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.
The Economics of Integrity By Anna Bernasek Harper Collins
Publishers NY (2010) 195pp
This book is a perfect example of a culture obsessed with
subjectivism and idealist philosophies. The book demonstrates the lack
of integrity of people (bankers, stock brokers, etc.), claiming that it
was the main reason the economy crashed in 2008.
In the prologue we read: “my father, a native of Czechoslovakia, risked
his life to escape from communism in 1949…”(p3) Here we go again with
the vilifying of communism well past the “cold war.” The author even
points to the subjectivism and individualism mentioned above, saying
“This book pays tribute to the spirit of this nation, a spirit of
optimism and idealism.”(p3) And no wonder, a nation that’s imperialist
would send the message to its parasites that there would be food for
all, just wait till we steal it from Third World, poor, semi-colonial
nations!
One would expect that with economics in it, some portion of this book
would discuss political economy. Not the case here, but with vulgar
economics the author separates the political from the economy, when in
fact the two are intertwined. Instead we are told “to be true to that
spirit [optimism and idealism], my focus isn’t on what went wrong. I am
not primarily concerned with scandals, fraud and cheating.”(p5) Again,
“the economy isn’t some dirty game where all the players are only out
for themselves, trying to make their names and their fortunes.”(p5) Wow!
A guest commentator on CNN, CNBC spewing this bullshit, shouldn’t be a
surprise anyway.
The author basically negates the whole point by saying she is not
concerned on what went wrong. The problem is that the whole damn game
(capitalism) is in for itself. With one company/corporation trying to
maximize their profits how can they not be out for themselves? But with
such phrases as “…integrity unlocks enormous opportunities for wealth
creation…”(p5), and “It is shared assets that make us wealth.”(p13), or
“for without integrity, the economy would not function”(p13), we
shouldn’t expect much of an analysis.
The author goes on to propagate the notion that integrity prompts
companies to profits, not exploitation. She gives examples like milk
production, taking money out of an ATM, Toyota, LL Bean, and banks.
Besides some interesting factoids about these corporations (Of the
world’s official gold holdings (March 2009), Amerika holds 27%, Germany
11%, IMF 11% (p67). The top 3 brands and their wealth is as follows 1)
Coca-cola - 66,667 (U$) 2) IMB-59,031(U$) 3) Microsoft -59,007(U$) (2008
brand values (millions)) (p124).), the book is a joke.
What the author fails to realize is that integrity does not create
wealth in itself. Surplus value is the source of wealth. Not from First
World world workers but from Third World proletarians who are paid less
than the value of their labor for their productive work. Hopefully the
author can come to grips with classes and national oppression more
easily than pseudo vulgarist economy. What this simply amounts to is an
apology for the loss the parasites in the U.$. felt during the
2008
meltdown.
U.$. Militarism saves the day from invading aliens
Here we have a movie (again) of extraterrestrials invading earth and
killing its inhabitants. Meteors fall to earth that are actually complex
life forms. Once again we see jingoism at its best by showcasing the
Marines at the forefront of the fight for freedom and democracy.
Scientists are at a loss to explain why the aliens are here until they
see the water from the ocean receding. This is one thing the movie gets
right when it shows a scientist saying that when a people are colonized
for their resources, the colonizers must kill off/exterminate the
indigenous population. My, are the chickens coming home to roost?
Throughout the movie the director propagates heroism and sacrifice from
the Marines, who in reality are at the front lines of genocide.
This movie has no use besides its sound effects. Perhaps an E.T. can
come and obliterate the bourgeoisie in Amerika. That’ll leave a power
vacuum which we communists would be happy to fill. Another self
promotion is what this movie is, as if Amerika has the solution to the
world’s problems. As a pile of shit walking around telling everybody
they stink, so too does Amerika ignore the fact that it’s the problem.
I have been hearing the hoopla about The Girl with the Dragon
Tattoo for a while now; it recently was made into a movie and so I
thought I would try to find out a little about it. I learned that the
author, Steig Larsson, was a leading expert on right-wing white
extremist and Nazi organizations, and so I thought it would be
interesting to see how much of his “expertise” spilled over into this
“thriller.” Larsson died in 2004 but not before completing a trilogy of
which The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is the first book.
The story starts off with the character Mikael Blomkvist, a journalist
who was convicted of libel after he wrote a story accusing a wealthy
Swedish finance capitalist of corruption. Within the story one character
is explaining the role of a certain investment group to Blomkvist called
AIA which, after the Berlin Wall came down, was active in European
capitalism and the character says: “Believe me, it was a capitalist’s
wet dream. Russia and Eastern Europe may be the world’s biggest untapped
markets after China. Industry had no problem joining hands with the
government especially when the companies were required to put up only a
token investment.”(p26)
Nations that were formerly socialist switched back to a profit-based
system and opened up their markets to foreign investment. In the later
stages of imperialism, where markets are saturated and there is too much
capital to move around, this is in fact a “capitalist’s wet dream” and
corporate power often merges with the state in a carpool lane down the
road of exploitation. This wet dream is one the author seems to
understand quite clearly.
