Under Lock & Key

www.revolutionaryecology.com

Revolutionary Ecology (RE) is a new website that appeared in 2014. We welcome its appearance as the Maoist movement is in great need of a dedicated cell to address our current ecological crisis. We promote a cell structure for the Maoist movement in the First World, with cells focused on specific projects or localities. MIM(Prisons) is a cell focused on the U.$. prison system. We need a cell (or cells) that are focused on the struggle against the destruction of our environment just as badly. As the RE comrades point out in many articles, these are problems of dire urgency. They are also problems that threaten First World youth directly, potentially connecting them to the interests of the majority of humynity. This website is a good addition to the arsenal of educational tools for communists working to build a movement to overthrow imperialism.

The organizers of RE describe it as “a collaborative project that seeks to popularize Marxism within the environmentalist and animal liberation movements.” They go on to explain: “We are quite literally faced with two options: Communism or annihilation.” In the article, “What Would Socialism Mean for the Environment”, this is further explained: “Whereas capitalism involves productive relations of exploitation sustained toward the circular end of profit, socialism involves the democratic control over the means of production as part of the rational and increasingly egalitarian satisfaction of people’s wants and needs. Implied in such rational and democratic production is the inclusion of ecological regeneration and co-dependence as regulative economic principles.” In other words, instead of relying on the almighty invisible hand, socialism is about humynity taking conscious control of our collective destiny and organizing ourselves in a way to best serve the interests of all humynity. As should be obvious by now, these interests overlap greatly with preserving the natural systems that we live in and depend on.

The article “Capitalism’s Steady March Towards Irreversible Ecological Tipping Points” describes how capitalism is moving humynity rapidly towards tipping points that will be devastating for the Earth, including the deforestation of the Amazon, while discussing the inability of single issue groups and government regulations to stop this process. Much of the website’s content brings Marxist analysis into the ecological discussion, as with the article “Lake Michigan Oil Spill: Capitalism and Nature” which explains the role of commodities and money in the context of humyn’s relations with nature. And we are reminded of the importance of internationalism in the revolutionary ecology struggle through articles about South African trade unions and First Nations, among others.

In response to the Deep Ecology platform, one article proposes a Revolutionary Ecology Platform:

1. The well-being and flourishing of human and non-human life are intimately related. The flourishing of non-human life is generally of direct and indirect utility to humans, and vice versa.
   
2. Richness and diversity of non-human life can contribute to utility for humanity at large. Thus, it should be promoted as such.
   
3. Real wealth is utility or the ability to satisfy human wants and needs. The source of all wealth is two-fold: nature and human labor. It is in the long-term interest of a majority of humanity to steward biodiversity and ecological well-being (along with other elements of nature).
   
4. Alienation from and the subjugation of nature is in the vital interest of a small proportion of humanity: the ruling classes. Increasingly under capitalist-imperialism, less real wealth (i.e., human utility) is produced in proportion to overall economic activity and at greater cost to human and non-human life.
   
5. Ecologically unsustainable economic activity is inherent to capitalist-imperialism, whereby economic activity must expand even as much of it is tertiary and adds no real wealth in terms of the satisfying basic wants and needs.[sic] Abolishing such parasitic economic activity and reassigning it to restoring the natural element of wealth would aid in re-establishing the basic link between human and non-human life and provide for the flourishing of both.
   
6. The whole structure of society needs to be changed. Only revolution – the seizure of power away from one set of classes by another – can create the necessary conditions for such a transformation. Any such revolution, if it is to be successful, must advance the interests of the most exploited and oppressed sections of humanity, not merely the privileged subjects of neo-colonial imperialism.
   
7. A total ideological change of reconnection between human and non-human life will not fully take place until the basic structure of society (i.e. the mode of production) has been transformed into one of democratically producing long-term utility instead of profit. Nonetheless, the ideological sphere and subjective forces are a leading variable component where class struggle is carried out.
   
8. Those who adhere to the above points must get organized to make revolution possible.
   

Point 5 is of particular importance for drawing the logical connections between Maoism and ecology. Many in the First World who are concerned about ecology are disgusted by the over-consumption of their peers. One example of the extremes this takes in rich countries has been circulating on the internet recently, exposing Amerikans in rural areas who are customizing their big diesel trucks to be less fuel efficient and spew out more pollution, while these excessive polluters are explicitly ridiculing and targeting people who drive more fuel efficient cars. While this is one example of the labor aristocracy taking capitalist values to ridiculous extremes, it is not the individual decisions of the consumer class that fuel the destruction of the natural world. Car culture was built by capitalist planners who developed and marketed suburbs and lobbied for state-sponsored roads. The focus on GDP, the stock market, and other economic indicators are an obsession in the First World that the majority have joined in on, with no thought to the fact that consumption must be reduced in First World countries in the creation of an ecologically sustainable system. But it is not the rural truck drivers who are the biggest obstacle to change, it is the very logic of capitalism itself, which requires ever-expanding production, markets and circulation. This system is backed up by the biggest, most ruthless militaries in the world today.

Nikolai Brown touches on over-production within capitalism in h article on e-waste, “Not only does the inherent focus on the realization of surplus value engender ‘planned obsolescence,’ a global division of labor enables the flow of resources necessary for the propagation of disposable electronics. True to the fashion of capitalism, by producing toxic e-waste on such a widespread basis, its two requisites, labor-power and the natural environment, are increasingly degraded.”(1) This article introduces us to the concept of ecological unequal exchange: “the transfer of natural resources to the First World from the Third World, and the return of pollution and waste to Third from the First World.” As ecological crises advance, this is a concept that deserves much attention in connection to the economic unequal exchange that occurs under imperialism.

While we don’t have any fundamental disagreements with the principles proposed by RE above, we find their discussion of Deep Ecology idealist in its critique of Maoism’s (and other socialist countries’) environmental history. The article “Deep Green Maoism?” criticizes the history of socialism for its record on “environmental degradation and species destruction” without offering concrete facts on what is being critiqued. No doubt all socialist societies to date, including the Maoist countries, had much room for improvement around environmental protection. But we should not issue blanket critiques from a position of hindsight and idealism. For their day the Maoists advanced the environmental movement further than any previous struggle by overthrowing imperialism and building a society that aimed to put an end to oppression of people. In the process they set the masses free to solve farming sustainability problems creatively, and develop both farming and industry to more efficiently meet the needs of the people. These are critical first steps towards living harmoniously with the environment. And we can assume that as dialectical materialists, these socialists would have continued to improve and build an understanding and practice regarding the importance of environmental preservation, had those societies not been taken over by bourgeois elements from within the party.

One of the first things we try to teach to new comrades is the difference between idealism and materialism, and that materialism means comparing actual practices. When we compare Chinese socialism to the Soviet Union we see improvements in the overall political approach, which translated into better science and ecology. And when we compare both socialist countries to the capitalist countries, the socialists were industrializing in ways that were much friendlier to humyn workers and the rest of the environment. While we cannot make a comprehensive comparison here, we will provide some large-scale examples that indicate the advances of these real world examples of socialism over what was happening in capitalist countries at the time (and even today).

One Amerikan correspondent in the Soviet Union wrote in 1942, “Moscow has also the most scientific garbage disposal in the world. All the waste of this great city of more than 4,000,000 people is first used in ‘biothermal processes’ which heat large ‘greenhouse farms’ from underground. When the garbage and sewage is thoroughly rotted in this quite odorless manner, it is then used as a fertilizer for ordinary farming. This amazing development got no advertising whatever. I merely chanced upon it when I visited a farm.”(2) Decades later in northern China, “cadres, peasants, workers, and technicians experimented for ten years with utilizing industrial waste waters. Now the city’s daily 400,000 tons of sewage is processed to fertilize and irrigate 12,930 hectares of farmland. … Reciprocally, agricultural wastes such as cottonseed shells, corncobs, sugar-cane residue, and animal viscera become raw materials for developing commune-owned industries. … Decentralization and multipurpose use of wastes have, besides integrating industry and agriculture, been used to control industrial pollution. Like the relocation of factories, pollution control is generally coordinated on the local level.”(3)

Local, self-sufficient agricultural production was a key to successful socialist development in Mao’s opinion. This had more to do with class and economics, but reinforced and enabled ecologically sustainable practices. In discussing the balance between the foreign and native and the large, medium and small scale production, Mao wrote, “At the present time we have not proposed chemicalization of agriculture. One reason is that we do not expect to be able to produce much fertilizer in the next however many years. (And the little we have is concentrated on our industrial crops.) Another reason is that if the turn to chemicals is proposed everybody will focus on that and neglect pig breeding. Inorganic fertilizers are also needed but they have to be combined with organic; alone they harden the soil.” (4) Aside from pigs, humanure (or “night soil” as they called it) was a major source of organic fertilizer that utilized local resources on hand while simultaneously dealing with the problem of humyn “waste” similar to the Soviet example above. The safe and efficient use of humanure was greatly accelerated under socialism. Under capitalism, in 2014, this resource is disposed of as a waste, and the movement away from synthetic fertilizers and pesticides is still very small.(5)

