Under Lock & Key

Not long after the end of World War II, Comrade Mao Zedong put forward his famous thesis, “All reactionaries are paper tigers.”(1) This thesis armed the people of China ideologically, strengthened their confidence in victory and played an exceedingly great role in the People’s War of Liberation. This thesis is still relevant today and we would be wise to heed its message.

Comrade Mao Zedong regarded imperialism and all reactionaries as paper tigers. This thesis is a fundamental strategic concept for the revolutionary people. Since the Second Revolutionary War, Mao Zedong repeatedly pointed out: “Strategically, with regard to the whole, revolutionaries must despise the enemy, dare to struggle against him and dare to seize victory, at the same time tactically with regard to each part, each specific struggle, they must take the enemy seriously, be prudent, carefully study and perfect the art of struggle and adopt forms of struggle suited to different times, places and conditions in order to isolate and wipe out the enemy, step-by-step.”(1)

Year’s later, comrade Mao stated that: “Just as there is not a single thing in the world without a dual nature (this is the law of the unity of opposites), so imperialism and all reactionaries have a dual nature - they are real tigers and paper tigers at the same time. In past history, before they won state power and for some time afterwards, the slave owning class the feudal landlord class and the bourgeoisie were vigorous, revolutionary and progressive, they were real tigers. But with the lapse of time, because their opposites - the slave class, the peasant class and the proletariat - grew in strength step-by-step struggled against them more and more fiercely these ruling classes changed step-by-step into the reverse, changed into reactionaries, changed into backward people, changed into paper tigers. And eventually they were overthrown or will be overthrown by the people. Even in the face of the last decisive struggles waged by the people, the reactionary, backward, decaying classes retained this dual nature. On the one hand they were real tigers, they devoured people by the millions and tens of millions. The cause of the peoples struggle went thru a period of difficulties and hardships and along the path there were many twists and turns. To destroy the rule of imperialism, feudalism and bureaucrat-capitalism in China took the Chinese people more than a hundred years and cost them tens of millions of lives before the victory of 1949. Look! Were these not living tigers, iron tigers, real tigers? But in the end they changed into paper tigers, dead tigers, bean curd tigers. These are historical facts.”(2)

So there you have it. Comrade Mao all those many years ago held that the Chinese people would be victorious in their war of liberation. This wasn’t hopeful idealism on Mao’s behalf, it wasn’t that the Chinese people and Mao really, really, really wanted liberation for themselves, that they just knew if only they kept on struggling they’d someday achieve liberation. No! It was through the correct practice of dialectical materialism that the Chinese people were able to finally cast the yoke of imperialism off into the sea. This is something that many bourgeois scholars just can’t grasp. Dialectical materialism is something the bourgeoisie either doesn’t correctly understand or they don’t want to understand exactly how Mao and the CCP were able to lead the Chinese people to victory against insurmountable odds or how comrade Mao was able to become such a brilliant military strategist.

However, for us to really get the full understanding of the “paper tiger” thesis put forward by Mao, and in order to see how it is still relevant today, we must dive head first into the subject of dialectical materialism.

When comrade Mao stated “just as there is not a single thing in the world without a dual nature,”(3) he was referring to the law of the unity of opposites. The law of the unity of opposites, that is the law of contradiction in things, is the basic law of materialist dialectics. Dialectics in the proper sense is the study of contradiction in the very essence of objects. Dialectical materialists hold that a thing is made up of its being and of its opposite, this means that no contradictory aspect can exist in isolation. The basic meaning of this would be, for example, that from its very inception and all through its existence where there is light there is also darkness, because without the darkness there can be no light, because they are both mutually dependent, and in order for one to exist its opposite must also be.

So the persyn who is “good” or who does what is morally right can also be “bad” and do what is considered morally wrong. This is another example of the unity of opposites, nothing in this world is immutable.

So now that we know what the basic meaning of the law of the unity of opposites is we know exactly what Mao was talking about when he said, “Just as there is not a single thing in the world without a dual nature, so imperialism and all reactionaries have a dual nature.” What he meant by this is that even though the imperialists, and the reactionaries were strong and terrible looking at one point in hystory, they were also weak and vacillated in another point in hystory, and furthermore it was our job (the people’s) by our will and our struggle to form the correct strategic point of view to see the imperialists and reactionaries as paper tigers and know that we can defeat them in the end. However, because of this paper tiger’s dual nature, we must also be aware that this tiger can also be a real tiger and can defeat us if we don’t respect him tactically.