The other main character in the book is a bisexual women named Lisbeth
Salander who is a 20-something white punk rock type who is a hacker and
gifted investigator.
Blomkvist is hired by one of the heads of a Swedish wealthy
industrialist family, Vanger, who wants to know who murdered his niece,
Harriet, who disappeared decades before. The catch is Blomkvist must
live one year on the island from which Harriet disappeared and
investigate. In return Blomkvist would not only receive millions of
dollars for attempting to solve this mystery but the industrialist would
also give Blomkvist information on the finance capitalist which had
Blomkvist convicted of libel, thus getting his personal revenge and
having the biggest story of the year.
Blomkvist soon learns Vanger’s brothers were both active in Swedish
politics, one being a Swedish Nazi Party member and the other being a
nationalist party member, while Vanger claims to have “no interest in
politics.” Vanger went on to study economics ironically.
Sprinkled throughout the book is the underlying subjectivism I was
looking for in Larsson’s writing, any “expert in Nazi extremist” groups
would be expected to expose h ideas in a novel one way or another and
Larsson does not leave us hanging.
He describes an angry email that Blomkvist received, stating: “I hope
you suck cock in the slammer you fucking commie pig” (p190) and which
Blomkvist saves in the “intelligent criticism” folder. A character named
Lobach is described in Nazi Germany: “And Lobach knew how to land a
contract, he was entertaining and good natured. The perfect Nazi.”
(p197) It is obvious where the author’s line lies, for an “expert” on
Nazism to describe a Nazi character as good natured in this book
attempts to repackage these fascist scumbags as palatable to the reader,
it’s classic propaganda in the form of a novel.
At one point the young punk rock woman is raped and forced to perform
oral sex on her “guardian” who is court appointed to handle her
finances. This trustee named Bjurman who rapes her is described as a
member of Greenpeace, Amnesty International, and an advocate for
political prisoners in the Third World. It’s interesting that throughout
the book those who advocated progressive social causes are rapists and
villains while Nazi’s are described as “entertaining and good natured.”
It was this interweaving of the author’s line within a novel in classic
propaganda spirit which I knew I would encounter in this book.
The main character Blomkvist serving two months in jail for the libel
case but does not describe prison conditions nor relations in prison.
His stint in prison was reduced to two pages and was described as mostly
playing poker and lifting weights.
[spoiler alert] It turns out that the brother of the old man who
initiated this investigation in the first place is a serial killer who
has been killing wimmin for decades. And his father was a serial killer
before him and taught him how to kill and dispose of bodies. Blomkvist
discovers this and confronts the culprit, Martin, who places Blomkvist
in a torture chamber in his basement. This reminded me of a Security
Housing Unit cell: it had no window, it was cold and spartan and made of
stone. It is Salander, The girl with the Dragon Tattoo, who saves
Blomkvist from certain death in the torture chamber.
The book is drenched in sexual perversion with a womyn being brutally
raped and sodomized by a man, a man brutally raped and sodomized by a
womyn, a father raping his son and daughter, and this same father
forcing his son to rape his sister. Such a book is common in capitalist
society where everyone is sexualized and the consumer culture is fueled
by porn and capitalist immorality.
In the end Blomkvist and Salander expose a finance capitalist who had
his hand in everything from fraudulent loans to child porn. This
billionaire, after being exposed, fled Sweden and was tracked down and
murdered in Spain. After this story broke Blomkvist regained his
journalist career. And to wrap things up nicely with a fictional bow,
the old man Vanger found his niece Harriet living in Australia after
running away decades before, fleeing rape.
[This article was added to and facts were corrected by the Under
Lock & Key Editor]
Recently, Chicago rapper Lil Reese signed a $30 million contract with
Def Jam to make music. A day or two later he brutally beat down a woman
for verbally disrespecting him. Lil Reese is an affiliate of another
Chicago rapper, Chief Keef, who has also been making a name for himself
for being at the center of controversy around violence in hip hop. A
recent episode of Nightline addressed the fact that at least
419 people have been killed in a dozen neighborhoods in Chicago in 2012,
more than the number of U.$. troops killed in Afghanistan where
resistance to the occupation continues to grow. The program centered
around a sit-down of 38 members of lumpen organizations in Chicago
organized by
Cease
Fire, a group discussed in ULK 25. It also featured a Chief
Keef and Lil Reese video to criticize Keef’s anti-snitching stance.
