The following articles are missing from the electronic version of this issue: "Under Lock and Key", "Clinton, Rabin on Palestine: What did you expect?" Movie reviews: "Ground Hog Day" and "Falling Down" I N T E R N E T ' S M A O I S T M O N T H L Y = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = XX XX XXX XX XX X X XXX XXX XXX XXX X X X X X X X XX X X X X X X X V X X X V X X X X X X X XX XXX X X X X X X XX X X X X X X X XXX X X X V XXX X XXX XXX = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = THE MAOIST INTERNATIONALIST MOVEMENT MIM Notes 75 APRIL, 1993 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. AMERIKA INTENSIFIES VIGILANTISM 2. LETTERS 3. SOMALIS RESIST AMERIKAN INVASION 4. PERU'S PCP DEFENDED IN BELGIUM 5. THE BLACK PANTHERS REPAINTED 6. ALLIANCE FORMS TO STOP THE REVOLUTION 7. NATIONAL SERVICE, NATIONAL SERVITUDE 8. BLACK BUSINESS IN CAPITAL CRUNCH 9. ANOTHER UPRISING BREWING IN MIAMI? 10. CLINTON ON HAITI: WHAT DID YOU EXPECT? 11. CHINA ADDS CAPITALISM TO ITS CONSTITUTION 12. PIG LET OFF EASY IN CHICAGO TORTURE 13. NO TAXATION; REAL REVOLUTION! 14. FORM AND CONTENT REVISITED 15. HARVARD LABOR STRUGGLE 16. REVIEW: THE CRYING GAME 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 * * * AMERIKA INTENSIFIES VIGILANTISM In February, President Clinton blessed the Amerikan economy with the magic wand of pork barrel spending. Newsprint and newspeak, "expert" opinion and whines of approval spewed out from the government-controlled media. "We must generally support the President's proposals and programs," said Jesse Jackson, summing up public opinion for the bourgeoisie. Patriotic Amerikans are being asked to take pay cuts, wear sweaters, and create vigilante groups working under local police direction. Youth of oppressed nationalities are being set up to be drafted by the millions into labor-brigades forced to clean up the waste dumps left behind by the closure of useless military bases sitting on prime real-estate. A hundred thousand white college students get free educations while ghetto youth are pressed into service in new urban chain- gangs. And the oppressor nation closes ranks. In Detroit, the Alliance for a Safer, Greater Detroit has pledged to make Detroit the "safest city in America." The Alliance is a coalition of law enforcement agencies, multinational corporations, big labor unions and Black petty-bourgeois Uncle Toms. Their target is the revolutionary potential of inner city Black and Latino youth. Ford, Chrysler, banks and utilities, the Urban League, the NAACP, the AFL-CIO and Trade Union Leadership Council, and others, represent the state-supervised alliance to imprison more and more members of oppressed nationalities, particularly young Black men. The imperialists are fighting a losing battle. Scared by the rebellions of 1992, and overshadowed by looming international contradictions, they are battening down the hatches for a long, brutal war against the oppressed. But their defensive actions are the basis for revolutionary advances. And their fears represent the potential for the people's victories. * * * LETTERS MIM REPLIES TO AMERICAS WATCH ON SHINING PATH ITAL The following is a part of an Americas Watch press release and a subsequent debate between MIM and Americas Watch. END America's Watch Women's Rights Project In a report released today [Jan 8, 1993], Americas Watch and the Women's Rights Project, both divisions of Human Rights Watch, charge both the government of Peru and the insurgent Shining Path with the blatant and illegal use of violence against female non- combatants [including Maria Elena Moyano] as a form of tactical warfare. The 62 page report, entitled "Untold Terror: Violence Against Women in Peru's Armed Conflict," documents more than 40 cases of rape of female non-combatants during interrogation or in the emergency zones, and many others that occurred during security force sweeps or massacres. It also details the Shining Path's systematic political assassination of at least 10 women community leaders since 1985 and the guerrilla group's routine use of such violence, or its threat, to terrorize women-led groups and feminist organizations. MIM replies: MIM has no reason to dispute that the Communist Party of Peru (whom you call "Shining Path") might have killed 10 non- combatant women in 7 years of armed struggle. We would like to see any comparison to revolutions or non-revolutions elsewhere in which 10 civilian women were not killed in seven years. Women in the United States would be fortunate to fare so well. Typically in any major city in the United States several times more women will be killed by men in just one year. Based on the murder of 10 women in a country that has seen 27,000 killed, MIM finds it opportunist of Americas Watch to say the PCP "targets" women, especially when those women are government officials. If revolution struck England and someone killed Thatcher, Americas Watch is free to interpret that as "an attack on women." And if someone knocks off the hypocrite gay in the Pentagon who was explaining why the military doesn't accept gays, opportunists could say the assassination was "an attack on gays." MIM is left wondering how systematic terror against women produced a PCP that is half women. It might never occur to Americas Watch that it is actually defending a vastly male-dominated fascist regime by treating it "equally" with the PCP, which is one of the best shots women have at equal governance in the world. There is very little by way of factual dispute between Americas Watch and MIM. There is a dispute over interpretation and ultimately, a choice of value systems--the idealist one that criticizes, on one hand, all violence everywhere without regard for degree or context; and the materialist approach which puts primacy on real world forces and choices. Then there are the facts where supporters of Americas Watch are simply SILENT. There's no dispute. But just in case, we give them another chance to dispute the following about Maria Elena Moyano, whose murder by the PCP is on America's Watch list of "violence against women t 1. Moyano was a vice-mayor of Villa El Salvador. 2. She ran government programs for a fascist military regime including the glass of milk program. 3. Moyano was a member of a Movement for Socialist Affirmation (MAS) that supported Fujimori in elections and took portfolios in this fascist's cabinet. 4. The army and the political parties running the regime used the glass of milk programs to distribute food by soldiers and politicians seeking good will (votes in required elections). 5. The government-supported newspaper Caretas reported that Moyano was in fact organizing "patrols" to "confront Sendero" and that Moyano was a "national civic heroine" according to Caretas. 6. Such "patrols" killed 222 "presumed subversives" in 1990 alone according to official figures and that the Army runs at least 526 "patrols." 7. The far right newspapers, generals and politicians lauded her before and after her death. 8. She said herself her goal was to "defeat" the PCP. 9. The PCP won an election in her own town of Villa El Salvador. Moyano denounced the victors as "Senderistas," which in other circumstances was a signal to death-squads to round up the people so accused and kill them. 10. MAS called for "an agreement among all the political parties in order to develop the urban patrols as a form of self-defense." 