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         THE MAOIST INTERNATIONALIST MOVEMENT

  MIM Notes No. 60                JANUARY 1992

MIM Notes speaks to and from the viewpoint of the 
world's oppressed majority, and against the 
imperialist-patriarchy. Pick it up and wield it in 
the service of the people. support it, struggle 
with it and write for it.

IN THIS ISSUE:
1.  U.S. CAGES HAITIANS
2.  GAY MURDER SHOWS RIGHTS NOT ENOUGH
3.  AMERIKA CELEBRATES HOMELESSNESS
4.  LETTERS
5.  CORRECTION 
6.  WILL THE (REAL) FEMINISTS PLEASE STEP FORWARD?
7.  BAN ALL MEN
8.  WHO CARES IF HOOKERS DIE?
9.  THE CURRENCY OF IDEAS
10. DEATH IN DETROIT
11. ANOTHER COUP IN THE EX-USSR?
12. POVERTY: AN UNHEARD-OF-CRIME
13. NICARAGUA RACES TOWARD CIVIL WAR
14. UNDER LOCK & KEY: NEWS FROM PRISONS AND PRISONERS
15. MIM NOTES 'TRESPASSES' IN MIAMI
16. SUPERMARKET MAG BASHES 'MADAME MAO'
17. MOVIE REVIEWS: STAR TREK VI: THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY, CAPE  
    FEAR, THE ADDAMS FAMILY
18. REVOLUTIONARY HISTORY

The Maoist Internationalist Movement (MIM) is a 
revolutionary communist party that upholds 
Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, comprising the collection 
of existing or emerging Maoist internationalist 
parties in the English-speaking imperialist 
countries and their English-speaking internal 
semi-colonies, as well as the existing or emerging 
Spanish-speaking Maoist internationalist parties 
of Aztlan, Puerto Rico and other territories of 
the U.S. Empire. MIM Notes is the newspaper of 
MIM. Notas Rojas is the newspaper of the Spanish-
speaking parties or emerging parties of MIM.
MIM is an internationalist organization that works 
from the vantage point of the Third World 
proletariat; thus, its members are not Amerikans, 
but world citizens.

MIM struggles to end the oppression of all groups 
over other groups: classes, genders, nations.  MIM 
knows this is only possible by building public 
opinion to seize power through armed struggle.
Revolution is a reality for North America as the 
military becomes over-extended in the government's 
attempts to maintain world hegemony.

MIM differs from other communist parties on three 
main questions: (1) MIM holds that after the 
proletariat seizes power in socialist revolution, 
the potential exists for capitalist restoration 
under the leadership of a new bourgeoisie within 
the communist party itself. In the case of the 
USSR, the bourgeoisie seized power after the death 
of Stalin in 1953; in China, it was after Mao's 
death and the overthrow of the "Gang of Four" in 
1976. (2) MIM upholds the Chinese Cultural 
Revolution as the farthest advance of communism in 
human history. (3) MIM believes the North American 
white-working-class is primarily a non-
revolutionary worker-elite at this time; thus, it 
is not the principal vehicle to advance Maoism in 
this country.

MIM accepts people as members who agree on these 
basic principles and accept democratic centralism, 
the system of majority rule, on other questions of 
party line.

"The theory of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin is 
universally applicable. We should regard it not as 
dogma, but as a guide to action. Studying it is 
not merely a matter of learning terms and phrases, 
but of learning Marxism-Leninism as the science of 
revolution."

-- Mao Zedong, Selected Works, Vol. II, p. 208



* * *

U.S. CAGES HAITIANS


Since the end of October, the United States Coast Guard has 
stopped more than 6,300 Haitians trying to sail to Florida to 
escape starvation and military repression in Haiti.

This increased exodus of Haitians is in response to the Sept. 30 
overthrow of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the new military 
government and horrible conditions fueled by the subsequent U.S.-
led trade embargo, which is supposedly aimed at punishing the new 
government and getting Aristide back in power.

Every day, the bourgeois media shows us pictures of masses of 
Haitian refugees--laying on shipdecks or behind barbed wire at 
Guant‡namo Bay refugee camp in Cuba. Those Haitians kept at sea or 
detained off the mainland cannot apply for asylum or seek legal 
counsel. Over the last ten years, only 28 of the 20,000 Haitians 
who have attempted to gain political asylum in the United States 
have been successful.

Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, has been 
especially punished by imperialists since it was the home of the 
first successful Black revolution nearly 200 years ago. Just as 
the last revolution overthrew slavery to make way for capitalism, 
the next one will overthrow the highest stage of capitalism-- 
imperialism.
TRAPPED IN UNCLE SAM'S NET
by MC42
Since the end of October, the U.S. Coast Guard has stopped more 
than 6,300 Haitians trying to sail or float to Florida to escape 
starvation and military repression in Haiti.(1)

This increased exodus of Haitians is in response to the overthrow 
of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide on Sept. 30, the new military 
government and the horrible conditions caused by the subsequent 
U.S.-led trade embargo aimed at punishing the new government and 
getting Aristide back in power.

Forced repatriation

On Nov. 18 and 19, the Coast Guard picked up 538 Haitians and 
returned them to Port-au-Prince, where they were met by the Red 
Cross, given $10 and sent on their way.(2) But on Nov. 19, a 
federal judge in Miami ruled for a temporary ban on the forced 
repatriation of Haitian refugees.

The Federal District Court in Miami, which made the ruling,(1) has 
now ordered that the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) 
find a new way to make sure that Haitians with a "legitimate fear 
of persecution" will not get returned to Haiti.(3) If they are 
"legitimate" claims, the United States will grant them political 
asylum. In Amerika's definition, "persecution" means getting shot 
in the head by Amerika's enemies.

But Haitians who are fleeing for solely economic reasons, by 
Amerika's terms, will most likely be forced back to Haiti. Murder 
by starvation, disease and poverty due to a U.S.-sponsored trade 
embargo is not considered "persecution," but normal capitalism at 
work.

Those Haitians kept at sea or detained off the mainland cannot 
apply for asylum or seek legal counsel, as many Haitians who 
arrive in the United States by air now do.(4) Refugee advocacy 
groups maintain that all Haitian refugees should be granted 
political asylum. So far, only 161 "boat people" have been flown 
to Miami to pursue political asylum cases.(5) Over the last ten 
years, only 28 of the 20,000 Haitians who have attempted to gain 
political asylum in the United States have been successful.(6)

Refugees detained

The Coast Guard and Navy vessels--where Haitian refugees were 
detained and hastily interviewed--are now dumping the refugees at 
the U.S. Naval base at Guant‡namo Bay in Cuba. In the first week 
of December, the Coast Guard brought more than 4,000 Haitians to 
the growing "tent city" refugee center at Guant‡namo--which is 
surrounded by barbed wire. As many as 10,000 more Haitian refugees 
are expected there.(7)

Hearings were scheduled for Dec. 9 in a Federal court in Miami, on 
whether the state order will be lifted and the United States will 
be allowed to resume the repatriations.(4)

Conditions deteriorate

The embargo--imposed by the Organization of American States (OAS) 
on Oct. 8 and joined by the United States on Nov. 5--has brought 
Haiti almost to a standstill.(8,2) The United States--Haiti's 
biggest trading partner--froze trade and assets; Venezuela cut off 
oil deliveries; Canada joined in, so did France. Food shortages 
are causing malnutrition, lack of gasoline has stopped public 
transportation and deliveries of goods, electrical generation is 
erratic at best, and total blackout is imminent.(9)

But the U.S. embargo does not include products sent from the 
United States for Haitian assembly plants; Undersecretary of State 
Bernard Aronson says that this is because the United States is 
"concerned" about Haitian industry. And it should be. U.S. 
companies own many of these plants.(10)

On Nov. 27, the military's hand was strengthened when 110,000 
barrels of oil--enough for about 15 days--entered Haiti in defiance 
of the OAS embargo; the fuel came from the Dutch colony of Aruba 
on a Swiss-owned tanker and was let through by the U.S. Coast 
Guard after inspection in international waters.(11)

Most Haitians want Aristide back in power and so they support the 
international embargo as the only way to pressure the military 
government. A demonstration in protest of the embargo violation 
was scheduled for Dec. 4 at the Haitian consulate in New York 
City.(11) But begging with the imperialists gets us nowhere. 
Haitians need to organize and build support for revolution.

"The Bush Administration and the OAS are unlikely to accept 
anything less than Mr. Aristide's return."(12) It is clear that 
Aristide will return as a U.S. puppet, nothing more.

Demonstrating in Miami 

Every night, hundreds of pro-Aristide Haitian demonstrators still 
flood Little Haiti's 54th street in Miami, Florida. A march in 
November had 15,000 people in the streets, protesting the military 
overthrow of Aristide. But recently, these protests have led to 
confrontations with small anti-Aristide groups.(13)

The small and recently formed anti-Aristide group, Students for a 
Free Haiti, opposes the embargo, saying it is strangling Haiti's 
commerce and starving Haiti's poor. Members of this group say they 
have been silent for so long because they feared "mob violence" 
against them.(13) One member also said that "upper, middle and 
business classes were unfairly blamed for many of the nation's 
problems" and that "Aristide was a demagogue bent on leading Haiti 
to communism."(5)

But most Haitians in Miami support the pro-Aristide activist 
group, Veye Yo which is Creole for "watch them," i.e. keep an eye 
on corruption and crime in high places. 

Haitians must organize

The first open demonstration in Haiti against the coup took place 
on Nov. 1 in Gonaives-- site of the 1985 demonstrations that led to 
Duvalier's overthrow in 1986.(14)

There is also speculation that the Haitian people will take some 
dramatic action on Dec. 16 to mark the anniversary of last year's 
presidential elections, in which Aristide won 67% of the vote.(14)

Haitians in the United States are planning a demonstration in 
Washington, D.C. on Dec. 13 with the following demands: 
enforcement of the embargo;  unconditional return of Aristide to 
the presidency; no military intervention;  and political asylum 
for Haitian refugees.(11)

But unfortunately, no amount of benign demonstrations in 
Washington will make Haiti free. Haitians need to organize 
resistance in their country, getting help from Haitians abroad and 
from other revolutionary organizations.

