MIM(Prisons) is a cell of revolutionaries serving the oppressed masses inside U.$. prisons, guided by the communist ideology of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism.
Under Lock & Key is a news service written by and for prisoners with a focus on what is going on behind bars throughout the United States. Under Lock & Key is available to U.S. prisoners for free through MIM(Prisons)'s Free Political Literature to Prisoners Program, by writing:
MIM(Prisons) PO Box 40799 San Francisco, CA 94140.
4 ___________ is a failed organizational strategy that
enjoys much support among activists in imperialist countries who
romanticize the call to arms and quick attacks on the enemy 6
Cultural nationalism was sometimes called ___________ nationalism by
Huey P. Newton 10 A ________ party provides the necessary
leadership for a revolutionary movement 11 The belief that
everything is a matter of opinion 13 The 13th amendment abolished
slavery except as a __________ for a crime 17 A system of landlords
and serfs 18 Focusing your time on things that give you glory or
that you somehow find personal pleasure in is called what? 19 A
____________ is anything available for sale or exchange 23 Was the
farthest historical advance towards communism (3 words) 25 The only
time it is correct to evaluate a practice in relationship to an idea is
within that _____________. 27 ________ Science positively asserts
that the earth once existed in such a state that no man or any other
creature existed or could have existed on it 28 Where it does
impose repression, the ruling class may gain the popular support of the
bourgeoisified workers in favor of what? (3 words) 29 A practical
matter of fact way of approaching or assessing situations or solving
problems 30 Under this the state nominally owns the means of
production 32 Organizing societies according to peoples’ needs
33 Love of one’s country 34 The group that pays others less than
the value of their work therefore making a profit off of them 37
The appropriation of surplus labor from workers by capitalists 38
At one time was a state capitalist country 44 They often believe in
a kinder, gentler capitalism 47 Before his death Mao said he only
wanted to be remembered as a what? 48 A major part of the
imperialist state used to prevent self-determination of oppressed
nations. (2 words) 49 __________ is a crucial issue for all serious
revolutionaries that has recently received popular attention following
the release of information by an NSA whistle-blower 50 To believe
in ________ is to believe in mysticism. 51 The class of people who
own enough property that they would not have to work to make a living
53 The highest stage of capitalism 54 The system under which
non-workers control the production of wage workers 55 This class is
rarely employed, often living as parasites on other proletarians 56
The dominance of one group over others
DOWN
1 A pig is
a __________ officer 2 Developed the theory that a new bourgeoisie
develops within the Party during socialism 3 The knowledge and
application of knowledge on how to get from A to B the fastest 5
The most advanced stage of the science of revolution to date 7
Belief in one’s own group being superior or of higher priority 8
_______ is a group of people defined by their relations to the means of
production and their relationship to other people 9 A made up
classification of people into groups to justify oppression through ideas
of inferiority 12 Working class that benefits from the imperialist
world’s super exploitation of the Third World. 14 The Amerikan
government has been promoting _______ _____ ________ politics for
decades 15 The ____ - ______ refers to people who are exploiters
but also must work 16 The belief in, or promotion of, ideas without
basis in fact or without depth 20 Once labor is done 21 Marx
said capitalism will ___________ solutions to homelessness, hunger,
illness, pollution, and war. 22 Rashid wrote the “Don’t ______ the
Guards” handbook 24 When _______ fails it is the fault of the
vanguard party 26 Democratic _______ is a key question of
organizational strategy that helps to ensure both the security of the
organization and the appropriate application of the scientific method in
testing out line and strategy across the organization 29 The
majority of the world’s ______ have a material interest in revolution.
30 Extra profits derived from workers paid less than what is
necessary to reproduce their labor (ie. feed their children) 31
Abolition of power of people over people 35 A concept based in
reality that is defined by a group’s land, language, culture and economy
36 Who got Russia out of World War I? 39 This type of persyn
commonly downplays class struggle and overplays the struggle to increase
production and technical progress compared with political views. 40
The ____________ originated in the industrial revolution which took
place in England in the last half of the 18th century 41 They are
free to sell their labor power (see 40 down) 42 The arrest of this
group in China marked the restoration of capitalism. 43 _________
are imprisoned at rates 10 times those of whites for drug charges.
45 The condition of anorexia is a manifestation of gender __________
46 An ideology based on pre-scientific thinking 52 ___ ____
culture is a more promising battle ground for the oppressed today than
Egyptology or even kwanzaa.
The Butler portrays the life of Cecil Gaines, a butler in the
White House for 34 years, starting in 1957. The movie is a fictionalized
version of the story of Gene Allen’s life. MIM(Prisons) sums up this
movie as propaganda to quell the just anger of the oppressed nation
masses, encouraging them to work within the system for small changes.
