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         THE MAOIST INTERNATIONALIST MOVEMENT

  MIM Notes 89                 June, 1994 

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. NEOCOLONIALISM AT LAST: 
   AZANIA INAUGURATES NEW ERA OF STRUGGLE
2. LETTERS
3. REPARATIONS FOR ROSEWOOD
4. RICHARD M. NIXON, IN MEMORIUM
5. MUMIA ABU-JAMAL ASSAULTED AGAIN
6. CORRECTIONS
7. BUILDING INDEPENDENT POWER
8. SEXUAL HARASSMENT HYPOCRISY
9. THE "FACTS" OF THE PAULA JONES CASE
10. MAOIST COMMANDOS ARRESTED
11. MOTHER JONES SHOWS ITS IMPERIALIST COLORS
12. VIVA ZAPATA!
13. ON DEADLY GROUND
14. JOHNNY DAMAS AND ME
15. UNDER LOCK AND KEY: NEWS FROM PRISONS AND PRISONERS
16. ANTI-FASCISTS MARCH IN BOSTON
17. PRIVATE PROPERTY HOLDS BACK SCIENCE 
18. MAOIST JOKE

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


* * *

NEOCOLONIALISM AT LAST:
AZANIA INAUGURATES NEW ERA OF STRUGGLE

by MC12 and MAZ10

With the election of the African National Congress (ANC) and 
its leader Nelson Mandela's inauguration as president, 
neocolonialism has arrived in Azania (South Africa). In 
name, Black rule was achieved with the country's first all-
race elections. But the new political system and government 
does not represent a real challenge to the basis for white 
minority rule and imperialist domination: capital, property 
and land.

In political terms, Mandela's government is bourgeois-
democratic. His inauguration speech described the South 
African people as being "assured of their inalienable right 
to human dignity--a rainbow nation at peace with itself and 
the world." In this society, he added: "Let each know that 
for each the body, the mind and the soul have been freed to 
fulfill themselves."(1)

Economically, the ANC promises on the one hand that little 
will change--international trade, foreign investment, open 
markets, and so on--but on the other hand the ANC promises 
increases in social welfare, such as schools, sewage and 
hospitals. Any increases in social welfare will be welcome 
among the poverty-stricken population, but this is not the 
stuff of liberation in the long run, without socialist self-
reliance, such advances will be neither deep nor 
sustainable.

On average, South Africa's income per capita is similar to a 
country like Argentina's; but that conceals the deep 
inequality in which white incomes are 10 times Black 
incomes, and almost half of Blacks have no formal 
employment. Blacks occupy only 5% of managerial 
positions.(6)

Foreign investment

In a May 3 PBS interview, Mandela said clearly that the ANC 
wants foreign investment in South Africa, that they intent 
to protect private investment and the right to repatriate 
profits out of the country. And he said he is in close, 
friendly contact with the International Monetary Fund.(2) 
The ANC, which once promised to nationalize key industries, 
negotiated away popular ownership of the means of production 
in its backroom deals with the white government.

Mandela talks like a social-democrat who plans to spread 
wealth around without uprooting the ruling classes. Such 
schemes have had success in oppressor countries such as the 
United States or Switzerland, but the South African state 
has no such resources (it's currently in debt 7% of GDP); 
and any move to increase taxation or nationalize will only 
drive away the foreign investors upon which the state is 
dependent. That leaves the state with the options of 
increased debt, foreign "aid"--or leaving promises 
unfulfilled.(6)

The new government will try to increase the strength of the 
Black bourgeoisie. Capital ownership is incredibly 
concentrated right now, with four groups of investors owning 
three-quarters of all stock value on the Johannesburg stock 
exchange. The new ANC labor minister says the government 
will consider selling state-owned companies to Black 
entrepreneurs--thereby moving some Blacks into positions of 
relative power but leaving big capital untouched.(6)

The Azanian group AZAPO recently criticized the ANC's ties 
to international finance capital: "It is common knowledge 
that Mandela and de Klerk have together asked [the IMF and 
the World Bank] to come and operate in South Africa and have 
requested assistance from them. The U.S. administration has 
indicated its willingness to be both guarantor and also 
provide collateral for South Africa in this regard. AZAPO 
has clearly voiced its opposition to the IMF and the World 
Bank, on the basis that the two organisations represent the 
greatest danger to the oppressed and exploited people of 
Azania. And that, wherever the IMF and the World Bank have 
been involved, the struggle for true self-determination has 
been completely undermined."(3)

In "a measure designed to reassure business," according to 
the New York Times, Mandela named a white National Party 
leader to head the finance ministry in the new cabinet. The 
National Party gets six seats out of 27, and its stooges the 
Inkatha Freedom Party get another three. The National Party 
will hold the ministries of minerals and mining (so much for 
nationalization), finance, as well as constitutional 
development and relations with the provinces--and F. W. de 
Klerk is deputy president. Inkatha's Buthelezi is minister 
of home affairs, which includes overseeing elections, and 
Inkatha also holds the ministry of correctional services. 
The ANC controls the top ministries of defense (an ANC 
guerrilla commander), safety and security (a Communist Party 
leader), and foreign affairs. Communist Party, South Africa 
leader Joe Slovo is minister of housing.(4)

Suppressing class struggle

The ANC, having achieved its position through years of 
compromise which brought it closer to the white rulers and 
further from the Black masses, stressed reconciliation as it 
preserved the existing power structure.

Mandela went so far as to say the ANC and the white 
government had much in common because they were both outlaws 
under apartheid: the ANC in the eyes of the apartheid 
government, and the government in the world community. He 
said: "That spiritual and physical oneness we all share with 
this common homeland explains the depth of the pain we all 
carried in our hearts as we saw our country tear itself 
apart in terrible conflict, and as we saw it spurned, 
outlawed and isolated by the peoples of the world, precisely 
because it has become the universal base of the pernicious 
ideology and practice of racism and racial oppression. We, 
the people of South Africa, feel fulfilled that humanity has 
taken us back into its bosom, that we, who were outlaws not 
so long ago, have today been given the rare privilege to be 
host to the nations of the world on our own soil."(1)

MIM argues: National liberation struggles must tear their 
countries apart in terrible--and beautiful!--conflict if 
they are to achieve meaningful freedom in newly-constructed 
societies. And "hosting" nations may be fine, but 
imperialist powers that exploit labor and tear profits from 
the earth and the blood of the masses are not good guests!

As a result of these capitulations, whites are said to be 
feeling reassured of their future on top of the heap. The 
New York Times writes of a woman who, like many others, 
"keeps her ANC membership card just behind her American 
Express Gold Card."(4)

The ANC decline has been a long one, beginning in 1955 with 
the advancement of the Freedom Charter. Still MIM and other 
anti-imperialists supported the ANC in its struggles against 
imperialism and white rule, even as we criticized its non-
revolutionary approach. MIM eventually said the masses would 
have to overthrow the ANC and put proletarian politics in 
command of the national liberation struggle if it was to be 
successful.

Neocolonialism means imperialist domination through a local 
national government. In the ANC, the Azanian masses have a 
government that appears ready to serve the interests of 
international imperialism. Mandela made that clear in 1990 
on his tour of the United States, when he told a group of 
investors: "We are sensitive to the fact that ... you will 
need to be confident about the security of your investments, 
an adequate and equitable return on your capital and a 
general climate of peace and stability." (5) Such promises 
are not compatible with Azanian liberation and the 
development of the people's living standards and self-
determination.

The Azanian struggle has definitively entered a new phase. 
The need for a communist-led national liberation struggle 
will become increasingly clear as the neocolonial nature of 
the ANC develops in the coming months and years. It is the 
responsibility of Maoists and all revolutionaries to support 
and contribute to that struggle--without falling victim to 
the blindness and self-congratulation promoted by the hype 
around the ANC's rise to power. Everyone says "the struggle" 
is far from over, but it is the task of revolutionaries to 
point out that not everyone is engaged in the same struggle, 
that the "rainbow" is a farce, and that true liberation is 
not on the agenda of neocolonial leaders.

Notes:
1. NYT 5/11/94, p. A8.
2. PBS 5/3/94.
3. "AZAPO's letter to the International Workers Liaison 
Committee." The Organizer, 4017 24th St. Suite 19, San 
Francisco, CA 94114. January 1994.
4. NYT 5/12/94, p. A8.
5. MIM Notes 43, August, 1990.
6. Economist 5/14/94, pp. 45-46.

* * *

LETTERS:
GUN CONTROL IS A WEAPON

Once again we are aiding our enemy in the destruction of our 
own race. This time it is by means of gun control. The enemy 
oppresses the masses and starves its victims; we then 
exchange our weapons for food coupons worth twenty-five 
dollars.

Does this actually curb violence? No! The enemy is solely 
responsible for the violence. They have created the 
conditions which breed violence. Thus, the answer is not in 
exchanging our tools to counter the violence of the 
government's agents of repression. The answer lies within 
us. The question is: when will we correct the illegitimate 
system and its U.S. imperialist powers which have 
orchestrated the gang wars, the drug war, the senseless 
killing for commodities as well as all the small wars that 
inflict our communities?

Enemy collaborators have encouraged us to exchange our 
weapons for toys, food tickets, concert tickets, etc. This 
is sad and must no longer continue! 