Guided by the popularization of the scientific method to serve production, the Chinese also developed bacterial fertilizers at the local level. This is something that has gained a lot of attention in India in recent decades as the problems of over-dependence on synthetic fertilizers are becoming more pronounced. A report by Science for the People from 1974 describes the process of culturing the fertilizer, which is “reported to help crops absorb nitrogen, to protect them against more than thirty-two bacterial diseases, and to promote speedier seed germination and a shorter growing period.” The report states that, “Such small factories producing microbial products seem now to be common in the Chinese countryside.” They report on the process by which this commune studied bacterial fertilizers and has since taught it to about 20 other communes. “Similar processes of face-to-face contact and exchange appear to be exceedingly important in the transmission and popularization of science in China. Because such exchange generates little or no printed material, western observers, who tend to believe that all scientific communication of any note eventually reaches print, are likely to overlook what appears to be a vast network of informal scientific exchange in the Chinese countryside.”(6)

An author on revolutionaryecology.com argues that “…the environmental problems associated with the first world-wide wave of socialism were due to a lack of foresight and scientific knowledge about ecology, holdover culture from capitalism and semi-feudalism, and the partial impact of the theory of the productive forces.” The socialists of the 1900s had only as much foresight and scientific knowledge as existed at that time, and holding them to the standards of knowledge available today is idealism. Further, we know that the Maoists aggressively attacked the theory of productive forces and undertook the Cultural Revolution to fight capitalist culture. Sure, once these battles were won the revolution in all aspects would advance further, but this is not a basis for a 20/20 hindsight critique of the Maoist environmental practice in the socialist countries of the mid-1900s. We know that some practices in Maoist China would not be undertaken today, with the current state of the environment and the knowledge we have of effects of these practices. But that does not constitute reason for this critique any more than we would criticize China for failing to use computers to advance socialism before computers were available.

The article argues further “…it is this same understanding on the unity between people and nature which was either missing or gravely misapplied during the socialism of the last century.” Socialism “neglected to treat nature as part of and necessary to people. That is not to say that socialism treated the natural world and other species in terms other than of humyn utility, but that it did so in an often ill-conceived and short-sighted manner.” Here again we ask for concrete examples of socialism’s failure in this regard, which should have been corrected based on information available at the time. In farming areas the communes in China were acutely aware of their dependence on nature as essential for survival.

The article goes on to say: “In short, an ecologically informed Maoism offers the chance to build a ‘socialism of a new type’ for the 21st century which seeks to resolve the contradiction between people and their natural environment as much as the contradictions between people themselves.” As humynity’s ecological understanding expands, socialism will utilize this knowledge and it will do so without the barriers presented by capitalism. Humyn knowledge and scientific understanding is constantly expanding. We find it misleading to say that “a new type” of socialism is needed to address ecological problems.

Aside from these Revolutionary Ecology Platform issues, we have a few smaller disagreements with the website. First there is a question of setting a bad security example by including a Facebook plugin so that people can “like” the website via their persynal Facebook accounts. This means the website is pushing people to expose themselves publicly as supporting RE. Unfortunately, this is information now available to the state, and individuals who may be new to activism (plus some blissfully ignorant experienced folks) will think they are helping the movement by “liking” the website only to expose themselves as targets for state repression just as they deepen their political line and involvement. Even at the level of random readers, we should always promote good security practices, both as a point of keeping our comrades safe and as an educational point about the repression the so-called democratic state of Amerika will unleash against those who threaten the imperialist system.

RE does not provide much information for readers on how to get involved. They do solicit participation of writers for the website, and the site links to other websites that are generally anti-imperialist and/or Maoist, or have good resources for Maoists (Kersplebedeb), and some of these other websites provide a forum for broader activism. But as a friendly suggestion we’d encourage the organizers of RE to make it easier for newly interested readers to take some anti-imperialist action if they don’t want to become writers for the site. Ecology is an appealing topic for white youth, and more must be done to pull those serious about real solutions to environmental destruction into the revolutionary movement. We look forward to more ecologists stepping up to build a powerful and active revolutionary ecology organization.

The East
2013

This movie is a must-see for any left-leaning persyn looking to kick start a revolution or join a movement for the purpose of societal change. The East is about a subversive underground movement which can best be described as a loose collection of anarchist cells focused on giving the heads of corporations that are responsible for ecological destruction a taste of their own medicine. One reference in the movie describes them as radical cells that started with Earth First! They attack big business, who they see as responsible for much of today’s problems in the United $tates. Indeed, they see the principal contradiction in the United $tates as between greedy corporations that will stop at nothing to make a quick buck and the life on planet Earth that they threaten. The ideas portrayed in their propaganda videos are hard-hitting in a way that is true to the First World radical ecology movement in real life.

The potential for the radical ecology movement to be a real force for change in the First World is one reason this movie is powerful. The movie is also aesthetically pleasing on many levels (which means it’s fun to watch!) and filled with political content. It has a couple big Hollywood names; none more notable than Ellen Page of Juno fame. This movie speaks mainly to the worries of today’s white petty-bourgeois youth growing up in the shadows of climate change, oil spills and other mass pollution, toxic food and medicine and a consumerist society that doesn’t seem to care. The characters touch on struggles with their wealth, but ultimately use their privilege to attack their enemies. They criticize Amerikans for their complacency, but see the imperialists as the ones deserving severe criticism. Similar to many radical environmental movements in the real world, there is no explicit class analysis in the movie, but The East seems potentially friendly to both a Third Worldist and a First Worldist perspective. The real positive lessons of this movie however come from its emphasis on security and organization, or lack thereof, within supposed revolutionary groups.

The East focuses on an ex-FBI agent named Jane who goes undercover for Hiller-Brood, a fictional “intelligence firm” that specializes in protecting the interests of imperialist corporations thru espionage. Jane’s mission is to attempt to infiltrate The East, a so-called eco-terrorist organization that has been a thorn in the side of McCabe-Grey, a fictional corporation that specializes in producing cutting edge pharmaceuticals. Jane’s assignment is to go undercover using the name Sarah, to meet and gain the trust of potential East members that Hiller-Brood has been tailing.

[SPOILER ALERT!]

After a night of partying and getting to know some counter-culture types who Sarah thinks might know The East, she decides they are relatively harmless and then sneaks away in the early morning hours to pursue other potential targets, but not before snapping all their pictures and sending them back to Hiller-Brood for file building. From here on out Sarah sets out to meet some other potential targets who are older, more mysterious and hence more promising. After meeting the possible East members and train hopping with their friends, Sarah gets her first taste of pig oppression when they are forced off the train by railroad security and subsequently beaten. It is in the midst of the commotion that Sarah sees the persyn she’s been following flash a badge at security - the persyn she’s been following is a fed! After being left cuffed to a train Sarah makes a narrow escape from police and is rescued by one of the train-hoppers whose van she jumps into. Once inside of the van Sarah recognizes one of the symbols of The East. Convinced she is now on the right track, Sarah slices her wrist in the hopes that this guy whose van she’s in will take her to The East. Her plan works, but not before he runs a quick make on her by dialing the number on her phone marked “mom.”

After speaking to another Hiller-Brood agent posing as Sarah’s mom, he destroys her phone, blindfolds her and takes her to a secret location in the woods; a dilapidated house in the middle of nowhere. As they arrive, Sarah is introduced to “Doc” the group’s resident doctor, much to the chagrin of Thumbs the group’s only New Afrikan. As she is being treated Sarah discovers that Doc was once a med student. She is then drugged and put to sleep. After waking, Sarah meets Izzy, Ellen Page’s character, who views Sarah with a skeptical eye. Izzy gives Sarah a straight-jacket and tells her to wear it if she wants to come down for dinner. Feeling she is now a hostage, and partly out of curiosity, Sarah reluctantly agrees to put on the jacket. Once they enter the dining room, Sarah is surprised to find the rest of the group already assembled at the table and all wearing straight jackets. At the head of the table is Benji, a bearded and eccentric looking man who reveals to Sarah that they know everything about her, her last job as a bank-teller, where she grew up, everything. All aspects of her cover identity unfortunately.