The focus of the movie is on the oppression of New Afrikans from the
1950s to the year 2008, dividing its focus between the White House and
the successive Presidents, and the activists in the streets. In the
streets the movie gives special focus to the Freedom Riders and Martin
Luther King Jr. The movie derides the most important political leaders
of the time, barely mentioning Malcolm X, and attempting to portray the
Black Panther Party (BPP) as a brutally violent movement out to kill
whites, just using the community service programs like free breakfast
for school children as a cover.
The heroes of the movie include Gaines’s son, Louis, who participates in
the civil rights and activist movements over the years and eventually
“learns” that the best way forward is to push for change from within,
and runs for Congress. We see his dedication as a Freedom Rider, and
fierce commitment to freedom and justice, as Louis literally puts his
life on the line, enduring brutal beatings, repeated imprisonments, and
constant threat of death. Louis moves on to work with Martin Luther King
Jr. in a highly praised non-violent movement, and then joins the BPP
after King is killed. Louis turns from an articulate and brave youth
into a kid spouting revolutionary platitudes that he doesn’t seem to
understand, making the BPP into a mockery of what it really represented.
The other heroes of the movie are the U.$. Presidents. With the
exception of Nixon, who is portrayed as a drunk, all the other
Presidents are humanized and made to appear appropriately sympathetic
with the civil rights movement. While they all are shown saying things
clearly offensive, racist, and in favor of national oppression, each
President has a moment of redemption. John F. Kennedy tells Gaines that
it is Gaines’s persynal history and the story of his son’s activism that
changed his mind on the need for the civil rights movement. Even Ronald
Reagan is shown secretly sending cash to people who write to him about
their financial problems, and telling Gaines that he’s sometimes worried
that he’s on the wrong side of the civil rights movement. On a positive
note, all of the Presidents were shown as reticent to take any positive
action towards change until the popular movement forced them to act.
This is the reality of any oppressor class.
Gaines does, in the end, come to the realization that real change was
not going to come from the White House, and quits his job to join his
son in activism in the streets. But this action is played up to be as
much an attempt to reconcile his relationship with his son, as a
dedication to activism itself. And the activism seems to end with just
one protest. In the end, both Cecil and Louis celebrate the “victory” of
Obama in the 2008 election as a sign that their battle is finally over.
The Butler does a good job of portraying the Civil Rights
movement of the 1950s and 60s, but only as a minor part of the plot. And
it ultimately suggests that New Afrikans should be satisfied with an
imperialist lackey in the White House as a representation of their
success and equality with whites. It fits into a group of recent movies
that Hollywood has produced, such as Lincoln and
12
Years a Slave, to rewrite Amerikan history to quell the
contradiction between the oppressor nation and the New Afrikan internal
semi-colony.
Much has been said recently about the overtly racist remarks made by one
of the contestants on the “Big Brother” reality show. Viewers were
shocked at the nerve of some of the show’s participants, not only in the
fact that they would say such things, but in the contestants’ blatantly
unapologetic attitude afterwards. After all, this is the 21st century,
and according to some, we have moved beyond those inconsistencies in
Amerika’s past which had previously kept her from fulfilling the promise
of its ethos. Most Amerikans (white people in particular) like to
believe that although things like slavery and segregation are all a part
of our nasty past we should all just forget and move on from this
shameful hystory. Surely the United $tates has made great strides when
it comes to “race relations,” and Amerikans of all colors have never
experienced a more collective prosperity than they do today, never mind
the previously unthinkable: a Black man in the White House.
So why then does racism continue to exist? More importantly, how do we
eradicate it? To properly answer these questions we must take it back to
where it all began, and for this we’ll have to revisit some ugly truths.
Origins of Racism: Connections to Capitalism
People forget that Amerika is a nation of settlers founded on genocide,
slavery and annexation. This oppressive nation-building formula includes
the more subtle forms of national oppression and the many different ways
they are institutionalized and manifested in our society. One
particularly malevolent form of national oppression, which most of us
are all too familiar with, is of course racism and the more pernicious
racial ideology from which it stems. But racism isn’t simply some
oppressive philosophical dogma utterly disconnected from the real world.