What will we use to protect ourselves when the enemy comes 
to kill off entire communities of non-white people? What 
will the Uncle Tom neo-slave Negroes, enemy collaborators 
and the petty-bourgeoisie do when the enemy puts forth the 
effort to actually re-enslave the African man and other non-
whites within current U.S. borders? What will we use to 
fight against our enemies when they begin to have community 
sweeps which will result in the masses of rebel youth being 
forced into modern-day concentration camps?

We have been tricked once again! The enemy is moving 
progressively forward in establishing their New World Order. 
We are without question aiding them in establishing this 
ultra-superpower at the cost of our ignorance.

We are uneducated in American politics, in World Government, 
or in war. As a result of this ignorance, we are blindly 
traveling to our own doom. Our ignorance is viciously being 
exploited by the enemy and their puppets. Also we must not 
give in to the enemy collaborators' plea for us to turn in 
our weapons. And we must violently oppose those that come to 
take our weapons. We must correct the wrong that has been 
perpetrated by the enemy and their Black neo-slave puppets!

We must correct them by violently opposing their existence. 
Their existence is detrimental to our people, our existence 
and our survival! They must go! When the puppets and their 
masters come to kill us, we must be able to identify them 
and drop them first. Gun control is a weapon which is geared 
toward the eventual disarming of all American citizens who 
are not soldiers for the government. All people who are 
concerned about their future survival should keep their 
weapons and oppose gun control. On this note, purchase as 
many weapons as you can, "legally" or by other means. We 
must not give in to this reactionary law that attempts to 
disarm the people in America!

--an Oklahoma prisoner, 1/10/94

MC206 responds: MIM certainly agrees that buy back programs 
do not even begin to address the root of these problems and 
that these problems will not disappear until we eliminate 
the system which allows people to profit from drug and arms 
sales. MIM also agrees that those who promote these programs 
as a solution to the violence in the ghettos are misleading 
the people about their situation--often consciously.

But MIM does not believe that the main evil of these 
programs is that they take away the masses' weapons. Guns 
are not the masses' only weapons. Their political 
understanding, mass organizations, and vanguard party are 
more fundamental weapons. As Mao said: "This ... so called 
theory that 'weapons decide everything' ... constitutes a 
mechanical approach to the question of war and a subjective 
and one-sided view. Our view is opposed to this; we see not 
only weapons but also people. Weapons are an important 
factor in war, but not the decisive factor; it is people, 
not things, that are decisive."(1)

Right now, MIM does not tell people to stockpile weapons. We 
do not tell folks to off the pig when he comes to get their 
guns. We do tell people to go out and build a Maoist party 
and build public opinion for the overthrow of imperialism 
through armed struggle. Picking up the gun too soon is as 
grave an error as denying the necessity of the gun. For a 
discussion of the "Armed Struggle Now" line see MIM Theory 
5.

Note: 
1. Mao Zedong, Selected Works, vol. II, p. 143.

MIM CAUSES STIR IN IRELAND

Dear comrades...

There are no Maoist organizations here [in Ireland], but 
there is a lot of interest within the progressive camp, 
something to do with the amount of Trotskyites around. 
Anyway, primarily what I am writing you for are some more 
MIM Notes... [T]he Notes have been selling very very easily 
and the demand far outreaches supply...

Already the MIM have reached the august pages of Workers 
Solidarity, a spotty and furious anarchist paper. A bit of 
publicity so soon however can't be a bad thing. Obviously I 
am going to write them a letter about their hysterical 
banter. However I was hoping that an MC might also send a 
letter... 

Please respond soon.

--A revolutionary friend in Ireland

Here is an excerpt from the article "Zapata Lives!" in 
Worker's Solidarity:

Today's [Zapatistas] are not anarchists. They have not said, 
in any detail, what sort of Mexico they wish to live in. The 
driving force behind their revolt is a burning hatred of 
poverty and a semi-feudal oppression. They have yet to spell 
out what form their alternative would take. They do not seem 
to have learnt from Zapata that the revolution the poor need 
is the one which does away with the division of people into 
rulers and ruled. This lack of clarity about their goals has 
allowed forces as diverse as radical Catholics and the 
Stalin-worshipping Maoist Internationalist Movement to 
pledge support for the rebels.

And here is MIM's letter in response:

The Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) admits to 
having no perfectly defined long term plan, but it does 
recognize the Mexican people's most immediate enemies.(1) 
Workers' Solidarity, on the other hand, explicitly denies 
the political significance of identifying one's enemies. 

In Chiapas, poverty and semi-feudal conditions are the bases 
for the crassest forms of oppression. The Zapatistas' 
program and practice seek to eliminate these bases. They 
destroyed the seat of a corrupt municipal government in San 
Cristobal and liberated 179 prisoners from a penitentiary 
there.(1) They have inspired peasant seizures of land. Towns 
sympathetic to the EZLN have replaced local governments 
which were collaborating with the Mexican armed forces with 
traditional ruling councils.(2)

MIM explicitly works for the elimination of oppression of 
groups by other groups. But we recognize that to get there 
from here we must pass through many stages, that we cannot 
defeat all evils at once but we can defeat them one an a 
time. As Maoists, we point to the lessons of the Chinese 
revolution, the most successful peasant based revolution to 
date. In 1937, the Chinese communists recognized that the 
invading Japanese army was the greatest threat to the 
Chinese people at that time and allied themselves with 
Chiang Kai-shek to defeat the Japanese--even though Chiang's 
long term goals were diametrically opposed to theirs.

The EZLN is delivering concrete blows to semi-feudalism and 
imperialism and thus deserves the support of all anti-
imperialists. Those who sling mud at the EZLN for garnering 
the support of (supposedly) ideologically impure forces do 
the EZLN a disservice and harm its chances of being able to 
progress to the stage where it can begin to remove the 
distinction between "rulers and ruled."

And for the record, MIM does not worship Stalin. We support 
and admire him for building socialism in the besieged USSR 
and for staving off the restoration of capitalism while he 
was alive. But we agree with Mao's "70% correct" assessment 
of him. Stalin made some grave errors: he was mistaken to 
declare class struggle inside the USSR over, he was mistaken 
to approach the problem of internal enemies as purely a 
military problem, and he was mistaken to downplay the 
creative role of the masses in class struggle. For an in- 
depth discussion of Stalin's merits and demerits, send $5 
($7 for overseas readers) for MIM's "Retaking History" study 
pack.

P.S. Leninists (like Stalin) believed that peasant struggles 
against feudal and semi-feudal conditions and for land re-
distribution and democracy were progressive struggles. 
Maoists deepened the Leninist line on peasants. In practice, 
neither the USSR or China leaped directly to agricultural 
collectivization; both saw to it that large private estates 
were broken up so that peasants would have decently sized 
plots first.

P.P.S. Stalin himself did not particularly care for "Stalin 
worshipping." He considered the so-called cult of 
personality around him "vulgar and excessive" and most 
likely the work of people who wanted to discredit him and 
socialism.(3)

Notes: 
1. MIM Notes 85, 2/94. 
2. Lecture by EZLN/Mexican government peace talks observer, 
Ann Arbor, MI, 4/3/94. 
3. Bland, The Restoration of Capitalism in the USSR, 
Wembley: Selecteditions, 1980, p. vi.

MIM NOTES DEFINITELY WORTH A BUCK

I promised a man handing out your newspapers at [a] Phish 
show that I would send one dollar and read the paper if he 
let me have one. So, here is your dollar and I did read it. 
It was definitely worth it.

Thanks.

--A newly recruited MIM Notes reader

MIM responds: Hey, you're welcome. But don't rely on random 
encounters with MIM Notes distributors: Send in $12 for a 
whole year of MIM Notes (make checks payable to "ABS"). And 
if you liked MIM Notes, wait till you read MIM Theory ($15 
gets you all five back issues).

What books for prisoners?

In "Under Lock & Key" 3/94 it was stated that a free books 
for prisoner program is being operated and that donation of 
books is needed. My question is what books (titles, 
subjects, etc.) are desired? I do not have the means to 
support the program financially, but I do have some used 
book sources which I can tap to get some very inexpensive 
(sometimes free) books which I'd be willing to donate.

--Internet reader

MIM replies: Your offer of help is much appreciated. Here is 
our literature list. We send any of these books that we can 
for free to the many prisoners who write to us for reading 
materials.

If you are able to help out with books but not with cash, 
that's great. The most requested books are the prison 
writings of the Soledad Brothers, Black Panther Party 
literature, and Marxist classics including all Mao 
literature, Franz Fanon, Chinese, Black and African history, 
etc. The demand far outstrips our ability to meet it. 
Anything you can send will be that much more that goes out.

We urge you and all others to read and respond to the 
prisoner writings that appear in each issue of MIM Notes as 
well. Contact MIM if you are interested in working more 
closely with revolutionary prisoners.