Now some of you who are familiar and experienced with materialist dialectics will right away say, “wait a minute, the law of contradiction says that the motive force of a thing is internal and not external.” Yes, this certainly is true. The condition of change is internal and not external, however the law of contradiction also shows us that there is antagonism inherent in things, which basically means that from its very inception antagonism exists as the struggle of opposites, as contradiction, but not until the contradiction develops into open antagonism in a thing does it push development forward and resolve itself. So first however we must find the principal contradiction, and only by finding the fundamental contradiction can we find the principal contradiction and get along with the business of resolving it.

We already know that the fundamental contradiction on a global scale is the bourgeoisie vs. the proletariat, and that the principal contradiction on the international level is imperialism vs. the Third World. In Amerika the principal contradiction is the oppressor vs. oppressed nations. So how do we resolve the principal contradiction in the united $tates? Once again, this is possible by a things dual nature (society), and if society has a dual nature then it has to have two opposing, yet equally dependent, aspects. In this case it would be the oppressor nation (euro-Amerikkkans) vs. the oppressed nations (Brown, Black, etc). So how do we resolve the principal contradictions in the united $tates? Just as the imperialists and the oppressor nation has their tiger, we too can have a tiger and defeat theirs. However, this is once again only possible when the struggle of opposites reaches its point of open antagonism, and to know when this happens we must take careful watch of the situation and always keep the concrete analysis of concrete conditions acutely in mind.

At this point in hystory our so-called “tiger” is non-existent – it is neither a real tiger nor a paper tiger. It is a dead tiger. What is meant by this is that we as a collective (Brown, Black, etc.) have been continuously colonized and oppressed by capitalism/imperialism and we are almost helpless to stop it from destroying us and our cultures. Yet, hystory teaches us that imperialism and the ruling classes have never been able to completely wipe out all traces of a nation or its people, even though it has come pretty damn close and continues to advance.

Therefore our only choice, if we are to survive the anarchy and destruction of capitalist construction, is to get to constructing ourselves. We must build this “People’s Tiger”, and the first step to building this internal force which will push development forward will be in the unification of the people. This means building a united front for a united struggle against the oppressors.

Unity evolves from the inside out. This begins with the revolutionization of our consciousness, our minds. First we change the way we think, then we apply this to our material conditions and in the way we interact with others, this is how we change our surroundings. This applies to all peoples of all societies, especially that society within a society, that society separated by the rest of the people, separated by concrete and steel - This is unity from the inside out in all its glory.

Power to the People!
Long live the Maoist Internationalist Movement!
Long live the United Soldiers from Within!

Notes:
1. “Talk with the American Correspondent Anna Louise Strong” August, 1946, Selected Readings from the Works of Mao Tsetung, Foreign Language Press: Peking, 1971, p.345.
2. Ibid. p. 346.
3. Mao Zedong. On Contradiction.

In Under Lock & Key issue 13, we published an article announcing a campaign about the improper handling of grievances by prison staff. Below is an update from the California comrade who originally turned us on to the campaign.

I initially mailed out my own petition to the CDCR Director Level back in Nov./Dec. of ’09 as part of the first wave of petitions. This was done under the auspice of its originator. However some time after the first wave went out, the persyn who devised this plan was subsequently taken to the hole. It was rumored that it was exactly because of this persyn’s legal maneuvering that he was sent to the hole. Anyway, back in January ’10 I received a response. As it turns out, these petitions were never investigated or even looked into as we requested. The Appeals Coordinator at the Director Level simply re-routed my petition back to the Warden’s office here at this institution, at which time the warden here implied that the appeals which I had pending were screened back to me because I basically failed to comply with inmate appeal regulations. This is of course total bullshit! The “W.” pretty much just issued me a de facto “695 Screen Out Form” without ever really looking into the matter, thereby sweeping the matter back under the rug.