Rather, racism and racial ideologies are direct products of national
oppression, which is engendered by society based on property relations
and the division of labor produced therein, which in turn has influenced
how humyn beings have come to interact with each other in the struggle
between the global “haves” and “have nots.” In short, racism has not
been around forever. As a matter of fact, the very concept of “race”
didn’t even exist prior to the 16th century. Racism and racial
ideologies have only been around so long as capitalism itself has been
around. The concept of “race” developed alongside the rise of modern
society and not as usually believed as a remnant of the irrational and
dark Middle Ages. What’s more, the concept of “race” has been directly
linked back to the primitive accumulation phase of capitalism, which is
itself grounded in the first rape and plunder of Africa and the
Americas. This primitive accumulation phase is clearly explained by
radical eco-feminist and author Maria Mies when she stated that:
“Before the capitalist mode of production could establish and maintain
itself as a process of extended reproduction of capital - driven by the
motor of surplus value production - enough capital had to be accumulated
to start this process. The capital was largely accumulated in the
colonies between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Most of the
capital was not accumulated by merchant capitalists but largely by way
of brigandage, piracy, forced and slave labor.”(1) And furthermore, “One
could say that the first phase of the primitive accumulation was that of
merchant and commercial capital ruthlessly plundering and exploiting the
colonies’ human and natural wealth…”(1)
What should be kept in mind here is that as feudalism disintegrated
and capitalism came on the scene the common people, the peasants and the
soldiers, needed to be reassured that what they were doing to the people
of the colonies was not only in the beneficiary population’s interest
but the interest of the colonized as well. The European masses also
needed to be taught that the colonized were less than humyn so as to
discourage any feelings of solidarity amongst the oppressed. Hence, the
racial ideology was borne, which wasn’t just about the innate ignorance
and stupidity of the colonized, but of their innate treacherousness and
savagery as well.
Examples of Racism in National Oppression, Yesterday and Today
Racism as a building block for the rise of the modern western world was
as indispensable for that society as it is to the continuing subjugation
of nations and the integrity of the First World today. Testimony to this
is the way that the people of Islam have been demonized as “dark” and
“backward” by the “civilized” west who sees itself as “exceptional.”
Thus the role that racism has played in gaining public support for the
current wars of conquest is undeniable. One need only examine how
Muslims, who were Amerikan citizens, were vilified and attacked by
settler violence following the retaliatory attack on the World Trade
Center and the Pentagon under the guise of “Amerikan Patriotism.” The
conscious connection of these actions to the collective white history of
colonialism in Africa is manifested in the term “sand nigger.” What this
“Amerikan Patriotism” really translates into is a special brand of
oppressor nation chauvinism, and a vehicle for white power in the 21st
century. It is particularly popular and appealing to Latin@s and New
Afrikans who think they can fully integrate into Amerika by becoming
agents of imperialism and uniting with the oppressor against the people
of the Third World.
Therefore the revolutionary character of militant Islam, seen when it is
waging war for the independence of Muslims from U.$. imperialism, should
be supported by the oppressed nation lumpen as it is objectively an
anti-imperialist struggle despite the reactionary views of those leading
the struggles, whether it’s Al Qaeda or Bashar al-Assad and their
associates, for it weakens, disintegrates and undermines imperialism.
The struggle of the West and their “democratic” running dogs in the
region strengthen the victory of imperialism. Real communists know that
there are only two sides to a battle, therefore it is our duty to unite
all who can be united in the camp of the oppressed and build a United
Front against the imperialists and their racist backers! In his day,
Stalin had to combat those promoting a “third way” between the socialist
camp and the imperialists, pointing out that those who broke away from
the Soviet Union inherently joined the imperialist system, becoming
victims of it. The lack of a socialist camp today does not change the
bankruptcy of the third-way idealists. Revisionists today point to the
forces waging war in the Middle East and call them the “Two Outmodeds”
and are peddling a third way out for the oppressed. However, this third
way out is itself reactionary and anti-revolutionary, and if upheld will
in fact reinforce the very same imperialist structure it pretends to be
against, by weakening national unity of the oppressed. This is one
lesson we take from the theory and practice of United Front in the
Chinese war of liberation against Japan.
Racism as Pseudo-Science and Glossing Over of the National Question
Purveyors of racial ideology fancy themselves as being backed by
science, and indeed there is a “science” to racism, it’s called eugenics
and it stresses the genetic makeup of people as determinant of their
“natural” abilities and inclinations. Eugenics was developed as
justification for the oppression and enslavement of non-white people and
outlaws alike. It was, however, thoroughly criticized and debunked by
the wider scientific community for, among other things, not being an
objective and quantifiable method of analysis of the humyn species.
While most people today have hardly heard of eugenics it was certainly
popular back when England had stretched the tentacles of the British
empire (forerunner to U.$. imperialism) all over the Third World, while
here in Amerika the slave owning south was likewise using it for the
continuing oppression and enslavement of the New Afrikan nation.
The lack of scientific relationship to biology since there is only the
human race.
The creation of categories of inferior and superior based on arbitrary
characteristics and definitions.
The creation and perpetuation of a system of oppression of the
“inferior” group in all aspects.
The re-enforcement of a relative differential in treatment - and it’s
ideological justification between those considered inferior and those
considered superior.
The use of race as a principal means for social control.
Rendering irrelevant the experience and viewpoint of the subordinated
population except and insofar as interpreted by dominant populations.