* * *

REPARATIONS FOR ROSEWOOD

On April 9, 1994, the Florida Senate voted 26-14 in favor of 
$2.1 million in reparations for the survivors of the 
massacre of the Black town of Rosewood. The House had 
already approved the bill. The Governor, Lawton Chiles, said 
he will sign the legislation. Shares of the $1.5 million 
package, however, are only to be given to the families of 11 
or so known survivors of the massacre, and not to other 
families who can trace roots to Rosewood. Only those who can 
prove they lost property will be able to collect from the 
$500,000 set aside to compensate families who lost homes and 
land when they were run out of town. One hundred thousand 
dollars is set aside for college scholarships.(1)

Survivors of the massacre who hid in swamps and thickets and 
who escaped by jumping on passing trains, testified that 
they saw family members knifed, shot, beaten, mutilated and 
lynched.(2) Eva Jenkins, who lived in Rosewood as a child 
said "I have a perfectly clear picture of Rosewood." She 
remembers a prosperous place where many blacks were 
landowners, ran businesses and lived in big houses.(1) MIM 
thinks that this is a good explanation as to why whites in 
1923 decided that Rosewood should be wiped out. 

The alleged reason for the massacre was that whites were 
trying to find a Black man who was accused by a white woman 
of raping her. Recent investigation suggests that the woman 
was lying to prevent her husband from finding out about an 
affair.(3)

Key to Rosewood survivors getting money was the fact that 
they are the actual survivors of the massacre. Historians, 
lawyers, and state representatives differentiate reparations 
for Rosewood from demands for reparations from the 31 
million Blacks who descended from slaves because none of 
them actually were slaves.(4) They also say Rosewood was 
different because it was an action against an entire town 
and not "just" an "individual" lynching.(2)

The Rosewood reparations also brought to light a similar 
massacre in Ocoee, Florida in 1920. Six people died in Ocoee 
because a Black man tried to vote. Twenty five homes, two 
churches, and a meeting hall were torched. The people fled, 
never to return to their homes.(5) 

Attorneys for the Rosewood survivors distinguish Ocoee from 
Rosewood because the Ocoee massacre happened in one day (not 
a week) and the state did not so clearly intentionally 
neglect to protect people and property.(5) 

The attorneys for the Rosewood survivors made this 
distinction in order to convince the legislature that giving 
reparations to the Rosewood survivors would not force them 
to redress the potential demands of descendants of other 
groups that have faced oppression in Florida such as the 
Seminole Indians, Asians, Jews, and other Blacks. In their 
argument against giving reparations to Rosewood survivors, 
the Florida Attorney General suggested that such claims 
would be made by descendants of other groups of oppressed 
people and that Rosewood reparations would set a precedent 
for those demands.(2) MIM is not surprised that in seeking 
redress from the Amerikan legal system survivors of one 
massacre are forced to deny the claims of other oppressed 
people in order to get reparations from the government for 
its abuses.

Notes:
1. Orlando Sentinel 4/9/94, p. D1.
2. Inter Press Service 4/12/94.
3. See MIM Notes 88, May 1994 for more background 
information on the massacre. 
4. Gannett News Service 4/15/94.
5. Orlando Sentinel 3/27/94, p. B1.

* * *

RICHARD M. NIXON
IN MEMORIUM

Richard M. Nixon, a mass murderer who as head of the 
Amerikan state from 1969-74 ordered the slaughter of 
millions of Third World people in the name of imperialism, 
died on April 22 after having a stroke four days earlier. 

U.S. President Bill Clinton joined thousands of other 
members of the white nation in mourning, calling Nixon a 
"statesman who sought to build a lasting structure of peace" 
during a "particularly difficult period of the Cold War." 

We're used to bourgeois revisionism, but the outpouring of 
love and affection for the renowned war criminal after his 
death was truly a sight to behold. Those that offered 
criticism were totally hung up on Watergate, a dumb domestic 
scandal in which the ex-president stole some funds and 
plotted to undermine the "democratic process" in the next 
election. Right, so what else is new? Without wasting lots 
of revolutionary space on the guy (better to waste it on the 
present-day Amerikan president who self-avowedly looks to 
his Republican friend Dick as a model) MIM would like to 
take this opportunity to celebrate his death with this list 
of:

Nixon's top ten war crimes

10. Supported U.S. war against northern Korea while rising 
to power on anti-communist platform in 1950s.

9. Orchestrated military coup to overthrow Guatemalan 
president Jacobo Arbenz for the benefit of United Fruit Co., 
1954. Encored in 1973 with Chilean President Salvador 
Allende.

8. Ordered U.S. troops to invade Kampuchea, April 1970. 
Subsequent bombings killed hundreds of thousands. 

7. Ordered bombing of Laos, February 1971.

6. Supported New York state's massacre of prisoners at 
Attica, Sept. 1971.

5. Attempted to crush American Indian Movement by sending 
federal troops to wage war against the Lakotas at the Pine 
Ridge reservation, 1973.  

4. Murdered and imprisoned leaders of Black Panther Party, 
ordered massive FBI sabotage campaign COINTELPRO against the 
party.

3. Propped up military dictatorships in dozens of Third 
World nations including Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines 
and the Somozas in Nicaragua so U.S. capitalists could 
continue to reap superprofits on the backs of their people.

2. Sent sons and daughters of Amerika's oppressed nations to 
die by the tens of thousands in Indochina as cannon fodder 
for white nation imperialism.

1. Ordered Christmas 1972 bombing of Hanoi, capping four 
years of brutal warfare against the Vietnamese people in his 
administration alone.

In closing, allow us to offer this heartfelt benediction: 
May Nixon burn in hell along with the imperialist interests 
he represented so well for so long.

--MC11

* * *

MUMIA ABU-JAMAL ASSAULTED AGAIN

The executive producer of National Public Radio's "All 
Things Considered" wanted to air a regular commentary by 
former Black Panther Party leader Mumia Abu-Jamal from death 
row. Public announcements had gone out, earning the network 
valuable attention. But Philadelphia's Fraternal Order of 
Pigs and NPR's higher echelons thought otherwise.

Managing Editor Bruce Drake said he had "serious misgivings 
about the appropriateness of using as a commentator a 
convicted murdered seeking a new trial." He pulled the rug 
out from under Abu-Jamal.

Abu-Jamal's political consciousness and eloquence are 
powerful. With his appeals currently exhausted, his best 
hope for survival may be clemency, which could in turn be 
affected by the kind of public opinion a regular NPR 
commentary would have generated, even though NPR said he 
would not discuss his own case.

And that made airing the commentary too risky for the 
liberal public radio empire. Specializing in sorrow and 
poignancy, the network has no use for a convicted cop killer 
who may yet survive.

MIM has long argued that the oppressed need independent 
media, media that can be trusted not to cynically manipulate 
them for self-serving purposes. MIM Notes publishes hundreds 
of letters and articles from political prisoners across the 
country--most of whom have no name recognition, no Ed Asner 
to back them up--and we will never censor them to please Pig 
Central.

To end the mass incarceration and murder of political 
prisoners in Amerikan gulags, distribute, struggle with, 
support and write for MIM Notes.

--MC12

Notes: New York Times 5/16-5/17/94.

* * *

CORRECTIONS:

The Rwanda article in MIM Notes 88, May 1994 was written by 

MC6T and MC86.

The address on the inside cover of MIM Theory 5 advertising 
Communist Party of the Philippines literature is incorrect. 
The address should be PO Box 3576, Ann Arbor, MI 48106-3576

The address in the ad for MIM Theory 5 in the last MIM Notes 
had the incorrect zip code. It should be 48106-3576.

* * *

BUILDING INDEPENDENT POWER

On April 19 and 20, a powerful people's demonstration took 
place in the Bayview Hunter's Point area of San Francisco. 
As the Black population of San Francisco is driven out of 
town at the rate of 1% of those remaining every year, people 
are organizing themselves to fight for power.(1)

The Bayview Hunter's Point has a Black male unemployment 
rate of 60%.(2) The community is inundated by light industry 
and sewage and electrical plants, in which the residents of 
the area are denied employment. Thousands of trucks from all 
over Amerika rumble like smokey buffalos down Third Street, 
a main artery into San Francisco on which truck traffic is 
illegal. Well-paid workers from all over the Bay Area 
commute every day to the plants and industrial parks off 
Third Street--past the eyes of hundreds of unemployed men 
and women.

The resources of the once-vibrant community are being sucked 
dry. All that is left behind are toxic wastes and poverty 
program funds that stick only to the poverty pimps.

The idle Hunter's Point shipyard is an EPA Superfund site, 
full of radioactive and toxic wastes, sitting on a billion-
dollar piece of real-estate. Before it can be developed, the 
toxics must be removed. Hundreds of millions of dollars have 
been allocated by the Navy to clean it up for profitable use 
by developers who are cutting deals with the corrupt San 
Francisco City government and the Navy to buy the land for 
pittances.

The straw that broke the camel's back occurred when people 
became aware that all of the shipyard clean-up funds were 
being distributed to firms from Utah and elsewhere; and that 
work had begun with no local hiring. Local media blacked out 
the news. The Mayor sent experienced Black bureaucrat 
capitalists to the protest to try to buy off the leaders. 
False promises of jobs have been made, while the police, 
city bureaucrats and their HUD and Department of Defense 
advisors buy time to figure out how to either co-opt or 
physically destroy the protest movement.