I then decided that someone needed to step up to the plate and pick up where this petition’s originator left off. I began by tracking down as many people as I could find who’d participate in the legal action. I tracked down about eighteen people, of which only three others besides myself received responses. As it turned out, we all got the same document with seemingly no other action taken.

I then proceeded to make as many copies of the original petition as I could obtain. I was only able to make 20. Of these 20 I only had twelve more people agree to mail the petitions out. As of today nobody’s received any responses.

I contacted the Ca. Prison Law Office, useless. The Ombudsman, useless, no response, and a few other organizations claiming to offer inmates assistance (Critical Resistance? critically useless). I didn’t bother with Internal Affairs or the Inspector General as they are both connected to CDCR and seemingly cover their asses. The DOJ is a different story. However, they will only take action if it can be proven that civil rights abuses are taking place en masse. Since only four of us received responses, the DOJ will not take action.

So it hasn’t turned out as we hoped [with an investigation into the failed CDCR grievance system]. I suppose it wasn’t a total failure, though, as we have proved yet again that the inmate appeals procedure in the Ca. Dept. of Corruption is nothing but an obstacle placed in front of prisoners’ path to the U.$. judicial system.

MIM(Prisons) adds: This comrade’s initiative to pick up a worthwhile project, after state repression stopped the original leader, is commendable. Others who have this kind of initiative should be working with the United Struggle from Within, the MIM(Prisons)-led anti-imperialist prisoner organization. Comrades have been working diligently to expand the scope of the campaign and we now have petitions prepared for CA, MO, OK and TX. If you are filing grievances about any issue and they aren’t being handled properly by staff, consider becoming a part of this campaign and spread it to your people inside.

This comrade’s analysis of the success of the campaign is completely accurate. We can hope for an investigation into the corrupt grievance system, but if it doesn’t happen, then we have instead successfully exposed yet another flaw in the Amerikkkan “justice” system. It is important to not give up even if we feel like nothing will happen because these exposures are agitational points that we can rally people around. Also, like this comrade pointed out, if we send in enough petitions to the DOJ s/he believes that they may respond. So continue to send in your grievance petitions and get with MIM(Prisons) to get involved!

In just days our comrade Ronnie Garner will be shot to death by trigger happy pigs at the Utah state plantation. Line upon line of trigger happy swine congregate. Just itching to be one of the five to open fire on an unarmed, seated, shackled and waist chain and cuffed human being. Tickets are sold out with standing room only for one of imperialist Amerikkka’s favorite shows. A lynching. High def, surround stereo sounds reports of five rifles, four loaded, just what the ignorant chauvinistic piles of racist shit needed to return the old bounce to the abusive, greedy step.

Settler nation. Thieving cowardly nation. As those rifles hollow-pointed slugs tear through an unpremeditated killers beating heart. As five premeditated murderers slay a man who was threatened with such a demise for centuries. As the state treated all his ills for this long, from ulcers to dandruff, and now sees fit to just blow his chest out his back for sport. All you across this doomed Americur$e know this. I scream anti-imperialism with two fingers in the air. Fuck you too Amerika!

As the Mexican border walls get higher and higher to keep starving people off Amerikan streets, Amerikur$e ships/flies ton upon ton of military might and fattened U$ soldiers to Iraqi/Afgani streets. “Hypocritic swine,” I scream. You rich fucks in the oval office who smoke “illegal” smuggled Cuban cigars and have sex with children, prostitutes, each other. I scream socialist proletarian justice and have your spots chalked out in my mind for your firing squad$.

As all eyes turn to this Utah lynching of a tied, seated man. Dandruff and cavity free. Let us not forget the masses toothless with lice who sharpen blades in leaky lean-to. Let us never forget the millions who starve to death yearly because the U$ snakes see fit to not feed them as there is no profit in it.

As I approach release from USP after two plus years down in this UINTA One control unit. And bid ‘fare-in-martyrdom-well’ to a fellow political prisoner of war I scream again. What do I yell you ask? Is it revenge at the cost of my life or a light show on the ten-o-clock news? A blaze of glory?

Fuck no comrades. It’s to the library I go and to your piggy drug abuse classes. It’s to the parole office I go smiling. Because there isn’t a dope pipe or ‘pigs-brains-on-concrete’ that can get me as high as this anti-imperialist struggle does. I’ll play your games and beat you at them you cowardly pigs and then some. No more will I be your puppet to dance and justify these wars on crime/drugs. To justify these killer fascist koncentration Kamps.