This specifically has been applied to African descendants, Indigenous
peoples, Asians, and Latinos, those usually referred to as “people of
color.”(2)
Author Bill Fletcher, to whom the above is attributed, explains:
“Race is, then, not a state of mind, but a socio-political reality. Even
though there is no scientific basis for race, it occupies a real space
and the institutions of the racial-capitalist society reinforce this
reality every day.”(2)
We’d also add that the false concept of “race” is a social construct
originally based on power struggles between humyns in the pre-capitalist
era of slavery, and it has done much to gloss over the fact that the
oppressed internal nations of Chican@s and New Afrikans are separate
nations from the Amerikan nation (white settler-state), with separate
hystories distinctly their own. Therefore we speak of nations and
nationalities where most people speak of “race,” in order to refer to a
group of people who share a common language, culture, territory and
economy. The concept of nations is thus more accountable to hystory and
is firmly grounded in material reality. (See “Marxism and the National
Question” by J.V. Stalin.)
Methods for Resolving the Principal Contradiction
Despite the fact that the concept of race has been repeatedly disproven,
proponents of racial ideology and the national oppression it engenders
(and vice versa) hold steady to their un-scientific beliefs. And to a
certain extent this is fine. They have their beliefs and prejudices, but
we have science! We know where they stand and we know that the oppressed
people of the world will not sit idly by but will take up armed struggle
against the imperialists to impose the will of the people on today’s
oppressor nations. What isn’t fine however are the so-called allies of
the oppressed nations within the Amerikan “Left” who mistakenly call
themselves communist yet go about espousing the concept of “race.”
Whether they are speaking about the common cause of all the “races” that
are equally oppressed by capitalism-imperialism, or whether they are
agitating around the “race issue” here in Amerika, they’re of no great
help. They are immediately caught in the irrevocable trap of idealism,
and that is no attitude for a communist to have. First, these idealists
objectively hurt the revolutionary movement within U.$. borders by
elevating the problem of “race” to that of principal contradiction when
in fact there is no problem of race. There is a problem of imperialism
and national oppression. Secondly, they deny that the principal
contradiction is imperialism vs. the oppressed nations by emphatically
denying that there are any other nations in the United $tates besides
Amerika. Some have opportunistically come to acknowledge New Afrika,
while denying other nations’ existence, not because they are dialectical
materialists, but because they’re focused on pulling numbers to their
side. Lastly, by denying the concept of nations and national liberation
and instead focusing on multi-racial unity they deny the theories and
practice of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin and Mao, as well as the
revolutionary movements they spearheaded and the many national
liberation movements that followed in their traditions.
Racism in the United $tates or any other place in the world will not be
wiped from the earth solely by educating it out of existence, but by
getting rid of the many material conditions and relations from which it
springs. Racism is a product of national oppression, hence we must focus
on uniting the oppressed nations for their own liberation from this
jailhouse of nations that is the United $tates. Only then will we
seriously be able to talk about combatting racism as a backward idea
from another period of history.
by a North Carolina prisoner October 2013 permalink
The imperialists hide their flaws By sewing our mouths shut in a web
of their laws Bury the real history by censoring the library As
long as we follow we will never be free Kidnap our children and
destroy our communities They will never be able to burn all of the
books The truth is there for those who look Knowledge is something
that no tyrant ever took Follow the signs, read between the lines,
uncover their designs That keep our minds in these
confines Separate the truth from the lies Remove these blinders
from our eyes It’s time to wake up Time to get up, to stand
up Let us all rise up The sleeping giant to overthrow the tyrants
in a spirit of defiance With conviction, separate fact from
fiction Spread our wings and bow to no kings Empower the masses to
kill the fascists and destroy all classes Together we stand, divided
we fall Walk tall because life in a cell is no life at all And I
refuse to die inside these walls Duty calls When they say cease
and desist We say rise and resist
“Once again we are presented with a campaign to end third world poverty
and oppression that is incapable of confronting the roots of this
oppression because it is bound up in the cycle it pretends to
critique.”(1)
I couldn’t of put it better myself as those are the exact same
sentiments/thoughts that went through my head as I watched Girl
Rising, the highly touted new documentary film that is concerned
with drawing attention to, and putting a stop to the oppression of young
girls in the “developing world.”
Now, being that this special aired on the info-tainment CNN television
station I decided to watch to see just how exactly cable TV would handle
this topic. Predictably enough, CNN and their NGO partners (Non
Governmental Organizations) show us what most anti-imperialists are
already aware of: that most wimmin and girls in the Third World suffer
at exponentially higher rates than their First World counterparts.