In early April this leaflet was distributed on Third Street 
and throughout the Bayview Hunter's Point projects:

Let's fight for our rights!
Either-Or!!!
Either we get our rights or we fight!!!
We want full employment on all jobs in our community!
We want land! We want to own the land and homes being built 
in our community!
The landless must lead the fight to secure land for the 
landless!
The jobless must lead the fight to secure jobs for the 
jobless!
The hungry must lead the fight to secure food for the 
hungry!
We must unite now!
 
Aboriginal Blackman Unlimited

April 8, 1994

After the first set of protests, MIM received this dispatch 
from Aboriginal Blackman Unlimited:
 
The time has come around for the African-American 
communities to come together. $26 million is now being spent 
in the Hunter's Point shipyard.

1. Have any of the Bayview Hunter's Point African American 
people been hired? No.

2. Have any African American contractors been awarded any 
bids on the jobs that need to be done? No.

3. Has there been any community participation in the 
discussion? No.

We know that there wasn't any community permission given to 
the kind of chemicals that are being illegally transported 
through the streets of our community. We had no knowledge of 
the danger.

Aboriginal Blackman Unlimited (ABU). The name means "my 
father" in Arabic. Father: whose position is head of the 
household. Head of the family, head of the community in 
which he lives.

ABU staged a two-day demonstration at the entrances to the 
Hunter's Point shipyard on April 19 and 20. The second day 
stopped all traffic at all three gates for six hours. What 
gave us the courage to protest, to demonstrate? The news 
that $26 million has been spent to clean up the shipyard 
and, once again, the Black community has been excluded! Not 
one Bayview Hunter's Point resident has been hired.

Twenty years ago, more than 10,000 African Americans from 
our community worked at the shipyard. The people working 
there now don't even live in San Francisco! Why can't the 
African American people of Bayview Hunter's Point be hired? 

One hundred people came out to protest: young men and women, 
jobless, landless, and hungry. They stood their ground when 
a white woman deliberately drove through the line of 
demonstrators trying to hit them. She did this not once, but 
four times. She succeeded in hitting three African American 
men and one woman. One of the men was seriously injured and 
had to be taken to the hospital in an ambulance.

Police stood by watching and took no action to stop the 
driver or to take her into custody. The police lieutenant 
just shrugged his shoulders and said, "These types of things 
happen in demonstrations." He also refused to take a report 
from the victims; who had to go to the police station to 
make a report which was never acted upon.

Amerika. The land of free-dom, opportunity for all--Except-
Us.  Justice is for all of those who write the laws to 
protect Just-Them, the powers-that-be.

Supervisor Willie B. Kennedy told the protestors their 
efforts would not be for nothing. A week later, Mayor Jordan 
said he would come up with 25 (minimum wage) jobs--which did 
not materialize. On April 30, the Mayor held a meeting with 
the protestors in his office to announce that a ship 
dismantling operation creating 300 jobs would start in six 
to nine months at the shipyard. What the Mayor did not say 
is that there is a long waiting list of part-time union 
ship-workers already waiting for these jobs. An ABU 
spokesperson said, "We can't be happy, our community is on 
guard and ready to resume what could be some very explosive 
picketing."

The protestors are continuing to gather and strategize. They 
are getting more and more support from community 
organizations and more are joining the group every day. We 
refuse to be excluded anymore. The fight is on and we're on 
the move. Now is the time to show this system that we are 
going to take back our own control.

Aboriginal Blackman Unlimited

May 14, 1994

While MIM disagrees with the gender analysis of the above 
document, MIM fully supports all movements for national 
self-determination. The liberation of oppressed 
nationalities and the occupied colonies from Amerikan 
imperialism is--and will continue to be--a step by step 
process. When people get hip to the reality that "rights" 
are built only on factual power, liberated national 
territories may spring up in the most unexpected places as a 
dying imperialism restricts the ability of the masses and 
their national bourgeoisies to share in Amerika's hideous 
standard of living built on super-profits ripped from the 
Third World. 

The long-term and ongoing genocidal diaspora of Blacks and 
other exploited and oppressed nationalities means that 
people will take militant stands on small territories. When 
the enemy becomes truly weak, the oppressed will be able to 
seize control of the stolen resources at hand. MIM's job is 
to help the people realize the necessity of uniting in a 
common interest with the international proletariat and use 
the revolutionary tool of Maoism to save the people of the 
Bayview Hunter's Point, and the world, from extinction by 
the monopoly profit-beasts.

Notes:
1. 1990 Census.
2. New Bayview Newspaper, 5/6/94, p. 1.

* * *

SEXUAL HARASSMENT HYPOCRISY

A woman named Paula Jones has stepped forward to accuse 
President Bill Clinton of sexual harassment. The resulting 
media reaction has been so contradictory that MIM only 
addresses the opinions of the matter in this article. The 
facts as reported by the respectable bourgeois press are 
widely varying. (See sidebar).

For the Boston Globe, two men openly pleaded confusion and 
contradiction. First David Shribman noted that the press 
kept the story buried for months while many of the same 
reporters and columnists jumped all over Clarence Thomas. 
(See MIM Theory 2/3 for MIM's views on Anita Hill vs. 
Clarence Thomas.) Shribman concludes "There are so many 
competing claims of fairness that the word is fast losing 
its meaning, and so is the work we do."(1)

Later Clarence Page openly pleaded "mea culpa" in his column 
on the Boston Globe opinion page. He admitted he was gungho 
to get Clarence Thomas with Anita Hill, but did not want to 
attack the left-leaning Bill Clinton with Paula Jones.(2) 
The reporters agree that Paula Jones got national attention 
once she went forward in a partisan press conference 
sponsored by the Conservative Political Action Committee.(1) 
Apparently the first borderline establishment media 
organization to report the case was the right-wing fanatic 
American Spectator.

Next a liberal woman from the press made no bones about 
jumping all over Clarence Thomas while letting Clinton off 
the hook. Anna Quindlen tried to argue that Paula Jones's 
claims had no merit relative to Anita Hill's, but she left 
out one difference: the fact that Paula Jones's public 
claims were late, but much less late than Anita Hill's. What 
Jones is talking about happened only three months before 
Clinton declared his candidacy for president. 

Here's what Anna Quindlen admitted: "There's no doubt 
liberal ideology plays a clear role in all this, making 
feminists less eager to embrace the accuser of a pro-choice 
President than that of a conservative jurist. There's no 
doubt feminist ideology should make us demand that Ms. Jones 
not be crucified on the altar of rumor and sexual innuendo, 
as Ms. Hill was."(3) Also notice that she didn't say she 
would let off all pro-choice men, only pro-choice 
presidents. (MIM would read leaving all pro-choice men alone 
as a strategy of making "choice" the principal contradiction 
within gender oppression, something we don't agree with.) 

This kind of bias toward allying with the powerful is most 
evident in this case in the bourgeois press, but if Clinton 
doesn't like being accused of crimes or civil injuries, he 
should try talking to some of the prisoners without his 
class background, against whom he has been whipping up a 
frenzy.

The Wall Street Journal was most consistent. It opposed 
Anita Hill's claims and it opposed Paula Jones's claims and 
concluded that all losers in civil suits should pay their 
opponents' legal expenses. A letter-writer softened that 
stance saying a loser should persuade at least 20 percent of 
the jury or pay costs.(4) This is a policy approach to cut 
down legal claims of all kinds, an admirable stab at what is 
possible within the capitalist system, but the Wall Street 
Journal has not persuaded the rest of the ruling class on 
this yet. In our opinion, the most progressive variant of 
this thinking would be to reimburse criminal defendants when 
a jury finds them innocent as is already required in some 
charges in some localities. (The rich, white William Kennedy 
Smith unfortunately benefited from this idea in Florida, but 
he is not the typical defendant.) This might help cut down 
some of the political grandstanding of prosecuting attorneys 
seeking to win settler votes by accusing and convicting as 
many oppressed people as possible.

The only thing inconsistent about the Wall Street Journal is 
that it blamed Catherine MacKinnon and others for a presumed 
guilty stance on sexual harassment while the Wall Street 
Journal generally takes a hard-line anti-crime and pro-
conformity stance. Hence, we can see that the Wall Street 
Journal is consistent in its imperialist-patriarchal 
ideology if not in its anti-crime rhetoric. Like other 
bourgeois mouthpieces, the Wall Street Journal raised doubts 
as to whether a president should have to answer to such 
accusations at all. In the sense that MIM would prefer the 
masses to focus on presidents for what they generally do to 
oppress people not their individual behavior, MIM agrees, 
but this is not what the Wall Street Journal has in mind.

The liberal and pseudo-feminist hypocrites are now sharply 
divided by Paula Jones. Likewise, the conservative 
hypocrites are also divided. The more pragmatic 
conservatives want to use anything to get Clinton in order 
to advance their own faction of the capitalist class. The 
more ideology-bound patriarchs don't want to attack Clinton 
if it means giving legitimacy to feminism or pseudo-
feminism.

The liberals and conservatives are all divided and in 
confusion because they all share the ideology of Liberalism-
-individualism. Once again the Wall Street Journal is most 
honest, saying the problem is that there are "no standards," 
so there is no point in accusing anyone of hypocrisy on the 
question. The bankers' scribes are correct on this point 
too, because it is true that gender relations like all 
social relations in the imperialist countries are in a state 
of decay. Old social structures are no longer relevant, but 
new ones with their own rules have not arisen to take their 
place. Only socialism can provide new structures with new 
consistent rules.