MTV.com reports that the participants almost unanimously agreed that it
would practically take a miracle to stop the violence.
The misogynistic nature of rap music
has
been analyzed and explored thoroughly. This article is not meant to
downplay the senseless violence against a humyn being, but the “powers
that be” are using the incident with Lil Reese and programs like
Nightline to formulate another sinister plot to target the
oppressed nations in Amerika.
Chicago has had one of its most deadly years in terms of urban gun
violence, and this has been attributed to Chicago street tribes and
lumpen organizations. The Aurora, Colorado movie theater massacre
perpetrated by a man who claimed to be “The Joker” does not generate the
same fear or threat that young Blacks and Latinos in the hood with guns
do. Why is that?
Imperialists are not worried about white males in Amerikkka with guns.
It is the oppressed nations that pose the most realistic threat to the
oppressive imperialistic regime. We have seen the toll that the
so-called “war on drugs” has had on our Black and Latino nations.
Genocide, social control, and mass incarceration of the lumpen
underclass; it’s the Amerikan way! During the presidential debates both
candidates agreed on keeping gun laws the same.
One of the most brutal social control programs is being formulated as we
speak and it will be cloaked in a “war on gun violence.” In truth it
will be a death blow to urban street tribes and lumpen organizations.
President Obama and his Attorney General Eric Holder have pushed for one
of the highest budgets for federal prisons and detention facilities that
we have seen in years. The states are actually reducing their prison
budgets because of the dismal economic conditions, but the feds are
pumping up the volume! A whopping $9 billion dollars has been allocated
for the U.$. Department of Injustice in 2013 for corrections, jails, and
detention facilities. Of that, $6.9 billion has been allocated to the
Federal Bureau of Prisons in 2013, an increase of about 4% in tight
fiscal times.
There is a prison in Thomson, Illinois that had been tagged as the
location where Guantanamo Bay detainees were supposed to be housed after
President Obama closed the barbaric torture chamber in Cuba. However the
Amerikan public balked! They said they did not want these “dangerous
terrorists” housed on Amerikan soil. U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder
still wants to purchase the prison in Thomson, Illinois and change it
into a Super-Max just like the one in Florence, Colorado. 1,400
Ad-Seg/solitary confinement beds for “the worst of the worst” in
Amerikkka. These beds will be for oppressed nations, just like the
solitary confinement cells in prisons across the country.
MIM(Prisons) has reported extensively on the use of
control
units as a tool of social control. These torture units are used to
target political organizers and leaders of oppressed nations who are
seen as a particular threat to the imperialist system. We have been
collecting
statistics on these control units for years, because the isolation
cells are often hidden within other prisons and no consistent
information is kept on this pervasive torture within Amerika. We invite
prisoners to write to us for a survey about control units in their state
to contribute to this important documentation project.
For those facing violent conditions in Chicago or elsewhere who turn to
despair, remember that there are many who come from the streets of that
very city, from the Black Panthers to lumpen organizations, who have
taken positive paths. If it weren’t for the interference of white media
and the police, things would be different now. Ultimately solutions to
those problems must come from the people involved who don’t want to be
living like that, no matter how they brag about being tough in a rap.
The way out may not be obvious, but things are always in a state of
change. And when it comes to humyn society, it is up to humyns what that
change looks like. Struggle ain’t easy, but it is the only way if you
have ideals that contradict with the current society under imperialism.
The Mob gets protest chic in their most controversial performance.
Step Up: Revolution centers around a dance crew called The
Mob that is based in a “slum” of Miami, though has recruited members
from all over the world. Their “slum” origins are questionable as they
all have bodies of professional athletes and dress like models. And
while The Mob always has the resources for the most fantastic props for
their performances, we never see any signs of poverty or oppressive
conditions in their neighborhood, except for almost being displaced by a
development project. Like the billboards for this movie suggest, there
is a focus on the forbidden love story between Mob co-founder Sean and
daughter of the rich developer who threatens to destroy their
neighborhood, Emily, throughout the movie.
The story line is mostly a joke as one would expect, since we all came
for the crazy dance moves, right? The only semi-interesting line of
dialogue in the whole film is when Emily challenges The Mob for not even
saying anything in their art. This is particularly interesting
juxtaposed to Sean’s line throughout the film that The Mob was created
so that their voices could be heard in a city where they are
“invisible.”
On the one hand, Emily’s challenge is a valid critique when the leaders
of The Mob are clear that they are all about being financially
successful through their art from the beginning to the very last line of
the film. At the same time, it perpetuates the idea that there is art
without a message, which just isn’t true.
