women and children in the name of patriotism guided by the blood thirsty god which they claim to serve, until someone they didn't like is convicted for this act of war. yet, if you want to see tomorrows suicide bombers and revolutionaries you need not look overseas for them. Look instead in your ghettos, look at you victims of police brutality, look most especially within your prisons where you treat the prisoners brutally dropping all pretense of justice and democracy. Those very same American prisons where you show your true face. Those same American prisons where you warehouse your poor, contain your blacks and control your historically oppressed population. The prisons where you let those confined to know that democracy is reserved only for those who can pay for it and tyranny shall be the lot of the rest. Those prisons where where you use arbitrary rules to afflict them and tax-payer funds to persecute them. Do not think the death of Osama Ben Laden will end your current woes or that the removal of Saddam will stop the natural response of those fed up. They are only the most vocal, the most overt of your opposition.
You deceive yourself if you think that your revolutionaries are all of foreign origin. They are here; they are hoping to find a legal means of redress but they will not always have their hopes dashed when you decide to "reinterpret" , "revise," or plain and simply ignore those laws at your convenience. A seed of discontent has taken root and the stem of outrage is growing. I am the fruit of such a tree. Let it continue to grow and you will regret it.
IN SOLIDARITY,
-- A Pennsylvania prisoner 28 Sep 2001