The bourgeois press has admitted its confusion on the issue. 
In contrast, the longer one reads MIM Notes, the more one 
realizes that MIM takes unpopular but consistent stands that 
only make more sense over time. MIM held that Anita Hill 
like all women in interaction with men is sexually harassed 
and likewise unless Paula Jones was a hermit on an island we 
don't know about, she was part of a system of sexual 
harassment where all sexual contact is rape because no one 
gets a chance to consent to the unequal power between men 
and women in society, and rape is fundamentally about 
consent.

MIM is taking the only feminist position on this question. 
We are not interested in the subjective details and 
individual differences between Anita Hill and Paula Jones. 
In fact we point out the counterproductive strategies of 
Hill and now Jones in trying to fight on the system's terms, 
if what they want is really change and not just a narrow 
political, monetary or prestige goal. The oppressed must 
have their own press and organizations for power or they 
will always make concessions to the System.

Rape and sexual harassment have nothing to do with 
individual consent or "unwanted advances" the way the 
Liberals claim. We won't let the imperialist patriarchy 
decide what "unwanted" advances are. We insist on an 
objective standard, a materialist standard, one 
scientifically ascertainable by all. Such is not possible in 
the decay and agonizing torment of a dying system. Work with 
MIM toward power for the oppressed so that we can eliminate 
the coercion currently underlying all sexual interaction in 
the world.

Notes: 
1. Boston Globe 5/6/94, p. 3. 
2. Boston Globe 5/10/94, p. 19. 
3. New York Times 5/1194, p. A25. 
4. Wall Street Journal editorial page 5/10/94.

* * *

THE "FACTS" OF THE PAULA JONES CASE

There is very little factually clear about the Paula Jones 
case. Not even what Paula Jones has alleged is clear.

MIM has found newspapers including the Boston Globe and 
Boston Herald that claim that Jones alleges Clinton showed 
her his genitalia on May 8, 1991 in a hotel. Others articles 
make light of this and say the claim was that he opened his 
shirt buttons.

Most papers are saying that she did not get notice for her 
case until the American Spectator reported it and a 
conservative action group arranged a press conference for 
her. Other columnists claim she did speak out in public and 
the press ignored her during the campaign because everybody 
hated Bush.

Some have claimed Clinton had no influence over Paula 
Jones's employment. She was a clerical worker in the state 
government. Apparently she claimed she received no raises 
because she turned down Clinton's sexual advances, but the 
state office says she received four raises including one for 
merit.(1)

It does appear that Paula Jones is 27 based on common 
assertion.

Notes:
1. Boston Globe 5/1294, p. 5.
2. Except for (1), these facts are from the Boston Herald 
5/7/94, p. 1.

* * *

MAOIST COMMANDOS ARRESTED

The fascist Peruvian government announced in April that it 
had arrested the Maoists responsible for the execution of 
one of the government's most useful supporters: Maria Elena 
Moyano.(1) Moyano was lauded in the Peruvian and 
international press as a feminist and leftist leader who 
offered the peasants an alternative to the Communist Party 
of Peru (PCP, called Sendero Luminoso or Shining Path in the 
bourgeois press). In reality, she had proven herself to be a 
supporter of the oppressive government and an enemy of not 
only the growing Maoist revolution but of the Peruvian 
people as a whole.

The Plain Dealer reported that Alvaro Espejo Sebastian and 
Liliana Raquel Espinoza Figuero and six others were arrested 
for the Feb. 15, 1992 assassination. MIM doesn't know 
whether those arrested executed Moyano or not.  If they did 
do it, though, they are heroes of the people.

Maria Elena Moyano has been painted in the imperialist media 
as a popular feminist who was killed because she opposed the 
PCP. The Plain Dealer used the passage of time to try to 
rewrite history and Moyano's popularity: "tens of thousands 
of residents of the poor Villa district south of Lima 
attended Moyano's funeral." Directly after her funeral, the 
Peruvian magazine Oiga reported that only 3,000 persons 
attended.(2)  Among the attendees was the vice-president, 
the interior minister, military and police officials, and 
soldiers.

Moyano was no popular leader. The term "Mother Courage" 
itself didn't come from the 5 million masses in Lima's 
shantytowns. Rather, it came from the December 1992 issue of 
Caretas. Caretas is a magazine with "well known links to the 
anti-terrorist police and the paramilitary groups of the 
APRA party."(3)

Nor was she poor. She was vice-mayor of Villa El Salvador, 
and she "cashed in on land sales in the seventh district in 
order to finance her electoral campaign in a wild and 
ambitious race for a seat in parliament. She had for 
herself: a cheese factory (Villa Cheeses) a grain factory as 
well as other hidden businesses...."(4)

Three thousand pigs from Lima mourned Moyano. Thirty 
thousand people--one half of the population--attended the 
funeral of PCP martyr Edith Lagos in the smaller town of 
Ayacucho in 1982.(5)

Moyano was executed not because she was a "leftist" who 
disagreed with the PCP, but because she was actively working 
to militarily defeat them.  She denounced her political 
opponents as "Senderistas" in the official media, resulting 
in the arrest, kidnapping and assassination of dozens.(6)

Moyano's political party, the MAS (which sits on Fujimori's 
cabinet), supported Chamber of Deputies decree number 1716 
which authorized the creation of military armed and 
commanded civilian self-defense committees and urban patrols 
(rondas).(6)

Organizing peasants to fight the PCP with the backing of the 
military made Moyano a military target.

Last year some pseudo-feminists in Peru celebrated "No 
Violence Against Women Day" with the posthumous release of a 
book by Moyano.(1) This is very hypocritical. Moyano was no 
pacifist, but an advocate of the genocide of the Peruvian 
people. The publication of this book is a paternalist 
message that women should not be killed in revolution 
regardless of their line or their actions.

Revolutionary feminists realize that Maoist armed struggle 
is the only way to a better society. Enemies are enemies 
regardless of their biological sex.

Notes:
1. The Plain Dealer 4/26/94, p. 5E.
2. Oiga 2/24/92, p. 11-25.
3. El Diario Internacional 4/92, p. 11.
4. El Diario Nacional No 620, 3/1/92, p. 8-9. 
5. Wall Street Journal 1/4/83 p. 33.
6. El Diario Internacional 4/92, p. 15.

* * *

MOTHER JONES SHOWS ITS IMPERIALIST COLORS

Mother Jones should win a prize for lying so much about the 
PCP in so little space. In their May/June 1993 issue, Mother 
Jones ran a photograph of a captured PCP soldier and these 
words:

"CHOOSING SIDES--A bloody, twelve-year-old civil war has 
caught Peruvian peasants between the brutal guerrilla 
insurgency of the Shining Path (Sendero Luminoso) and a 
dictatorial government unable to protect them and suspicious 
of their allegiances. An estimated 26,000 Peruvians have 
fallen victim thus far. Villagers in Apurimac Valley have 
created a third option: DECAS, an acronym for "civil defense 
against subversion." To celebrate DECAS's sixth anniversary, 
peasants dragged a captured guerrilla though the street. But 
the third choice is proving equally deadly: like the 
guerrillas, the peasants are increasingly dependent on the 
coca trade to buy weapons, and like the guerrillas, they've 
been accused of executing those who refuse to join them."(1)

MIM responds: Mother Jones is wise to point out that the 
government has very little besides continued and increased 
oppression to offer the Peruvian people. The masses 
recognize that it is the PCP which protects them from the 
government, not the other way around. It is this support 
from the people that has enabled to the PCP to advance to 
controlling about 40% of Peru.(1)

Mother Jones points out that 26,000 Peruvians have died in 
the struggle, but fails to mention that most (24,000) of 
these deaths have been of peasants or PCP comrades at the 
hands of the government.(2)

Rondas, or "self defense" patrols like DECAS are designed to 
fight the PCP. Even its name: "Civil Defense Against 
Subversion" makes that clear. Who are the subversives? Hint: 
It's not the government. But somehow Mother Jones tries to 
paper over the truth.

As for the claim that people are forced to join the PCP, 
this doesn't make any sense. If people are forced to join 
the PCP, then why do the PCP comrades resist so strongly 
talking under government torture in the prisons? 

Finally, it's a lie that the PCP deals drugs to buy weapons. 
The PCP is waging a people's war, and one of the fundamental 
tenets of Maoist strategy is self-reliance. The PCP, like 
other Maoist revolutionaries, get their weapons from the 
troops they defeat in a battle. 

The rondas aren't dealing drugs to buy weapons either. The 
rondas are set up and armed by the government with the 
explicit purpose of fighting the PCP. 

There is no neutral position in revolution. There is the 
revolution, and there is reaction. Mother Jones picked the 
wrong side.

Notes: 
1. Gordon McCormick, Prepared Statement before the House 
Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere Affairs, 3/11/92, p. 6 in 
Covert Action Information Bulletin, no. 42, p. 60.
2. El Pais, 9/20/92.