This critique reflects back on the greater art form that is the film
itself. This is apparently a popular genre now, building off the success
of TV talent shows like American Idol, So You Think You Can
Dance and America’s Got Talent. Many of the performers in
the movie are recruited from these shows, and are real-world examples of
the success that The Mob is working for. The Step Up series of
movies is all about providing the audience with an adrenaline rush with
ever-more intense dance moves, soundtracks and visual effects.
It seems that they were pushing up on their limits in creating more
extreme dance performances, and they stepped into the realm of protest
art for a minute to up the ante with this latest edition of Step
Up. In this genre there is often a strong element of competition,
which can provide a source of drama and maybe a fight or two to add to
the excitement. But this version stepped it up by having a dance crew
that went up against the system, sort of.
The Mob actually starts out as a highly trained flash mob, rather than
protest art. Instead of using performance art to convey a specific
message in a more impactful way, the flash mob is a modern phenomenon
that focuses on transforming the moment with no long-term goals or
message. Building on Guy Debord’s theory of the Society of the
Spectacle, some think these disruptions of the spectacle that is
the status quo is somehow a revolutionary act. Most just think it’s neat
and fun. And ultimately that is what The Mob is about, despite their
short venture into protesting the destruction of their hood.
In the end the movie abruptly brings you back to the main motivation
being financial success, which could have been the producers poking a
bit of fun at those who came to see the movie looking for a more
subversive message. But at the same time it was true-to-life in the way
that dance and music are used in advertising to sell an image of
rebellion and being extreme to youth with money to spend. This movie is
very much part of that. But that phenomenon is much bigger in the way
that oppressed nation culture, especially in the form of
hip
hop, was taken and sold to white youth as a form of rebellion, then
sanitized by the white tastes that then shaped the culture and sold it
back to Black youth as something that was supposed to represent them.
It is this aspect of culture that is hinted at in the film when The Mob
says they “are everyone” and that they represent the culture of the
neighborhood that the developers will destroy with their plans. In
reality, the culture presented by The Mob is a very globalized and
technologically-centered culture that does not represent one place or
one people, but does reflect material wealth, large amounts of leisure
time and mobility that is inaccessible to the majority of the world’s
people. The movie tries to pass this big-money pop culture off as a
local scene threatened by big bad corporations. The timing and message
was perhaps an attempt to play on the hype around
the
“99%” movement, who would see these rich kids as the poor.
But it would be wrong to say that the art and culture presented in
movies like Step Up is “devoid of content,” as implied by
Emily’s critique. There was a lot of sex and romance culture promotion
in this movie, and in the dancing itself. There was a promotion of the
art of dance as a big party. And there was the ever-present theme,
dating back to Dirty Dancing (and probably before), of the need
to break the rules to express yourself. But the source of conflict of
this expression in Hollywood movies is usually centered around sexuality
and romance. In Step Up: Revolution, fighting the redevelopment
project becomes a cause that drives the dancers to break the rules. But
even then, the message you are left with is that it is good to push the
limits to be cutting edge in order to be successful at marketing
yourself. The most radical action of The Mob is scarred as representing
the low point and temporary breakup of the group, and it was the only
time they actually got in trouble with law enforcement (who were
unrealistically absent throughout the movie). It’s like the successful
politician or non-profit organizer who got arrested once in college for
the experience and now has some street cred as a result, but never
really represented a challenge to the system. While the term
“revolution” has been perpetually overused in marketing, in a way to
dilute the power of the word, to use the word in reference to this sort
of rebellious behavior is even more insidious. Those who feel like they
are doing something radical, when in reality they are part of the system
that revolution aims to overthrow, are all too common in the belly of
the beast.
This movie takes certain elements of flash mobs and overlaps them with
political action in a way to make them seem more radical and powerful
than they are. Flash mobs as a phenomenon play into people’s desires to
be a part of something bigger than themselves and are a combination of
youthful rebellion and partying. While sometimes used for political
messages as The Mob eventually does, they are generally post-modern
forms of expression with no coherent goals or message. The Mob at least
has the advantage over your standard flash mob for being well-rehearsed
and planned out ahead of time by a dedicated organization, which allows
them to easily focus their work on fighting the developers. While they
had discipline and hard work, their class interests were what kept them
focused on their financial success. The more common flash mob that
brings together random people to a location for a party is
representative of the same class interests. The post-modern art form
takes group action, one of the most powerful tools we have, and makes it
inherently individualistic and unconsolidated, making it a spectacle
itself. It is much easier to mobilize a mass of petty bourgeois youth to
create their own spectacle than it is to exert their power to challenge
the system.
While we know this movie wasn’t trying to enter into serious political
dialogue for solving the world’s problems, there are many people holding
desires for a better world that end up putting their energy and
enthusiasm into self-indulgent dead ends. While dance can be
revolutionary, the revolution will not be a dance party. If changing the
world was all fun and sexy, don’t you think it would have happened by
now?