Benji then tells Sarah that she can begin eating whenever she’s ready. Not knowing how to eat if she’s in a straight jacket Sarah tells Benji that she’s a guest and would not feel right if she started before them. To which Benji responds; “You can do what you please, but we prefer to eat after you begin.” Confused and uneasy Sarah attempts to eat by slurping the soup directly from the bowl. Everyone stares at Sarah with a look of condemnation. What happens next is a “zen” moment in which everyone takes to eating by having the persyn next to them pick up the spoon with their mouth and feed them. Feeling played, Sarah storms out of the house and into the woods where Benji and company follow her and ask her to come back. Sarah responds, “For what? So you can continue to make fun of me to your followers?” Benji then explains that he doesn’t have any followers. He tells her that if she’d only relied on the group, instead of selfishly trying to feed herself then she wouldn’t be feeling stupid. Sarah then retorts “Why is it that self-righteousness and resistance movements always go hand in hand?” Yet it is the bourgeois and the Christians who are the most self-righteous of all, imposing their ways on others, forcing the majority to suffer for their own benefit. They criticize the masses with a false sense of superiority, while it is the job of revolutionaries to criticize the oppressor with the basic facts of their oppression. Throughout the movie, it is stressed that everything members of The East do is their own choice, and when they do do things it is organized in collective ways that challenge bourgeois individualism, such as the eating example.

Later that night Sarah is caught spying by Eve, an East member. Sarah is then forced to reveal herself to Eve, but she tells her that she is an active FBI agent, and that The East house is currently under surveillance, and that if she exposes her she’ll go to jail. Eve agrees to stay quiet but flees the next day without telling anyone what she knows. The next day The East discovers that Eve has left. This throws the group’s next mission into limbo. Sarah explains that she can easily fill Eve’s shoes. The group takes a vote and decides to let Sarah in on the “jam” so long as her knowledge of the mission is relegated to her role. Sarah agrees.

The group’s mission is to infiltrate a business party hosted by McCabe-Grey. Once inside the party their plan is to slip a supposed anti-malarial drug “Denoxin” into the drinks of some of Amerika’s elites who have gathered to celebrate a contract between McCabe-Grey and the U.$. military which will make Denoxin available to Amerikan soldiers serving abroad. Denoxin’s side-effects have been linked to various mental and nervous disorders as demonstrated by Doc, who took the drug after his prescription killed his sister. During the celebration the vice president of McCabe-Grey gives a speech in which she touts Denoxin as a miracle drug that will protect men and wimmin in uniform in the mission to protect Third World people from evil dictators and oppressive governments; thereby allowing them to bring “freedom and democracy” to the oppressed masses.

Sarah finds out what The East is up to and attempts to stop it, but it is too late. The East completes their mission and returns to their hideout in the woods. Back at the safe-house Sarah takes to snooping and discovers the real identities of The East members. However, her spying is cut short when they see breaking news that McCabe-Grey’s vice president has begun to succumb to Denoxin’s side-effects, her life in possible danger. The East panics and decides to disperse and flee back into the relative safety of the city. They all agree that should members decide to continue with the movement they should all return to the safe house in a couple weeks.

Now, back in society, undercover agent Sarah seems uncomfortable in the real world, she is no longer used to the amenities of living in a First World country. She has become accustomed to living in the woods with The East and their communal social values; she is conflicted. Though she feels troubled she returns to Hiller-Brood for debriefing. She gives up the identities of The East and expresses her concerns that another attack will occur. She pleads to have The East house raided before they disappear, but they refuse and send Sarah back for more intelligence gathering.

Sarah re-connects with The East as they are planning the next action. This time around, the mission is to get Hawkstone Energy executives (yet another fictional imperialist corporation) to admit their illegal pollution practices on camera; illegal practices that have contaminated a small town’s drinking water. Benji’s plan is to rationalize with the bourgeois leaders of Hawkstone into giving up their dangerous exploitation of the earth (kidnapping them and forcing them to listen), but Thumbs disagrees. Thumbs doesn’t want to talk with the enemy, he wants action now. He says that these rich types don’t ever respond to “intellectual bullshit, they respond to firepower!” After some heated discussion they agree to Benji’s original plan where Izzy ends up dead, shot by Hawkstone security.

We cannot afford to make the focoist error of taking up armed struggle when the conditions aren’t right, as the character of Thumbs attempts to do. Focoism has a long history of failure, getting good revolutionaries killed or locked up in jail. To think that armed actions will always inspire the masses towards revolutionary activity is an ultra-left and deadly, idealist mistake that has left many anti-imperialists either dead or in prison. In this sense The East has a better strategy in that they are primarily trying to stop the most powerful people from doing the damage their corporations are doing, rather than engaging in focoist actions aimed at convincing Amerikans that the corporations need to be stopped. The East may actually end up stopping some corporations, and the individuals leading them, from some of their more destructive practices. But in the end this strategy, like focoism, lacks the big picture perspective that will enable us to put an end to the environmental destruction that is inherent to capitalism. What their strategy lacks is the building of independent institutions of the oppressed that have the power to implement environmentally-friendly production methods while meeting the people’s needs. While the movie shows The East building alternative culture within their collective, we must figure out how to go bigger than that to really counter the powerful corporations that are now calling the shots.

When Izzy dies, The East becomes spooked and are thrown into disarray. One member talks of abandoning the movement and Benji tries to get him to stay. Benji tells him that “a revolution is never easy, but that doesn’t make it any less important,” to which the deserter states, “I would betray the revolution for Izzy, that’s the difference between you and me.” This is an inherent weakness in petty bourgeois radical movements. When those they care about are threatened they see the comforts of petty bourgeois life as preferable to struggle. This is why the deserter is able to succumb to such individualist ways of thinking. For the proletariat, oppression is a daily reality, and death of a comrade will tend to justify further what they are doing rather than discourage. What we must fully understand however is that the success or failure of any movement does not hinge on the importance of one individual, one man, one womyn or one child; but on the stated aims of that movement and the completion of that goal, and if we stray from those principles then we are just as guilty of betraying the revolution as the deserter in the movie did.

At this point, this cell of The East splits up yet again. Back at Hiller-Brood Sarah discloses the day’s events, she reports Izzy’s death and claims that The East is in shambles, a perfect time to move in and arrest them all. Her advice is again ignored. She is ordered to go back. She meets with Benji, but this time pleads with him to give up the movement; partly out of her wish to prevent another attack or death, and partly because she has developed romantic feelings for him. Benji refuses and instead convinces her to take part in one last mission. She agrees because she has feelings for him and because she has now been won over to The East’s cause.

On the way to the next mission Benji exposes his hand and tells Sarah that he knows she’s a spy. He tells her that if she was ever down with the movement or truly had feelings for him, then she’d complete the mission and run away with him. She agrees to help. The mission is to retrieve a flash drive from the offices of Hiller-Brood that contains the names of fifty agents embedded in underground movements all across the world. Benji convinces Sarah that he only wants the list to spy on the spies; but what he really wants is to expose the agents to their organizations. She carries out the mission but when she finds out Benji’s true intention she denies having stolen the flash drive. She tries to convince Benji that if they were to obtain the list it’d be better to talk the agents into giving up their careers as spies for the greater good. She argues if they only knew what they were really doing, they’d all turn just as she had. Benji refuses and they part ways. He, back to the underground, and she onto a one womyn awareness campaign.

The movie ends with clips of her talking to what appear to be other Hiller-Brood agents outside of oil refineries and power plants. The take away? Don’t work outside the system in order to change it, work alongside it in order to change minds one persyn at a time.

Now let us examine this film from a Maoist perspective: “In the world today, all culture, all literature and all art belong to definite classes and are geared to definite political lines. There is in fact no such thing as art for art’s sake, art that stands above classes, art that is detached or independent of politics.” (MIM Theory 13)

This should be our attitude and guiding line when viewing or reviewing art i.e, film, literature, music, etc. Only with this attitude will we be able to see thru the bourgeoisie obfuscation of art. Furthermore; “works of literature and art, as ideological forms are products of the life of a given society.” Which means that what we as a society deem to be art can only be pulled from the consciousness of society itself. Art expresses not only individual, but society’s wishes, its desires, its anxieties and its perceived problems.

Now we began this review by stating that this movie was aesthetically pleasing and filled with political content. Comrade Mao taught us that the most reactionary art in class society is both high in artistic value and filled with political content. And who’s political views was this movie putting forward? The bourgeoisie’s of course. But even though it is a bourgeoisie product with bourgeois aims we can still learn something from it that we can apply to our own movement. Hence, we should not totally discard it.

Overall, The East is painted in a very positive light in this film, highlighting the liberatory and egalitarian aspects of the anarchist sub-culture. What we are to take away from this is Sarah benefitted and learned from that experience, but goes on to have her real impact by working among the agents of the imperialists to convince them what they are doing is wrong. The whole premise assumes that people just don’t know the destruction that these corporations are doing. While the details are certainly masked from Amerikans, the information is still readily available, and a historical analysis of this country will reveal much deeper roots to reactionary politics of the Amerikan consumer nation. A more damaging storyline that would be justified by this movie, which we see time and time again in real life, is the activist who participates in radical organizing to learn and build cred and then goes on to work within the system as Sarah does when they “grow up.” This movie will play well with the radical-curious, who find their life’s work in NGOs, non-profits and even government agencies. The good side of this film is that it could lead people to be sympathetic to the cause of radical ecology, despite its praise of reformism. There are also some good practical lessons in this movie.