Notes:
1. New York Times 12/3/91, p. A5.
2. Economist 11/23/91, p. 33.
3. NYT 12/5/91, p. A4.
4. NYT 12/2/91, p. A6.
5. Miami Herald 12/1/91, p. 1A.
6. NYT 12/12/91.
7. NYT 11/28/91, p. A7.
8. Christian Science Monitor 11/5/91, p. 1.
9. NYT 11/23/91, p. A5.
10. Nicaragua Solidarity Network 11/3/91.
11. Washington Post in NSN 12/1/91.
12. Economist 11/16/91, p. 50.
13. Miami Herald 11/24/91, p. B1.
14. NSN 11/10/91.
* * *

GAY MURDER SHOWS RIGHTS NOT ENOUGH

One evening in early November, three members of a skinhead street 
gang lured Julio Rivera into the corner of an abandoned 
schoolyard, beat him repeatedly with a hammer and a beer bottle 
and stabbed him to death. 

Rivera was attacked because he was gay. The scene of the crime was 
an established meeting place for gays, and the murderers, Dennis 
Doyal, Esat Bici, and Erik Brown, were out for gay blood that 
night. They got it.

According to the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, anti-gay 
violence is on the rise. The Task Force counted 7,248 anti-gay 
incidents in 1988.

In the face of such statistics, the gay and lesbian "rights" 
movement in Amerika has stepped up its demands on issues like job 
discrimination, access to health care and AIDS.  But convincing 
the state to accept homosexuality in the First World is not a step 
toward liberation for gay men and lesbians everywhere. And seeking 
state protection from anti-gay violence is meaningless when the 
Amerikan state itself is the world's biggest perpetrator of 
violence against the oppressed.

WHEN GAY RIGHTS ARE NOT ENOUGH
by MC99 & MC44

On Nov. 20, two men were convicted of second degree murder for 
acting "in concert" as gay bashers. The case involves a third 
perpetrator, Dennis Doyal, who is actually responsible for killing 
the victim, a Latino man named Julio Rivera. Doyal, the son of a 
retired New York cop, served as an eyewitness for the prosecution. 
In exchange for his testimony, Doyal escaped a first-degree murder 
charge by pleading guilty to the lesser charge of manslaughter. 
The trial lasted three weeks and took place in the New York 
Supreme court in Queens.

Doyal stated that he instigated the attack and that his friends, 
Erik Brown and Esat Bici, lured Julio Rivera into an isolated 
corner of a school yard and beat him with a hammer and a beer 
bottle. Doyal admits to stabbing Rivera. The medical examiner 
stated that the beating did not cause the death. Bici and Brown 
received life in prison, with the earliest chance of parole in 15 
years. Doyal received a 25 year maximum sentence with a chance for 
parole in 8 1/3 years.(1)

MIM describes this as typical settler injustice. The driving force 
behind the deal was probably that there was a pig's son in 
jeopardy, not that the New York district attorney wanted to solve 
this case because gay bashing is criminal or wrong.(1)

According to the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, general 
anti-gay violence is on the rise. The Task Force counted 7,248 
anti-gay incidents in 1988. The New York State Governor's Task 
Force on Bias-Related Violence states that "the most severe 
hostilities are directed at lesbians and gay men."(2)

In the Julio Rivera case, the assailants were acquainted by their 
common participation in a "violence-prone skin-head street gang." 
Doyal and Bici had shaved heads on the night they attacked Mr. 
Rivera.(1) Although MIM cannot directly cite an organizational 
link between right wing groups and gay bashing, we know that right 
wing "family protection" groups compose the opposition to domestic 
partnership legislation.(3)

Julio Rivera was attacked because he was gay; the scene of the 
crime was an established meeting place for gay men. The fact that 
he was Latino was probably a bonus to the white supremacist 
attackers.

The modern gay and lesbian movement

The modern gay rights movement in Amerika identifies its roots in 
the 1969 Stonewall riot, in which thousands of gay men and 
lesbians rioted against police harassment at the Stonewall Inn in 
Greenwich Village, New York.

Since then, gay and lesbian activists have addressed a variety of 
issues: AIDS, sodomy laws, civil rights, family rights and hate 
crimes. The movement wants gay men and lesbians to be able to 
identify as gay and still be allowed equal protection under the 
Constitution, access to jobs, and health care.

MIM would like all gay men and lesbians to be able to break the 
chains of the traditional family structure and live freely. But in 
an imperialist-dominated world, this is impossible. Gay men and 
lesbians in the Third World are slaves to the heterosexual family 
structure; they provide the First World with a cheap labor force 
and increasing their own chances of survival through reliance on 
the income of their children. If the gay rights movement in this 
country was serious about fighting for the "right" to identify, it 
would get serious with anti-imperialist work and take up the cause 
of the international proletariat.

Wilson just says no

The gay movement's legal battles have been met with some 
successes--sodomy laws have been repealed in 25 states, civil 
rights for gays and lesbians have been enacted in more than 65 
municipalities, and in seventeen counties.(3) But in California, 
these attempts have been thwarted by an intransigent state 
government.

On Sept. 29, California Governor Pete Wilson vetoed Assembly Bill 
101, which would have made employment discrimination based on 
sexual orientation subject to a review by the state Department of 
Fair Housing and Employment. The gay community lobbied the 
California legislature intensely and their efforts appeared 
successful--from a reformist standpoint--since the bill was passed.

Wilson's slap-in-the-face veto was not only met with swift action 
on the street, but is now credited with making the issue of civil 
rights for gays and lesbians equal to AIDS in terms of the gay 
political agenda.(4)

Gays and lesbians are neither the only, nor the largest, 
population afflicted with AIDS. Government figures indicate that 
nearly 200,000 people have been diagnosed with AIDS, and almost 
130,000 people have died so far. According to Dr. June Osborn, 
chair of the National Commission on AIDS, 34 million people in 
this country have no health coverage, including nearly a third of 
all AIDS patients.(6)

The struggle to find a cure, and provide access to health care for 
every single person with the virus, can only be won when the 
people are in power. No amount of petitions or resolutions begging 
the Amerikan government to increase its AIDS research will 
revolutionize health care. Only a revolution can do that.

Response on the ground

Angry protestors in Los Angeles and San Francisco took to the 
streets the day after Wilson's veto. In Los Angeles, a member of 
Queer Nation told the press: "Simply, we are going to take over 
the Capitol ... Wilson your political career is over. You are the 
enemy."(5)

Isolating one particular pig as the enemy is at best misleading 
and at worst outright reactionary. If this movement is struggling 
for liberation of oppressed people, then the Amerikan 
government--all of it--is the enemy. But if the movement is about 
civil rights for gay men and lesbians in the First World only, 
then it is not on the side of the oppressed, and the imperialist 
patriarchy is not really its enemy.

Also in Los Angeles, Tori Osborne, executive director of the Los 
Angeles Gay and Lesbian Service Center was asked if the threats to 
"out" gay politicians would be followed through on. She said "This 
is war, and anything goes."(5)

In San Francisco $250,000 of damage was done to the local state 
office building. The next day protestors rushed a stage at 
Stanford University where Wilson was speaking.(4)

Gay liberation or what?

Despite the extreme character of the demonstrations, the veto 
seems to have broadened the movement. Politicizing employment and 
job security has increased the number of professional and white 
collar protestors. State employees have proceeded with measures to 
recall the Governor, a move for which gay groups have demonstrated 
support. Urvashi Vaid of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force 
says that "people are calling it Stonewall II."(4)

Vaid apparently meant by this comparison that the first Stonewall 
was some kind of revolutionary struggle, as is the current uproar. 
On the contrary, while the comparison is a good one; this wave of 
the gay struggle is as liberal and reformist as that of 1969.

At this time, the gay and lesbian movement in Amerika has a lot in 
common with supposedly feminist movements. Both movements seem to 
be concerned only with their own oppression and oblivious to 
greater reality. White gay men and lesbians, who comprise the 
majority of the movement, have enough economic mobility--thanks to 
super-profits from production in the Third World--to create 
lifestyles that are independent  of family-structured economies. 
When confronted with violence, these groups seek state protection.

Victories from the state are usually reactionary victories. The 
struggle for gay and lesbian "rights" is a perfect example of the 
fallacy of the gradualist approach to social change, advocated by 
single issue and reformist groups. Convincing the state to accept 
homosexuality in the First World is not a step toward liberation 
for gay men and lesbians everywhere.

First World people are not beholden to heterosexual family 
structures for their economic survival, which is why the Amerikan 
gay movement can achieve its desired reforms of identifying as 
homosexual in both their public and "private" lives, while still 
gaining access to all First World economic privileges. The 
international proletariat, most of the world's population, does 
not have such privilege in an imperialist-dominated world. Nor 
will they, until we launch a successful socialist revolution, 
smashing imperialism and its patriarchal structures.

MIM opposes discrimination based on sexual orientation. We are 
working for economic, political, and sexual freedom, which 
includes some of what the Amerikan gay and lesbian movement is 
fighting for. But we cannot lend our support or endorsement to a 
movement which organizes not on behalf of the oppressed people of 
the world, but only in order to gain access for a privileged few 
to the fruits of imperialism.
Notes:

1. New York Times 11/21/91,  p. A1.
2. Ms. 9/10/90.
3. The Nation 7/2/90, p. 12.
4. NYT 11/12/91, p. A8.
5. Los Angeles Times 10/1/91,  p. A19.
6. AP Wire 12/9/91.

* * *

AMERIKA CELEBRATES HOMELESSNESS

As we move into 1992, there's talk of "celebration" among the 
oppressor nations: celebration of 500 years of robbery and 
pillage, and of settlers making new homes for themselves in the 
so-called New World.

When the first European settlers arrived, North and South America 
supported 100 million indigenous people: who are now homeless. The 
Founding Fathers imported 100 million former home-owners from 
Africa. Most of the 25 million survivors of slavery have never 
owned a home in Amerika.

Even during a recession, Euro-Amerikan workers and owners receive 
large salaries, high wages, and a standard of living that dwarfs 
the below-subsistence pittances that keeps most of the world 
under-fed, under-employed, and under-housed by any contemporary 
standards of technologically-possible decency. The not-so-Big 
Secret of capitalism is that those who do the least work get the 
most money. It's all about ownership.

Amerikan home-ownership has always rested on the destruction of 
other peoples' homes. Just ask the Iraqi people. Ask the 
Panamanian people. Ask the Korean, the Japanese, the Vietnamese, 
the Cambodian, the Salvadoran people. The list is as long as 
Amerika is old.