11. The political coalition she belonged to arranged for the legalization of such patrols in February 1992. If the Americas Watch wants to say "reliably" that Moyano was a "non-combatant," sure, no problem we say. After all Weinberger and Cheney were "non-combatants" too. MIM responds to Americas Watch: II, Feb. 7, 1993 ITAL The following are excerpts from Americas Watch reply to our criticism. Then comes the MIM rebuttal. END Americas Watch and the Women's Rights Project defend the right of all people to a fair and prompt trial and oppose torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment without reservation. We have repeatedly urged the Peruvian government to end "disappeared" Peruvians who may have had ties to this insurgency. The Shining Path, its leader, Abimael Guzman (known by his "war name," President Gonzalo) and its international apologists celebrate violence--murder, torture and terror--as a means to further their quest for power. Issues of justice, fair trial and human rights are, for them, "bourgeois" concerns, irrelevant beside the cause of revolution. Political enemies, even those who simply refuse to join, are by definition enemies. To kill--or in the Shining Path argot, "selective annihilation," "behead," "liquidate"--is not seen as a crime but rather a revolutionary duty. The following represents a random sampling of sayings and quotes by the Shining Path. I post them for information purposes and as a response to this message. The Shining Path has not just killed 10 women. It has killed thousands. The ten detailed in "Untold Terror: Violence Against Women in Peru's Armed Conflict" were highlighted because we believe they were hunted down and murdered largely because they were women and active in opposing the Shining Path's cynical brutality. MIM replies: The above by Americas Watch is an admission of sorts. MIM believes the original Americas Watch press release was muddled, because it could not decide if it was talking about oppression of women generally or what Americas Watch considers "feminist" in the context of Peru. We argued that it was absurd to argue based on ten cases of women killed that the PCP systematically killed "female civilian non-combatants." In the above we learn that Americas Watch does in fact take political sides in Peru. It admits its press release focussed on women resisting the PCP. Here and elsewhere it also takes the liberty of interpreting what the PCP "intends"--an inherently political act. Americas Watch continued: Not once has the Shining Path or its fans delivered one single solitary shred of evidence linking Maria Elena Moyano to any illegal activities while she led FEPOMUVES or served as vice-mayor. To the contrary, the work of this woman was inspirational and exemplary. MIM replies: MIM never claimed Moyano did anything "illegal." In fact, MIM went to great lengths to show that her party had a hand in writing the very "laws" of the military regime in Peru. We remind the readers that Moyano's party in particular joined the cabinet of the Fujimori regime after supporting Fujimori in the elections. Americas Watch continues: Born in poverty, Moyano fought to get an education and help her community, the people of Villa El Salvador. She was a radical feminist, a brilliant, articulate woman who believed in peace. Yes, she supported the formation of local self- defense groups, though never at the behest of the Armed Forces. That is a lie and a calculated misrepresentation. Her plan was to have self-generated, self-organized groups to protect people from the Shining Path murder squads as well as common thieves, rapists and gangs. MIM replies: The above again contains some valuable admissions especially for the readers without the time to do the research. Americas Watch has now conceded some key points we made in our criticism: 1) Moyano was a government official. 2) She was involved in armed struggle against the PCP, albeit not necessarily as a combatant herself. Neither of these two points were made in the original press release. MIM asks the reader how much it trusts a "human- rights" group that a) takes sides politically and uses judgmental terms like "popular" and "feminist" the way political activists do; b) omits to mention that Moyano was a government official and organizer of armed "patrols;" and c) admits as such only under public pressure and in a backhanded way? In contrast, MIM does not try to hide behind neutral-sounding blather about "human-rights." We tell our readers straightaway our values and what bourgeois sources we use to contradict bourgeois propaganda. Finally, MIM would like to point out the consistent lack of standards used by our critics. In the early 1980s, many of us including MIM's founders were able to see through the lie that death squads in El Salvador were not connected to the government. We were not so naive and neither was most of the world's "human- rights" community. But when it comes to Peru and its armed patrols THAT ARE OPENLY ORGANIZED BY GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS IN A GOVERNMENT SUPPOSEDLY GUILTY OF SYSTEMATIC HUMAN-RIGHTS ABUSES, then Americas Watch believes the propaganda that the "patrols" operate on their own! While conceding that Moyano was a government official organizing armed struggle against the PCP, Americas Watch doesn't think this is the same as the army! Just as the United Left used to claim it was independent of the regime (until it actually supported Fujimori and took cabinet positions in some instances like the case of Moyano's party in the United Left), now the Americas Watch continues to act as if government officials organizing "patrols" are somehow independent of the regime. Americas Watch should just come out and endorse the United Left and be honest about it. Americas Watch continues: Whether such a plan would work is an open question. But that's not really why the Shining Path killed her. They killed her because she stood up to them and was very effective in marshalling opposition to their campaign of terror. No slander, especially from parlor revolutionaries like MIM, changes that. Guzman--that old white middle-class philosophy professor--told them that killing a poor black woman in front of her children was a revolutionary deed. Welcome to the Shining Path "utopia." MIM replies: Here again Americas Watch obscures the whole social character of the revolution in Peru. Perhaps it would care to deny that indigenous people of the PCP majority are pitted against a predominantly white ruling class? Would Americas Watch deny that the PCP is 40-50% women? Once again Americas Watch fails to examine the aggregate; it only selectively analyzes individuals. The confusion of Americas Watch, Amnesty International and others relates to their lack of a principled conception of "human- rights." As principally middle-class based organizations based in the imperialists countries, these activists only care about what would seem to threaten them; hence, they do not count starvation, homelessness and lack of health care as human-rights violations. In contrast, MIM agrees with President Gonzalo of the PCP that you have to count a lot more than political violence as "human-rights" violations. Currently, Americas Watch and Amnesty International believe it is a "human-rights" violation to shoot someone who denies you and others food and shelter. For example, Americas Watch and Amnesty International encourage resistance to the PCP when it uses violence to secure land or shelter for the oppressed. MIM does not believe that property owners have the right to deny the homeless shelter to live and land to live on. We do not believe there is a "right" to resist efforts to abolish starvation. If the landlords gave up their land to the starving and the homeless, there would be no armed struggle. People like Americas Watch believe property-holders have the "right" to live free from violence, even if that "right" deprives others of life itself. MIM disagrees, because MIM has a more thoroughly humane conception of "human-rights." As Comrade Gonzalo has pointed out, a lot more Peruvian children die from starvation and related diseases in ONE YEAR than the 27,000 killed in 13 years of civil war. But Americas Watch doesn't count the starving. It only cares about what the middle-class can see--armed struggle against the perpetrators such injustices. FAMILIAR WITH FUJIMORI To MIM: If it had not been for the fact that I am Peruvian and have recently lived near the Castro-Castro prison, I would have been more skeptical of MIM thought and ideas. The horrors of the genocide committed by Fujimori's fascist government upon the party [PCP] people is repulsive. Having met many of these young comrades I can say that they are true examples of bravery and creative spirit. Inside the prison, they are meticulously