The first lesson to take away from this film is that any movement that is truly working against the interests of the imperialists will simply not be tolerated. The agents of repression are always looking to smash movements of dissent and are constantly working vigorously to infiltrate and spy on us.

Secondly, we must be cautious of who we decide to work with and who we reveal ourselves to. Simply because we meet people who seem to share our political views does not mean they are comrades and thereby privy to our organization’s actions or methods of work. Within sub-cultures, having the right look and lifestyle can lead to people putting their guards down for superficial reasons. Sarah demonstrates this, and there are many real-world Sarahs whose stories have been exposed. This essentially breaks down to “better, fewer, but better.” And even good comrades can be turned, which we should keep in mind as well. The bourgeoisie and their spies are highly organized and we should be too. A good way of keeping security tight within our organizations is by keeping politics in command. No one who isn’t putting in work should know anything about our organizations other than what is published in the pages of Under Lock & Key and the MIM(Prisons) website. Our work should always be geared along the lines of what will be the most effective and will get us the furthest fastest. As such, security within our movement shouldn’t be something we study in addition to theory, but should stem directly from it.

Thirdly, we shouldn’t necessarily have to like our comrades on a persynal level. Just because we like certain people or have relative unity with them on certain issues doesn’t mean we recruit based on popularity. We recruit based on the correctness of one’s political line and the type of work done over a period of time. When they were around, the original Maoist Internationalist Party - Amerika was the vanguard of the communist movement in the North American continent exactly because they were composed of the communist elite. They didn’t get to those positions overnight due to social networking, but because they put in the correct type of work over a sustained period. This is something else we should remember when building and re-building our movements. Thus, if we are serious about taking the socialist road then we must study and work assiduously to learn Marxist philosophy, scientific socialism and Marxist political economy so that we may integrate it into our work and apply the most correct political lines.

In conclusion, we must take art seriously and not cede the cultural wars to the bourgeoisie but must engage them on that level as well. For the bourgeoisie this movie was a hit due to its successful combination of aesthetics and politics. Therefore we must also seek to fuse the political with the artistic. Under Lock & Key already does this to a certain degree as the ULK writers struggle to make it the trenchant arm of the revolution. Right now however, what ULK lacks in artistic value it makes up in political worth, though there is much room for improvement.

Don’t work alongside imperialism to change it one persyn at a time. Rather, work directly against it in order to smash it and revolutionize the world.

In the past, some have painted environmentalism as a concern of the First World. However, this has never really been true, as it is the most oppressed people who have suffered and struggled against the most extreme man-made disasters. And the threat that their struggles pose to the capitalists’ interests is highlighted by this list of assassinations; people who were mostly killed in cold blood, a fate those in the oppressor nations know nothing about.

There is a concentration of murders in the tropical countries, where vast rain forests with some of the greatest biodiversity on the planet are making what could be their final stand. Long a source of natural resources, in recent decades these forests have been leveled at an increasing rate that cannot be sustained. In such cases there is a clear connection between protecting the ecological functioning of a region and the national liberation struggle tied to land. These “untamed” lands are often the homes of peoples who have not fully been assimilated into the global capitalist economy. Often private property and land deeds do not exist in these areas, attracting the brutality of the exploiters. The people struggling to exist on these lands have a completely different perspective on what land ownership and stewardship mean.

Many of the reports of these assassinations can be discouraging, when we see vocal leaders of small indigenous groups gunned down by paid assassins of the capitalists and no one is held accountable. But this war does have two sides. In many of the hotspots in this report there are strong organizations that have mobilized indigenous people to defend their lands. One of those examples has made some headlines recently in the Philippines. The revolutionary forces in the Philippines have called for a ban on logging because it has impoverished the indigenous people and peasantry, making them susceptible to environmental disasters as we saw last November with typhoon Yolanda. The New People’s Army (NPA) is exerting dual power in putting this ban into effect by engaging in gun battles and arresting members of the military of the U.$. puppet regime that defend the logging companies.(2) In a separate campaign the NPA recently stormed Apex Mining Company, torching their equipment.(3) This is one of many mining companies they have targeted due to the destruction they wreak on indigenous lands and humyn health. This connection between the struggles of the indigenous people and peasantry, the environment and land is nothing new for the Communist Party of the Philippines as was documented in the decades old film Green Guerrillas.

While most pronounced in the Third World, ecological destruction threatens all humyn life and continues to be a growing rallying point for progressive forces in the First World as well. Maoists must tie this work to a realistic class analysis and link the struggle to protect our environment to the struggle for national liberation of the oppressed. A true revolutionary ecology must engage the workings of a system that has assassinated well over 900 innocent people for trying to protect the world that we all live in.

Overall the Philippines is a poor country; in 2012 there were 15 provinces with over 40% of the population below the poverty threshold.(1) While not in one of these 15 provinces, the government reports 32% of people in Leyte (Tacloban’s province) are below the poverty line.(2) These people, living below the poverty line, had an income of less than $179/month for a family of five. A third of Tacloban’s houses have wooden exterior walls and one in seven have grass roofs.(3) In these conditions, it is no surprise that a typhoon could wreak such havoc in Tacloban.

Bodies of the dead are rotting in the streets as aid fails to reach those devastated by the storm. There is no clean water and little food. Yet the Philippines is a country frequently hit by severe storms, with about 20 typhoons a year, and this storm was identified well in advance. Both these conditions should engender preparedness on the part of the government. However, in the Philippines disaster preparation and relief are delegated to local governors without a strong central leadership. Some services are more effectively delivered on a large scale. This is one area where we can show obviously that communism has a better solution than the individualism of capitalism. Where central control will lead to more efficient solutions, a communist-led government would not hesitate to take that control. But capitalism is not focused on serving the people, it is focused on maximizing profits and power for the few. And these profits result in deaths from malnutrition, military aggression, lack of health care, and “natural” disasters. As long as the imperialists retain their power and wealth, they don’t mind tens of millions of preventable deaths a year.

In an interesting historical connection, Imelda Marcos, wife of the former president of the Philippines, is from Tacloban. The family of Imelda Marcos dominated local politics for years; she herself held a congressional seat in the 1990s. Imelda’s husband, Ferdinand Marcos, who ruled in the Philippines from 1965-1986 with the support of the U.$. government, embezzled billions of dollars in public funds while in power. The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) waged revolutionary armed struggle against the Marcos regime, growing in strength during the Marcos dictatorship. In the end, when Marcos’s demise was inevitable, the United $tates stepped in to have a role in the change of government, turning on Marcos and backing Corazon Aquino. Her family legacy lives on today as her son Benigno Aquino holds the President’s office. Unfortunately, the popular movement that forced Marcos out did not go further than installing another imperialist puppet. While the communist movement was strong, it was not yet strong enough to lead the people to force the U.$. imperialists out, leaving them to play a dominating role in the country’s politics and economics to this day.(4)

This is the backdrop for the reported six warships the Amerikans sent to the Philippines last week, with more than 80 fighter jets and 5,000 navy soldiers.(5) Today the United $tates is taking advantage of the disaster in the Philippines to increase military presence, while playing the hero. As reported in a CPP press release:

“The US government is militarizing disaster response in the Philippines, in much the same way that the US militarized disaster response in Haiti in the 2010 earthquake,” said the CPP. The high-handed presence of US armed troops in Haiti has been widely renounced. The US government has since maintained its presence in Haiti…

“What the disaster victims need urgently are food, water and medical attention, not US warships bringing in emergency rations to justifty their armed presence in Philippine sovereign waters,” pointed out the CPP. “If the US government were really interested in providing assistance to countries who have suffered from calamities, then it should increase its funds to civilian agencies that deal in disaster response and emergency relief, not in fattening its international military forces and taking advantage of the people’s miseries to justify their presence,” added the CPP.(5)

Much of the press is quiet about the ongoing war in the Philippines between the U.$. puppet regime and the CPP-led New People’s Army (NPA), as well as other liberation forces in different regions of the islands. But it has been brought up in the Filipino press to spread propaganda about NPA soldiers attacking government relief efforts. The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) have denounced these lies pointing out that the location of the attack was not in an area where relief efforts were needed. The CPP reiterated that “NPA units in areas ravaged by the recent super typhoon Yolanda are currently engaged in relief and rehabilitation efforts assisting local Party branches and revolutionary mass organizations in mobilizing emergency supply for disaster victims.” Shortly thereafter a ceasefire was declared on behalf of the NPA in order to focus on relief efforts.

The liberation struggle has long been connected to the protection of the natural resources of the islands that the imperialist countries continue to extract for great profits off the backs of the Filipino proletariat.

The storm has also received a lot of attention at a climate change summit in Poland where Filipino officials have begun a hunger strike to attempt to force “meaningful” change in relation to energy consumption. Climate change has been predicted to cause more extreme weather conditions, and this recent massive typhoon is just another possible indicator that that is happening. Yet, as international summits continue, little change is made in the over-consumption of the imperialist nations driving this disaster.