Snow White in long-term isolation cell
Snow White and the Huntsman is a more in-depth, live-action
take on the Disney classic. A variety of themes are explored in this
film that were glossed over or undeveloped in the animated version, but
the basic plot remains the same.
The story begins with Snow White as a small girl. Her mother falls ill
and dies. Shortly thereafter the widower king is drawn into battle with
a “dark and mysterious” army, whose warriors are made of obsidian or
glass. The army is defeated and a prisoner, a beautiful womyn, is
rescued. The king marries the prisoner the very next day, and she
quickly is revealed to be an evil witch. The new queen kills the king,
locks Snow White in a tower, and destroys the entire kingdom. How Snow
White survived her decade of solitary confinement was not addressed in
the film, but would have been interesting for us to analyze and likely
criticize.
The queen was under a spell that kept her the fairest in the land, so
long as she sucks the youth and beauty out of young wimmin to constantly
replenish her powers. This beauty enables her to manipulate people who
are distracted by her good looks, and to cast spells of her own. The
spell can only be broken by “fairest blood,” and as Snow White comes of
age in her prison tower, she becomes a threat to the queen’s powers. The
magic mirror on the wall instructs the queen to eat Snow White’s heart
so that she will become immortal.
The queen’s brother goes to retrieve Snow White for a meeting with the
queen. Of course Snow White escapes, and through a course of events
leads a revolution to take back the kingdom from the evil queen. It is
Snow White’s “purity” and “innocence” (as well as a blessing from a
forest creature straight out of Princess Mononoke) that give
her magical powers to overcome the queen’s spells and tricks. A classic
Jesus story, complete with a resurrection.
When the evil queen first took power, the subjects initially tried to
resist her rule. They were defeated each time, and eventually everyone
gave up, broke into sects, turned alcoholic, and warred with each other
just trying to stay alive. An oracle dwarf identified Snow White as
having a “destiny.” It was only the power of this destined leader that
could bring everyone together and overcome the evil queen.
The take-home lessons from Snow White and the Huntsman are
defeatist. “Find a good leader and follow them.” “People’s struggle
isn’t winnable.” “There’s nothing you can do to challenge the
all-powerful status quo.” These are typical messages to be expected from
a mainstream Amerikkkan movie.
The only theme that was remotely interesting was the queen’s views on
gender and beauty. She has been a victim of beauty for twenty lifetimes
and has built up a lot of resentment toward men. This resentment comes
up in her murder of the king, because she is distrustful of men, who
will just throw her out when she ages. In a later scene, she is
assessing two male prisoners who have just been captured, and one is
young and handsome. Before killing him with her own fingers, she gives a
monologue about how he would have been her ruin, but instead she will be
his ruin. This is a good critique of the fetishization of youth and
beauty and its contribution to a variety of mental health challenges
people in our society must face. Had the queen not been valued by men
only for her beauty, she may have been a more benevolent dictator, at
least to the handsome young men who cross her path.
Snow White and the Huntsman doesn’t get my recommendation. We
don’t need any more encouragement in our society to drink our sorrows
about the status quo away, waiting for our own Snow White. And it’s
unnecessary to wait, because your Snow White is you!
Hunger Games is set in Panem, a society that, it is implied, rose from
the postwar ashes of north America, and now consists of The Capitol and
the 12 fenced off satellite Districts. Many of these Districts produce
wealth for the Capitol while their people live in poverty. There is
apparently no national oppression (most people are white), but class
contradictions are sharp. The Hunger Games are annual fights to the
death by two kids representing each of the Districts. In the wealthier
districts, kids train for this and consider being picked a privilege. In
the poorer districts families are forced to sell their kids into the
hunger games in exchange for food required for bare survival.
Katniss Everdeen is from the mining District 12 where her father, and
many other miners, lose their lives producing wealth they will never
see. She volunteers to take her younger sister’s place for the annual
hunger games match.
The Hunger Games are broadcast live as reality programming. The Games
are meant to remind the people of the power of the government. This
brutal form of reality entertainment serves to keep the people of the
districts distracted and obedient. Out of 24 participants, only one
child lives.
This movie is part one of a trilogy. The books get much deeper into the
politics of oppression, even in the first volume. But as a broad
representation of the first book, the movie gets at the general system
and has a correct message of resistance. Katniss refuses to play the
game the way the Capitol organizers intend, inadvertently earning the
support and respect of other Districts and inspiring resistance against
the Capitol.