clean, organized, etc.; outside, the same. In all, I praise MIM for its creative spirit and socialist faith in putting forth their point of view. I will nevertheless criticize your commercial "adventurism" in the pricing of your material. As you are aware, the people that are uplifted by your paper are people of limited resources, working class (many). Keep the cost reasonable. Remember what happens to people who commerce with the poverty and suffering of the people. Keep up the good work. --a friend in the East P.S. Try to put out more articles from El Diario. They were hard to come by in Peru. I am delighted you have access to them. MC67 responds: We thank the comrade for taking the time to write to MIM. It is inspirational when we get letters from the masses in support of the PCP, and state their repulsion of the fascist Fujimori regime. Through our articles on the PCP, MIM builds public opinion to support our Maoist comrades in their fight against fascism and imperialism. As for the prices of our materials, we barely get any profits from our sales, and with a few materials we actually lose money. We take our comrade's suggestions at heart, and will investigate our prices. A YOUNG SUPPORTER Dear MIM, Thank you for the literature you sent me. I have decided to order other literature from you. Enclosed is a six dollar money order, and the literature sheet you sent me is filled out. I'd like to admit I'm 13 years old, believe it or not. But I have my own copy of the "Communist Manifesto" by Marx and Engels, and I also believe, just as your organization does, that Mao Zedong was a great leader who inspired the Chinese workers and peasants, and also people around the world, and Mao fought against U.S. imperialism. I'd like to present some of my views. I believe that, in 1976, after Mao died, China took a counter-revolutionary move to state capitalism. You also state that the Cultural Revolution in China was the farthest advancement of communism in human history. I agree with you very much. I'm very glad that you say the Black Panther Party was the Maoist party of the late 1960s. The Panthers provided breakfast for poor Black children and free health care clinics. The Panthers inspired many, Black and white. Again, thank you for the literature. Sincerely, A friend in the East * * * SOMALIS RESIST AMERIKAN INVASION by MC234 On February 4, U.S. Marines shot and killed a 13-year-old Somali boy. They claim that the boy, Omar Ahmed Mohammed, was about "to throw something on a military truck, and a United States Marine, believing it to be a grenade, shot and killed him." Not only was there no "grenade" (or any other object) recovered, but the boy was shot in the back. Also, "if the boy had been close enough to climb on the back of the truck, as military briefers suggested, there probably would have been powder burns around the gunshot wound, but none were visible, said Dr. Kevin James, deputy commander for clinical support at the hospital."(4) The Marine Corps claims to be investigating the incident, but witnesses "along the street where the killing occurred said that no investigators had returned to the scene." The Marine has not been placed on restrictive duty pending completion of the inquiry.(4) "That man is going to have live with this the rest of his life," said Capt. Joe Davis. "Lul Mahmoud Mohammed, too, will have to live with the loss of her last remaining child." Her two other children were killed by artillery shelling in the imperialist- generated civil war. "The way these men [Amerikans] are acting they aren't solving problems, they're creating them," she said.(4) Twenty days after Omar's murder, enraged residents of capital city Mogadishu responded. Focus on Amerika On February 24 Mogadishu burst apart "as rampaging mobs shouted for American troops to leave, pelted U.S. and U.N. forces with rocks and looted the still functioning Egyptian and French embassies." The attacks on Amerikan forces were set off by 'fiery' radio broadcasts by 'warlord' Mohamed Said Hersi the evening before. He said, in part, "You have to defend your freedom, your honor and not allow yourselves to be under colonialism."(5) "By 8 a.m., bands of young men and women were setting up roadblocks and throwing rocks at ... white U.N. tanks, and armored cars at the strategic traffic circle."(5) According to the capitalist propaganda machine, Amerika invaded Somalia to end the civil war there. But the Somalis know that a return to colonialism is far worse than civil war. Imperialists plan to stay The rioting and other attacks on Amerikan "law and order" in Somalia has pushed the date back for the transfer of Amerikan military control to U.N. troops until late May or early June. In March, there were 15,000 U.S. troops and 14,000 soldiers from 22 other countries policing Somalia. U.N. Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali plans to replace that force with a 28,000- member U.N. contingent. He also plans to have the United States leave a "quick-reaction" force that "will number between 3,000 and 5,000 troops, and will contain attack helicopters and 'highly mobile' ground troops."(1) This is a small increase in the amount of troops needed in order to maintain imperialist control over Somalia. While the flag giving the orders may change, the overall goal of protecting imperialist interests (especially that of the U.S.) will be preserved. Give with one hand, shoot with the other MIM is not fooled by the sugar coating that the capitalists put on imperialist violence in Africa. Amerika is not concerned with starvation in the Third World or in the oppressed nations inside its border ITAL except END when that starvation interferes with the accumulation of profits. Starvation in Somalia is not a freak of nature; it is a direct result of Amerikan imperialism and Soviet social-imperialism during the Cold War. Now Amerika's military is engaged in the final act of dividing Somalia and its people in order to extract greater and greater super-profits. The Amerikan military was sent to Somalia to help non- governmental organizations (NGOs) complete the destruction and remaining independence of the Somali economy. "By monopolizing the sale of foodstuffs and medicines, the NGOs will achieve complete control of Somalia's distribution system. "U.S. troops are in Somalia to enforce this NGO-led market transformation; to kill any dissenters; and to control the exodus of Somalis. To date, 980,000 people (15% of the population) have fled Somalia. More than half a million (12%) are projected to die of starvation.(2) The United States wants enough Somalis alive to carry out this planned economic subsumption."(3) Notes: 1. Boston Globe 3/5/93, p. 2. 2. Africa Confidential 8/28/92, p. 2. 3. MIM Notes 72 Jan. 93, p. 8, $1. 4. New York Times 2/20/93, p. 1,4. 5. Boston Globe 2/25/93, p. 2. * * * PERU'S PCP DEFENDED IN BELGIUM by a comrade BRUSSELS, FEB. 20--An impressive group of speakers addressed a crowd of 300 at a hearing in Brussels today, on the atrocities committed by the Peruvian government and the just resistance waged by the Communist Party of Peru (PCP). The hearing was sponsored by the Parti du Travail de Belgique (Workers Party of Belgium), the Comite Sol Peru, and perhaps others. Speakers included Luis Arce Borja, the editor of El Diario Internacional; the La Torres, parents-in-law of Chairperson Gonzalo of the PCP; and Carol Andreas, an U.S. feminist scholar. The La Torres, Peruvian exiles themselves, spoke of Gonzalo's imprisonment and the abusive treatment he and other prisoners receive. Se�ora La Torre eloquently stressed the importance of Gonzalo's leadership in the revolution, and the importance of the fight against the Fujimori dictatorship's terror. "We are all witnesses that the dictatorship is committing a crime and using terror, prison and death to silence the free press and all that protest," she said. "All this as part of its infamous policy of genocide against the people." Carlos Torres spoke of his persecution by the Peruvian government while he was in Peru. He was not working with the PCP in Peru, but the police arrested him many times, beginning