You’ll lose Amerika. You will. And on that day we’ll truly see who gets the firing squad. Might even give your overweight, liposucked fat racist asses a running start too.

Power to the people!

MIM(Prisons) adds: Ronnie Garner is scheduled to be executed by firing squad on June 18, 2010, but his lawyers are working to appeal. We do not know Mr. Garner or the details of his case.

Comrades in MIM(Prisons) and United Struggle from Within (USW) have been studying diligently to solidify and advance the line, strategy and tactics of the anti-imperialist prison movement. This issue of Under Lock & Key will introduce this discussion, while focusing on strategies utilizing the bourgeois legal system. In the imperialist countries we face a strategic period where our battles are legal ones as we build our organization and infrastructure.

In March 2010, MIM(Prisons) recorded its 1000th incident of censorship in the u.$. prison system. And this is just a small sample of the repression that goes on in the belly of the beast. The strategy behind our legal battles is two pronged: 1) when we win we create more space to do the organizing work that is much needed in the movement, and 2) when we lose we build public opinion about the reality that there are no rights, only power struggles, and what real power looks like. Therefore, if done well, every battle moves us forward.

Organizationally, we stand at a juncture where MIM(Prisons) has established itself with a consistent practice, while upholding the political line developed by the Maoist Internationalist Movement. Meanwhile, our allies stand ready to do more to organize the movement. This includes our comrades in the anti-imperialist prisoner organization, United Struggle from Within, which is led by MIM(Prisons), as well as other lumpen organizations at various levels of political development.

As a result, we are focusing on the need to build an anti-imperialist United Front through our work in the prison movement. We are making a call to all lumpen and prison-based organizations who believe in the need for self-determination of all nations to join us in developing this United Front on the basis of some key principles. MIM(Prisons), USW and others are already hashing out these principles, and we want to make sure that it is as agreeable yet powerful as it can be.

Theoretically, we stand on the legacy of decades of struggle and political line development led by MIM. By studying their work, we are able to leap forward theoretically, as each generation must do by learning from the previous. There are some theoretical questions we will be developing further in future months, both in the pages of Under Lock & Key and in larger publications we plan to publish.

We will continue to explore important aspects of strategy for months to come. We begin here with some definitions to help our readers grasp and participate in this discussion.

Definitions

Imperialism: the global economic system that exists today. First World corporations have expanded to the point where they must invest money overseas to continue to grow, so they export their capital to the Third World. These foreign investments in Third World economies, safeguarded by military force, stifle the growth of the local bourgeois classes. With no national bourgeoisie, or a weak one at best, a national economy is unable to grow. Imperialist investment then ensures its own dominance by paying dirt wages to workers who have no options, and enjoying the freedom to escape local taxes and environmental restrictions.

Anti-Imperialism: the belief that nations have the right to struggle for liberation when faced with oppression by other nations. Opposing imperialism means opposing the system where some nations use their power to exploit other nations’ wealth. Imperialism stifles all indigenous economic and political activity. Anti-imperialists work to release local development forces to better meet the needs of the people.

Nation: a group of people on one connected piece of land with a common economy, language, and national psychology.

Principal Contradiction: the highest priority contradiction that communists must focus their energy on for a long period of time - a strategic period. The concept of the principal contradiction comes from dialectical materialism, which says that everything can be divided into two opposing forces. These contradictions are the basis for any changes that thing goes through. Defining the principal contradiction is a crucial step to developing ones political line.

The principal contradiction in the world today is between the imperialist countries and the countries they oppress and exploit. Based on this fact, we say the principal task is to build public opinion against imperialism and to build institutions of the oppressed that are independent of imperialism, in order to seize power from the imperialists.

Anti-Imperialist United Front: the loose alliance of classes and parties that work to undermine imperialist domination. To achieve our principal task, we must unite all who can be united on the side of the oppressed against imperialism. Developing an anti-imperialist united front, is facilitating the growth of the winning side of the principal contradiction in the world today.

Internationalism: ethical belief or scientific approach in which peoples of different nations are held to be or assumed to be equal.