In one scene she pauses to pay tribute to a fallen child from another
district who was working with her. In the end [spoiler alert] Katniss
commits the ultimate snub against the Games, refusing to play to the
death. She manages to outsmart the organizers but all she wins is the
right to go home a celebrity of dubious distinction for staying alive.
There are some good lessons from this Hunger Games movie. The importance
of unity across oppressed people in the common cause against the
oppressors is reinforced both in the individual alliances and the
cross-district support of Katniss. The movie also demonstrates the
brutality and distraction techniques of the ruling class and their
willingness to stop at nothing to retain their power. There is an
interesting subplot about the two main characters from District 12
pretending a love interest as a survival technique to get the support of
“sponsors”: wealthy people who can pay to provide advantages to their
favorite players. Using whatever means available for resistance is
important for the oppressed, though the actual romance in the movie
dilutes this message.
The movie is adapted from the first of a trilogy of books but some of
the politics of the books are already quite muted in the movie and it
will remain to be seen how well the sequels represent the struggles of
the oppressed.
Set in the year 2161, In Time is a science fiction film
portraying a world where people stop aging when they hit 25 years old.
At that point they have one year of life in their bank, and living time
has become the currency instead of money. When a person’s time runs out
they die instantly, and so rich people have lots of time, while poor
people live in ghettos, living day to day, barely earning enough to
survive another 24 hours. Poor people literally have to rush around to
earn enough time to survive, eat and pay their bills, while rich people
can waste time relaxing or doing nothing, without fear of death.
This movie has a solid proletarian premise with the few rich bourgeois
people living at the expense of the poor masses. “For a few immortals to
live many people must die.” The movie’s hero, Will Salas, learns that
there is plenty of time for everyone from a wealthy man who is ready to
die and transfers all his remaining time to Will in order to commit
suicide. Will decides to use this time to seek revenge and end the
brutal rule of the time rich.
When Will buys his way into New Greenwich where the rich live entirely
separate from the poor masses, he meets a young woman, Sylvia, who
suggests that rich people don’t really live because they spend all their
time trying to avoid accidental death. This is not a bad point to make:
capitalism’s culture is bad for everyone, including the bourgeoisie. But
the case of Sylvia is a pretty good example of what happens in real
life: only a very few of the bourgeoisie will commit class suicide and
join the proletarian cause and the youth are the most likely to do this.
Sylvia and Will set out to steal time from Sylvia’s father’s companies
and redistribute the wealth to the poor people. They plan to distribute
time in such large quantities so as to bring the entire system down.
This is where the politics of the movie fall apart. Capitalism will not
be ended with a quick massive redistribution of wealth liberated from
the banks by a few focoist fighters.
The In Time world includes police who enforce the system. The
Timekeepers work for the wealthy to ensure the poor never escape their
oppression. But the Timekeepers seem to have very limited resources and
staff so it’s not so difficult for two people to out run and out smart
them. And except for one key Timekeeper, the others are happy enough to
just give up and stop defending the rich. Under capitalism the ruling
class understands the importance of militarism to maintain their
position and they won’t trust enforcement to just a few cops.
In another interesting parallel, In Time includes a few
characters who play the part of the lumpen, stealing time from the poor.
At one point, the leader of this lumpen group explains that the
Timekeepers leave them alone because they don’t try to steal from the
rich.
History has plenty of examples of a few focoists setting out to take
back wealth to help the people and ending up in prison or dead, often
bringing more repression down on themselves and the masses. A quick
action to liberate money from banks will not put an end to the system of
imperialist repression. True and lasting liberation will only come from
a protracted struggle organizing the oppressed masses to fight and
overthrow the imperialist system.
The other major political flaw of In Time is the complete lack
of any parallel to the national oppression that inevitably exists under
imperialism. In the movie the oppressed and the wealthy are mostly
white. There are a few Blacks and people who might be other
nationalities among the oppressed, but they all are oppressed equally.
National distinctions have disappeared and class oppression is all that
exists. While this is a fine science fiction premise, we fear that the
Amerikan petty bourgeois audience will see in this movie false parallels
to life in the U.$. where workers actually have more in common with the
time rich people than the poor in the movie. The reason for this, found
in imperialism and the superexploitation of colonial people, doesn’t
exist anywhere in this movie. And with an audience that likes to
consider itself part of the
99%
oppressed, this movie is going to reinforce this mistake of ignoring
the global context of imperialism.
Millionaire popstar/rapper Soulja Boy stepped out of line in his
latest video, and was reprimanded by Amerikan hip hop fans this week for
his lack of patriotism. Under pressure he quickly apologized and took up
the Demoncratic Party line claiming that he was only criticizing the two
long wars, implying that the U.$. economy would somehow be better if the
U.$. wasn’t exerting control over the economies of the Middle East thru
military occupation. This is what he originally said in the song
Let’s Be Real:
Fuck the FBI and the Army troops fighting for what? Bitch, be your
own man.