in 1986. He and his colleagues in prison were tortured by government officials who accused him of participating in assassinations and other actions committed by the PCP. After one of his arrests, the PCP announced that La Torres had nothing to do with the acts he was accused of, but still the police would not release him. Torres spoke of the conditions in the jail, where cocaine is allowed in freely so that prisoners will use it and get addicted. While he was in prison, he added, Amnesty International refused to report on his situation. Only the people of his town spoke up on his behalf--in spite of all the repression they faced--pointing up a theme all the speakers stressed: the strength of the resistance of the masses in the face of severe repression. The PCP's image Luis Arce Borja discussed media coverage of Peru and the PCP. He pointed out that the PCP used to be portrayed as just exotic and fanatic, but as the revolution advanced the criticism changed radically. Now they are accused of being brutal neo-fascist narcotraffickers, responsible for all deaths in the country. The campaign against the PCP and Maoism will only grow, he added. He called the propaganda about narcoterrorism a prop created to legalize a U.S. military intervention. The economy of Peru is sustained by drug money, he added, but instead of reporting this, the bourgeois reporters accuse him of being funded by drug money without any evidence. He recounted accusations that El Diario and the books he edits have been funded with drug money in spite of clear evidence to the contrary. Borja talked about Maria Elena Moyano, a woman killed by the PCP who is now held up by the bourgeoisie as a symbol of PCP brutality. He pointed out that the PCP does not oppose the glass of milk programs that Moyano worked with. But it does oppose the use of these programs to manipulate the masses into peacefully accepting their oppression. Carol Andres also spoke about the myth of Moyano's heroism. She said Peruvian government sometimes gives in to small "feminist" projects because they are in collaboration with the government-- with a few progressive ideas--and this helps the government. As Borja noted, Moyano also worked with the government ITAL rondas END, or anti-PCP death squads. Andres, who has written extensively about feminism in Peru, noted that reformists say women can only fight peacefully, but the PCP has demonstrated in practice that revolutionary feminism works. As an example, she cited the virtual elimination of domestic violence against women in the areas the PCP has liberated. PCP women don't have to prove themselves as more macho than the men to be respected; instead they are respected for their intelligence and revolutionary practice. She concluded that women of the world should be inspired by Janet Talevera and the many other women of Peru who died, giving their lives to the revolution. Struggle rages on In Peru, the contradictions at the root of the revolutionary struggle continue to intensify. In recent months, the People's Guerrilla Army, the armed wing of the PCP, exploded car bombs at a Coca Cola plant and IBM offices in Lima, causing heavy damage.(1) The attack on these imperialist icons came as the United States and Japan were arranging to form a "support group" to help Peru's regime meet a $400 million balance of payment due to the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. The payment would qualify Peru for $1.4 billion in new IMF loans -- to pay back the United States and Japan.(2) Despite lip service to a flurry of protests from Amerikan "human rights" groups, an anonymous State Department official told Reuters that the U.S. had already decided to back Peru's loans, and that "...the human rights concerns were expected to cause only 'a little delay.'"(3) Sure enough, two weeks later the Clinton administration pledged its aid after Peruvian officials promised to "take steps to improve the rights situation."(4) Meanwhile, Peru's Industry Ministry reported manufacturing output dropped 7% in 1992, as did food and drink (7%), clothing (14%), metals and machinery (17%), fish meal and oil (20%), paper and printing (40%). Underemployment for Lima is a staggering 78%, twice what it was five years ago.(5) The polarization of Peruvian society is increasing directly with the devastation to Peru's economy caused by the IMF and World Bank programs. That means an increasing mass social base supporting revolution. The more imperialist banks loot and rape Peru's resources and people, the more the people rise up to rid Peru of imperialism, and overthrow the parasitic and murderous comprador state that serves it. MIM agrees with Andres and the other speakers, and takes inspiration from those who have given their lives in defense of the revolution in Peru and those who fight daily in the name of the people. Public forums on Peru such as the one in Brussels are an important means of informing people and advancing the struggle against imperialism internationally. MIM does similar work in the United States. If you are interested in getting involved with the struggle to defend the revolution in Peru within Amerika write to MIM. ITAL --With MCBeta END Notes: 1. Reuter (nLAMP12803) 2. Reuter (nN2179055) 3. Reuter (nN22106847) 4. Reuter (nN0485465) 5. Latin American Economy & Business, Feb. 1993, p.9 * * * THE BLACK PANTHERS REPAINTED by a comrade "I am still a political revolutionary," said former chairperson of the Black Panther Party Bobby Seale in February. "More so: I am a political revolutionary ITAL humanist END." "Compared to Reagan and Bush," Seale said, "Bill Clinton is ITAL excellent END," and at least the L.A. cops went to trial for assaulting Rodney King ... Seale spoke at Mount Holyoke College in Western Massachusetts on February 15, as part of the college's Black History Month celebrations. Seale, who was supposed to appear in a debate with former Panther Eldridge Cleaver, delivered a long stand-up routine that showed, mostly by omission, the dangers of associating revolutionary movements with individuals. The Seale/Cleaver tour, and the recent round of books about the Panthers by ex-members, point up the need for more focused attention on the history of the Black revolutionary struggle. Seale speaks in the tradition of former movement leaders who, instead of renouncing their pasts, rewrite history to fit their current reformist or counterrevolutionary politics. To hear Seale tell it now, the BPP was a reform-minded party devoted to winning "political-electoral power" for the Black people; not a revolutionary nationalist and communist party studied in the theoretical writings of the Chinese and Russian revolutions, and the liberation struggles of Third World people everywhere. He tells it as if the theory of people's war and national liberation (which he doesn't mention) were just tools used to win Black votes in local elections. "At that time, we'd protest anything," he claimed. "We sent a thousand people to Cuba--for the hell of it." Rather than criticize the BPP of the past, Seale makes it fit into his present mish-mash of random politics. The Civil Rights Movement achieved civil rights for Blacks, he says, the Black Power movement achieved political rights (Black elected officials), and now--with all that won--the movement should focus on economic rights. First, the civil rights won in the 1950s and 1960s were important victories, but a sham in the long run. By making possible the success of a sold out Black middle class, they made way for the political "rights" of the 1970s and 1980s, when white rule was handed over to neocolonialists in black-face. Neither of these developments advances "economic rights." By themselves, they undermine Black liberation more than further it. Seale's approach to "economic rights?" He proposes renovating abandoned cars in the ghetto and outfitting them with electric motors. In the process, he reasons, there will be good money to be made, and the cars will end up more environment-friendly! All this is good reason to drop the tired old leaders, learn from the lessons of their former practice, and