As many in the Filipino countryside have already recognized, the only solution to environmental destruction and disasters is an end to capitalism. With a rational system that puts the needs of the people over the goal of profits, we can build infrastructure suited to the environmental conditions, set up emergency response systems that provide fast and effective support, and plan consumption in a way that does not undercut the very natural systems that we live in and depend on.

In August 2012, thirty-four South African miners were murdered by the police at the Maricana Platinum mine owned by Amplats (Anglo Material Platinum). These humyn beings were attempting to convince Amplats to pay them a livable wage. This is a serious “crime” to the money hungry Anglo who still looks upon the South African as a farm animal or dog.

We refer to ourselves as internationalists. However, many times we get so caught up in our own local struggles in these slave pens of oppression, we forget that there are comrades world wide who want and need a dictatorship of the proletariat. Our international outlook teaches us to keep a trained eye on the geo-political, social, economic, and fascist military climate across the globe.

In November 2012 nearly 120 Bangladeshi textile workers were burned alive. These human beings were working at the Tazreen Textile Factory in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Labor activists took pictures of the various clothing labels being worked on at the Bangladeshi garment factory. It was prominent throughout the debris. Walmart immediately feigned ignorance claiming the factory was a third party and they were unaware of any dealings with the factory. This was discovered to be a lie. In June of 2012 the factory had asked Walmart for money in order to improve safety conditions at the factory. It was found that there were not any fire exits, and the most shocking fact, other than the deaths, is that Bangladeshi textile workers are paid 18 to 20 cents an hour.

Let’s take a look at MIM Theory 10. The labor aristocracy article entitled: The White Working Class: Gross Parasitism, by MC12, pg 48:

“Defining the value of labor power is difficult. It has to be at least a subsistence wage in order to reproduce the working class so that capitalists have more workers. But in the era of imperialism, things have changed. On the one hand, in many oppressed nations we find that the proletariat is paid less than the value of their labor power, measured as a bare subsistence. That is, in many countries the wages paid to workers are not enough to sustain them physically, so that they rely on other means of subsistence, such as family farming or other informal economic systems - and they die or are sick more. For that reason, imperialist multinational corporations (IMCs) never employ all the potential workers in a poor country. Those who are not employed by the imperialists need to work to supplement the wages of the paid workers. This is the system of super exploitation, and it generates superprofits, as Lenin described in Imperialism, The Highest Stage of Capitalism.”

Walmart is establishing a pattern of deceptive and unethical business practices and for some reason the department of injustice has been turning a blind eye to their blatantly criminal behavior. In December 2012 journalist David Barstow of the New York Times wrote a piece entitled “Walmart, Bribes and Mexico.” The piece detailed Walmart’s conspiracy to bribe the mayor of Teotihuacán, Mexico. Teotihuacán is the site of some ancient pyramids, a bona fide cultural historical place. But Walmart wanted to expand by any means necessary even if it meant violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. However, there has been evidence that shows FBI investigators never notified the Injustice Department. Oh, the cat is out of the bag now but Walmart is doing everything possible to hush up the vast Mexican bribery scheme.

Environmental Destruction

February 18, 2013 on the Washington mall in Washington D.C., the largest climate change rally ever in U.S. history was staged. The main focus was convincing President Barack Obama to stop the Keystone Pipeline. The Keystone Pipeline would run from Alberta, Canada to the Gulf of Mexico and it would transport a product known as tar sands oil. Tar sands is one of the most volatile, noxious, toxic, and environmentally damaging oil products known to man. Greenhouse gases are doubled, sometimes tripled, in reference to the production of this volatile product. Chemicals like Benzene, a known carcinogenic, must be mixed with tar sands so that it may move through the pipeline. I don’t even want to begin to describe the natural disaster or threat to the environment that will occur if one of these pipes were to rupture.

Imperialist multinational corporations that deal in fossil fuels (i.e. oil and gas) have conspired to create an entity that funds the denial of global warming. In mid-February 2013 journalist Suzanne Goldberg of the Guardian did an exposé on Donors Trust, a right wing fund raising monster which specializes in funding groups which publish information denying global climate change. The key to the deception is this: Donors Trust right wing financial backers remain anonymous.

Comrades this is why I refer to these IMCs as our most formidable enemy and greatest threat. When you have the money and power as well as the intent to engage in a misinformation and disinformation campaign that has the potential of contributing largely to the destruction of our planet, you are the greatest enemy to Maoism. Without a planet there will be no revolution. This all ties into our anti-imperialist struggle. So now we must apply historical dialectical materialism and figure out who is behind this conspiracy. Once we identify the threat, we must make plans to disarm, disable, and eradicate the threat.

Since Donors Trust keeps their donation rosters secret we must ask ourselves what group of individuals or state would benefit the most by disseminating quack science information which discounts global warming or denies climate change? The state of Texas is #1 in oil production in the United $nakes. Activists in east Texas have been engaged in a long-standing fight to stop the Keystone Pipeline from passing through a private citizen’s property who was not told that tar sands would be the product transported across his land. Keystone offered the citizen a “sweet cream puff” deal: “We will pay you half of what your property is worth. Or if you say no we will pay you nothing, take your shit, and claim imminent domain!” So not only do they think of sinister ways to shape and mold your thinking, if you say “no,” they just take what they want anyway.

Comrades, my days of idealism and romanticism are long gone! President Barack Hussein Obama will not stop the Keystone Pipeline. Activists in Oklahoma, Texas, and all over the U.S. and Canada better prepare for a dramatic increase in fascist repression and oppressive tactics by the state which is working hand in glove with the imperialist multinational corporations.

It is time for us to educate and organize like never before. Answering comrade Ehecatl’s, call to study Maoism seriously (ULK 30 Jan/Feb 2013), we must think of innovative means and strategies to reach out to our comrades in Bangladesh, South Africa, Greece, and Europe who are sick and tired of having the boot of imperialism on the back of their neck.

MIM(Prisons) adds: Overall, the environmental threats of imperialism, especially those like the Keystone Pipeline that really hit home, will make greater inroads with the labor aristocracy than issues of labor repression in the Third World. While it is true that people in the First World will suffer from environmental destruction along with the rest of the world, we should keep in mind that even with environmental destruction the suffering is pushed on the Third World as much as possible. As described in MIM Theory 12: Environment, Society, Revolution, in the article “On Capitalism and the Environment”, “Pollution, like all else under capitalism, is unequally distributed. On a world scale, waste from the imperialist countries is dumped in the neocolonies.” This is all part of why we say the national contradiction is principal, and why we see majorities of people in the First World allying with imperialist interests overall. As such, we disagree with USW88 that the people of Europe have the boot of imperialism on their neck. The white nationalists, from the social democrats to the fascists, portray the principal contradiction as the people versus the corporations. This line leads to a focus on local interests, which in the First World are the interests of the oppressor nation.

So when we promote internationalism, we are talking about proletarian internationalism, that is anti-revisionist in that it draws clear lines between our friends and our enemies and whose interests are being served. Opposition to the Keystone Pipeline must include this internationalist perspective, or the opposition movement will consider it success when the crude oil extraction moves from their own back yard, literally, to the Third World.

The Washington State Department of Ecology recently required the Washington State Dept of Corrections to conduct an investigation at Washington State Penitentiary to determine the type and location of contaminants present, and evaluate cleanup options.

They found hazardous waste (lead, gasoline) in the soil and well water system here at the prison. This water is used for drinking, showering, cooking, etc.

On 9 December 2012, local news ran the story regarding toxic waste in the water here at the prison. Two days later, coincidentally, prison staff were handing out printouts regarding the “toxics cleanup program.” Are they trying to lead us to believe that they had no prior knowledge of this potentially dangerous problem prior to a couple days ago?

Chemicals (TCE and PCE) were identified in ground water outside the exterior prison fences. Some of these chemicals were used in furniture refinishing and repair, license plate manufacturing, dry cleaning, motor pool maintenance, metal working and welding, photo processing, sign manufacturing, and medical and dental labs.

The report given to prisoners claims that the levels of PCE and TCE in certain groundwater monitoring wells no longer pose a health concern to humans or the environment. However, they do admit that “gasoline and lead in soil exceed state standards at certain locations.”

This is something that needs to be looked at by an independent scientist/law firm, so we prisoners know that we have chances of living a healthy life, in and out of prison.

MIM(Prisons) adds: As a prisoner discussed in the article “Environment and Prisons” in Under Lock & Key 7: “The main thing that I learned from this MT 12 was of the overwhelming toxic dump sites in and around oppressed nations areas. . .Yet we hardly hear a murmur from the media when toxic dumps spring up in areas where the oppressed nations swell. Third World countries have become the imperialist dump site. I watched a news program around a month ago about how petty bourgeois here in the U.S. were setting up these scam ‘recycle’ centers for computers and ‘e-trash.’ These ‘recycle’ centers would turn around and ship off this toxic junk to Third World nations and turn a profit, even though there’s supposed laws prohibiting this toxic dumping (for Petty Bourgeois and small time entrepreneurs) it is still continued with a nod and a wink. The bourgeois, big business, transnational corporations etc. are a whole different story. They continue to dump toxins on the Third World nations with only encouragement from imperialist economists.”