Line: Line is generally a belief, but line can also be a goal. For instance, our belief is that only through communism can we abolish the oppression of groups of people over other people. At the same time it is our goal to abolish the oppression of people over other people.

Strategy: our long-term plans to get to various goals on the way to communism. For every stage in the revolutionary struggle, there is a strategy.

Strategic Confidence: the belief that the proletarian forces will win based on a concrete analysis of society. Our strategic confidence comes from an analysis of the contradictions within imperialism, which are bringing about its own decay and destruction. As a minority within the united $tates, the oppressed and progressive forces have a hard time developing strategic confidence when focused narrowly on local events and struggles. Therefore, internationalism is a must for the oppressed nations in the united $tates to obtain liberation from imperialism, which threatens to further immiserate and oppress a growing segment of society as crisis ensues and fascism knocks on the door.

Tactics: Short-term plans, some of which may be used again and again in slightly different circumstances. Tactics are short term and flexible based on day-to-day changes in the situation.

Rightism: In general, rightists tend to be too conservative. A rightist is someone who tends to make everything a matter of tactics. Rightists don’t care about long-term goals or plans.

Ultra-leftism: Ultra-leftists will tend to judge real-world revolutionaries in the light of principles that only Jesus/Moses/Muhammad-type figures could implement. Ultra-leftism thus smacks of religion/idealism. The ultra-left also tends to go to extremes to achieve their objectives.

(note: Rightism and Ultra-leftism are both errors WITHIN the revolutionary movement. We are not talking about the “right” and “left” wings of the amerikan government commonly referred to in the bourgeois press.)

Proletarian Morality: Proletarian morality is based in the basic concept of doing no wrong in the masses’ eyes, but it also goes further than this. It means implementing certain codes of conduct within the party to which all party members must strictly adhere to. This means that we cannot do anything which the masses could see as morally wrong, such as accepting gratuities in exchange for favors, or stealing from the masses. Proletarian morality is not idealist, but recognizes what needs to be done to create a more just world. Pacifists apply an idealist form of morality by saying that violence is never justified. Similarly, anarchists denounce hierarchy and oppression in the hands of the oppressed, even if used as tools to destroy hierarchy and oppression in the bigger picture.

Pragmatism: a philosophy of going forth without theory or line, utilizing wishy washy strategies, and pushing tactics from that thinking. Instead of seeing the whole they see the part. Pragmatists react to a situation, rather than analyze it and address the real problem.

Empiricism: the belief that knowledge is derived from experience through direct observation of phenomena. In contrast, we recognize that 99% of practice is now history and not things that we will experience directly.

Dogmatism: the belief in, or promotion of ideas without basis in fact or without depth. Dogmatists are stubborn, and view things arrogantly and narrow-mindedly.

notes: most of the definitions above came from study and discussion of MIM Theory 5: Diet for a Small Red Planet, download pdf

This is track 2 off my album Rhythm & Rebellion: Hell Bound. It’s a two disc album with twenty four songs on each album. Hell Bound is disk two. Disk one is titled Heaven Sent. This item is registered with my idea of a Revolutionary Copyrights program for all them thieving ass capitalists looking to come up off the products of the struggle.

Hook:
Every day of the year gone by with us not getting paid (We Strugglin)
Every day that we got a young brotha on the block servin rocks (We Strugglin)
Every day that we livin on a land thatz own’d by the man (We Strugglin)
We got to stand up and stop feeling sorry for ourselves.
Instead’ve going against our own we should be extendin help.
Every day that we not doing right by each other as a whole (We Strugglin)

Verse 1:
For the sake of Blackness and ghetto mankind
Young whawdy bout to spill that revolutional wine.
I know
Masta gone hate it
but
who the fuck cares.
I’m bout to shine the light on all the governmental affairs.
Starting with modern day slavery.
Disabling me.
Constantly mislabeling me.
They wanna destable me
But I ain’t gone let that happen cause I’m just too damn stable you see.
Growth and development is the motto and the plan.
But just sittin around and talkin ain’t gone help us advance.
Educate yourself
Practice unity and organize
Let your actions speak for they self to make the people recognize.