Beyond that however, the film didn’t really make any poignant statements
relative to the emancipation of wimmin, neither did they explain to us
how these girls are supposed to rise, despite the film’s name. Instead,
the film-makers, the so-called NGOs, and the corporate sponsors they are
both in bed with, used the children depicted in the film as a way to
launch yet another offensive at the supposedly backwards culture of the
oppressed. The take away? “Just look at how miserable these girls in the
Third World are, look at how they suffer.” The reason? Backwards,
internal development, lack of First World ingenuity and innovation, and
the reactionary culture of the global south. And the answer? Immediate
imperialist intervention whether by bullion or by bullet.
Girl Rising is a movie centered around the life experiences of
five Third World girls whose stories are told to us in order to garner
much-needed attention to the endemic problem of gross patriarchal
oppression in the periphery. Yet the patriarchy is never even referred
to. Furthermore, the film leaves one with a rather pessimistic outlook
for girls in the impoverished zones absent a western-style bourgeois
democracy. And indeed, it would seem then that this documentary was
designed just to induce such feelings. Conveniently enough this film
fails to mention just how the oppressor of wimmin and girls in these
countries is not mere happenstance, but systematic and directly linked
to the uneven development of Asia, Africa and Latin America. Nor does it
mention that the systematic oppression of young children in these
societies (as the ones featured in Girl Rising) are a permanent
fixture and of complete necessity for the ongoing parasitic privilege of
beneficiary populations such as the United $tates. The perpetuation of
capitalism in these countries, and the finance capital that is sent
there and dressed in the veneer of “aid,” is part and parcel of keeping
these nations from developing self-sufficient economies independent of
the global status quo.
Almost every other commercial during this two hour presentation is from
some imperialist multi-national bragging about what they do for Third
World wimmin and girls, when in reality all they are doing is
commodifying these girls’ oppression. Capital One, BNY Wealth Management
and Intel all had their greedy hands in the cookie jar. Here’s a perfect
example: During an Intel commercial that aired during the movie, a
narrative states: “A girl is not defined by what society sees, but how
she sees herself.” Now, besides the obvious commercialization of its
product, Intel is just flat out wrong because, while that sweet
philosophical statement holds some truth here in the United $tates where
wimmin have “rights” (privileges) and know how to have them enforced, it
is a completely different story in the Third World where the gender
roles are not the same and are directly dependent on capital.
Amerika maintains the image that they are the gold standard when it
comes to gender relations, just as they maintain the gold standard when
it comes to how they treat their workers. Point in fact, the very first
commercial during the film is brought to us by a feminine hygiene
product maker depicting their version of how they see girls rising in
the periphery. They show us how they make an African girl’s dream come
true by giving her the chance to direct a commercial for the day. Surely
this dream is not reflective of the billions of Third World girls
currently toiling under the weight of comprador regimes, death squads,
sexual slavery, feudalistic landlords, and assembly line sweatshops. No,
from the looks of this girl it is the dream of a privileged sector child
whose parents might very well be a part of the technocratic
petty-bourgeois intelligentsia of this much hyped “developing world.” A
far cry from the realities of the lives depicted in the film.
From little Wadley in disease ridden and underdeveloped Haiti, whose
dream is to be able to attend school with her mates, but who is
unfortunately unable to because her mother just doesn’t have the money.
Or Zuma in Nepal who was sold into slavery as a child, was liberated
from her abusive masters by a teacher and now as a young adult organizes
other girls to liberate those still held in captivity. Yazmin in Egypt
who is no more than nine but is raped by some scumbag and then refused
help from the police because the chance of prosecution is little to
none. Azmera in Eritrea who narrowly escapes a life in bondage, and
Senna in Peru whose life seems doomed to mining for scraps of gold. All
these lives and their portrayal in Girl Rising are but glimpses
into the real yoke of imperialist oppression.
We are constantly told that the mode of production called capitalism is
the best humynity has to offer, and that a capitalist economy has
already been proven superior to socialism, yet whenever the mode of
production has been revolutionized and a socialist economy has been put
into effect the people of those societies have seen a tremendous growth
in the overall well being of their populations. This is most notably
true for wimmin who’ve been immediately pulled out of their traditional
roles as housewives and mothers and thrown directly into the production
process, in which they help their nation create not only sustainability
but wealth (in particular see socialist
China
and the USSR). The conditions created by wimmin’s participation in the
production process likewise creates the condition for participation in
the political process where they assume power utilizing revolutionary
politics to push people out of the middle and dark ages and into the New
Democratic period in which the people truly hold power.
Certainly wherever socialism has triumphed it has been only as a direct
result of wimmin’s role and participation as guerrilla warriors,
battalion captains and proletarian-feminist leaders in liberating her
nation from not only the imperialists but the patriarchy; as only by
defeating the one can she defeat the other.