GIVE ME A HOME . . . WHERE THE BUFFALO ROAM NO MORE
by MC86 & MC¯

Homelessness in Amerika is necessarily built into the very 
structure of the Amerikan Way. But, as if poverty were a new 
phenomenon, each year the media runs feature stories profiling the 
poor as a suddenly urgent problem. These articles ignore the real 
cause: capitalism. Yes, even in this decadent country, where the 
economy is drunk on the blood of superprofits from the Third 
World, people die outside, cold and hungry. The system demands 
their deaths.

The key to full rights as an Amerikan citizen is home-ownership. 
You can't be a settler without a house. Settler Amerikans stand in 
line at the banks pleading for mortgage loans, since it is cheaper 
to own a house than to rent one--if you've got the credit. Not only 
does real estate ownership mean the opportunity to resell the 
property for a profit, but owning it provides a tremendous tax-
break. The group benefitting the most from government housing 
subsidies are not "welfare-mothers," but home-owners!

Tax write-offs for propertied citizens amount to more than $54 
billion dollars a year in uncollected taxes.(1) Compare that to 
the total housing subsidy for the poor of $9.2 billion in 1988 (a 
72.6% drop from 1981).(2)

Home on the range

Homelessness is not a new phenomenon in Amerika. When the first 
European settlers arrived, the "New World" supported 100 million 
indigenous people: who are now homeless. The Founding Fathers 
imported 100 million former home-owners from Africa.(3) Most of 
the 25 million survivors of slavery have never owned a home in 
Amerika.

As home-ownership opportunities grew for the Euro-Amerikan 
settlers, landlords charged the indigenous, Black, Latino, and 
non-Anglo immigrant nationalities exorbitant rents to live in 
tenement ghettos. Over the years, banks and speculators moved 
entire slums from one area of a city to another, as neighborhoods 
built by the people were gentrified.

Fear of homelessness or unemployment helps keep proletarians 
working within U.S. borders--working for less and less pay in a 
country that saw the number of millionaires double from 475,000 in 
1982 to 941,000 in 1986.(4)

In 1990, Congress passed the mis-named Cranston-Gonzalez 
Affordable Housing Act, which subsidizes banks and slippery "non-
profit" developers as they buy up decrepit housing projects, fore-
closed properties, and entire blocks burned by landlord-arsonists. 
The buildings are remodeled and sold to the wealthy, as well as to 
managers and labor-aristocrats who can afford to purchase 
cooperatives and condominiums.

As the inner-city communities are destroyed by gentrification and 
people flee to suburban territories in search of work and housing, 
some people become homeless for a few months, others for years.

Who's homeless?

A 1987 study of interviews with 1,846 homeless people--most of whom 
were found in soup kitchens or shelters--found that 54% were 
members of oppressed nationalities. Almost one out of four had 
done time in a state or federal prison.(5)

This points toward overall poverty rates, which show that 30% of 
all people officially under the "poverty line" are Black.(6) 41% 
of Black households have incomes of less than $15,000 per year, 
compared to 17% of white households.(7)

Homelessness involves two key factors in America: First, some 
unemployment is structurally built into the system, as it is with 
any capitalist economy. Second, when the economy suffers 
internationally, more people become homeless and the bourgeoisie 
is less able and willing to ensure even their allies the basic 
necessities.

In the United States both of these categories--structural 
homelessness and the increases in homelessness with economic 
downturns--are made up predominantly of the oppressed nations. So 
it is no surprise that the homeless are mostly Blacks, Latinos, 
and indigenous peoples.

Liberals, social democrats and Trotskyists love to point to the 
figures showing the growing numbers of homeless and unemployed and 
suggest that things are going bad for the white working class. 
Knight-Ridder recently did a study on the demise of "the middle 
class" (namely white wage-workers) and how this class now has less 
money and privileges than it did 20 years ago. But when push comes 
to shove, the white nation in the United States fairs very well 
compared to the oppressed nations inside Amerika and throughout 
the Third World.(8)

Don't gimme shelter

Homeless people stay with relatives, with friends, in cars, in 
parks, in subways, in squats, in empty lots. The places that most 
people do not want to stay are in the concentration camps--called 
"shelters," "welfare hotels," "sanctuaries," "work-farms." 
Municipalities receive Federal monies for warehousing people in 
city-owned, uninhabitable slum apartments in cities where there 
are thousands of vacant, "market-rate" units and a surplus of new, 
unused office space built with government funds.(9)

For people denied real shelter, just staying alive on a hand-to-
mouth basis is a full time job. Homelessness is also a profitable 
industry for various reformists, religious institutions, and 
poverty pimps who have a financial stake in the continuation of 
the people's misery.(10)

Solving the problem

After World War II, Amerika stayed drunk on the blood, sweat and 
tears of the 70% of the world's population who earn in one year 
what many Amerikan workers make in a week. As 40,000 children die 
of starvation every day in the nations bled by imperialism, Euro-
Amerikan owners and workers (including industrial white workers) 
dance in their graveyard. Even during a recession, they receive 
high salaries, wages and a standard of living that dwarfs the 
below-subsistence pittances that keeps most of the world under-
fed, under-employed, and under-housed by any contemporary 
standards of technologically-possible decency. The not-so-Big 
Secret of capitalism is that those who do the least work get the 
most money. It's all about ownership.

Amerikan home-ownership has always rested on the destruction of 
other peoples' homes. Just ask the Iraqi people. Ask the 
Panamanian people. Ask the Korean, the Japanese, the Vietnamese, 
the Cambodian, the Salvadoran people. The list is as long as 
Amerika is old.
MC12 and MC42 contributed to this report.

Notes:
1. Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, "The Crisis in Housing 
for the Poor," 7/89, pp. 26-27.
2. United Church Board for Homeless Ministries, "Homelessness and 
Affordable Housing," 1989, p. 52.
3. J. Sakai, Settlers: The Mythology of the White Proletariat, 
Morningstar Press, 1983.
4. Institute for Policy Studies, "The Right To Housing," 1989, 
pp.17-18.
5. Urban Institute Project Report, in Population Today 2/89. (This 
study is probably not reliable overall, since it mostly counted 
people "receiving services.")
6. 1991 Statistical Abstract of the United States, p. 462.
7. Ibid, p. 456.
8. Detroit News 11/5/91, p.1. Detroit Free Press 11/26/91, p. 1A.
9. NYT 11/6/91, p. A1.
10. MIM Notes 53, p. 9.

* * *

LETTERS

ANARCHISTS HATE MIM NOTES

MIM received the following letter to a request to exchange 
publications:

Mao-oids:

We don't exchange subscriptions with admirers of dictators and 
mass murderers. We cast our lot with our comrades from Hong Kong 
who produced the enclosed poster.

Remember what the Beatles said ... 
--The Fifth Estate

November 1991
MC17 responds: The enclosed poster was one of Mao with bloody 
bullet holes through his head. The slogan on the poster was "no 
more emperors, down with authoritarianism of all kinds."

MIM sees this letter as a classic example of the anarchists' 
incorrect practice that makes it impossible for them to achieve 
anything. MIM exchanges publications with a range of political 
groups hoping to expand our sources of information and further 
improve our line as we work to build the most progressive 
organization possible. These particular anarchists can not even 
see past their own blinders of unsubstantiated propaganda to 
exchange potentially useful information or enter into intelligent 
dialogue with a group like MIM whose ultimate goal is quite 
similar to their stated purpose.

The difference between Maoists and anarchists is one of practice. 
Maoists are the real anarchists, the ones who will ultimately 
bring about communism: a society without power of any people over 
people. This difference is seen historically: Maoists have a 
practice and a history of success; never has there been a 
successful anarchist revolution.

Anarchists have never posed a threat to capitalism and so are 
themselves complicit with the system they profess to hate. 

MIM offers any believers in anarchism essays and books to back up 
our politics. Write to us for a list of literature on anarchism 
including a review of the publication of the Fifth Estate. People 
interested in MIM's work defending Mao against the charge of being 
a butcher should send $2 for back issues.

DO STATE CAPITALIST COUNTRIES THREATEN IMPERIALISM?

Dear MIM,

I am unsure how Maoism deals with imperialism versus the state 
capitalist/nationalist regimes vis-a-vis our stance towards these 
revolutions. 

I am referring to the relationship that Maoism has to the 
revolutions where national democratic revolutions have taken 
place, but where state capitalism or the deformed socialism has 
emerged. Cuba clearly falls into this category. Since it is still 
a Third World country I support it against imperialism and feel 
that the gains even under state capitalism/socialism (as they call 
it) are better than what they had under capitalism. The problem is 
that their socialism is not socialism at all. 

As in other "socialist" countries (or state capitalist would be a 
better term to use here), for one, the bourgeoisie was opposed to 
their existence, be they state capitalist or not. They did 
represent a threat, even if it were only symbolic.

I do not agree that these state capitalist/liberated nations are 
necessarily just thorns in the U.S. side. Grenada--was that a 
thorn? Does the decades-long embargo of Cuba sound like how 
someone would deal with a thorn? To me, it sounds like how you 
would deal with the enemy--like it deals with Vietnam, N. Korea and 
the like. Their military and economic and even political influence 
may not threaten the United States and its allies. But they 
represent something SYMBOLICALLY if nothing else. They won't play 
ball the U.S. way. So, as in the case of Libya, they are the U.S. 
enemy. That's how I see it anyway.

--MA20
November 1991

MC17 responds: There is a lot for Maoists to support in the 
revolutions of Third World countries. They deal a blow to 
imperialism and in most cases succeed in liberating themselves 
from feudal or semi-feudal conditions. In a Marxist sense, that is 
quite an advancement leading on the road to socialism, 
understanding that a society develops from slavery to feudalism to 
capitalism to socialism. 

As a result of the advancement of production relations, 
revolutions in countries like Cuba have succeeded in improving the 
standard of living of the masses of people in those countries. It 
also achieved some socialist advances for the masses: improved 
medical care, education, and more equitable distribution of wealth 
are a few examples.

But Cuba, like other Third World revolutions that have degenerated 
into state capitalism, followed an incorrect road to socialism. 
They soon set about becoming dependent on the Soviet Union after 
their revolution, ignoring the importance of the principle of 
self-reliance in revolutionary struggle.  

When you ask if the smaller state capitalist countries are not a 
threat to imperialism since imperialist countries oppose their 
existence, you raise the question of the principal contradiction 
on a world scale. Certainly there is a contradiction between 
imperialist countries seeking to be the dominant imperialist--as 
between the United States and the Soviet Union until recently. 
This is not opposition to socialism; although, sometimes it is 
done under the guise of anti-red propaganda.