While this was just a couple lines out of tons of bullshit he’s spit,
they’re pretty strong words. Not known for being politically outspoken,
there’s no doubt his inspiration comes from the countless
radical/nationalist MCs who came before him and influenced his thoughts
and rhymes. He even outdid his adversary Ice-T who said “fuck the FBI,”
but never fuck the troops. The troops ain’t nothing but the police for
oppressed people in other countries; the CIA abroad is the FBI at home.
Fuck oppression! Fuck ’em all!
While it was good to hear someone like Soulja Boy put out such strong
anti-imperialist words, especially with all the 9/11 talk these days, it
was discouraging to see the response and who’s responding. There have
been multiple diss songs and videos made in response to Soulja Boy, by
hip hop artists in the military, at least some of which are from
oppressed nations. The response wasn’t just strong and swift, it came
from his own fans and more generally from fans of hip hop music. In
Under Lock & Key
issue 10 we questioned whether hip hop was still a culture that
represented the oppressed, and when you see these videos you really have
to doubt it.
One Black male MC sports a shirt reading “America the Beautiful.” His
politics echo those of the white militias made up of ex-military people
that are very critical of the government, but have much love for the
country and respect for the troops and the privileges they fight for us
to have. All of the artists seem to find that requisite “hardness,” that
is so integral to the gangsta rap persona, in their identity as U.$.
soldiers. One threatens to waterboard Soulja Boy and pull out his finger
nails.
The fact is, the pro-U.$. troops lyrics aren’t that far from a typical
gangsta rap song. The United $tates is the biggest gangster in the
world, so that makes sense. The boys in blue are the biggest gang on
U.$. streets. So we see gangsta rap too often reflecting and reinforcing
the ideology of the oppressor, rather than challenging it.
In other Soulja Boy news, he is supposedly working on a remake of the
film Juice, where he will play the role of Bishop, originally
played by Tupac Shakur. On September 13, we commemorate not just the
fallen soldiers of the
Attica
uprising 40 years ago, but it is also the 15th anniversary of the
death of self-proclaimed thug and rapper 2pac. Pac was unique in keeping
his music both gangsta and for the people; a fine line most can’t seem
to walk, and perhaps impossible today when gangsta rap is mostly a
caricature. Unlike Soulja Boy, Tupac never apologized for shit, and he
said some things that got people riled up. There is little doubt that
his real connection to oppressed people in Amerikkka lead to his
untimely death.(1)
While Soulja Boy’s three lines don’t compare to Tupac’s legacy, in those
lines we may have seen him connecting to the oppressive conditions he
grew up in – a glimmer of truth. While the U.$. military is
disproportionately Black (18% of military vs. 11% of general
population), it is also disproportionately middle income.(2) The poorest
20% of the U.$. population was the most under-represented income group
in the U.$. military in 1999 and 2003.(3)
Since the Vietnam war, Blacks have increased their over-representation
in the U.$. military from a factor of 1.14 to 1.40.(2) This shows the
effects of integration without providing Black youth with quite the same
opportunities as their white counterparts. The increase in Black
military recruits seems to correspond with an overall bourgeoisification
of the Black nation. Not only were there fewer Blacks (per capita) in
Vietnam than Iraq and Afghanistan, but Black power and linking it to the
struggle of the Vietnamese against U.$. imperialism was widespread, and
fragging of white officers and even all out fighting between Blacks and
whites on bases was not uncommon.
As the Black nation becomes more bourgeois, the pressure to Amerikanize
increases for Blacks of all socio-economic standings. To the poor and
oppressed who see no hope in U.$. imperialism, we echo Soulja Boy’s
words, “Bitch, be your own man!”
Rise of the Planet of the Apes is the second remake of the
original Planet of the Apes movie series. It is an origins
story, replacing the Conquest of the Planet of the Apes story
which was fourth in the original five part series. Conquest was
released in 1972 and depicted a storyline clearly intended to parallel
the Black liberation movement that had just peaked in the United $tates
at that time, but with an actual successful revolution.
Conquest and the final part of the original series, Battle
for the Planet of the Apes, presented clearly revolutionary themes.
Even the first couple movies of the original series did more to
challenge white nationalism than this recent remake. This difference is
due to the stage of struggle in the United $tates at the time.
Today, the first movie (released in 1968) is easily dismissed by the
oppressor nation as a commentary on the “distant” past of slavery,
rather than what were modern social injustices. When that film was
redone in 2001, it did not live up to its predecessor’s social
relevance. Based on that disappointment, we expected a stronger effort
to dilute the origins story for another hollywood blockbuster. Instead,
we were pleasantly surprised to find that Rise actually
maintained the revolutionary origins story, and even linked it to the
modern prison struggle in relevant ways.