The liberation of wimmin is not accomplished via equal pay for equal
work nor by the granting of “abortion on demand” as these are really
only
privileges
given to the gender aristocracy for their allegiance to empire.
Instead of advocating for more privileges that are contingent on the
backs of their Third World “sisters,” the NGOs and the
First
World pseudo-feminists at the helm of such propaganda like Girl
Rising and the “Because I am a Girl” campaign(1) should all aim
their guns at the imperialist rape and plunder of the periphery that
makes it possible for the First World pseudo-feminists to have “abortion
on demand” and equal pay for equal work! Real feminist leadership can
only come from the proletarian perspective and not from First World
wimmin who are really just globally gendered males who have a real
material interest in holding up the global system of oppression and
exploitation.(2)
“If this campaign actually wants to change ‘the plight’ of girls then it
should endorse wimmin’s militias and factory takeovers on the part of
women and girls. Such a revolutionary agenda, though, would put it at
odds with its corporate sponsors and so, like every NGO, it will remain
caught within an imperialist framework.”(1)
Liberation of the neo-colonies from the patriarchal grips of the
imperialists will set wimmin free in the global countryside; not charity
from the imperialist centers.
This is a movie version of the famous Broadway musical championing the
poor in early 19th century France. The plot centers on a prisoner,
locked up for stealing some bread to save his sister’s son, who served
18 years for this “crime.” Jean Valjean is unable to make a life for
himself after finally being released from prison, and is persecuted by
the specter of parole for the rest of his life. He sometimes seems to be
on the path to leading a selfless life, helping others, something he
decides to do after divine intervention from the Church. But ultimately
we find Valjean pursuing capitalist success due to his individualist
beliefs, presumably learned from the Church that helped endow him with
faith in life.
The French class struggle against monarchy and feudalism features
prominently in the movie, featuring a young man who is inspired to fight
for the people, but who is then distracted by his love for a girl he has
seen only once. This girl is under the care of the former-prisoner,
Valjean, who took her in as an act of charity. The revolutionary youth
contemplates abandoning the revolutionary cause for love, but when the
girl disappears he decides he has nothing to live for and so may as well
fight for revolution. This is not a particularly inspiring message for
revolutionaries: we should not be making decisions about devoting our
lives to the people only as a last resort when our first choice of
romance becomes unobtainable.
Valjean ends up in a position where he decides the fate of his former
prison-master, now a policeman, the man who has been pursuing him ever
since he broke parole. And he frees the man, in what we take as an act
of religious good will. The policeman later catches up with the prisoner
and lets him go free in return. This whole series of events, along with
the early intervention of the Church in Valjean’s decisions create a
major subplot in the movie devoted to an individualist debate over
morals.
As for the French revolutionaries, they are a caricature of activists,
with a fervently devoted leader, a key participant stuck in the debate
over politics vs. love, and one young kid who nobly stands up for the
people. This is a cruel minimization of the ideals of the class
struggle, which was led by the then progressive emerging bourgeois
class, but included the masses of workers and peasants in opposing the
continued rule of the monarchy following the French Revolution. The
young man in love with the former-prisoner’s daughter is saved, for
love, while other revolutionaries are killed. The saved revolutionary
easily leaves the struggle and his fallen comrades behind when given the
woman of his dreams.
Ultimately the message of this movie is that loving an individual and
having pure Church-supported morals, is the liberation of people.
Inspirational visions of the struggle as a success at the end revive all
the dead people, as if history can be changed with just a bit of love
and individualism.
Here’s a movie with a good-vibe attitude, very chillback, and the viewer
will get a sense that there’s not a problem in the world. However, the
truth is far from this.
The setting of the movie deals with a womyn in her early 20s who gets
involved in college by her petit-bourgeoisie father, who is a professor
at the university. Her name is Beca and she likes to DJ and make music.
Not willing to participate in any campus activities, her father gives
her an ultimatum of trying an activity and if that doesn’t work out
he’ll pay her way to LA to “pay her dues” as an upcoming DJ.
She tries out for the a capella singing group, and to her surprise is
delighted by the mix of wimmin she finds herself with. Not really one
who had friends, this movie is a good example of the stress capitalist
society puts on individuals to “become” something and “fit-in”.
While dealing with competitions Beca also confronts her sexuality by a
man she becomes friends with named Jessie. Beca doesn’t know how to
“open up” and let her “guard down,” but in a world dominated by
patriarchy one can’t blame her for closing herself to the world.
During most parts of the movie a lot of music gets played while side
stepping the backwardness of some of the movie’s song lyrics. It’s
important to note that culture helps shape peoples’ ideology.
Revolutionaries should not ignore how important music is to bringing in
people to the cause. In other words, music is a great avenue for not
only propaganda but also proselytizing. As
MIM Theory 13:
Culture in Revolution puts it, work should be done to comb through
the culture of capitalism, knowing when to “leave hair intact or cut it
off,” to use this metaphor.