It is true that the inter-imperialist rivalry (and the 
imperialist/state capitalist rivalry) is a threat to imperialism. 
It is a major force in the downfall of imperialism, because there 
will never be peace as long as imperialism lives. The constant 
struggle will weaken the links in the imperialists' power, 
creating revolutionary opportunities for the masses.

But at this point in time, the contradiction that we must grasp 
with all our might is between the oppressed nations and the 
international proletariat against the imperialists. This is where 
we can deal real blows to imperialism.

In this regard, Cuba is only one among the many Third World 
countries facing U.S. imperialist attacks--the invasions of Panama 
and Iraq for example. MIM supports the defeat of U.S. militarism 
everywhere. That does not mean MIM supports the system in Iraq, 
Panama, Grenada or Cuba, anymore than Lenin supported the system 
in Germany in World War I, while still organizing a military 
defeat for Russia.

MIM would be selling out the proletariat if it were to cheerlead 
for the state capitalists just because the imperialists find them 
bothersome. 


BASHING WORKERS VANGUARD

MIM can not pass up the chance to respond to the Nov. 22 issue of 
the Workers Vanguard, "the Marxist Working-Class Biweekly of the 
Spartacist League of the U.S," which included an analysis of MIM's 
line on the white working class. 

In an article entitled "Scab 'Socialists' Boycott Union Label" 
W.V. described a letter sent out by a fellow Trotskyist to 12 
"self-proclaimed socialist organizations," asking why they did not 
print at union presses. Of these 12, only three answered the 
question.

In their criticism of MIM they wrote:

"The MIM and Progressive Labor Party simply wash their hands of 
the labor movement--since unions are led by sellouts they must be 
hopelessly reactionary. But what MIM and PL reveal is their own 
incapacity to politically fight the pro-capitalist trade-union 
bureaucracy, as well as a deep, anti-Marxist pessimism about the 
possibilities for class struggle in the United States."

Apparently W.V. missed the crucial point in this excerpt from 
MIM's letter which said, "the white working class in this country 
primarily constitutes a labor aristocracy." MIM does not care to 
fight the "pro-capitalist trade-union bureaucracy," because it is 
the entire trade union, including the workers, that has a material 
interest in capitalism. The union masses are not stupid. They are 
not being led astray by their leaders; their leaders are fighting 
for exactly what the white working class labor aristocracy wants--a 
bigger piece of the pie.

Furthermore, it is interesting that the W.V. should call MIM anti-
Marxist. Marx was a materialist who opposed dogmatism. Yet the 
W.V. takes a dogmatic and anti-materialist position, ignoring the 
changes in material conditions since capitalism in the time of 
Marx. 

Lenin first explained the development of the labor aristocracy in 
First World countries as a part of the proletariat from the 
dominant nation that would be bought off with the profits of 
imperialism, so that they would no longer have an interest in 
revolution. An economic analysis of the white working class 
reveals that it is a labor aristocracy in its entirety and no 
longer exploited. (Write to MIM for more literature on this 
subject.) Burying their heads in the non-existent possibilities 
for class struggle from the white working class amounts to allying 
with the imperialists. The Spartacist League and all of history's 
Trotskyist groups combined have done nothing to threaten the 
existing power structure, as they rally around the capitalists' 
lackeys.

The Spartacist League believes that if they could lead unions, the 
whole working class would rise up for revolution. But it was white 
workers who turned out in droves to protect their economic 
interest and vote for David Duke (a.k.a. fascism and the Amerikan 
way) in the recent Louisiana elections.

W.V. goes on to say that "MIM is willfully blind to the fact that 
blacks and Hispanics are represented in disproportionately high 
numbers in unions in this country; in fact they are the backbone 
of countless unions and strike struggles--precisely because they're 
under the heaviest attack by the racist bosses."

White people are disproportionately in power, not in unionized 
jobs. Taking the proportions within manufacturing sector 
jobs--those that are unionized--should reveal exactly what the W.V. 
has found. Since more white people are in power, they are out of 
the manufacturing sector where jobs are unionized. The ratio of 
whites to Blacks and Latinos in unionized jobs should reflect the 
disproportionate number of whites in power, which would give a 
disproportionate number of Blacks and Latinos in unionized jobs.

In talking only about the disproportionate number of Black and 
Latino people in unions, the W.V. is ignoring the composition of 
the non-unionized work places in those sectors. Undocumented Third 
World people are by default going to make up a large number of 
these non-unionized workers precisely because they are not legal 
workers.

It is also likely that the "disproportionate number" of Black and 
Latino union organizers come from unions that MIM would support, 
such as those at places like Imperial Foods or in the 
maquilladoras, where the laborers really are exploited. On the 
other hand, a fraction of oppressed workers receive benefits from 
U.S. super-exploitation of the Third World as well. 

Rather than responding to MIM's call for a study of the material 
status of white workers and the history of the labor movement, the 
Sparticist League resorts to labor union cheerleading and 
Trotskyist dogma. They claim to be a party "of the working class, 
whose gains we defend, from the trade unions to the Soviet Union, 
despite and against the sellout leaders who undermine them and the 
fake-lefts who spit on them."

Failing to recognize the white working class for the Duke 
supporters they are, the Spartacist League if successful with 
their union struggles will simply bind the white workers even 
closer to the imperialists, creating the kind of unity that was 
essential to the white nation's setting up apartheid in South 
Africa (Azania)

That system reserves the best jobs for white workers while super-
exploiting Black workers. U.S. imperialism does the same thing on 
a world scale, with U.S. companies like Pico Products Inc. paying 
$6.20 a day  in South Korea, and less in Third World countries 
generally, while Amerikan workers average well over $10 an hour. 
Given this material reality, the Spartacist League's work amounts 
to organizing the white nation's unity and the new international 
apartheid order. The Sparts are all the more effective as the 
unwitting shocktroops of the new apartheid, because of their left-
wing noises which divert people from the material realities of the 
Third World proletariat.

So MIM agrees with W.V.: "Union shops are more expensive. And 
there's a reason why." The reason is that the money goes to pay 
white working class wages instead of the wages of workers 
exploited and super-exploited by a system that unifies imperialist 
nation people to put down the Third World--from Grenada, to Libya, 
to Panama and Iraq.

--MC5 & MC17

* * *

CORRECTION

The article entitled "Haitian coup builds Yankee dominance" in MIM 
Notes 58 incorrectly implied that president Aristide was 
overthrown for attempting to "delink" Haiti from the world 
capitalist system. Delinking removes a country from the capitalist 
world system--an act that can only be achieved through revolution. 
Aristide planned to continue ties with U.S. multinational 
corporations.

* * *

WILL THE (REAL) FEMINISTS PLEASE STEP FORWARD?
by MC86
Toward A Feminist Theory of the State
Catharine A. MacKinnon
Harvard University Press, 1989

On October 1991, The New York Times Magazine featured pseudo-
feminist scholar Catharine MacKinnon as the subject of a 
flattering cover story. The article noted that, "Even some of 
MacKinnon's allies suggest that her polemical fervor sounds, as 
one put it, 'Stalinist.'"(1)

In the following week, the Hill/Thomas spectacle erupted, 
hypnotizing millions. Suddenly, MacKinnon was On The Air--consulted 
by television anchor-men as an expert in feminist legal theory and 
issues of sexual harassment. Regarding Hill's witnessing against 
Thomas, one Media-Mind asked MacKinnon, "Is one alleged instance a 
pattern?" She replied, "He's not dead yet."(2)

Short, sweet analysis like this had caused Judge Richard Posner, a 
"leading legal theorist," to accuse MacKinnon of "depict[ing] the 
United States as a vast conspiracy of men to rape and terrorize 
women."(1)

To her credit, MacKinnon has developed and promoted a theory of 
sexuality which describes rape as a sexual act inextricably linked 
to a continuum of coercive social activities, marking all sex as 
shades of rape and all rape as acts of sex. MacKinnon espouses a 
theory of gender as a socially constructed hierarchy of power 
based on socially imposed inequalities. "Sexual pleasure is the 
experience of power," she says.(3)

Discarding male-biased theories of gender as rooted in biological 
difference, MacKinnon demonstrates that pornography is sexuality. 
She holds that male-supremacist, culturally-conditioned acceptance 
of never-ending violence against women, and sexual sadism, are the 
social norms around which Amerikan social codes and jurisprudence 
orbit. 

MIM agrees with this analysis. Based on the evidence of gender 
oppression and the world-wide exploitation of women as a group, 
MIM advocates the overthrow of all capitalist states, the armed 
suppression of the Patriarchy in all its forms, and the continuing 
up-lifting of social consciousness through the material 
annihilation of capitalist and patriarchal institutions.

MacKinnon's Toward a Feminist Theory of the State also correctly 
criticizes Marx and Engels for treating the division of labor, 
known as "women's work," as "natural" and biologically determined. 
MacKinnon remarks that "to define women's status solely in class 
terms is entirely to miss their status as women defined through 
relations with men."(4)

MIM recognizes that Marx and Engels were not Gods. They were men 
subject to the gender brain-wash of their time. Despite this 
limitation, they recognized that, "Bourgeois marriage is in 
reality a system of wives in common" (glorified prostitution). 
They called for communist revolution, "to do away with the status 
of women as mere instruments of production."(5)

Marx and Engels could not benefit from the advances in gender 
theory made possible by the mass movements towards women's 
emancipation that have occurred since their day. They tended to an 
analysis in which, "Consequence is presented as cause."(6) They 
saw women's role in the reproduction of labor-power, in 
agriculture, and in house-work, as naturally derivative from 
biological givens, as opposed to labor-roles historically enforced 
on women through social control and sexual terrorization.

Marx and Engels tended to one-sidedly see  patriarchal relations 
as primarily feudal, guided by the transference of private 
property through male lineage, and as remediable by bringing women 
into the public work-force. Today, we can see that even under 
socialism, patriarchy will not be instantly wiped away through 
laws mandating equality or comparable pay for comparable work. 

Despite her insights critically derived from studying Marx, 
MacKinnon's tortured and futile compulsion to disprove Marx leads 
to a gradual reduction of her grip on the essence of gender 
oppression. She throws away the most effective scientific tool for 
social revolution and is left with no greater plan for social 
change than advocating "consciousness-raising," and petitioning 
the State through law-suits.