* * *

VIVA ZAPATA!

by MC11
"This is your land, but you must protect it. It won't be 
yours for long if you don't protect it. Don't discount your 
enemies. They will be back. If your house is burned, build 
it again. If your corn is destroyed, replant it. If your 
children die, bear more. If they drive you out of the 
valley, live on the side of the mountains, but live! You've 
always looked to leaders, strong men without faults. There 
aren't any. There are only men like yourselves. They change. 
They desert. They die. There are no leaders but yourselves. 
A strong people is the only lasting strength."

--Emiliano Zapata to the peasants of Morelos in the movie, 
"Viva Zapata!"

In the absence of news, there's always the movies. 

Well, sort of. Actually that is not generally the line of 
reasoning MIM would have you pursue. But news of the Mexican 
rebellion that began on New Year's Day is harder and harder 
to come by. With Mexico's government scrambling to 
legitimize its upcoming bogus elections and convince 
Amerikan investors that the capitalist state, profoundly 
shaken by decades of gross inequity, is actually stable, it 
is increasingly difficult to tell what the peasant-led 
Zapatista National Liberation Army, (EZLN) is up to.

So if you're mired here in Amerikkkan culture and you're 
pretty much forced to consume it anyway,  the 1958 movie 
"Viva Zapata!" is available at most video stores and you 
should rent it. Directed by Elia Kazan and starring Marlon 
Brando, it's the story of the rebellion from which today's 
Mexican revolutionaries take their name. Aside from some 
obvious Hollywood romanticization and romance stuck in, it 
is as far as MIM can tell relatively faithful to the basic 
historical facts--and its politics are pretty damn good.  

The film opens in 1910 as a delegation from the southern 
state of Morelos comes to Mexico City to petition 
imperialist Spain's puppet president, General Porforio Diaz. 
As with the Mayans of Chiapas, where the EZLN is based, 
their complaint has largely to do with their land, seized 
from them by Spanish ranchers. Diaz tells them that if they 
have the right papers showing their boundary lines, their 
claim will be validated in court. "Give it time," he says. 
To which one of the peasants replies: "These men have no 
time." They need to plant their corn so that they have 
enough to eat, he explains. And the ranchers have staked 
armed guards at the borders of the land they have stolen. 

"What is your name?" Diaz demands. "Emiliano Zapata," the 
peasant replies. Diaz circles the name on the petition, and 
tells them to get out, he's busy. Now Zapata goes back to 
Morelos and proceeds to arm the peasants. They win a few 
victories. Zapata gets taken prisoner, and the people help 
him escape. A good part about the movie is that it shows how 
much pressure is on him to sell out. He wants to get 
married, for example, and his girlfriend's father won't 
accept him unless he has a good job and can prove that he'll 
make a good life for his daughter. A wealthy "patron" helps 
to clear his name and offers him work. He takes it, telling 
his comrades "I don't want to be the conscience for the 
whole world." But soon he is back in the saddle again, 
organizing train robberies and building an army. 

Between Zapata in the south and Pancho Villa in the north, 
Diaz is driven from the country. Francisco Madero, who takes 
over, gives lip-service to the peasant demands for land 
redistribution, but he is controlled by the Diaz' former 
military and eventually--before he is assassinated--orders 
Zapata's forces destroyed. Zapata regroups and continues the 
battle against a new general, Huerta, with the constant cry, 
"Tierra y libertad!"

Zapata's is a disciplined army. Traitors are tried in a 
military court and executed. In one scene, one of Zapata's 
oldest comrades-in-arms is found to have met with enemy 
forces, possibly resulting in the death of 240 Zapatistas 
who had planned a surprise attack. The comrade was an ally 
of Madero, who believed he could persevere against his 
military puppetmasters, and said he had met with him to 
discuss how to carry out the peasant's demands. But 240 men 
are dead as a result. Zapata shoots him himself. MIM can't 
vouch for the historical accuracy of the scene, but the fact 
that such discipline against spies and traitors is portrayed 
positively in the movie--Zapata is shown as pained by the 
act, but resolute about its necessity--is one of its 
strengths.

And whether or not Zapata actually shot one of his oldest 
comrades, he certainly did impose a strict discipline in his 
army, which is one of the roots of his success.

One problem with the movie--and possibly with Zapata's and 
Villa's movement, although MIM has not studied the Mexican 
Revolution carefully enough to know--is that once they oust 
Huerta and seize Mexico City, they are apparently unable to 
set up an effective revolutionary government. In the film, 
Zapata briefly rules as president. Like Diaz, he sits in a 
room and receives delegations from around the country. One 
day a delegation from Morelos comes to tell him that his 
brother has seized their land. Zapata tells them he will 
look into it when he has time. One peasant speaks up: "These 
men don't have time." Zapata demands to know his name, and 
begins to draw a circle around it, just as Diaz had marked 
him by drawing a circle around his name. He realizes what he 
is doing and instead takes his gun and goes back to Morelos. 
The moral being something like, power corrupts. Not true. 

Seizing political power is a crucial part of revolution. In 
an anarchist world, as the movie shows, power reverts back 
to the status quo. Thus the importance of a revolutionary 
party, with a worked-out political line, in addition to a 
revolutionary army. In reality, Zapata apparently returned 
to the field because the federal army was still not 
destroyed, even after the defeat of Huerta. That is not 
shown in the movie. But his enemies do seize the presidency 
after he abdicates. 

The movie redeems itself in a speech (quoted above) that  
Zapata gives the peasants shortly before he is killed in a 
government trap. Fresh from the disillusionment of seeing 
his brother renege on the promises they had both fought for 
so long, he tells them in a message full of Maoist mass line 
overtones, that they must be able to lead themselves. They 
must not depend always on strong leaders, but must see the 
correct path and take it themselves, finding new leaders if 
the old ones did not live up to their promises. Emiliano 
Zapata was no personality cultist.  By taking his name, the 
EZLN is invoking what Zapata stood for. MIM hopes they can 
learn from his mistakes, as well as his successes.


* * *

ON DEADLY GROUND

In his directing debut, Steven Segal presents a fairly 
progressive movie. In addition to directing On Deadly 
Ground, he plays a mercenary for an oil company paid 
$300,000 per year to set fire to evidence of the company's 
negligence in maintaining its rigs. By mid-film, Segal turns 
against the company and decides to destroys its newest 
facility so that the company will have to evacuate the 
Indian land. 

Segal usually plays a pig in his movies, whether a cop in 
Out For Justice or a U.S. Navy SEAL commando in Under Seize. 
But On Deadly Ground is a step forward since Segal doesn't 
just turn out of mere revenge against the big pigs who 
betray him, but for a political purpose to save Indigenous 
people's land from oil exploration. Of course, blowing up 
one rig won't really save the land when there are hundreds 
of other rigs, and the oil companies will simply rebuild a 
new one. 

The best line in the movie came from, ironically, the oil 
company's spokesperson, who said, "Alaska is a Third World 
country." In most indigenous areas in North Amerika, 
Indigenous people live in Third World conditions. Many folks 
say it was terrible what happened to the Indians in the 
colonial days, but then they say that's history. On Deadly 
Ground reveals that the exploitation of indigenous people 
and their land continues today. Amerikan imperialism 
continues to abuse their land, break treaties and haul them 
into concentration camps. 

We also see more of Segal's excellent Aikido skills. In one 
scene, he cracks bones of numerous white chauvinist rig 
workers in a bar, after defending an Indigenous man from an 
abusive rig worker. While Segal moralizes the incident, 
asking the rig worker why he has to abuse the Indigenous man 
to "be a man," MIM likes it since it is shows the material 
interests of white workers. It also shows the importance of 
self-defense and the power of learning Aikido or other 
martial arts. 

John Trudell, former spokesperson of AIM (American Indian 
Movement), partakes a token appearance in the movie. He 
plays a friend of Segal who had lots of weapons that Segal 
needed to defend himself against a posse of mercenaries on 
his trail. It is ironic that Trudell plays the gun-supplier 
since in real life, he openly opposes the well-worn phase by 
Chairman Mao that political power grows out the barrel of 
the gun. 

While Segal is not openly sexist in On Deadly Ground like he 
was in previous movies, his gender politics leaves much room 
for improvement. Throughout the whole second half of the 
movie, Segal drags around a young indigenous woman; she 
doesn't participate in any dialogue nor does she do 
anything, yet she is always with Segal. The only time she 
really speaks, she opposes Segal's violent agenda to 
sabotage the oil rig and destroy anyone that gets in his 
way, but Segal snorts with an anarchist and focoist rage to 
justify his actions. She quickly changes her mind and 
decides that a focoist attack on an oil rig is the best way 
to save the land.

On Deadly Ground is a good movie for the masses to 
understand the relationship between capitalism and 
indigenous exploitation. Artistically, we can forgive the 
shoddy movie flow since it's Segal's directing debut. You 
leave with a hatred of oil companies, despite his horribly 
moralizing speech at the end. 

--MC67

* * *

JOHNNY DAMAS AND ME
John Trudell
Rykodisc, 1994

John Trudell's second album offers the same powerful 
combination of spoken verse and rock music as AKA Graffiti 
Man.

Johnny Damas and Me is weighted more towards gender issues 
than the earlier album. Much of the material describes the 
connection Trudell sees between women and the land. This is 
not some sort of mystical connection between women and 
mother earth; rather, he sees the similarity of men's 
relations to both women and the land. "Shadow over 
Sisterland" describes how men's money, authority, church and 
state prohibit any chance of a true partnership between the 
genders and keep women in a subordinate position to men, and 
it also describes how landlords' desire for ownership 
destroys the partnership between humans and nature.