move on to make revolution. MIM censored: truth not told In that spirit, MIM attended the Seale talk to sell MIM Notes and pamphlets on the BPP and struggle with students. Against that spirit, the organizers of the Black History Month events kicked MIM out of the building for selling literature, and the campus police ordered MIM to stop selling literature anywhere on campus. The final straw for police and event organizers was selling Seale a copy of the MIM pamphlet "Maoism and the Black Panther Party" for $1. MIM is in the hard position of trying to tell the truth about the BPP in the face of the misleading personal testimonies of sold-out former leaders. Given the choice between the MIM pamphlets and the electric-cars idea, the state went with Seale and censored MIM. The BPP was not a perfect party. They had not learned many of the still-new lessons of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in China. They had not learned the dangers of focoism, and they did not have a completely consist line or practice. (For a detailed critique, send $2 for a copy of the pamphlet postpaid, cash or check payable to "ABS.") As time went by, their own internal contradictions and a massive, murderous campaign of state repression whittled away at their revolutionary force. But the BPP was the vanguard of the revolution in the United States at the end of the 1960s, and many of their ideas remain crucial today. Communist leadership of the revolutionary national liberation struggle of the internal colonies is still the best approach to revolution in Amerika. Like the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), the dominant history of the Black Panther Party was written first by the (temporary) victors--the bourgeoisie, patriarchy and the state. Then the losers who give up enough of their old politics to be granted a hearing by the victors get a chance. The main stories of the Cultural Revolution heard in Amerika are told by the petty-bourgeois intellectuals who fled socialist China at the time, or who write memoirs as representatives of the anti- communist regime in power now. The voices of the millions who fought for socialism and for a communist future are largely suppressed. When it comes to the Black Panther Party, the history was first told by the white press. It was a history of random violence, crime, misogyny and death. Now come the histories of the ruined individuals who were leaders enough to be recognized today, who have sold out enough to be palatable to the bourgeois publishers and media hacks. New revisions Two former Panthers, Elaine Brown and David Hilliard, recently published autobiographical accounts of their time in the party, and their works have gotten some attention in the bourgeois press. Both books follow the authors' psychotherapy treatments. Elaine Brown led the BPP from 1974 to 1977, after Huey P. Newton was arrested and then went into exile. Under her leadership, the BPP ran her for the city council in Oakland, unsuccessfully, ran free breakfast and other community service programs, and created the Oakland Community Learning Center. They also helped get Oakland's first Black Mayor (Lionel Wilson) elected. A New York Times Magazine article on Brown shows how the Amerikan press and the ex-leaders work together to rewrite history. The article summarizes the "underlying assumptions" of the BPP like this: "that black life and culture have an intrinsic value that must be acknowledged and communicated to others, that blacks in America must seize both rights and respect, even at the risk of white anger ..." Described that way, the movement is no more and no less revolutionary than Oprah Winfrey or Jesse Jackson. Brown herself damns the party with false praise: "I loved the fact that we took it to the wall and that we were willing to die for everything that we said and that some of us did. Certainly there were many, many flaws. But this was a group of heroic people, and I was part of a very heroic effort." Brown's psychotherapist, according to the Times, helped her "find her way out of the morass of anger that had trapped her" after she left the party. The result was her book, ITAL A Taste of Power: A Black Woman's Story. END Revolutionary feminism The Times review of Brown's book quotes her as writing, "A woman in the black power movement was considered, at best, irrelevant." This is an common accusation that is most often used to denounce the idea of Black national liberation. The Panthers and other movements contained anti-feminist elements in practice. But to say that women in the movement were "considered ... irrelevant" is to deny that women largely ITAL were END the movement. That Brown herself was the leader of the party reflects that, as do the contributions of countless women to the political work of the party at all levels from its start. If men in the movement were sexist, which many were, that makes it part of this misogynist society. Black women mostly worked in the BPP and other Black organizations instead of in the white feminist movement or white anti-war movement. That is a strong testimonial that the BPP was a better alternative for Black women than the pseudo-feminists who criticize it now offered. To call the BPP as a whole sexist is to deny the revolutionary work of the women who made it possible. As much as Brown bashes the party, the bourgeois reviewer is not satisfied: "One might also have hoped for more self-criticism and analysis, for a greater sense that she sees the error of her violent ways."(2) This is part of playing up the supposed current radicalism of the ex-leaders, and it's how the press and the ex-leaders work together. Bobby Seale still wears a beret and says "power to the people." Their posed radicalism now only serves to discredit the revolutionary movement that ITAL created them END. Seale, who made an appearance in the movie ITAL Malcolm X, END claims to be working on a screenplay for a sequel on the Panthers. Half the time he seemed to be describing the already-fictionalized pictures he imagines for the box office smash to come, in which he intends to play the role of his father. Before Seale's dream comes true and the revisionist history of the BPP follows the re-killing of Malcolm X onto the silver screen, MIM urges readers to join us in writing and distributing the revolutionary alternative--a people's history that serves not to glorify individuals and whitewash revolution, but to uphold the heroic struggles of the past and learn from their hard-fought lessons for the future. Notes: 1. NYT Magazine 1/31/93 p. 21. David Hilliard's book is ITAL This Side of Glory: The Autobiography of David Hilliard and the Story of the Black Panther Party END. Boston: 1993. MIM does not yet have full reviews of these books. If you've read them, why don't you write a review and send it in? 2. NYT Book Review, 1/31/93. * * * ALLIANCE FORMS TO STOP THE REVOLUTION by a comrade In early March, the Alliance for a Safer, Greater Detroit (ASGD)-- a coalition of community, business and law enforcement agencies formed in May 1992 to make Detroit the "safest city in Amerika"-- organized a day-long "crime prevention" conference in downtown Detroit. Divided into committees such as the Fugitive Task Force, vehicle etching, identification of dangerous (abandoned) buildings and uniting neighborhoods, the ASGD is a fascist alliance of the government, bourgeoisie, white working class and Uncle Tom organizations from Detroit's Black petty bourgeoisie, united to keep down the revolutionary aspirations of oppressed nationalities. Michael Walker, executive director of the Task Force on Violent Crime, set the tone for the conference as its keynote speaker. Walker is a special advisor to the Amerikan Bar Association's committee on the drug crisis, a member of the California and Midwest Gang Investigators, and the Center for Adolescent Health's Task Force on Adolescent Violence. He has "training" in the areas of cocaine and crack usage, drug-use forecasting and gang behavior. The mission of the Fugitive Task Force is to coordinate resources of all Alliance members to investigate and