She hopes that by achieving a legal status equal to men, women 
will somehow influence the patriarchy to reform itself. By relying 
on bourgeois dictatorship and bourgeois law as vehicles for social 
change, she is complicit in the daily horror that is life for all 
women oppressed by patriarchal imperialism. Hence MIM labels her a 
"pseudo," or false, feminist.

MacKinnon's greatest ideological weakness is that she is not an 
internationalist, and hence she is not an advocate of the world's 
majority of women, who live in the Third World. In speeches in Ann 
Arbor, Michigan, MacKinnon refused to oppose the bombing of Iraq. 
MacKinnon is no Stalinist.

Unraveling the political economy of imperialist "super-
profits"--derived from below-subsistence waged labor in the 
oppressed nations--is essential to a correct understanding of 
intersections involving gender, nation and class. The ability of 
Third World women to reproduce cheap labor, through birth and 
unpaid domestic work, provides the material basis upon which First 
World men and women enjoy a standard of living--of class, nation, 
and gender privilege.

Despite touching on many provocative and mind-expanding subjects, 
Toward a Feminist Theory of the State demonstrates a philosophical 
flaw that would be fatal to any practice attempting to end gender 
oppression.

In a key passage, MacKinnon says, "Objectivity assumes that 
equally competent observers similarly situated see, or at least 
report seeing, the same thing. Feminism radically questions 
whether sexes are ever, under current conditions, similarly 
situated even when they inhabit the same conditions. The line 
between subjective and objective perception presumes the existence 
of a single object reality and its noncontingence upon angle of 
perception."(7)

By denying the existence of an objective reality, in which the 
motion of matter produces the life processes we understand as 
rationally knowable contradictions, MacKinnon sinks into the very 
swamp of idealism she claims to be floating above.

It is a cornerstone of Maoism that all oppression is a material 
force and that the rule of any group over other groups may only be 
usurped by revolutionary material forces. Today MIM looks to find, 
ally with, and lead these material forces. The revolutions of 
oppressed nations, the revolutions of oppressed classes, and the 
revolutions of the gender-oppressed go far beyond MacKinnon's 
feeble attempt to excuse imperialist patriarchy as a state of 
mind.

Notes:
1. NYT Magazine 10/6/91, p. 30.
2. Network TV 10/11/91.
3. Catharine MacKinnon, Toward a Feminist Theory of the State, 
Harvard University Press, 1991, p. xiii.
4. MacKinnon, p. 9.
5. Marl Marx & Friedrich Engels, "The Communist Manifesto", FLP, 
1975, p. 56.
6. MacKinnon, p. 25.
7. MacKinnon, p. 232.

* * *

BAN ALL MEN

In a flash of irony that must have caught the Brigham Young 
University administration with its pants down, Voice--BYU's 
Committee to Promote the Status of Women--demanded that a nighttime 
curfew be imposed on male students three days a week. Naturally, a 
university spokesperson said the proposal was "impractical."

These students found a clever mechanism to dramatize the 
restrictions on women's freedom of movement, and patriarchal 
society's unwillingness to restrict men in any way. The proposal 
says that men who must travel on campus at night must be 
accompanied by two women to demonstrate that they are not 
threatening. Those needing escorts could contact the Mormon 
Church's women's organization. The campaign for such restrictions 
follows several recent rapes, attempted rapes and demands for 
improved security. 

All of this largely creates a false view of rape. It says that 
rapists are evil men jumping out of the shadows. This view avoids 
the issue of daily rape by husbands, friends, brothers and 
fathers.

The program still amounts to an appeal to male-dominated power 
structures to secure the safety of women--placing women on a 
pedestal. The university, the police and the church are all part 
of the patriarchy. Simply asking the patriarchy to pander to a 
select group of privileged female students amounts to nothing more 
than an appeal to have men be chivalrous.

Rape will only stop when women seize power through revolution, 
mobilized in line with the interests of the world's majority of 
women--Third World women. The Utah students would be better off 
working to articulate the most advanced revolutionary feminist 
line through MIM, rather than selecting a "women's issue" with 
which to appeal to their administration. Working in MIM, women are 
guaranteed a line on all issues.

--MC¯

Notes: AP in Detroit News 11/21/91.

* * *

WHO CARES IF HOOKERS DIE?

A recent study in France showed that 95% of male transvestite 
prostitutes and a comparable percentage of women prostitutes in 
one district of Paris are either suffering from AIDS or carrying 
HIV. The concern that launched the study was that most of these 
prostitutes reportedly refuse to use condoms with their clients. 
The study further showed that each of the prostitutes in the study 
could be "contaminating" up to 40 clients per night with HIV.

The final conclusion the study draws is that many of these Johns 
are married heterosexual men who could infect their wives with HIV 
after the nasty hookers give it to them. Conspicuously missing 
from the bourgeois press report is any mention of how the 
prostitutes were infected to begin with, or what the consequences 
of infection are for them.

Ideologically, prostitutes safeguard the purity of bourgeois 
women. Women of the bourgeoisie have historically been allotted 
the sanctified position of wife, mother, homemaker. Increasingly 
they are seen as glorious heroines, who combine these roles with 
their careers. Their sexuality is protected as sacred. This image 
rests on the image of prostitutes, who apparently don't have 
enough shame to keep their sexuality private.

Capitalist imperialist culture genders women of the labor 
aristocracy and petit bourgeoisie slightly differently along the 
spectrum from madonna to whore, but the effect on prostitutes is 
the same.

Materially, all these women appropriate the sexuality of 
prostitutes. To varying degrees, they can unload the burden of sex 
on proletarian women to keep themselves clean. 

--MC45

Notes: National Public Radio Morning Edition 12/13/91.

* * *

THE CURRENCY OF IDEAS

Sometime critics of MIM make the argument that the left should be 
a big, happy family and that MIM Notes should throw in its lot 
with the national left press such as Zeta, The Nation, In These 
Times, Mother Jones or any "alternative" newspaper published in a 
major city. These publications make the point of trying to "reach 
people where they are at." In other words, they provide left-of-
center, mostly reform and ballot-box-oriented news with the hope 
of "winning over the mainstream" and perhaps selling some ads in 
the process.

The principal problem is that, in this strategy, all of these 
publications give up the idea of revolution. The best ones, say 
the Guardian in New York or Zeta in Boston, cover revolutionary 
movements while also dealing with ballot-box issues in Amerika.

Those publications trying to sell ads--Mother Jones or the New 
Republic, for example--write lots of puff pieces on recycling and 
other mainstream stuff to appease their politically-correct-but-
apolitical clients and readers. 

If revolutionaries decided to have periodicals like these as their 
political organs, it would be a "masses are asses" decision that 
patronized people out there engaged in struggle. Revolutionaries 
would be claiming that political ideas are too big for the people 
to understand, so we should just put out this toy version of 
politics that readers find entertaining but inoffensive.

The majority of these papers are weaker than MIM Notes already, 
and MIM Notes gets stronger everyday. The influence of such papers 
is quite minimal compared to the mainstream--their real 
competition. While Time magazine has a circulation of more than 4 
million, Utne Reader--a compilation of works from the left press 
and the largest of the "alternatives" has a circulation of 
210,000. Here are a few others: Mother Jones, 165,000; Ms., 
100,000; The Nation, 93,000; In These Times, 42,000; The 
Progressive, 34,000; Guardian Newsweekly 25,000; Zeta, 22,000. 
Keep in mind much of this circulation is free-dropped places as 
advertising.

--MC¯

Note: The World Almanac of 1991, p. 312.
 
* * *

DEATH IN DETROIT

In Detroit, one of Amerikkka's most destitute cities, the homeless 
are already dying on the streets--even before winter has begun. One 
70-year-old man froze to death in a bus stop; another passed out 
in the cold and died, and a third died from hypothermia after 
being rejected from a shelter in a nearby suburb. 

The press and the Liberals blame the homeless problem on 
Michigan's new Republican governor, John Engler. He has reduced 
state monies for medical care, food stamps and disability support, 
and has eliminated Michigan's General Assistance program 
(welfare). This has left 90,000 more people without any support or 
jobs. 

Detroit--where 80% of the residents are on some form of public 
assistance, according to city hall--has been the hardest hit. The 
Department of Social Services estimates that the majority of the 
45,000 people in Wayne County (where Detroit is) who were cut from 
the welfare rolls are in Detroit. 

A coalition of slumlords has appealed to the state government that 
the money be restored. Welfare is big business for these pigs who 
receive monthly payments of approximately $200 per person who 
stays in their decaying hotels and apartment buildings. The state 
deposits the money directly in the slumlord's bank accounts; it 
never passes through the "tenant's" hands.

The slumlord alliance says it will have to evict more than 5,000 
people this month in downtown Detroit. Landlords typically use an 
innkeeper law which allows them to throw the poor out on the 
street without notice or eviction proceedings because the law 
considers them "guests," not legitimate tenants. 

With such dire conditions, every possible band-aid and stop-gap 
measure has been dragged out of the closet. The city government in 
Detroit is setting up warming centers while churches, homeless 
activist groups and the NAACP are all pouring money into food and 
shelter. The Democratic party whines about the elimination of 
welfare even though it approved the budget with the cuts. 
(Michigan has a Democrat-controlled House of Representatives.)

It is a deadly mistake to isolate one Amerikan pig in 
government--or one party--as the enemy of the homeless, oppressed 
and disenfranchised masses. People who want to see housing become 
a "right," should be organizing with MIM for a socialist 
revolution.

--MC¯

Notes: The Detroit News 11/5/91, p. 1.

* * *

ANOTHER COUP IN THE EX-USSR?

"The USSR, as a subject of international law and geopolitical 
reality, is ceasing its existence," declared the leaders of the 
new "Commonwealth of Independent States" on December 8. Russia, 
the Ukraine and Byelorussia stated that the "norms" and activities 
of the former union ceased as of the moment of signing the 
declaration.(1)

The new Commonwealth comprises 73% of the Soviet Union's 290 
million people, and nearly 85% of the 27,000 nuclear 
warheads.(1,2) Russia has 19,000 nuclear warheads, the Ukraine has 
4,000, and Byelorussia 1,250.(3) With the Soviet Union 
disintegrating, there is now no clear political authority 
functioning atop the military chain of command in control of these 
warheads.

Boris Yeltsin--Russian president and apparent architect of the 
Commonwealth--is capitalizing on his newly found popularity in 
light of the August coup which consolidated his power. As part of 
the Soviet Dis-Union, Russia had a 47% share of goods production 
and 46.7% share of total agricultural output.(1) And, with 148 
million people, Russia will clearly dominate the Commonwealth.