The good thing about this movie is that it shows an outsider coming in
to change, and do away with, “traditional” ways of doing things, and
shaking things up. On the other hand, as stated in the beginning, the
audience will come out with the conception that everything is dandy and
to attain one’s happiness is the acme of success. This movie is a great
example of how music has the power of influence, and more revolutionary
culture should blossom to overcome the moribund culture this parasitic
society in the United $tates spills out.
I want to comment on your article
“Soulja
Boy Dissed by Amerikan Rappers,” featured in ULK22. Personally it is
a grave disappointment to witness what hip hop has morphed into. We went
from “Fuck da Police” and “Don’t Believe da Hype” to “A Milli” and “Arab
Money.” Ironically the vast majority of the people that these modern day
braggarts grew up around don’t even have U.S. middle-class money, let
alone “Arab Money.”
Modern day hip hop artists seem unable and/or unwilling to move beyond
this brag-about-my-wealth style of rap. Of course there’s exceptions to
this but in general there’s no longer any social consciousness or depth
to the lyrics of these mainstream hip hop artists. I’m no hater and I
love to see people prosper and enjoy life but an album has to go beyond
an artist detailing his or her good fortunes, to really have merit.
But pertaining specifically to the article, is it any real surprise that
these artists ostracize an associate for something as simple as speaking
his mind? The one main thing that the Black nation has been consistently
good at throughout the years is attacking one another and embracing
division, internal division.
Additionally all, or most of, the major hip hop artists are personally
benefiting from the current system and establishment so naturally they
stay in tune with it. They don’t care that the overwhelming majority of
people who look like them have been systematically discriminated against
and oppressed from the very origin of this racist and corrupt country.
The Hollywood set of the Black nation, which most of these hip hop
artists integrate to, would sell their mothers and sisters for the
crumbs their “massa” throws to them.
In part it goes all the way back to their forefather’s house, which is
Uncle Tom’s cabin. A place where anybody who opposes “massa” is the
enemy. And these descendants of Uncle Tom are the same today, they will
go the extra mile, extra 1,000 miles, to protect their imperialists
masters’ interests; chiefly because they perceive some sort of shared
interests and maybe even camaraderie.
Many people, even some in the underprivileged class, accept and embrace
the glaring inconsistencies and contradictions which permeates U.$.
society. They willfully embrace the lie that the establishment means
good for them and the rest of the world, and when they’re being pacified
with their “Arab-Money” there’s little chance they’ll think any
different.
MIM(Prisons) responds: While we share this comrade’s dismay at
the current state of politics from major hip hop artists, we don’t see
them as quite so isolated in their benefits from the current system.
While the New Afrikan nation certainly faces ongoing national oppression
within U.$. borders, they also enjoy the wealth of an imperialist
country and can see that they are better off than the majority of the
world’s people. The vast majority of U.$. citizens, regardless of
nation, are earning more than the value of their labor and are part of
the labor aristocracy. So in a way, hip hop artists who speak about
their good fortune, do represent something real to their audience, even
if their level of wealth is unattainable for most of their listeners.
And the shared interests with the imperialists are real: the wealth of
the labor aristocracy is won from the exploitation of the Third World.
This movie is a revival of the Marvel comic characters that have been
part of the media propaganda for generations. It was another case of
white superheros saving the world from villains. What’s a little
different in this movie is the pseryn calling the shots for the unit of
superheroes, the Director, is Black.
The Director is the commander of The Avengers which is a group of six
superheroes. The Director is advised by a shadowy group called “The
Counsel.” The Counsel is a group whose faces are always in the shadows
but they are men and wimmin who are dressed in business suits and so
they obviously represent the ruling class from the boardroom.
The Superheroes include the Hulk, Captain Amerika, Thor, Stark, Black
Widow and Hawkeye. These six Avengers are dispersed all over the world
living their lives when these assassins are activated by the Amerikan
government.
The premise is that aliens invade Amerika so the Avengers are called to
save the country. Amerika is harnessing energy from space at a top
secret laboratory called “joint dark energy” where a portal is created
that opens into the other side of space. It is through this portal that
Amerikans seek to exploit resources from space, but instead a white man
known as Loki comes through the portal. (Loki by the way is a word from
a First Nation language). Loki in this movie is the villain.
This film is set in New York City and has a lot of shooting and blowing
up buildings in it. The one female superhero, Black Widow, is a spy of
Russian descent now working for Amerika. She is of course highly
sexualized and starts off in a skirt beating up a few men.