apprehend fugitives wanted for serious felonies. The coordination of this operational personnel is the responsibility of the FBI violent crime supervisor in Detroit. Formed in July 1992, the goal of the Fugitive Task Force is to arrest 300 of the worst offenders/felons. So far in 1993, the force has arrested 152 "fugitives," and located another 38. The force consists of seven FBI agents, two Wayne County deputy sheriffs, two officers from both the U.S. Marshal's Office and the U.S. Secret Service, and one officer from the Michigan State Police. Other law enforcement agencies represented in the ASGD are the U.S. Attorney's Office, Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), and the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms (ATF). The heavy involvement of ITAL federal END agencies is consistent with the federal government's increased involvement to prosecute drug- related crimes, ever since former President Bush declared a war on drugs in 1989. The executive committee of the ASGD consists of John Broad, Chairman of the Greater Detroit Chamber of Commerce Public Safety; John O'Hair, Wayne Country Prosecutor; Horace Sheffield, civil rights activist, union leader and newspaper columnist; and James Trent, President of Citizens Coalition against Crime. Blacks and Detroit business Business interests in the ASGD include Ford Motor Co., Chrysler, NBD Bank, Manufacturers Bank, Detroit Bar Association, Consumers Power Co., and Detroit Edison Co. Completing the alliance between the Black petty bourgeoisie and the white working class to imprison more and more members of oppressed nationalities, particularly young Black men, the Detroit Urban League, NAACP, Detroit AFL-CIO, and the Trade Union Leadership Council also participate in the AGSD. With the prison rate of Black males at 3,109 per 100,000 in Amerika, compared to 729 in South Africa, MIM sees the contradictions in Amerika increasing to explosive levels between white Amerika and the oppressed nationalities, and these contradictions will have their organizational manifestations in operations like the ASGD.(1) The ASGD, like numerous other "alliances" or task forces in other cities, was created to eliminate drugs by further attacking and destroying communities of oppressed nationalities. The establishment of these fascist organizations indicate that white Amerikkka is scared of more urban rebellions of the kind that swept Los Angeles in 1992. Notes: Perdue, William Dan, ITAC Systematic Crisis: Problems in Society, Politics, and World Order END ITAC (NY: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich College Publishers, 1993), pp. 515-516. * * * NATIONAL SERVICE, NATIONAL SERVITUDE by MC86 On March 1, President Clinton unveiled a National Service plan to students at Rutgers University, living up to the praise of his economic advisor Rudiger Dornbusch, who remarked in February, "Clinton says, 'Let's try changing culture, not just spending more.'"(1) Clinton that in return for student loans, a first-strike force of 2% of Amerika's college students will: "Help our police forces across the nation, training members for a new police corps, that will walk beats, and work with neighborhoods and build the kind of community ties that will prevent crime from happening in the first place; we'll ask young people to work to help control pollution and recycle waste, to paint darkened buildings and clean up neighborhoods, to work with senior citizens and combat homelessness and to help children in trouble."(2) What about the homeless whom these vigilantes "combat?" The National Service is to distribute the proposed $3.4 billion through 1997 to the already existing poverty-pimp organizations in the ghetto/colonies. These groups were "unable" to spend $267 million of the $500 million Bush made available to them for "summer jobs" after the Los Angeles rebellion in 1992.(3) The reason this money was not spent is because it would have pumped too much independently useable capital into the internal colonies before Amerika figured out how to police and control such potential power. The first phase of National Service allocates "$15 million for eight-week 'Summer of Service' programs for roughly 1,000 teenagers from poor neighborhoods or broken homes in up to 10 communities." The teenagers will receive minimum wage for "administering immunization programs for young children and test for lead paint..."(3) MIM gets it: 100,000 white college students will receive a free education in advanced technology in return for staffing armed patrols of locked-down ghettos. One thousand ghetto youth will get chump-change for inoculating dark children with whatever new disease the Center for Disease Control has decided to unleash upon the permanently unemployed. Education for brown youth will come in the form of learning how to clean up radioactive toxic waste dumps. These are ITAL precedents END that are being set up for drafting oppressed youth into Pentagon-run forced-labor camps. These youths are being downsized out of the armed forces--where they could receive military training and get their hands on automatic weapons and explosives--and into surplus-value producing infrastructure- repairing chain-gangs. National Service is part of Clinton's plan to wrap the Amerikan ruling class's ongoing, profit-heavy economic restructuring in a new suit. The president's "deficit-cutting" plan is a web of deceit. Newsweek whispered that the "five year [deficit] cut of $473 billion is slightly less than the much-maligned Bush budget agreement in 1990 of $482 billion."(4) According to another "expert," "The Bush presidency was a grand experiment in the Clinton national economic strategy."(5) Clinton's economic "miracle" is basically the same economic program that the Bush administration had been practicing for more than two years. Clinton wants to end welfare payments to "able-bodied" people after they have been mauled by the welfare system for two years. The "earned income tax credit"--touted as "eliminating" family poverty--will be available only for those who work 40 hours a week and, in effect, will only subsidize two-parent families. War industry jobs are being converted to jobs in the financial, marketing and technological service sectors; some pay better, some pay worse. Corporate downsizing of several million private-sector jobs has put a minor squeeze on the white working class; but the capitalists and their retainers--as a group--are doing extraordinarily well. The very lucrative deficit is not a problem for capitalism--its growth indicates the good health of a drunkenly profitable financial industry. Keeping the public focussed on the mysterious "deficit" has the political advantage of letting the "deficit" absorb all the blame for problems caused by ordinary capitalism. Imperialism is not harmed by the deficit--although it will be overthrown by the desperate. Who's desperate? As Clinton spins his web, the Department of Housing and Urban Development is forcibly removing members of the Black and Latino Nations from public housing and Section 8 "subsidized" housing stock through outright terror and phoney "economic development" and "resident management and homeownership programs" calculated to "privatize" the physically ruined projects. A project tenant commented to MIM, "No wonder they are kicking us out! They need someplace for all those unemployed whites to go!" Advances in computerization have put "at risk ... 16.7 million back- office workers who process orders and track inventories."