This movie probably won’t be making the rounds in too many prisons due
to the blatant themes of prisoners educating themselves and building
unity to escape their abusive conditions. But there’s nothing to learn
from this movie that one couldn’t get easily, and of course more
usefully, from picking up any issue of Under Lock & Key.
Rise was pretty formulaic in story and form. It contains lots
of fast battle scenes and loud music, and followed the predictable story
line with flat characters. There were plenty of quotes from the original
movie series thrown in as well as recognizable character names.
The good aspects of Rise were also simple, but surprisingly
relevant. The strongest positive message we saw in this film was the
need for self-determination and the struggle against integrationism.
Caesar, a chimpanzee, and the hero of the story, refuses an opportunity
given by his former benefactor to leave prison and return to the humyn
world. In a few days or weeks Caesar develops an affinity for his fellow
imprisoned apes, which trumps his many years living with humyns. He
turns his back to Dr. Rodman and stays in prison to continue building
and organizing with fellow apes. This is a very relevant point to the
imprisoned population, especially in a day when the oppressed nations
have reached high levels of integration into Amerika. With people
shuffling in and out of prison and jail, it is easy to choose an
Amerikan identity over that of the oppressed. We also see many who work
tirelessly to get themselves out of prison, without ever joining the
larger prison movement. Caesar is clear that alone apes are weak, but
together they can be strong. This is a very simple yet relevant refrain
to our current situation in the prison movement today.
An orangutan responds to Caesar’s comments on unity by saying that apes
are dumb, not unlike what many prisoners who write MIM(Prisons) say
about their peers. The solution to this in the film, and the material
origin of apes taking over humyn society, is in a virus produced by a
bioengineering project. This allows ape brains to develop intelligence
that they never could before. In real life, the imprisoned and oppressed
do not face a material disadvantage in intelligence, but are set back by
the oppressor’s conditioning through both the carrot and the stick. In
real life the ALZ 112 and ALZ 113 viruses from the film are instead
Marxism-Leninism-Maoism: the tool that can give the oppressed the
intellectual material they need to organize effectively.
As part of his organizing efforts, Caesar allies with a silverback
(dominant) chimpanzee and puts him in a position of leading the group in
sharing and developing a group consciousness, without the silverback
really understanding at first. It was a good lesson in leadership within
a United Front and how we might work with those who are recognized as
leaders for their dominant roles within the group, but don’t yet possess
the leadership skills and revolutionary understanding to lead the
oppressed down the road of liberation.
Just like in U.$. prisons, the apes educate each other in secret because
they know that they will be targeted for special repression if seen. The
interactions between the imprisoned apes and humyn captors is crude,
accurately reflecting the basic relations in U.$. prisons for humyns
today. In this way, Rise could play a small role in building
consciousness among viewers that would make them more likely to be
sympathetic of prison resistances such as those organized across
California and Georgia in recent months. While the majority of the
audience will find itself rooting for the apes while watching this film,
in real life most will follow their own self-interests in the situation
and root for the state in repressing any group that challenges the
status quo.
Buck takes down California Highway Patrol helicopter allowing ape rebels
to cross the bridge.
The role of Buck the gorilla gives us an important lesson in
revolutionary suicide. In the final battle scene that takes place on the
Golden Gate bridge in San Francisco, he takes a bullet for Caesar just
before taking down the last humyns left standing who threatened the
lives of other apes in the battle. He recognizes the unique capabilities
of both himself and of Caesar and puts the interests of the ape
liberation struggle above his own life to guide his actions. At this
stage in the struggle we are not engaged in protracted war, but
revolutionary sacrifice is still relevant to how we decide to spend our
time and organize our lives, and even in peaceful struggles lives are
sometimes taken by the oppressor. Buck’s revolutionary suicide is an
example of a sacrifice that had to be made in order for the ape struggle
to continue.
In the end of the film, Dr. Rodman again plays the role of liberal
integrationist asking Caesar to come back and live with him, saying
“this is not the way.” Caesar speaks a full phrase for the first time
and says “Caesar is home” referring to the population of just-liberated
apes taking up residence in the forest. Of course, in real life the
consciousness of the oppressed internal semi-colonies leans much more
heavily in the direction of integration than Caesar, who has actual
biological differences from the humyn species. In the movie, differences
between apes and humyns had just begun to weaken, whereas the socially
imposed differences between the oppressed and oppressor nations inside
the United $tates have eroded over many decades. Even if Caesar tried to
integrate, he could never live the lifestyle of a humyn, in contrast to
the large proportion of the internal semi-colonies that enjoy the
comforts of imperialist exploitation.