We should not be surprised when toxic waste is found in or around prisons as well. In fact, we have published reports of similar incidents in Connally Unit in Texas and Kern Valley State Prison in California. Those suffering under similar conditions must continue to expose these incidents, and campaign for basic safety for the imprisoned. We then need to take this one step further, as the contributor quoted above does, and put it in the context of imperialist environmental destruction and national oppression so that contaminants aren’t just pushed into someone else’s backyard.

I want to bring up an issue that should be addressed and included in the struggle for positive change. Back around 2005 the Department of Corrections began installing timers on our toilets, to limit us to two flushes every five minutes. The reason given for the timers and limits on the flushes is for the purpose of water conservation. I’m all for saving the planet and conserving Earth’s resources, but not at the expense of my own health and well-being.

The timer and two-flush limit has emphasized the impact of living with a toilet in the compact space where we also eat and sleep. No man should have to be forced to endure prolonged exposure to the revolting stench of human waste! To limit us to two flushes every five minutes is simply unreasonable, but what is unconscionable and amounts to cruel and unusual punishment is the so-called “penalty flush!” especially when we have no way of knowing when the toilet’s timer has reset itself. Here at Calipatria State Prison if we inadvertently or purposely attempt to flush the toilet a third time before the toilet’s timer has reset itself, a 15 minute penalty will incur. This means the toilet will not flush for 15 minutes and anything in the toilet will remain there throughout the duration of the 15 minute penalty.

In other prisons I hear that the penalty flush can be anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour! There’s simply no penological justification for the penalty flush because the two-flush limit every five minutes serves the penological interest of the water conservation. It is inhumane to punish a man for simply trying to use the bathroom. So please include this stinking issue into the struggle. United in struggle we will prevail.

MIM(Prisons) responds: Actually, water conservation is not a penological interest at all. Like this correspondent says, a two-flush-per-five-minute rule would be enough to prevent any attempts to abuse toilet flushing. The penalties for attempting to flush the toilet show us clearly that this is just another method to make prisoners’ lives extra miserable, and dangerous, for no good reason.

It might be argued that flush rules are in the state’s interests to save water, because water is money. But either way, the “greening” of Amerikan prisons highlights the dominant pro-imperialist slant of so-called environmentalism in this country. Water conservation can be used to improve production for California agribusiness, or it can be used to provide people with clean drinking water across the world. Which goal you choose is a political question. Really environmentalism that is not internationalist in perspective is not true environmentalism at all because it ignores most of the biggest problems humyns face interacting with our natural environment in favor of the local interests of small, privileged groups.

I’m writing in response to the article “Gulf Oil Spill: It’s Capitalism, Stupid!”, and wanted to address one issue within the article. In this prisoner’s article, he states that “this type of disaster would have had a very small to nil chance of happening in the former Soviet Union (1917-1953) [The Lenin and Stalin era] or the socialist People’s Republic of China (1949-1976), because those communist countries wouldn’t have had to do the extensive drilling that the First World seems so caught up with. Why? It is exactly because the communist countries implement something called ‘planned economics,’ to meet human needs.”

We must be careful what we teach in regard to a better government when using the Stalinist era. This individual’s comment regarding “planned economics” is wrong, it was not implemented peacefully but through violence. He should read about Stalin’s seven year plan and the collectivization of property and farms. History reflects that Stalin killed over 20 million of his own country men, so using him or that era as an example is misguided. Stalin was a tyrant, a pathological killer. I would not name his era as one of humanity’s finer points, nor look up to his “planned economics” which cost so many of his countrymen’s lives.

Additionally, the Soviet Union’s record regarding ecological and environmental disasters is one of complete failure and surpasses the United States record on a grand scale, both under the Stalinist era and even today.

It is ok to believe in one form of government or a goal of government, but let’s not distort the past to build a better future as this is nothing more than an illusion in which we all already live under in America.

MIM(Prisons) responds: The original author was correct to uphold the Soviet Union and China as examples of environmentalism. In 1942, under Stalin’s leadership, the city of Moscow composted all of the waste of its 4,000,000 inhabitants. The biothermal process heated large “greenhouse farms” in the city, while the resulting compost was used as fertilizer.(1) With all the talk of “green cities” in the United $tates, there are no projects that rival what the Soviets were doing 70 years ago. Similarly, China and the Soviet Union had massive recycling programs for metal decades before such things became fashionable in the imperialist countries. Also note, that if one were to do a quantitative comparison of socialist vs. capitalist environmentalism, one must compare countries of the same time period, reflecting similar ecological knowledge.

This letter gives us a chance to debunk some myths about the Stalin era in the Soviet Union in general. First, we want to be clear that state capitalism, which was put into place in the Soviet Union after Stalin’s death, does not reflect Stalinism or any form of socialism. Therefore this author is just confusing the issue by complaining about environmental disasters there today. Second, we must point out that the article in question never claims that planned economics was an entirely peaceful process. However, we must be very clear that it was Stalin’s policies and practices that enabled the Soviet Union to industrialize the Soviet Union, defeat Hitler and put an end to fascism, in spite of the purposeful non-interference policy of countries like the U.$. who hoped to stand aside and let fascism wipe out communism.

This letter reflects the typical anti-Stalinist propaganda of the imperialist countries who like to claim that Stalin himself killed over 20 million people, as if one man could possibly be so powerful. The reality is that many people died during the fight against fascism, and in fact Stalin himself did order or oversee many deaths of spies and those suspected of being infiltrators for the fascists. In this way Stalin ensured that the Soviet Union was the only country free of a Fifth Column of fascist spies and infiltrators. This made it possible for him to do what no other country could even come close to accomplishing, in spite of the lack of development and widespread poverty in the Soviet Union, and defeat Hitler. The aggressive industrialization and collectivization reflected the needs of the Soviet Union at the time those policies were implemented.

This letter includes the usual imperialist propaganda of labeling Stalin a pathological tyrant rather than looking at his actions and evaluating them scientifically. It’s easy to sling around names masquerading as political criticisms. But when we look closely at Stalin’s record and his policies we can see a history of carefully evaluating the difficult conditions of the time and making decisions about what to do based on the reality of those conditions. When you have the fascists amassing on your borders, planning invade and massacre your population to put in place a system of tyranny and oppression, sometimes the best options to fight those fascists don’t involve picking flowers and singing happy songs. Without industrialization the Soviet Union could not have defeated Hitler (even Hitler saw this) and with an active Fifth Column of spies the fascists would have had the inside track on Soviet activities. In wartime difficult decisions must be made, and the world is lucky that Stalin was a man able to make these decisions scientifically, without sentiment, or we could be living under global fascist rule today. As it was the Soviet Union lost more than 20 million people to the war against the fascists. The number of lives saved by his victory in the war is never something he gets credit for, but even deaths from starvation due to the conditions of war are something his critics like to count as if Stalin had personally executed every single person who died during his leadership.

For more on Stalin we recommend MIM Theory 6, The Stalin Issue.

Hands across Amerika, what a wonderful, heart-warming concept. From Santa Monica, California to the beaches of Alabama, Amerikans united in an attempt to show their disappointment and anger at the British Petroleum oil company (BP) as well as their love for the environment, specifically the Gulf Coast.

It’s been over two months since BP caused the disastrous oil spill in the Gulf Coast region of the United Snakes, and still the imperialists and big capitalists are at a loss for how to stop one of the most destructive environmental disasters in humyn history. Amerikans are mad! One of the things Amerikans hate to see most is when the evils of imperialism touch “their” shores. What a huge financial hit for all those people living on and near the Gulf Coast, not to mention all that poor defenseless marine life - how dare that BP come here and impose their careless, maniacal ways on Amerikkka - have they no shame? Amerikans didn’t want that oil anyway, right?

Actually, Amerikans do want BP drilling for oil. Being the parasites on humynity and the globe that they are, they definitely wanted BP drilling for oil in the Gulf Coast no matter what they say. They’re thirsty for oil like ticks for blood. It’s partly why they installed the Shah of Iran back in the day. It’s why they invaded Kuwait and attacked Iraq during the Gulf War, which led to record-breaking marine oil spills at that time polluting wetlands in Iraq (BP has far surpassed those records now).(1) It’s why Amerika invaded Iraq a second time and hung Saddam. And it’s partly why they now have their sights set on Iran for regime change. So please, to all you oil thirsty piggish Amerikans, spare us your sentiments. You wanted that oil just as much, if not more than your big capitalists and energy corporations did.