(6) These are the very jobs that non-white females were allowed to have during the bubble preceding Amerika's restructuring. Profit does not arise from machines. It arises like smoke from a fire of sacrificed and burning poor people. The global market sucks it's actual cash profit primarily from the militarily occupied and deliberately devastated Third World. As value-producing Amerikan-owned enterprises have been re-sited into cheap Third World labor-markets--including social-fascist-run China--technological advances in Amerika have made it possible to increase productivity by temporarily displacing millions of non- productive "working" Amerikans. In order to keep the bought-off settler population fat and sassy, room for a slightly reduced expansion-rate of living standards must be seized by the white working class under government guidance. Clinton's continuation of Bush's economic agenda is not so much intended to remedy the symptoms of inevitable cyclical recessions; as it is intended to further the ITAL resettlement END of Amerika. It is designed to further liquidate the internally oppressed nationalities and to keep the bulk of Third World immigrants locked in economic stagnation outside the borders of Amerika's exclusionary free-trade paradise. Notes: 1. San Francisco Chronicle 2/20/93, p. A3. 2. New York Times 3/2/93, p. A10. 3. SFC 2/20/93, p. A3. 4. Newsweek 2/28/93. 5. Stephen Moore, Cato Institute, SFC 2/20/93, p. A3. 6. Wall Street Journal 3/10/93, p. A8. * * * BLACK BUSINESS IN CAPITAL CRUNCH Most participants at a conference on Black business in Atlanta in February agreed that the biggest thing blocking the progress of Black business is lack of access to capital. A recent poll of 500 Black entrepreneurs found that 83% said raising capital was a "very serious" problem. There is not much evidence that Black business is improving, overall. Black consumers spent 3% of their money at Black-owned businesses last year. Black businesses took in 1% of total national sales, and make up only 3% of the total number of businesses. Blacks are about 12% of the population. The "progress" that is reported is not good, either. The current generation of successful Black-owned businesses is getting ahead by getting out of Black residential areas, and away from Black customers. The top five Black-owned businesses, which rake in 60% of the top 25's sales, all rely on white customers. More serious than a dependence on white business, though, is dependence on the state. Of those Blacks who are "middle-class," by the definition of sociology professor Bart Landry, half of the men, and two-thirds of the women, work for the government in one way or another. Many of these are employed in the bureaucracies that are supposed to look like they are helping Blacks: another cost of liberal reform programs. The real "Black bourgeoisie" is tiny and insignificant. In reality, most well-off Blacks are petty-bourgeois bureaucrats, service-providers or civil servants who are totally dependent on the state or white economy. The few real Black capitalists are of two kinds: either totally wrapped up in the white economy; or else tiny and struggling in small businesses. --MC12 Notes: Economist 2/27/93, pp. 33-34. * * * ANOTHER UPRISING BREWING IN MIAMI? The trial of the four cops who beat Rodney King is not the only killer cop re-trial going on now. Miami cop William Lozano is also being retried for allegedly killing two Black men on a motorcycle in Miami's Overtown neighborhood. Those killings touched off the 1989 Super Bowl Week riots, which left one person dead and more than $100 million in damage. That riot was the fourth in Miami since 1980. All four were sparked by white or Latino cops beating or shooting Blacks to death. Lozano, a Columbian immigrant, was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to seven years in prison in 1990. But he won a new trial when an appeals court ruled that the 1990 Miami jury feared there would be riots if Lozano was acquitted. It hat not gone unnoticed by Blacks in Miami that the retrials of Lozano and the L.A. cops are occurring at the same time. Many believe that back-to-back acquittals would lead to Miami's fifth riot since 1980. The bourgeoisie has learned some lessons from previous riots, and is organizing in advance to nip another outbreak in the bud. Their strategy consists of community meetings between cops and the Black community, and preparing street patrols with police, Black ministers, and residents to walk the streets and calm people down as the verdict approaches. While MIM believes that creating public opinion for communist internationalism will better ensure a revolutionary victory in the long run for the people of Miami and Los Angeles than spontaneous rebellion ITAL today END, we have nothing but contempt for Black misleaders who work with the cops to squelch the people's just rage. --MC251 Notes: Atlanta Journal/Constitution 3/1/93, p. A2. * * * CLINTON ON HAITI: WHAT DID YOU EXPECT? Secretary of State Warren Christopher now says flat-out that Clinton's criticisms of Bush's Haiti policy during the campaign were "ill-advised." During the campaign, Clinton called Bush's policy "a callous response to a terrible human tragedy," and claimed he would reverse the policy if elected. The Clinton administration reneged on changing the policy before Clinton even took office, instead continuing the immediate repatriation of Haitians fleeing by boat to escape economic and political repression. Trying to justify Clinton's about-face to confused liberals, Christopher insisted that Mr. Clinton has "stayed consistent with his themes of having a more activist American foreign policy."(1) A "more activist" Amerikan foreign policy really means a more imperialist, more belligerent, and more repressive Amerikan foreign policy, directed against oppressed nations within Amerika and the Third World. --MC251 Notes: Atlanta Journal/Constitution 3/1/93. * * * CHINA ADDS CAPITALISM TO ITS CONSTITUTION Revisionist China will soon be revising its constitution to provide a "legal basis for market oriented economic reforms." The constitutional amendments have been approved by the Central Committee and are expected to be adopted soon after March 15. The amendments "will eliminate a part of the existing constitution, adopted in 1982, that declares 'The state practices economic planning on the basis of socialist public ownership.' This will be replaced with a reference to China practicing a 'socialist market economy.' "Another revision will replace a reference to the 'state economy' with the term 'state-owned economy.'" The bourgeoisie seized power after the death of Mao and the arrest of the Gang of Four in 1976. A "state owned economy" is not socialism, but state capitalism. MIM is working to defeat capitalism in all its forms, and the only way to prevent bourgeois restoration is through a successful Cultural Revolution during the dictatorship of the proletariat. --MC234 Notes: Boston Globe, 2/16/93, p. 2. * * * PIG LET OFF EASY IN CHICAGO TORTURE The Chicago Police Board has just fired Commander Jon Burge for torturing a murder suspect 11 years ago. Murder suspect Andrew Wilson reported that "his confession was the result of coercion. He said that he was beaten, nearly suffocated with a plastic bag, given electric shocks, and handcuffed to a hot radiator. "The case drew years of protest from civil rights groups and an investigation by Amnesty International." Neither the question nor the solution achieved was worth 11 years of study. All pigs are the enemy, and cases like these are just clearer examples of the repression that occurs every day against the oppressed nations. MIM calls on these civil rights groups and Amnesty International to stop wasting time and start building independent power for the oppressed. --MC234 Notes: The Boston Globe 2/12/93, p. 17. * * * NO TAXATION; REAL REVOLUTION! "Queen Elizabeth II will pay income taxes just like any commoner, but the government said it will not collect inheritance taxes from the next monarch." Prime Minister John Major said that the royalty will be exempt from the inheritance tax because "there would be the danger of the assets of the monarchy being salami-sliced away by capital taxation through generations, thus changing the nature of the institution." MIM, in conjunction with Maoist parties around the world, is working to changing the very structure of the planet. MIM supports the destruction of the monarchy and all forms of institutionalized power. But the way to do this is through revolution, not taxation. --MC234 Notes: The Boston Globe 2/12/93, p. 2. * * * FORM AND CONTENT REVISITED A study reported to the "annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science" confirmed