Trudell condemns the confluence of gender and class 
oppressions, and looks at the way gender relations are 
colored by class and national structures. In "See the 
woman," he writes: "In some nations/She is delicate 
strength/In some states/She is told she is weak/In some 
classes/She is property owned."

As in AKA Graffiti Man, Trudell exposes "democracy" as a 
bourgeois scam, designed to make the masses think they are 
participating in politics when they are not. "The emperor 
sang/A song about sacrifice/Sacrifice who?/Sacrifice 
what?/Sacrifice you/Sacrifice me/The alter of democracy"

In the title song Trudell shows how giving becomes the same 
thing as taking in a bourgeois society (which he quaintly 
calls a "Nazi Babylon"), because all benefits gained within 
this system are based on extracting wealth from other 
people.

Trudell muses about growing old and other "essential human 
experiences" throughout much of the material, and about one-
third of the songs on the album lack explicit political 
content. But his perspective--even when broad--remains 
rooted in human relations: men and women, landlords and 
tenants, international rulers and the ruled.

--MC45 & MC206

* * *

UNDER LOCK AND KEY: NEWS FROM PRISONS AND PRISONERS

MIM Notes censored in Pennsylvania

The publication you sent me has been disapproved by the 
Publication, Local Channel Screening, Movie and 
Entertainment Committee. I was told to within ten days, 
submit a DC-138A (cash slip) to the mailroom for postage and 
address of whom it should be sent to, or it will be turned 
over to the property office to be destroyed.

"MIM Notes, Feb 1994, No. 85, distributed by MIM 
Distributors, 4521 Campus Dr, #535, Irvine, CA 92715, 
violates DC ADM 814, IV Section A, 3, all pages."

I looked in the Commonwealth of PA Dept. of Corrections 
Inmate Handbook under DC ADM 814:

"IV. Criteria:

A. Requests for and receipt of publications may be 
disapproved when the publications contain the following:...

3. Writings which advocate violence, insurrection or 
guerrilla warfare against the government or any of its 
institutions or which create a clear and present danger 
within the context of the institution."

Any additional literature please forward to my home address.

--a Pennsylvania prisoner, 3/9/94

"Racially Inflammatory" MIM Notes banned in Missouri

Dear friends at MIM Notes,

My name is X, and I'm a prisoner at Potosi Correctional 
Center in Mineral Point, Missouri, where the KKK and neo-
Nazis have struck again.

Today I received a censorship notification telling me that 
MIM Notes #86 (March 1994) will be censored because it 
contains racially inflammatory articles. It was received 
here on April 12, 1994. They sent a case worker to get me to 
sign papers stating that I will not sue, and that they would 
send the MIM Notes to whatever address I wanted, but that I 
cannot have that paper. I didn't sign the no-sue statement, 
of course.

I'm just writing to let you know that MIM Notes #86 was 
censored, so I won't get to read it. Write me just to let me 
know whether or not you received this letter.

As for the censorship of MIM Notes, I'm going to sue!

Take care.

--a Missouri prisoner, 4/25/94

More on: "Are All Prisoners Political Prisoners?"

A couple of months ago, someone placed an article in MIM 
Notes dealing with the definition of a political prisoner. 
[MIM Notes 86, 3/94, p. 11, "Are All Prisoners Political 
Prisoners?" Available from MIM for $1 cash, stamps, or check 
to "ABS."] The individual stated that if the person was 
arrested for a legitimate crime such as robbery, theft or 
drug dealing, then he's not a political prisoner, but a 
legitimate criminal, and should not be classified as a 
political prisoner, and should not be thought of as such.

Well, MIM, there are a lot of men and women who go to prison 
for so-called legitimate crimes, and while in prison become 
politically conscious. There's a lot of revolutionary 
material in prison. Malcolm X went to prison for a so-called 
legitimate crime, a robbery I believe, and became 
politically conscious in prison.

I know men who came to prison for a crime, but became 
politically conscious while in prison, so now the parole 
board is denying them parole because of their anti-
government views.

Of course, the parole board won't admit that they are 
denying these men parole because of their political views. 
They just claim they won't parole them because of the 
seriousness of their original crime or because the prisoner 
has not "adjusted" to the point where they are ready to go 
back to society.

In Missouri prisons, most prisoners go along with the 
prisons' programs, and they run from newspapers such as MIM 
Notes, because they fear that they won't be able to make 
parole if prison officials view them as radical, anti-
establishment, anti-capitalist, anti-cop. It's like this in 
*all* of Missouri's prisons.

So you see, one does not have to have committed a 
politically-motivated crime to *become* a political prisoner 
while in prison. I've been in prison 14 years now, and all 
politically conscious prisoners are harassed more than other 
prisoners, and are kept locked down in isolation more than 
other prisoners. A whole lot of them have been held so long, 
being denied parole, that they now have been broken by the 
system, so a lot of them have become informers, snitches for 
the prison administration, in the hopes of making parole. So 
to the writer who wrote that only prisoners who got locked 
up for political crimes can be political prisoners, a lot of 
revolutionaries are born in prison.

--a Missouri prisoner, 3/24/94

MC44 responds: Like this comrade, MIM believes that all 
prisoners in Amerikkka's dungeons are political prisoners. 
The letter the comrade is responding to is from an 
individual with whom MIM is struggling over this question. 
It was not a representation of MIM line.

Dime down

The lockdown at the U.S. Penitentiary at Marion, Illinois, 
is now a decade old. The magnitude of the decades in human 
experience is obvious in the marking of cultural epochs--the 
sixties, the fifties, the eighties. It even emerges in 
popular music as the definition of a long time--"...ten 
years has got behind you..." and "...ten years burnin' down 
the road...." And if ten years is a long time in the real 
world, imagine what it is in a repressive sarcophagus such 
as the control unit prison Marion has become.

For seven years I was a shadow in the dark concrete corners 
of dungeon Marion, from February of 1985 to March of 1992. I 
learned the prison was and is an experiment in social 
manipulation and control that was and is carried out with 
zero concern for the welfare of the experimental subjects or 
the communities into which all but a very few of them will 
eventually be released.

I was shown there is not even a pretense that the regimen is 
intended to be constructive for prisoners, though swine 
putulantly insist they are not guards but correctional 
professionals. I found that to the extent anyone 
accomplishes anything positive at Marion, it is despite 
rather than because of the conditions and can be only a 
shadow of what is possible. I saw that people survive 
Marion, but they carry from it psycho scars and other 
baggage they may never transcend.

This tenth year may be the last full year of lockdown at 
Marion, but the lockdown is to be passed on, reputedly in 
the spring. The federal government has built a 484-cell 
lockdown mausoleum at Florence, Colorado, to which it will 
transfer the "mission" of Marion--for $122,000 per cell, 
exclusive of exorbitant operating costs.

Already transferred has been the decade-long habit of 
official lies about control units, as evidenced by 
repetition of the same old, tired, discredited 
disinformation about who is consigned to Marion that has 
appeared in Southern Illinois media and in Colorado papers 
with respect to Florence. The new dungeon promises to be 
even more repressive than Marion, with virtually total 
isolation and for longer periods than at Marion.

Public wealth was squandered on this instrument of 
oppression even though no evidence says Marion has fulfilled 
its alleged purpose and much says it has been counter-
productive. And the deeper and darker the concrete corner, 
the looser the reign on official brutality, both active and 
passive.

Ten years ago, Marion was the only control unit prison in 
the country. Since then, at least 36 states have joined the 
trend to increasing repression, and the federal government 
has reaffirmed its commitment to perpetual lockdown with the 
construction of Florence ADX (Administrative Detention 
Lockdown Facility).

Ten years of official dishonesty--and the failure of 
lockdown repression to correct--show that lockdown dungeons 
like Marion are a threat to everyone, regardless of how 
remote prison may seem to anyone's place in the struggle. 
Humanity should commit us to struggle against it for as much 
of the next ten years as may be required.

--a prisoner in Prison Legal News, 1/94

A brief history of Marion

Dear MIM Comrades,

There are various rumors going around that we will soon be 
transferred to the new Federal prison complex at Florence, 
Colorado. Some say we all won't be transferred there; some 
say only those of us who are classified as "sixes," which is 
the highest security level in the Bureau of Prisons (BOP). 
We hear that we will be isolated from other convicts, and 
then we hear we will participate in recreation in groups of 
nine men. Some say the transfer will begin in September; 
other indications are that it will be sooner.

We won't know for sure until it happens, and that's the way 
the BOP wants it--shrouded in mystery.

Whatever happens here in regards to the transfer to 
Florence, CO, this marks the beginning of a new era in 
repression of the ever-increasing, restless and angry prison 
population in the U.S.

With the closing of Alcatraz in 1962 and the simultaneous 
opening of Marion in Illinois, the Federal BOP has had 32 
years to study Marion prisoners, and has shared this 
knowledge with the state prison systems and prison systems 
throughout the world. They concentrated what they called 
High Security Level prisoners here at Marion and began their 
experiments. For years it was common knowledge that Marion's 
water was contaminated with PCBs. Several ex-Marion 
prisoners have died or still suffer from various forms of 
cancers and central nervous system disorders such as 
multiple sclerosis.