It’s not as if BP is some foreign entity completely alien to Amerika which somehow just muscled or manipulated the western hemisphere’s only superpower and began drilling at will. You wanted that oil when you decided to get rid of that tired old Chevy and upgrade to a decadently sprawled out 2010 all terrain SUV. You wanted that oil when you decided to keep your home at a comfy 73 degrees year round even though you live in California. You want that oil every time you purchase all of the other pointless, unnecessary crap that you don’t need which requires oil for manufacturing, packaging, shipping, etc. And finally, you prove that you want that oil every time one of your boys and girls comes back from overseas in a body bag, or subject the Third World to your yoke of oppression, death and destruction.

Everything’s fine and dandy when the oil spill happens somewhere else, in some country you’re too lazy to even try to pronounce right. Nigerians have been living among oil spills for over 50 years, amounting to over 550 million gallons spilled, thanks to foreign oil companies supplying Amerikans and other rich nations.(2) Fifty years, and still nothing has been done about the destroyed ecosystems or humyn livelihoods. And for those who are campaigning to end off shore oil drilling in the United $tates without seriously restricting First World consumption: that will only translate into more pollution and destruction in Nigeria, the Sudan and all over the Middle East where humyn lives and ecosystems are deemed less worthy by the chauvinists screaming “not in my backyard!”

The oil spill wasn’t BP’s fault alone and it wasn’t Obama’s fault alone, either. It’s capitalism stupid, and the sooner you begin to understand that and start to do something to ensure that oil spills like in the Gulf Coast don’t happen again, like say helping to bring imperialism down, the better off we’ll all be.

This type of disaster would have had a very small to nil chance of happening in the former Soviet Union (1917-1953) or the socialist People’s Republic of China (1949-1976), because those communist countries wouldn’t have had to do the extensive drilling that the First World seems so caught up with. Why? It is exactly because the communist countries implement something called “planned economics,” to meet humyn needs. With today’s knowledge of capitalism’s effects on Earth’s ecology, a socialist form of production would only approve the production of necessary amounts of what’s needed for their people, such as food, clothing, shelter, medical supplies and other necessities for trade and sale. These planned economies would be updated quarterly, yearly or as needed. But today, Amerikans demand more and they want it cheap. And the imperialists must produce more than is needed in order to continue to profit.

In a Maoist economic system, since production is for need and not profit, safety suddenly becomes “affordable.” Under capitalism, cutting corners increases profits, while threatening humyn lives. While many Amerikans are legitimately angry, they feel helpless to do anything. The BP officials seem untouchable, yet in a Maoist planned socialist economy, those in charge of potentially life-threatening operations are held to the greatest accountability, including the death penalty. While BP officials are millionaires, communist officials in socialist China made much less than intellectuals, while bearing much more responsibility. Allowing the few to profit off of the destruction of the planet that all life depends on will be the most lasting legacy of capitalism that future generations will scratch their heads at.

We can expect many more environmental disasters to hit Amerika (as they’ve already been hitting the Third World for decades) in the years to come as the imperialists get more desperate to exploit the earth for its material resources and leave all qualms aside when it comes to tapping more and more into the U.$. minerals and fossil fuel reserves. The insatiable appetites of consumption of the First World must be stopped in order to maintain a planet worth building socialism on.

Notes:
(1)Threats to the environment posed by war in Iraq. Science in Africa, March 2003.
(2)Jon Gambrell. Gulf spill a familiar story in oil-soaked Nigeria. Associated Press, July 5, 2010.

From December 7 through 18, 2009, the UN-sponsored 15th Conference of Parties (COP15) was held in Copenhagen, Denmark. COP15 was a gathering where world powers came together to discuss the impending doom of climate change and what they will, or won’t, do about it. This series of semi-annual COP talks began officially in November 1994, and in 1997 the group adopted a document called the Kyoto Protocol, which is a supposedly legally binding agreement that targets an average reduction of 5.2% from 1990 levels of greenhouse gas emissions (GGEs) by the year 2012. In 2009, the u.$. offered to lower GGEs by 4% of 1990 levels, while the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change wants developed countries to curb emissions by 25-40% of 1990 levels.(1) The u.$. is the only imperialist country in the world that hasn’t signed the Kyoto Protocol, while other imperialist countries have officially agreed to the document, but have not obeyed it, such as klanada who raised their GGEs by 26%(2).

According to the Kyoto Protocol, the primary way the polluters of the world are supposed to reduce their GGEs is through emissions trading, what is also called “cap and trade.” Based on their current pollution levels, governments grant a certain amount of permission to companies to pollute, the “cap,” in the form of emission reduction credits. Companies that want to pollute more than the amount of credits they have can buy them from companies who don’t max out their own. Hypothetically, companies who pollute more are paying the price, and companies who pollute less are benefiting. In reality, there are so many loopholes in the “cap and trade” that a 15% reduction of GGEs on paper can actually equate to a 10% increase.(3) Before the Kyoto Protocol, global GGEs went up 1.5% per year. After the Kyoto Protocol, they went up 3% per year.(4) The only reason this backwards strategy is even on the table is because of attempts to submit to those who worship the capitalist market as a god that can solve all problems.

The system of carbon emissions trading is also limited by focusing on one form of pollution only. There is an incorrect assumption here that everyone has equal access to polluting and suffer from pollution equally. As many parties at COP15 pointed out, whole nations face extinction due to climate change they didn’t contribute to creating. Twenty percent of the world population have emitted more than 2/3 of emissions, and caused more than 90% of the increase in temperatures.(5) Plus, pollution from factories doesn’t just contaminate the air with greenhouse gases, it contaminates drinking water and soil and has more local affects on the atmosphere as well, as evidenced by increased occurrences of asthma. So companies who are higher-polluting and are on the buying end of the emission reduction credits scheme create “hot spots” with lots of pollution of all kinds. These “hot spots” have been largely exported to the Third World where production for the exploiter nations is now centered. Even in the united $tates it is disproportionately ghettos and reservations that are ravaged by environmental pollution.

In 2009 a new document came out of the COP talks, called the Copenhagen Accord. It was crafted by the u.$. in negotiation with other imperialist consumer nations and some major neo-colonial producer nations.(6) The Copenhagen Accord is pathetic in that it’s not legally binding and is basically an outline of some generic judgments on climate change (essentially, “it’s bad”), and a simple form where countries write in their emission goals for each other to examine. The u.$. is trying to legitimize the existence of the Accord by obtaining as many signatures on it as possible. Hillary Clinton’s tactic to accomplish this goal is to withhold aid from countries who do not sign. Yet, the aid proposed, not even guaranteed, is just $100 billion from all developed countries combined. To compare, President Evo Morales of Bolivia released a document requesting developed countries pay a minimum of 1% of their annual GDP into a UN fund for underdeveloped countries.(5) For the u.$. alone, this would be a $144 billion annual contribution according to its 2008 GDP.(7)

Another solution being pushed at COP15, presented by the climate negotiator Miguel Lovera of Paraguay, is for more countries to give money to REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation). REDD is an international fund to pay poor nations for saving or replanting forests instead of cutting them down for timber or cash crops. Obama called REDD “cost effective” because instead of reducing u.$. emissions, they can buy their way out of public pressure by giving money to REDD. Yet, REDD is just a formula to give money to people who already have money, who can afford to clear cut a forest in the first place. In the words of Camila Moreno of Friends of the Earth in Brazil,

REDD is a mechanism designed to avoid deforestation but we know, and they say, indigenous people do not deforest because their life depends on the forest and they live with the forest. So the whole point is that REDD is designed [for] the guy that has the chainsaw, or the money to buy the chainsaw, or the big bulldozers and can say “Okay, I’m going to do this. How much you pay for me not doing?” (8)

The Copenhagen Accord and REDD are the two major deals that were discussed in the mainstream “left” press regarding COP15. Both serve the economic interests of the oppressor nations, and neither will significantly affect climate change.

Many speakers correctly recognized capitalism as the main cause of climate change, and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez accurately noted that to have true environmental protection, we need to go from a capitalist economy to a socialist economy. In oppressed nations where pollution is dumped and forests are destroyed, if the polluters are pushed out by national liberation struggles, eventually they will run out of places to pollute. Therefore environmentalists must build and support national liberation struggles in an internationalist effort to reduce greenhouse gases and defend natural resources of the oppressed.

Environmentalism as Mysticism

Many of the speakers and representatives at COP15 were referring to an inherent responsibility of humyns to protect “Mother Earth.” As materialists, we know that all ideas and moralities are created by humyns, and MIM(Prisons) does not believe in or support mysticism. On the other hand, we are communists, and believe in ending power of people over people. So then, what is revolutionary environmentalism? To further explain, we will quote from page 32 of MIM Theory 12: Environment Society Revolution:

It is no more wrong for a human to dig up something useful from the earth than it is for a meteorite to strike a planet somewhere in space. The moral question is the question of human relations first. The idea that it is wrong to exploit, oppress and kill a human being is a human idea, and like all human ideas it occurs only on the basis of class and gender relations. From the oppression and exploitation of some humans by other humans, the oppressed and exploited have developed a morality that condemns this, and we develop a practice to end it… [W]e do not at present believe there is a basis for calling the “destruction” of the Earth as a planet itself immoral, apart from its relation to humanity and, possibly, other life.