yet again that the issue of form and content in communications is central to the liberation of women. According to the study done by a Linda L. Carli, men are more persuaded by women speakers "who speak in a tentative style--with such phrases as 'I kind of sort of think,' or 'I'm really not an expert'--than by women who speak competently." Researchers asked 40 men and 40 women their opinion of a videotape of men and women presenters trying to get across a message. The women found warm and competent women persuasive but they also found stiff and competent women persuasive. Men found serious and competent men persuasive but they did not find serious and competent women persuasive. Unlike many scholars, this one took a relatively good line and did not advise women to speak incompetently to gain the good graces of men. Prof. Carli recognized that women should not adjust; instead society should change. A typical bourgeois feminist would have said to play by the rules of the game to get ahead. Bourgeois feminists don't stop to ask what is lost by playing by the rules. This study is yet another confirmation that it is women who have the most to gain by seeing scientific reasoning abilities spread throughout society. Currently men discount the content of what women say and examine only the tone, form and style of what women say. This fact has devastating implications for both academic and political education work. Like the revolutionary feminist Redstockings before us, MIM is often assailed for its tone of argument. When reason fails our critics, the only thing left is to attack our style. This is a result of the regressive influence of religion in our schools, the ruling class's efforts to spread mysticism of all kinds (including astrology right from the White House) and plain old sexual privilege. The ruling class benefits from spreading ignorance among the masses and men end up restricting women to the role of sexual objects by discounting what they say. At MIM we stress first of all that the tone or form of an argument does not matter: examine the content first. Then, if one understands the content of a communication it would be nice if the tone of its expression reflected proletarian morality. In other words, news and analysis of genocide and starvation should be in a sad, angry or bitter tone, but which side of the leaflet to staple is a more neutral tone issue. MIM does not believe that First World women are going to rise up in revolution because men discount what they say in communications. The sexual conditions of First World women are too good--which is why there is such an absence of revolutionary feminist struggle in the First World. On the other hand, even the secondary contradiction of women's oppression in the First World helps us to see the intertwining of ignorance, power and sex. --a comrade Notes: Boston Globe 2/15/93, p. 29. * * * HARVARD LABOR STRUGGLE by a comrade A recent report by the Harvard Union of Clerical and Technical Workers/AFSCME indicates some typical views of the imperialist labor aristocracy--the set of workers that is no longer proletarian. A newsletter of 3,500 workers argues that "at Harvard we average $23,000 a year and find ourselves struggling to take care of the basics." Not surprisingly the report is entitled "Creating a New Middle Class in America." The report hits on all the trendy factoids of the "left"-wing of the labor aristocracy. "Eighty three percent of the Harvard support staff is female ... the entire American workforce is being 'feminized.' The service sector, long the realm of women workers, is now the fastest growing part of our economy ... Men taking these jobs are moving backwards economically ... in the past twenty years, the median income of young families has dropped 30%." Before concluding, the report offers lip-service to minority workers who face economic challenges "especially fierce." So we learn that an income 10-20 times that of Third World proletarians is barely enough for the "basics"--by which the labor aristocracy means a new television every year, a VCR, a car every few years, etc. As usual for organizers of the labor aristocracy, this particular union mobilizes oppressed groups and oppressor groups together to join the middle class. They use the imagery of oppression on behalf of the middle class. For MIM's refutation of white nation working class myths, send $3 cash for a copy of MIM Theory #1. Suffice it to say we think the Harvard Union of Clerical & Technical Workers is honestly representative of its workers' interests. It seeks to expand the middle-class in alliance with the imperialists. It does not seek an end to the system of oppression. All the various cheerleaders seeking to move the union and its workers toward revolution will fail until material conditions change drastically. At this time, organizing this group of workers for its economic goals will end up doing two things--using workers who are genuinely oppressed and proletarian and prolonging the life of the imperialist-labor aristocracy alliance and hence preserving U.S. imperialism's global apartheid system. Notes: "Creating a New Middle Class in America: A O Local report" Harvard Union of Clerical and Technical Workers/AFSCME, Dec., 1992. * * * REVIEW: THE CRYING GAME 1992 In bourgeois espresso bars across Amerika, everybody who talked about ITAL The Crying Game END talked about ITAL the secret. END The secret is that this academy-award nominated British film portraying the struggles of the Irish Republican Army (IRA), is a reactionary picture of gender and national conflict. The movie opens with the IRA capture of a Black British soldier who says the only reason he's in Ireland is that he needed a job. Rather than trying in any principled way to struggle politically with this soldier, the fictionalized, caricatured IRA holds him for three days with a bag over his head and a gun held to it. Fergus, the main character and IRA comrade, befriends Jody, the hostage, something that his comrades warn against. Through the interactions of Fergus and Jody, ITAL The Crying Game END imparts pithy metaphors on the meaning of life and human nature. According to the film's human nature theory--which sets up two kinds of people, oppressors and complicit dupes of oppressors--the IRA is a self-destructive organization that threatens to bring everyone else down with it. The movie sets the IRA up as a vengeful, hateful organization that randomly terrorizes people. A revolutionary watching this movie should see Fergus's renegade decision to befriend the soldier as a dangerous move against his comrades; but instead, the movie sets it up so that betraying the IRA is the only humane decision. The audience was supposed to sympathize with Fergus's "good human nature" and support his efforts to distance himself from the revolution. Maoists believe that revolutionaries should struggle politically with their prisoners, and try to recruit them whenever possible. After Jody is killed, Fergus feels compelled to track down Jody's girlfriend (Dyl) in London. The big media-hyped secret was that the girlfriend is a biological male, which is supposed to sicken the audience as well as Fergus. Unaware that his love interest has a penis, Jimmy (Fergus's underground name) vomits when he discovers this in the throes of passion. While showing the social construction of gender, which is accurate, the film undermines this message with its portrayal of transvestism as "disgusting." Jimmy continues on his quest to cleanse his spirit and conscience by taking care of the person that Jody deeply loved. Eventually Jimmy tells Dyl that he was in the IRA, and that he was responsible for Jody's death. An angry Dyl kills the first IRA member she finds, and Fergus is helpless to stop it. But he does take the rap for this last murder, and gets sent to jail. The point of the movie seems to be that it was simply not in Fergus's nature to kill and be a revolutionary, so he bagged his commitment to the IRA (which was never presented as strong or clear in the first place) for love and, ultimately, sex. --MC31