In a taped interview on French television, Mikhail Gorbachev 
argued vigorously that the new Commonwealth would mean disaster, 
and the consequences would make the war in Yugoslavia "a simple 
joke by comparison."(1)

Gorbachev's recent futile attempt to create a Union of Sovereign 
States with a limited role for the central government crumbled at 
the announcement of the new Commonwealth. As MIM Notes hits the 
press, Gorbachev announced his readiness to resign as president of 
the Soviet Union, a few days after the Commonwealth 
declaration.(4)

With the armed forces close to disintegration from mass troop-cuts 
and layoffs of officers, another coup could possibly be ignited, 
but this time by middle-level officers. Others say that a popular 
and spontaneous revolt could happen in response to the grave 
economic deprivation and political chaos.

Many military units and officers, however, are "following their 
paychecks" back to their home republics. 30% of the Soviet officer 
corps are either Russian or Ukrainian nationals.(3) This 
development will further entrench the emerging nationalism in 
those areas.

If successful economically and politically, the Commonwealth of 
Independent States would be on par with the European Community 
economic bloc and the North American trading bloc. If nationalism 
flourishes in the Soviet Dis-Union, then we could see a massive 
civil war between the republics--all armed with nuclear warheads. 
More likely, Boris Yeltsin will become the Russian Bear in search 
of territory and wealth.

Meanwhile, South Central Asia--the southern part of the Soviet Dis-
Union--will be swinging back to semi-feudalism and semi-
colonialism, the dominant social relations existing before the 
Bolshevik Revolution.

--MC67

Notes
1. New York Times 12/9/91, p. A1.
2. NYT 12/10/91, p.  A10.
3. NYT  12/10/91, p. A9.
4. NYT 12/13/91, p. A1.

* * *

POVERTY: AN UNHEARD-OF-CRIME

"The economic crisis is carrying people to commit unheard-of-
crimes," said Adolfo Ferreira, the magistrate investigating a case 
where 20 poor Uruguayans are being detained for selling or 
attempting to sell their kidneys to rich people. They are being 
charged for the illegal commerce of human organs. Ferreira said, 
"I have to make an example of this, or we'll have more unemployed 
people saying, 'Maybe I'll sell my kidney.'"

Uruguay has a state-run Organ Bank that collects organs from 
deceased donors; they have carried out 231 successful kidney 
transplants since 1982.  But the organ bank has a 200-person 
waiting list for kidneys. The demand is so high that one woman 
bought a kidney from Pedro Riveroli, a poor laborer, for the 
equivalent of $6,850, back in 1988.

Gee, what a great idea for income distribution! Maybe the 
oppressed can buy rich peoples' hearts at a discount and throw 
them away, or is that an "unheard-of-crime?"

--MC67

Notes: Associated Press 12/9/91.

* * *

NICARAGUA RACES TOWARD CIVIL WAR
by MC67

On August 23, the Nicaraguan National Assembly adopted legislation 
called CŽsar's Law, to repeal property laws 85, 86 and 88.(1) 
These property laws, enacted in Spring 1990 under the Sandinistas, 
granted property titles to more than 200,000 Nicaraguan 
families.(2) The laws intensified the conflict over land ownership 
between the National Assembly--split between the U.S.-backed United 
National Organization (UNO) and the Sandinistas--and the executive 
branch of President Violetta Chamorra.

Beneath this conflict is a power struggle led by UNO right wingers 
in the National Assembly, and the Sandinistas, who were in power 
from 1979 to 1990, when they lost to UNO in national elections. 
This has renewed the armed struggle between the two groups in the 
past several months.  

Property laws

CŽsar's Law contradicts the concertaci—n agreement, signed on Aug. 
15 between the executive branch, Sandinista unions and the small 
and medium business council (CONAPI).(3) The concertaci—n 
agreement awarded free titles to all houses up to 100 square 
meters, and when a state-owned business is privatized, the workers 
are to receive a 25% share.(3,4)

CŽsar's law would allow families to keep houses 60 square meters 
or smaller, but in larger homes Nicaraguans would have to pay 
their "fair market value."(4) It would effectively evict tens of 
thousands of Nicaraguans whose homes are slightly bigger than the 
law allows, but who live in dire poverty as a result of Chamorro's 
privatization efforts. These people cannot afford to pay the 
market "value" of their houses.

The imperialist media and right-wing UNO officials have 
opportunistically focused on charges of abuses by high-ranking 
Sandinistas when they enacted these property laws.(5) Former 
Conservative deputy Gerardo Alfaro said, "it didn't matter if the 
beneficiaries were Sandinistas, Liberals or Social Christians; 
even thousands of people who voted for the UNO were protected."(6)

One month after Chamorro vetoed CŽsar's Law on September 11, she 
conditionally withdrew her veto of the bill to repeal the three 
property laws, on the condition that the legislature rework the 
bill to be "acceptable to all parties."(5) Chamorro's oscillation 
indicates her inability to bridge the ideological tug-of-war 
between UNO members and the Sandinistas--a struggle heightened by 
CIA influence and International Monetary Fund (IMF) pressure.

Recontras and recompas The threat of civil war

In the last several months, many recontra and recompa groups have 
been formed in Nicaragua.(4,7,8) Recontras are rearmed counter-
revolutionaries who fought a U.S.-financed war against the 
Sandinistas, while the recompas are rearmed, demobilized 
Sandinista Popular Army soldiers.

According to official government sources, there are about 500 
recontras and 300 recompas; unofficial estimates are higher for 
both sides.(9) 

Some recontra fronts want to overthrow Chamorro, considering her a 
traitor for giving the Sandinistas control of the police force and 
the army. They want to install ultra-right wing Vice-President 
Virgilio Godoy as president.(10) Other recontras say they want 
integration into the army and police force, as well as land 
promised by the Chamorro administration. Neither has yet to happen 
on any substantial level.(10,11) 

The recompas have rearmed to protect themselves from recontra 
attacks against cooperatives and state farms as well as against 
themselves. According to Barricada Internacional, "These groups 
are demanding both the disarmament of recontras and civilians and 
immediate compliance with the promises the government made to 
discharged servicemen and women."(11)

An umbrella organization of 12 recompa groups are demanding an end 
to arms shipments to recontras from Honduras.(12) Barricada 
Internacional has reported that more than 20 supply flights have 
been made since last June from the contras' former military base 
in Capire, Honduras.(11) Presidency Minister Antonio Lacayo said 
on Sept. 5 that the recontras are funded by Nicaraguan expatriates 
in Miami who want to return the country to pre-1979 conditions.(4)

In addition to daily reports of attacks on cooperatives by 
recontras, there has been increasing direct confrontation between 
recontras and recompas. 

During the week of Nov. 17, four recontras, one anti-recontra and 
seven campesinos suspected of being Sandinistas were killed.(13)  
During the week of November 11, at least ten people were killed 
and 17 wounded in attacks by recontras or fighting between 
recontras and recompas.(12) 

Privatization and labor conflicts

The United States' $17 billion investment in the Nicaraguan war 
during the 1980s--along with the Sandinistas' failure to struggle 
against the Nicaraguan bourgeoisie-- has finally paid off now that 
the UNO controls state power.(14,15,16) With the UNO in power, 
privatization efforts will allow the United States once again to 
rake in super-profits from the Nicaraguan mines and the banana and 
sugar farms--with eager cooperation of the Somocista comprador 
bourgeoisie.

As of October 1991, 23 companies have been privatized; at least 12 
others are now in the process of privatization while many other 
companies have been leased to their pre-1979 owners with an eye 
toward eventual ownership. The UNO leadership plans to convert all 
state companies by 1993.(17)

Chamorro's economic plan has forced approximately 13,000 women to 
lose their jobs.(18) 70% of women workers are heads of household 
and over 50% are single mothers with an average of between four 
and six children.(19)

Nicaraguan workers, organized and strong from years of fighting 
the Somoza dictatorship and eleven years of state power, have 
responded to the privatization efforts with continuous strikes, 
demonstrations and occupations over the past several 
months.(12,20)

But Nicaraguans must resort to armed struggle under a disciplined 
united front to not only protect their gains from the 1979 
revolution, but to thoroughly eliminate U.S. imperialism and the 
capitalist economic base, something the Sandinistas never 
completely did during the 1980s. 

If Maoist factions exist in the Sandinista front, they must assert 
their self-reliance, advanced theories and guerilla tactics and 
strategies in order to destroy imperialism and capitalism and 
fight for communism in Nicaragua.

Notes:
1. Nicaragua Solidarity Network No. 82, 8/25/91.  
2. NSN No. 76, 7/14/91.  
3. NSN No. 81, 8/18/91.
4. NSN No. 85, 9/15/91.
5. NSN No. 88, 10/6/91.
6. Barricada Internacional 6/91, p.6.
7. NSN No.84, 9/8/91.
8. NSN No.83, 9/1/91.
9. NSN No. 93, 11/10/91.
10. NSN No. 86, 9/22/91.
11. Barricada Internacional 10/91, p.6.
12. NSN No. 94, 11/17/91.
13. NSN No. 95, 11/24/91.
14. Barricada Internacional 10/91, p. 7.
15. NACLA Report on the Americas 2/90.
16. Newsweek 10/21/91, pp. 46-47.
17. Barricada Internacional 10/91, p. 8.
18. Barricada Internacional 9/91, p.21.
19. Ibid, p.19.
20. NSN No. 82, 8/25/91; No. 89, 10/13/91; No. 90, 10/6/91; No. 
91, 10/27/91; No. 92, 11/3/91.

* * *

UNDER LOCK & KEY: NEWS FROM PRISONS AND PRISONERS

IMPRISON THE MIND, VIOLATE THE BODY

Dear MIM,

After reading and contemplating the various prison-related 
articles within the MIM Notes, all of which were informative and 
thought-provoking, as a Nubian/ Black Islamic/Muslim POW, a 
captured political prisoner of war, confined within the racist 
state of Maryland's repressive control unit, Supermax, I felt 
compelled to expose a few of the blatantly repressive and 
dehumanizing aspects of places of such hideous designs.