repeat the hook

Verse 2:
Part two
Social control done been exposed
So now we move along to agriculture and house codes.
To rule the land you gotta rule the financial income
To rule the income you gotta keep the poor folkz dumb
Give them shitty schools,
Keep them syruped up and spliffed out
Throw a couple of colors in and keep them all flipped out
Don’t let them buy their own land
Make them all buy from us.
Don’t let them start their own companies
Make them all work for us
Man what the fuck!!!
Let’s all kick up some dust
The KKK been standing strong but they ain’t fuckin with us
If we just open our eyes
And just get rid of the pride
The poor folkz a be the giant that’s been needed to rise.

repeat the hook

(RC)= These materials are Revolutionary Copyrighted. The copying, using, re-publishing of such material for anything other than the anti-imperialist/anti-capitalist movement is a crime punishable by the people.

My, how all this time has changed my ways of thinking and viewing things.
Some time ago I saw airplanes, but never the skies that held the planes.
Subjectively going with the way things flowed,
I objected to progression and all things not known.

Now I’m more developed and the picture’s much more clear.
You can see the way I conduct myself, knowledge resides right here.
I calculate my steps, making sure I recognize
the man who watches his speech and acts is truly the man who’s wise.

No longer a child, I think for myself.
When without the answers I ask for help.
Aside with my pride, no ego to rise,
I’m eager to better myself from inside.

Gone are the days where anger controls,
Deciding my future and all that it holds.
This for I know as my past is a ghost.
Life is the party, and I am the host!!

(RC)= These materials are Revolutionary Copywritten. The copying, using, re-publishing of such material for anything other than the anti-imperialist/anti-capitalist movement is a crime punishable by the people.

Suppressed are the thoughts of an encaged man,
Like an animal held captive being broken from the land.
I speak with no sound as I move within the bounds
to a beat of the people with a light unyet found.
He doesn’t understand so he locks me in a cell,
Causing me to understand that the key is to rebel.

Incarcerated is the being, of an educated mind.
Heart of steel, word of stone, only truth I wish to find.
Forever will I push and strive, although oppressed and held inside.
The belly of the beast will fry
Being burned by flames I hold inside.

Power to the ones of you who seek to take command.
And down with those who have control and rule through exploit and demand.
The day will come when we shall find the rights that we deserve.
And when that day does come around these rights we’ll have reserved…

To Rise…

(RC)= These materials are Revolutionary Copywritten. The copying, using, re-publishing of such material for anything other than the anti-imperialist/anti-capitalist movement is a crime punishable by the people.

With the fury of a lion,
I attack them with my pen!!
The power of a Panther
keeps me fighting strong with MIMP!!
The anti-imperialist struggle
has me gripped into its grasp!!
The people are my people
locked away in social pens!!
From cherry pickers, to railroad fixers,
all races of poor humans
This U$A ain’t nothing but snakes,
they’re nothing but lies
don’t get it mistaked!!
They thrive off hate, money and rape,
Let’s piss on their flag and create our own state!!
Call up the troops,
and distribute the arms!!
They’re overextended,
let’s bring them some harm!!
An armed revolution
with no sense of charm!!
The fires, the yells!!
Why shouldn’t we rebel!!
They miseducate us!!
They don’t want to pay us!!
Immigrants and prisoners!!
Amerikkka hates us!!
Struggle with MIMP
and struggle for the cause.
Together we’ll stand,
Imperialism’ll fall.

(RC)= These materials are Revolutionary Copywritten. The copying, using, re-publishing of such material for anything other than the anti-imperialist/anti-capitalist movement is a crime punishable by the people.

A new report from the NATO allies revealed the true story behind drone attacks in Afghanistan. A few months back the man of change, Obama, ordered strikes killing three or four Taliban fighters and one hundred and forty some-odd civilians, among them children and wimmin. What a change for the people of the u.$. and the rest of the world! What a change for the oppression of wimmin in Afghanistan! Change came to the Afghan people in the form of 30,000 more troops to oppress, kill and torture them on their own land.

All this was done under the noses of amerikans without a protest. What happened to all those protesters under the Bush administration? The war against the oppressed has not stopped. Have they given up? That is the exact result when people trying to change an oppressive system do not have the right strategy or understanding of how to go about it.