Tuvalu is a small island nation in the Pacific ocean about halfway between Hawaii and Australia. Along with most other islands and many coastal areas, it will be submerged under water by the end of the century if the global temperature exceeds a 1.5 degrees Celcius, or 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit, rise above pre-industrial temperatures. “Genocide” is defined by the United Nations as “the acts that lead to the disappearance of a people” and the u.$. plays a direct and leading role in this oppression. It is not so much the island of Tuvalu itself, as the Tuvaluan people whom we need to advocate for on this issue.

Reparations & Refugees

Although the official deal that came out of COP15 is a commitment to more of the same from the imperialist countries, the event was unique in that it was the first time that much of the Third World united demanding reparations, and the imperialists had to directly say “no” to these demands. The G77 is a group of over 130 underdeveloped countries, and was the largest united front to enter the talks. Although the G77 didn’t ask for direct payment from imperialist nations, they called for a 60% reduction of current GGEs of the imperialist countries by 2020.(8) With a limit on global carbon emissions, such a reduction grants more “atmospheric space” for exploited countries to utilize to meet their own people’s needs.

On the topic of direct transfer of wealth as reparations, the UN estimates that it will take at least $500 or $600 billion per year for underdeveloped countries to sustain their people without the development of outdated and heavy polluting industries. This number is backed by another study that came out of London. Even surpassing Evo Morales’ call for 1%, Martin Khor, executive director of South Centre think tank, estimates that it will require at least 2% of the GNP from rich countries, which totals about $800 billion per year.(5) Stemming from our understanding of exploitation and the transfer of wealth from the Third World to the First World, we support the demand for reparations in all forms.

However, the united $tates has explicitly stated that they will not pay their dues. As u.$. climate negotiator Todd Stearn clumsily explained,

We fully recognize that our historic role in putting emissions up in the atmosphere and we also fully recognize our responsibility to be part of an overall global effort to help poorer countries, both with the regard to the need to adapt to the impacts of climate change and the need to help them develop on a sustainable path, which at this point in our collective history means low-carbon path. Reparations to me conveys of culpability, guilt, that kind of thing. And I don’t think that’s a legitimate way to look at it. (9)

Aside from the problem we have with Stearn’s attempt to lump the rest of the world into amerikkka’s “collective history” of exploitation and genocide, we ask, what the hell is “responsiblity” and “recognition of a historic role” if it isn’t also an admission of guilt? We know we will never get a logical answer to this question, so instead we ask the Third World and revolutionaries everywhere, how will the u.$. pay for its past and continued contribution to climate genocide?

To show exactly how the imperialist settler nations see the rights of First Nations peoples to land and liberty, and by extension of all oppressed nations to the same, we will quote from part of a speech that Naomi Klein gave at COP15. Naomi Klein is the author of No Logo and The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. This anecdote tells about when she accompanied First Nations representatives to discuss klanada’s debt to them with a credit rating agency called Moody’s:

I was with the very powerful First Nations spokesperson for the Haida, named Gujao, and Arthur Manuel, who is a former chief for the Nuu-chah-nulth First Nation in British Columbia. And Arthur had decided that one way to get Canada to acknowledge the debts that it owed to First Nations people was to meet with the credit agencies that give Canada its triple-A credit rating, which is the highest possible credit rating, and explain to Moody’s that actually Canada carries a huge unpaid debt in the form of the lands that it stole, without treaties, from First Nations peoples.

…[A]rthur and Gujao presented all the documents, the writs, the legal rulings by the Supreme Court of Canada, that proved their case that this land was stolen and that they were owed billions in unpaid debts. And they said, “Canada is not a great place to do investment, because what if we called in these debts?” And it was very interesting, because the guy from Moody’s nodded, and he said, “You’re right. We’ve been following these court rulings, but we have decided that you are not going to collect on these debts. So it is not affecting our credit rating.”

And that’s a very important thing for us to remember, because debt is political. Right? You can make your argument. And when we make these arguments, frankly, no one even bothers arguing with us, because it’s so obvious. The science is there. The legal treaties are there. But really what they’re saying is, “You and what army? How are you going to get this money out of us? You are not powerful enough to get the money out of us.” (2)

It is historically proven that any serious measures taken to acquire adequate repayment for destruction caused by imperialism, or even efforts to protect what few forests we have left, will be met with guns.(10) They are even willing to kill their own: in 2005 an amerikan-born nun was murdered by land grabbers who were connected with endangered hardwood trade with the u.$, Europe, and Asia.(11) Some groups have already recognized the need for armed resistance to protect their livelihoods, such as indigenous peoples in the Amazon who protect their forests with spears, and those in Kenya who use guns.(12, 13) The Communist Party of China proved through their liberation struggle the tactics necessary to win warfare against an enemy who has more numerous and powerful weapons. To catalyze the process, we encourage them to study the CPC’s military guerilla theories and practices.

In addition to demanding reparations, some speakers are calling for an opening of borders, and permission for people who are refugees due to climate change to be allowed to relocate to territories that are less affected. It is yet to be seen if the imperialist countries will fulfill this request, but considering the fat wall that’s being built through Aztlán, and how the wars in Darfur are portrayed as religious wars in the u.$. media, when in fact they are due to fighting over water shortages because of climate change, we doubt they will take a progressive stance on the issue.

Amerikan Consumerism

While a majority of amerikans accept that global climate change is something that is occurring due to humyn activity, and most think the government should do something, with recession looming the majority said economic growth should be given priority over the environment. The Gallup Poll from March 2009 was the first time that amerikans favored economic growth over the environment in 15 surveys asking this question dating back to 1984. The trend showed a general decline in environmental popularity leading up to the final victory of economics this year.(14)

It is a simple fact that justice and amerikan consumption levels are mutually exclusive. To have justice everyone would have access to such consumption, which would require 6 Earths worth of resources. A decrease in consumption is a major fear of the capitalists right now as they struggle to keep financial markets from crashing, so TV personas have begun crying about the Third World trying to destroy the amerikan standard of living. While the desirability of amerikan lifestyles is a question of subjectivity, the need for its elimination is objective based on the question of climate change alone. For decades, imperialist overproduction has been backed by such overconsumption. In contrast, a socialist economy does not require overconsumption and does not face periodic crisis leading to humyn suffering.

As one example of this overconsumption, The New York Times reports that on average, amerikans consume eight ounces of meat per day, which is twice the global average.(15) At least eighteen percent of GGEs are associated with the livestock cycle, and at COP15 Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, advocated that if we stop eating meat once per week, it will reduce GGEs by 3, 4, or even 5%.(8) This is just one example of how amerikan lifestyles will necessarily change under the Socialist Dictatorship of the Proletariat. Meat will be rationed, and cars will (largely, if not completely) be replaced by public transportation and bicycles. While this may not sound like the ideal lifestyle for some, it is even more true that amerikans stand to lose life, not just luxury, by postponing the replacing of their culture with an ecologically sustainable one. On an individual level, MIM(Prisons) is opposed to lifestyle politics as a replacement for revolutionary work. Not only are the consumer nations unwilling to follow suit on a large scale, but the system of capitalism depends on ever-increasing production that must also be profitable. Organizing large scale
changes in culture and consumption patterns will require a system that puts humyn survival over profits and such changes will not be accepted voluntarily by the First World before it’s too late.

notes:
(1) Democracy Now! 8 December 2009 http://democracynow.org
(2) DN! 11 December 2009
(3) “How to Cure the Copenhagen Hangover” by Links http://links.org.au/node/1426
(4) DN! 22 December 2009
(5) DN! 9 December 2009
(6) “5 common mistakes in the coverage of the Copenhagen Accord” http://www.grist.org/article/2009-12-22-5-fallacies-in-the-coverage-of-the-copenhagen-accord/
(7) Wikipedia page for “United States” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States
(8) DN! 18 December 2009
(9) DN! 16 December 2009
(10) “Peruvian police fire on unarmed indigenous tribes’ oil and gas protest” http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jun/05/amazon-tribes-police-protest-deaths
(11) “Farming the Amazon” http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/habitats/last-of-amazon.html
(12) “The real Avatar story: indigenous people fight to save their forest homes from corporate exploitation” Amazon Rainforest News http://www.amazonrainforestnews.com/2009/12/real-avatar-story-indigenous-people.html
(13) “Arm Sengwer Indigenous Peoples with guns to guard their lives and property” https://www.fpcn-global.org/node/118
(14) http://www.pollingreport.com/enviro.htm
(15) http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/27/weekinreview/27bittman.html