As conveyed articulately in your responses and those of victimized 
prisoners within the MIM Notes, we prisoners suffering in these 
new-age penal monstrosities, (i.e. the infamous "control units") 
wholeheartedly concur with your analysis and stance regarding the 
short-term use of reform only and the persistent thrust for 
protracted revolution. Indeed, reform primarily is no more than a 
mere band-aid approach to situations that demand far greater 
solutions if lasting effectual changes are to be had. For those 
enjoying the luxury of not having to endure the daily privations, 
repressions and depersonalization which the average prisoner is 
forced to endure, it's easy to assert the lip-service, arm-chair 
diagnosis of mere reform. However, for us victims of this 
antiquated, inhumane, criminal criminal (un)justice system, 
reformism only allots our oppressors greater time to formulate 
more stringently repressive policies and facilities such as these 
infamous control units. 

State sends comrades to Supermax

The racist state of Maryland, keeping in penalogical sync with 
other repressive state regimes, allocated millions in revenue to 
have the barbaric, high-tech doors of this putrid penal project 
officially opened in 1989. Since its conspiratorial opening to the 
present, Maryland Correctional Adjustment Center (MCAC) has 
flagrantly violated its purported policies governing 
criteria/eligibility for prisoners' transfers to this "high-
security level" facility. The naive populace outside these prison 
confines were spoon-fed disinformation-- being deliberately made to 
believe that "only" the most "dangerous" prisoners, (e.g. death 
row inmates, convicted escapists, etc.) would reside within this 
control unit, constituting a safety and security high-profile 
threat-- while the correct reality reveals the exact opposite. 
There are NO death row prisoners per se confined at MCAC, or 
escapists for that reason either.

Rather, MCAC houses the most influentially active POWs, 
politicized social prisoners and the mentally traumatized 
(sufferers of mental maladies). Within these highly controlled 
confines, the malicious whims of Maryland's cruel, putrid-hearted 
criminal criminal (un)justice officials and wage-slave penal 
functionaries are strategically played out. We are daily subjected 
to tortures without reason and no human contact. Straight out of 
psychoanalytical behavioral experimentations, like that of 
Pavlov's salivating dog, victimized prisoners at MCAC control unit 
are being used as human guinea pigs, to satisfy the sadistic, 
warped minds of power-crazed racists, intelligentsia and self-
serving wage-slave functionaries. MCAC control unit is expressly 
being misused as a repressive instrument of deliberate 
intimidation of Maryland prisoners, who are judiciously justified 
in their disgruntled disquiet--which has manifested in at least 10 
or 11 major riots within the last two to three years. They are 
endeavoring to coerce silent acceptance of our own unjust 
tyrannization.

Out of sight, out of mind

These control units are the practical implementation of the 
phrase, "out of sight, out of mind": they are designed to isolate 
and ostracize those prisoners who refuse to submit to the state's 
pacification antics or intimidation tactics. And in order to 
prevent other victimized prisoners from becoming politicized 
rejectors of prison ploys, the most politically conscious and 
active prisoners, (i.e. revolutionary) are foremost in being 
singled out to be tormented within these human infernos of 
torture.

The pathetically sad irony is that our own relatives, associates 
and loved ones pay the cost of these deplorable institutions of 
injustice and state-sanctioned victimization. It's becoming more 
and more common to find politically conscious and active Maryland 
prisoners (the majority being Black, incidentally), arbitrarily 
and capriciously singled out throughout the rapidly escalating 
Maryland Penal System (it has at least 15-20 penal facilities). 
For transfer to the conspiratorial control unit, we victims 
receive virtually no due process and upon our earnest endeavor to 
pursue said legal remedial avenues, such as the inmate grievance 
procedure, we are dismayed still more by the stark reality of the 
futility of such bureaucratic red-tape stop gap measures. The end 
result in most instances, when pursuing such ineffectual 
procedures, is that we find ourselves stigmatized even worse. We 
are further victimized as a result, because, once returned to the 
general population at any of the other MD. penal institutions, our 
having been confined at MCAC is used to deny us any/all 
privileges-- especially parole.

In conclusion, we certainly concur that few reforms forced out of 
our victimizers as a result of the courageous, selfless and 
momentous sacrifices--by the prisoners at Attica in particular--have 
been essentially rolled back. These repressive penal mazes of 
human drudgery labelled conspicuously as "control units" attest to 
this truth indeed. Hence, in response to the inquiry upon reform 
or revolution, we victims of control unit experimentation reform 
measures unequivocally exclaim--"For the oppressed, there is no 
question!" Struggle is our lives! 

--Maryland Supermax POW


ARMED STRUGGLE, BUT WHEN?

Greetings revolutionary correspondents of MIM:

I am completely dedicated to the total destruction of all entities 
and institutions that comprise the impediments to the people's 
unrestrained struggle for liberation.... 

As far as I'm concerned the tool and the textbook are inseparable 
(in that sequence). There are those who are just uninterested with 
the contents of any book or speech or lecture that deals with the 
raw truths of reality. To an extent it can be said that prior to 
embarking upon my particular career of full-fledged mutiny I was a 
part of that group, that vast collective of potential 
revolutionary-types that exist in every community ghetto, in every 
city of every state, in every koncentraton kamp in the society. 
Only I've managed to make a few adjustments. The book now 
supplements the cold implements of my trade, the gun, bomb, knife. 

I now understand the necessity for this, but that understanding 
shall never replace the  raw reality of the situation--violence is 
the means to the end, the only thing that the pig respects, and 
unfortunately, the only thing most people comprehend.... 

--MA106, prisoner on the West Coast
MC11 replies: MIM has a broad base of agreement with MA106, but we 
differ on a key point widely held by our prison comrades. 

We are glad MA106 recognizes the importance of studying 
revolutionary history and theory as a powerful tool in working for 
revolution. MIM believes learning from the mistakes and successes 
of other revolutionary struggles is a crucial part of figuring out 
how to wage the prolonged battle against capitalism without being 
crushed in the process. 

But given our agreement on that, MIM would urge MA106 and others 
who believe immediate armed struggle is desireable to study the 
examples of the Weathermen, the Black Panther Party, George and 
Jonathan Jackson, and the Cuban Revolution. MIM's study of these 
people and movements has led us to the belief that the focoist 
tactics they engaged in prevented them from successfully 
continuing their struggle against the imperialists. 

Focoism places great emphasis on armed struggle and the immediacy 
this brings to class warfare. Maosim, on the other hand, warns 
that taking up the gun too soon, and without the proper support of 
the masses, will result in fighting losing battles.

There is no question that revolutionaries will have to die in 
order to seize power from the imperialists. Production relations 
under socialism will be based on public ownership, and the 
capitalists are not going to simply hand over their private 
property without a fight. But sacrificing the lives of 
revolutionaries like MA106 too early will only ensure our ultimate 
defeat. 

Jonathan Jackson, acting virtually alone in an attempt to liberate 
three prisoners from the Marin County, California courthouse, was 
brutally gunned down by agents of the state. His courage is 
indisputable, but had no chance of success. And he would have been 
far more valuable to the revolutionary movement of his time had he 
stayed alive. 

MIM believes that the first task of revolutionaries today is to 
build a revolutionary party, and to put together a strong base of 
mass support for revolution. We know that this is a dividing-line 
issue for many prisoners, however, and we welcome more discussion 
on the place and time for armed struggle.

* * *

MIM NOTES 'TRESPASSES' IN MIAMI

MIAMI, FL--University of Miami Public Safety arrested a comrade 
leaving piles of MIM Notes in campus buildings at approximately 
8:25 p.m. Nov. 21.

The arresting officer R. Nagel sought any excuse possible to block 
the distribution of MIM Notes. First, Nagel questioned the comrade 
regarding soliciting.

MIM leaves its paper free, so this questioning did not produce the 
desired results. The comrade also offered several times to leave 
campus, so the officer R. Nagel invented a charge of "obstruction 
of justice," supposedly for failing to answer enough of his Big 
Brother-type questions, despite the fact that the comrade was not 
under arrest. Later at the station Nagel added "trespassing" as an 
accusation.

The intention of the fabricated charges was to "detain him for six 
hours," as one officer told the other at the station. When asked 
what good it would do to answer questions, the officer said, 
"None, you're going to jail."

The cops sent the comrade through four different police and jail 
buildings, with fingerprints taken twice, pictures taken three 
times and searches done three times. One of those times was just 
so one officer could intimidate the comrade into answering 
questions.

Various commercial and non-commercial literature is found in 
buildings around the University of Miami. It is an outrage that 
people out just to make a buck can pass out their literature on 
campus, but not people who the state dislikes.

* * *

SUPERMARKET MAG BASHES 'MADAME MAO'
Vanity Fair
Box 53516
Boulder, CO 80322
 $15.00/year (12 issues)

"The Last Days of Madame Mao"

Roxane Witke, author of Comrade Chiang Ch'ing, contributes an 
update to the psychoanalytical sex-gossip saga of Jiang Qing in 
Vanity Fair's December issue. We recommend that everyone check it 
out at the supermarket. But be sure you don't pay a penny for it. 
(Instead, send for MIM Notes' Jiang Qing special issue, July 
1991.) The article is a marketable mixture of Readers' Digest-
style history and National Enquirer-style gossip, featuring 
sensational accounts of scandal, rumor and innuendo surrounding 
Jiang, Mao and the sex-lives of the Chinese Communist Party 
(CCP).(1)

Jiang Qing did not look kindly upon this kind of gossip the way 
some supposed feminists would. Instead she backed an essay by 
China's famous writer Lu Xun called "Gossip is a Fearful 
Thing."(2) After noting this, Witke proceeds to repeat the various 
gossip stories anyway.

Witke also errs in a way common to bourgeois media hacks in saying 
that Mao did not accept responsibility for national disasters 
during the Great Leap.(3) Quite the contrary, unlike most leaders 
of state who rarely admit to being wrong, Mao did make self-
criticism for the errors of the Great Leap, while holding it was 
still more of a good thing than a bad thing.

Something previously unknown to MIM, that Witke reveals without 
fanfare, is that it was Premier Zhou Enlai who arranged for the 
interviews of Jiang Qing with Witke. The same faction of the party 
that Zhou Enlai headed then released the interviews in a book 
titled Empress of the Red Capital to make it appear that Jiang 
Qing had betrayed the country in order to become "empress." Witke 
mentions the book only by rumor and it appears that she does not 
know if its contents are genuine or not.(4) Many communists in the 
West have been confused by the popularity of Zhou Enlai and the 
comparisons between Zhou and Jiang; they should note this 
revelation by Witke.