At one point Loki shape shifts into a viking-like persyn and has a crowd
of people kneel in front of him while he declares rather arrogantly that
humanity was “made to be ruled, in the end you will always kneel!” Loki
is portrayed as an alien with a British accent who wants to rule Earth,
but it turns out Loki and Thor are brothers, in a classic case of
inter-imperialist rivalry fighting over resources that are not theirs.
The aliens invade Earth for a war that takes place in New York City that
has the six Avengers fighting a whole army of space aliens with captain
Amerika at the forefront. It’s interesting to see Captain Amerika
brought back to the movies, originally Captain Amerika was a comic
character used during World War II as a propaganda tool that showed
Amerika saving the world. Created in 1940 the Captain America comic book
initially had him fighting Hitler. More recently, starting in 2005,
Marvel Comics has turned Captain Amerika and its other superheros to
participating in Amerika’s modern wars. During this time Marvel Comics
even created a series of comic books specially for U.$. soldiers in the
Middle East, so the use of comic book characters for the advancement of
imperialist interests is nothing new as this has been going on for
decades.
At one point in the movie The Counsel asks the Director to nuke New York
City, arguing that this is the only way to save earth, but the Director
refuses and the battle continues. The battle has many “foreign”
aircrafts flying into skyscrapers, an obvious allusion to the twin
towers getting destroyed. The movie ends with a nuke being shot into New
York City but it is intercepted by one of the superheroes named Stark
who is also a millionaire who changes into a robotic superhero at will.
Stark grabs the nuke and flies it into space, saving New York City. So
it was finally delivered - a millionaire capitalist superhero saved the
world, and so The Avengers plays out as a classic Amerikan
propaganda film. One thing this movie did get right is there will be a
final battle and Amerika will be one of the participants but the
fighting army won’t come from outer space, rather the fighting army will
be the oppressed on the ground and the result will be much different for
the oppressor.
This movie claims to chronicle the decade-long hunt for Osama bin Laden
after the September 2001 attack, culminating in his death in May 2011.
This is a hollywood film, so we can’t expect an accurate documentary.
But that doesn’t really matter since the movie will represent what
Amerikans think of when they picture the CIA’s work in the Middle East.
And what they get is a propaganda film glorifying Amerikan torture of
prisoners, and depicting Pakistani people as violent and generally
pretty stupid. From start to finish there is nothing of value in this
movie, and a lot of harmful and misleading propaganda. The main message
that revolutionaries should take from it revolves around government
information gathering. From tracking phones to networks of people
watching and following individuals, the government has extensive and
sophisticated techniques at their disposal, and even the most cautious
will have a very hard time avoiding even a small amount of government
surveillance.
The plot focuses almost exclusively on a CIA agent, “Maya,” who devoted
her career to finding clues to Osama bin Laden’s whereabouts. Early in
the film there are a lot of graphic scenes of prisoners being tortured
to get information, including waterboarding, beatings, cages, and food
and sleep deprivation. Maya is bothered by the torture initially, but
quickly adapts and joins in the interrogations. The movie is very
pro-torture, showing critical information coming from every single
tortured prisoner, ignoring the fact that so many prisoners held in
Amerikan detention facilities after 9/11 were never charged, committed
no crimes, and had no information. Throughout the film there are
constant digs against Obama’s ban on torture as a method of extracting
information in 2009. Ironically, in the movie the CIA still found Osama
bin Laden, using no torture after the ban. But we’re left understanding
that it would have been much easier if the CIA still had free reign with
prisoners.
Although Zero Dark Thirty portrays Obama as soft on terror and
a hindrance to the CIA’s work, we should not be fooled into thinking
that the U.$. government has really ended the use of torture. While we
have no clear information about what goes on in interrogation cells in
other countries, we know that right here in U.$. prisons, torture is
used daily. And this domestic torture is usually not even focused on
getting information, it’s either sadistic entertainment for prison staff
or punishment for political organizing. In one example of this, a USW
comrade who wrote about
Amerikan
prison control units died shortly after his article was printed,
under suspicious circumstances in Attica Correctional Facility.
Banning certain interrogation techniques, even if that ban is actually
enforced in the Third World, is just an attempt to put makeup on the
hideous face of imperialism. Even if no Amerikan citizen ever practices
torture on Third World peoples (something we know isn’t true), the fact
is that the United $tates prefers to pay proxies to carry out its dirty
work anyway. Torture, military actions, rape, theft, etc., can all be
done at a safe distance by paying neo-colonial armies and groups to work
on behalf of the Amerikan government.
Whether actions are carried out by Navy SEALs, CIA agents, or proxy
armies and individuals, Amerikan imperialism is working hard to keep the
majority of the world’s people under control and available for
exploitation. The death of bin Laden is portrayed as a big victory in
Zero Dark Thirty, but for the majority of the world’s people
this was just one more example of Amerikan militarism, a system that
works against the material interests of most people in the world.