What the Afghan and Iraqi brothers and sisters are going through is what occurred to the Mexica, Incas, Tainos and the rest of the native people of the land now called the Americas.

The capitalist system must destroy, oppress, kill and exploit in order to sustain itself. That is why the united snakes has two war fronts at the same time. We must not allow the destruction that the Iraqi and Afghan people are facing. We must fight to stop the continuation of oppression and exploitation of the rest of the world.

So far, the only way available to stop the exploitation and oppression of humyn beings by other humyn beings is through the formation of a government with a communist philosophy. This is a government we need to struggle harder to form, because the existence of the people of the world is at risk.

You, who believe in caring for your people, study communism. You, who want to help other people and nations, don’t wait until a natural disaster hits as the one in Haiti. Study socialism. You, who consider yourself a revolutionary, don’t be half-way revolutionary. Revolutionaries are constant causers or helpers of change. Be that every possible moment of your life.

Let’s change the capitalist society into a socialist society, and then the socialist into a communist and beyond as we reach communism. For the better well-being of our children’s future, brothers and sisters.

note: World Focus with Daijit Dhaliwal. PBS. February 5, 2010.

MIM(Prisons) adds: Today, reports emerged of a u.$./NATO bombing that claimed to be an attack on Taliban fighters, but it turned out to be a civilian convoy and 33 people were killed. Uncounted tens of thousands of people have been killed in Afghanistan since the u.$. occupation began in 2001.

This comrade applies the concepts of line, strategy and tactics to an international issue well in this article. We also commend h for writing an article on international news, and encourage others to follow this example, making connections between the prison struggle and the struggle of oppressed people around the world.

One thing we would add in regards to line is a deeper analysis of the protesters and other amerikans who claim to oppose the occupation of Afghanistan. For those who are serious, we must push a more radical agenda and a studying of Maoism and communism as the writer does. But what holds back most amerikans is that they don’t have a life or death interest in opposing imperialism. On the contrary, amerikans benefit from imperialism, so condemnations of war often come in the form of moralistic verbal protests, with little power or force to back it up. That said, our strategy must be adapted to this situation and we must focus on organizing the minority within u.$. borders that can be organized against imperialism. We must organize that minority around anti-imperialist demands that serve them and move them to committed struggle, and we must connect that to the struggles of the international proletariat, which are the foundation of communist revolution. We will explore these ideas more in our upcoming newsletters focused on strategy and tactics.

I started reading [The Straight Scoop from Charlie Daniels (see excerpt below)] with the thought, “Oh, he has some good music” and ended up with the, “never again will I listen to country music.” All country music is patriotic, racist pig rhetoric. Take old Toby Keith’s bullshit soldier songs.

Motherfucker, Charlie Daniels, those Taliban have been victims, their land was invaded, their wives and children murdered… Let’s see your pussy ass go through that and not have a heart attack!!!

It’s his conviction that he’s so right that’s frightening. And he is amerika. The epitomy of the average amerikan right there. Ignorant, proud, uppity, evil, wrong!

The Straight Scoop from Charlie Daniels… I’ve just returned from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba Naval Air Station base where we did three shows for the troops and toured several locations around the post visiting with some of the finest military personnel on planet earth. The kids seemed to really enjoy the shows and especially liked “This Ain’t No Rag, It’s A Flag” and “In America.” … The truth is that these scum bags [Taliban detainees] are not only being treated humanely, but they are probably better off health wise and medically than they’ve ever been in their lives.

MIM(Prisons) responds: Charlie Daniels is taking up the Michael Moore (maker of the film Sicko) amerikan populist line on health care. MIM(Prisons) calls for the u.$. to provide universal health care to all people in countries under u.$. occupation, while white nationalists get indignant because a thousand prisoners of war get medical attention while they are tortured in long-term isolation. Daniels thinks long-term isolation is humane, and is pissed off that they are getting such good health care. This is amerikan chauvinism at its finest as our comrade points out.

Any humynist would be pissed off that the only way Third World people have been able to get decent health care under imperialism is by being captured and tortured by the imperialists. At home, with their family, such care is not available. Racists like Daniels and Moore think Afghans and other Third World people get what they deserve, while amerikans need more when they have access to Viagra, boob jobs and an endless list of medical technology that is purely recreational and not related to survival.