To its credit, the article does push the limits of the traditional 
Amerikan corporate-media version of Chinese history by mentioning 
Deng Xiaoping's crimes; however, this is becoming more mainstream 
in the Liberal press in the wake of the Tiananmen massacre of 
1989. Witke observes: "One of [Deng's] worst worries was that 
[Jiang] would outlive him to tell the full story of his numerous 
betrayals of Mao."(5)

The article covers ten pages of Vanity Fair--with plenty of big 
glossy ads for designer jewelry, $500 watches and exotic resort 
hotels. Despite covering many important subjects, this article 
serves the patriarchy by perpetuating a ruse identified by 
Catharine MacKinnon: "There is an urgent need ... to define women by 
who they have sex with--without that, people don't seem to know how 
to read."(6)

--MC5 & MC18

Notes:
1. Roxane Witke, Comrade Chiang Ch'ing, Little, Brown & Co., 
Boston, 1977.
2. Roxane Witke, "The Last Days of Madame Mao," Vanity Fair 12/91, 
p. 144.
3. Ibid, p. 134.
4. Ibid, p. 150.
5. Ibid, p. 146.
6. Catharine MacKinnon, quoted in New York Times Magazine 10/6/91, 
p. 53.

* * *

MOVIE REVIEWS

(FREE) ENTERPRISE SEEKS OUT NEW WORLD ORDER
STAR TREK VI: THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY

These are the voyages of sell-out ship Enterprise, its insidious 
mission, to colonize all-too-familiar "new" worlds; to perpetuate 
the myth of Amerikan democracy; to go exactly where U.S. 
imperialism has gone before.

(Hum wavery Trek theme here).

MIM's log, stardate the highest stage of capitalism: 

At its best, science fiction provides insight into the present by 
forecasting the (often horrific) future it could generate, or 
portraying its absurdities as reflected through "alien" eyes. At 
its worst, sci-fi merely rehashes current events, using the 
trappings of an unimaginitive future in an attempt to make its 
legitimation of today's dominant ideology more interesting. 

Let's say for starters that Star Trek VI is not science fiction at 
its best. It's more like a western in sci-fi clothing.

The plot, a thinly disguised version of the recent U.S.-Soviet 
dŽtente, should be familiar to anyone who has seen or heard the 
so-called "fall of communism" story that has dominated U.S. news 
media for the last several months, so we won't bother not 
revealing the predictable ending in the following two-paragraph 
summary. 

Their economy ruined as a result of their own flawed ideology, the 
Klingon empire (read: USSR) turns to its mortal enemy the 
Federation, (a euphemism for "empire" in the same vein as "United 
States") for help. Hardliners on both sides, including our hero 
Captain James "John Wayne"  Kirk, oppose the end of the Cold War. 
Cooler and more moderate heads prevail--after the requisite shoot-
'em-up footage. 

Kirk sees the light, the peace process moves forward, the Klingons  
grovel at the feet of the Federation, George Bush's policies are 
celebrated, the Amerikan way is vindicated and Hollywood succeeds 
once again in popularizing the politics of Amerika's ruling class. 

Instead of illuminating and raising questions about the 
complicated reality of U.S.-Soviet relations, Star Trek VI grossly 
oversimplifies it. Despite the none-too-subtle nod to the spirit 
of capitalism embodied in the very name of our favorite starship, 
the movie utterly disregards the economic issue at the basis of 
the Soviet Union's current crisis--namely, that it has been mired 
in state-run capitalism for nearly four decades--while presenting 
viewers with a pat storyline complete with happy ending for the 
events precipitated by it.

MIM has long condemned both the Soviet Union for its post-1953 
imperialist policies and the United States for the oppression of 
other nations on which its economic system is based. Given that 
framework, the analysis of the current situation requires far more 
than the black-and-white paradigms the movie offers: good vs. 
evil, hardliners vs. moderates, the fall of the Evil Empire, the 
emergence of pax Amerikana.

The question Star Trek VI fails to raise is how the restructuring 
of the superpower relationship will affect the masses of people in 
both nations and their colonies. We get a glimpse of a Klingon 
prison --more a plot device than a comment on the plight of the 
people it holds--but the movie is blithely unconcerned with the 
fate of these prisoners under a new regime, or how the 
Federation's gulags look in comparison. 

By providing easy answers to irrelevant questions, Kirk and crew 
help to divert moviegoers' attention from seeking out more 
important truths. 

Let the record show, however, that despite our trashing of Star 
Trek VI: The As-Yet Unexploited Country, (or was it The Virgin 
Island? Christopher Columbus Rides Again? Amerikan Capitalism 
Finds Cheap Labor, New Markets?) MIM still upholds science fiction 
as a genre with a lot of progressive potential. Revolutionaries 
need good imaginations, both to envision how a better world will 
look and to figure out how to bring it about--and good science 
fiction can provide the groundwork for such cogitations. Ursula Le 
Guin's Left Hand of Darkness, in which she concocts a world 
without fixed gender identities, is a case in point, as is 
Margaret Atwood's A Handmaid's Tale, which portrays the United 
States after an all-too-possible fundamentalist Christian 
takeover. Let's hope Kirk and his cowboys do a better job next 
time. --MC11


FEAR OF EX-CON RAPISTS SELLS TIX
CAPE FEAR

Another film that thrives on its technique, Cape Fear is a psycho 
thriller that works. It is the story of a maniac prisoner (as they 
all are, right?) who gets paroled and sets out to fuck over his 
lawyer.

The psycho prisoner from hell turns out to be a brutal rapist, who 
wants to pay back his lawyer for suppressing evidence of one of 
his victim's prior sexual history--material Psycho feels would have 
got him off.

If one reached really hard into this film one might pull out a few 
redeeming ideas: Prison doesn't correct anything. People don't get 
fair trials. Lawyers are assholes.

Perhaps if one really pushed, the necessity to keep one's own 
house in order might surface. In the film, the lawyer is unable to 
unite his family to stay out of the way of Psycho, who manages to 
seduce the lawyer's 16-year-old daughter. One of the main reasons 
is that he can't explain everything to his wife, because he is 
fucking a legal clerk on the side. Psycho finds the legal clerk, 
seduces her, handcuffs her, bites part of her face off, beats the 
shit out of her and then rapes her. (Boy, prisoners--even white 
ones like Psycho--sure are animals.) The lawyer doesn't explain 
what is up with the connection between himself and the clerk until 
it's too late.

People will see this film as scary and disgusting--rape is so--and 
will take with it whatever message they read into it. Cape Fear is 
the type of movie the masses will not fund after the revolution. 
--MC¯


BEYOND WHITE PICKET FENCES
THE ADDAMS FAMILY

Like David Lynch's Blue Velvet, albeit in a more light-hearted 
way, The Addams Family asks what really goes on behind those white 
picket fences that represent the American Dream. Children who 
spend their leisure time dreaming up new and different ways to 
murder each other, parents who get off on sado-masochistic sex, 
uncles who prefer swordfights with real blood in their neices' and 
nephews' school plays than jolly songs and flower costumes--The 
Addams Family suggests that such antitheses to Amerika's image of 
the ideal family may very well exist. And, judging from the 
Amerikan public's fascination with the original TV show and now 
the movie, it's probably right. 

Of course, the movie does not go far enough in undermining the 
myth of the happy family. It does not say, for example, that the 
nuclear family exists only because the capitalist division of 
labor made it the most profitable way to structure social 
relationships, or that the nuclear family is more a luxury of the 
bourgeoisie and a means to oppress the proletariat. But hey, what 
do you expect from an industry that makes tons of money off 
"family entertainment?" 

(For a less flippant materialist analysis of the family please 
write to MIM). 

--MC11

* * *

REVOLUTIONARY HISTORY
by MC18

In the winter of 1967, Shanghai workers responded to Mao Zedong's 
call: "take firm hold of the revolution and promote 
production."(1) Their struggle represented the beginning of the 
Cultural Revolution.

"This mighty revolutionary storm started in Shanghai. The 
revolutionary masses in Shanghai have called it the great 'January 
Revolution.'"(2) The seizure of power by the revolutionary people 
of Shanghai was the most important single victory of the Cultural 
Revolution--the model for later revolutionary take-overs of cities 
throughout China.

The factions

The ideological debate revolved around the conflict between a 
bourgeois economist line and the revolutionary proletarian line of 
continuing class struggle and advancing socialist goals. Economism 
emphasizes economics over politics, making the workers serve 
production--a "vulgar Marxist thinking that assumed that the 
workers' sole and highest interest was to increase their share of 
the economic surplus;" the typical mode of thought among trade 
unionists.(3) 

The battle was between the established Party leadership in 
Shanghai that was carrying out an economist political line to 
defend their power, and a workers' movement advancing class 
struggle. The revolutionary workers were represented by the 
Workers' Rebel Headquarters.

Although the rebel group consisted of only a few thousand people 
in October of 1966, by the end of the year it had swelled to 
60,000. The workers supporting the economist line were represented 
by Workers' Red Militia, which was formed by the local Party 
functionaries. It was of equal size to the rebel group.(4)

The struggle

By the end of December, members of the Workers' Red Militia were 
joining the rebel cause in droves. In a last-ditch effort to buy 
off the swelling revolutionary movement the Party officials, 
through the Red Militia, organized strikes demanding pay raises. 
The strikes were designed to cut away at the rebels' base among 
the workers, and to buy support for the Party's reactionary line.

Then the Party leaders "opened up the municipal and industrial 
coffers to grant millions of yuan in wage increases, bonuses and 
grants...." The transparency of the move and the commitment of the 
rebel workers made the effort a complete failure. The rebels kept 
the factories open, with members of the rebel group working 
multiple shifts, and they produced critical newspapers challenging 
the Party.

The rebels defeated the reactionary Party leadership on Jan. 6, 
with a rally that drew one million supporters. They threw out the 
mayor of Shanghai and dissolved the Party Committee.(5) Shanghai 
and its economy were under complete worker control. The workers 
who participated in the Party-organized strikes demonstrated their 
support for the rebels by voluntarily returning the illegal 
bribes. "At mass meetings organized throughout Shanghai, the 
guilty functionaries were forced to stand with head bowed as the 
workers showered them with paper money until the enemy stood knee-
deep in the shameful currency."(6,7)

Notes:
1. Milton, Milton & Schurmann, Peoples' China, Vintage Books, NY, 
1974, p. 293.
2. Ibid, p. 308.
3. Ibid, p. 649.
4. Ibid, p. 290.
5. William Hinton, Turning Point in China, Monthly Review Press, 
NY, 1972, p. 67.
6. Milton, p. 291.
7. Hinton, p. 66.