In 1972, after an institution-wide work strike [and, 
notably, after the 1971 Attica prisoners' rebellion --MC49], 
150 prisoners were put in disciplinary segregation. Sixteen 
months later, 36 prisoners were still in what had been 
officially designated the control unit. The control unit on 
H-unit was a mini-Alcatraz. There, in that strictly-
regulated environment, Marion concentrated its most 
"disruptive" inmates and, of course, the system's 
revolutionaries.

Today, there are many control units in prisons throughout 
the United States and the world, and they have been 
perfected for the purpose of burying any activist, POW, 
political prisoner, and any prisoner the administration 
doesn't want to influence other prisoners.

Repression is mounting throughout the world, as the powers 
that be attempt to contain and silence the just grievances 
of the oppressed peoples who are doing what is necessary to 
survive in a world where greed is king and is protected by 
the power of the gun. "Power comes from the barrel of a 
gun," said Mao, and today we see how right he was.

Peace and power,

--a Marion prisoner

Indiana pigs vamp on asthmatic prisoner

On March 17, 1994, the doctor at MCC let it be known that he 
would no longer be here. On March 20, one of my comrades, X, 
had a seizure. He was informed by Nurse Gott that his 
inhaler was empty and that it would take an hour to get him 
another inhaler. He then stated that he could not wait an 
hour; that he needed it now. Gott began to walk away 
laughing.

At this time, the pigs were all in front of the cage that my 
comrade was in. They would not leave, so X started kicking 
on the door telling them to get him some help because he was 
having problems breathing. Once again, the nurse came back 
not to avail him of his problem, but only to make things 
worse for him. Around 8:35 PM, they told X to cuff up. He 
said, "No. Are you going to get me a doctor?" The pigs 
refused to answer him at this time.

Captain Hyatt said, "Fuck him. Let them kick the 
motherfucker." They came back and this time told him he 
would receive medical care, so he cuffed-up only to be tied 
to the door to wait for the goon squad. When they came, they 
threw him to the ground while he was in cuffs and leg irons. 
They put him in trip gear. Once in trip gear, they took him 
to see the same nurse who had taken all this to be a joke.

I don't know if he received the adequate health care needed 
that night, because they moved him to another pod. But we 
must let the public know of this. In February, Doctor Motley 
had it published in the paper that he would no longer be 
employed by the DOC due to his opening of a full-time 
clinic. This gave Charlie Wright and the DOC enough time to 
find a new doctor for the prison, but we have none at this 
time. I was informed that it may be at least another month 
before we have one.

We need for you to contact the following people to let them 
know that they must get us a doctor before someone dies at 
this kamp!

Power to the struggle.
Uhuru sasa.

Please write to:

H. Christian De Bruyn
Commissioner of Indiana
DOC E. 334 Indiana Government
Center South 302 W. Washington St.
Indianapolis, IN 46204

Charles E. Wright
MCC PO Box 557
Westville, IN 46391-0557

--an Indiana prisoner, 3/21/94

Reactionary tactics employed by Westville's Maximum Control 
Complex

Dear Comrades,

I have a feeling that these pigs are once again gonna be 
putting their reactionary tactics down. In fact, these pigs 
have already been doing it lately as a result of this so-
called "Entry" arising out of a major class-action lawsuit 
they had to submit to, which turned out to work better for 
the pigs than for us.

One of the biggest reactionary tactics has been taking place 
right here on the B-Pod of death camp MCC. Now let us 
understand something: death camp MCC is what these pigs call 
a "control unit," just like the death camp in Marion, 
Illinois for federal prisoners. It is not supposed to be a 
disciplinary segregation unit, but the boot-licking pig who 
runs death camp MCC has recently come up with some new-and-
improved reactionary bullshit. He has made a disciplinary 
segregation here at death camp MCC for prisoners here on a 
permanent status, such as myself.

Now, if a prisoner is put on this new disciplinary 
segregation unit, he gets nothing like he would have if he 
were in other pods. We on this new disciplinary segregation 
unit get no phone calls, no state pay, no access to the law 
library, no regular commissary, and only half an hour of 
recreation per day. This is not disciplinary segregation, 
but disciplinary solitary confinement.

Also, we have been restricted to only being able to visit 
with our immediate family. Which means one cannot see a 
girlfriend, an uncle or aunt, or a good friend. Naw, these 
pigs ain't playing that. They're pulling their thing all the 
way down.

Furthermore, these pigs have got a New Afrikan brother, X, a 
few cells down from me who they have really been playing 
reactionary with. He ain't allowed to come out of his cell 
for anything (e.g., showers, recreation, visits) unless he 
submits to letting these pigs place a hockey-type mask on 
his face. This mask is much like that mask old boy had to 
wear on that movie called "Silence of the Lambs." But the 
plate covering his mouth and nose is Plexiglas, not steel.

There was an occasion about two weeks ago where the pigs 
said X had to come out of his cell, and he was willing, 
except he refused to wear the mask like he had been doing. 
So the pigs got their goon squad and shields and ran into 
his cell. The brother was hanging with them for a minute, 
but the pigs finally got him and strapped him down to the 
bed spread four-way for about three hours. After they came 
back and let him up, they strapped him back down because he 
wouldn't stop talking.

Well, we on the disciplinary segregation unit felt that if 
that's how the pigs wanted to play that brother, then they 
were gonna have to strap up on everyone. So a demo was put 
down. The pigs was working through two consecutive shifts on 
us. Out of eight people on this set (not including X), four 
of us were gassed down and then strapped to our beds in 
another pod. The pigs ended up allowing the brother to come 
out of his cell without the mask, but a few days later they 
came up again, saying that he has to wear it.

A couple of days later, one of my carnals ("carnal" means 
"buddy" or "pal" in Spanish--he and I are Chicanos; we're 
Raza) got a visit from some investigators and the state 
pigs. They pulled up on my carnal's cell rapping about they 
wanted to rap with him and get his fingerprints. But he 
refused, so they went and got the goon squad, gassed my 
carnal down, then pulled him out of the cell and took him 
somewhere, then brought him back and strapped him down to 
the bed. He told me they had taken him and read a warrant 
off for attempted murder on a pig who had been stabbed to 
shit at another death camp, and then had held him down while 
the state pigs stole his fingerprints.

Just recently, a new tactic was put down, where the pigs 
spraypainted the outside of the cells' windows black in the 
"blue section" in this pod so that prisoners can't see 
outside.

These are just a few examples of the reactionary bullshit 
that has been going on here at death camp MCC in Westville, 
Indiana, united snakes of amerikkka.

One more thing: Lately, the pigs have been putting up 
warning signs saying our water is 20% lead, and that we have 
to flush our toilets for about a minute before we drink the 
water, and even then we will still be subject to some lead 
contamination. Ain't that sweet! They're letting us know 
that they're trying to kill us for real! Fuck 'em! They 
can't break this here. I expect it will get worse, but like 
Comrade Fred Hampton said, "They can kill a revolutionary, 
but they can't kill the revolution!"

Keep sending MIM Notes.

Que viva la revolucion! 
Que viva Aztlan! 
Que viva la Raza!
--an Indiana prisoner, 5/9/94

"From a Genocidal Chamber": Their governmental bodies
As once again
Clearly showing
No values on human lives
As it's a favorite pastime
It seems
"Three strikes, you're out"
So sad
Sound just what it is
Devaluing still more
Of human lives
Into a game they play each day.
It started so long ago
The natives of this land,
The joke's on them today
It's a favorite pastime
Sporting events named after
Cultures, Nations, Defeats
At da hands of those whom always shown
Contempt, contempt for the masses
And yet we unconsciously are cheering them on
Losing ground of life each day.
"Three strikes, you're out"
A shame
Where have you heard this before?
Life is not a game
Yet and still this, their governmental bodies
A system that so titles
Caging people behind concrete and steel
Forever and ever and ever
Cannot have our, the masses', best interest--
As it's being clearly demonstrated once again--
Nowhere, nowhere at heart.
--by an Indiana prisoner, 4/4/94

"The world's salvation may come from prison"

...I am presently incarcerated in one of the many 
plantations in Pennsylvania. My every waking moment finds me 
housed in isolation for what was termed a breach of 
security. But above all because of my dreadlocked hair and 
its cultural and religious significance.

Many indigenous people and Blacks across this country find 
themselves in the hole for no other reason. We have been in 
the holes as much as seven years with no information about 
when we would be released. Now Amerikkkan politics has 
decided to decide again if there is such a thing as 
religious freedom. Whether they rule favorably or not, 
warriors have taken the right to be themselves, regardless 
of the consequences. So much aggression caused by mere 
growth of hair.

There are many developments in our world. And we find ten 
percent of the world's population controlling the entire 
planet. To revolutionize or change, we must first identify 
and isolate the problem. Few can find time in their mere 
pursuit of living. This is truly by design, and the world's 
salvation may very well come from prison. For here we can 
educate ourselves under a cruel task-master....

--a Pennsylvania prisoner, 2/27/94

Oklahoma's Death Row is a high-tech dungeon

Greetings.

A friend has shared several issues of MIM Notes with me over 
the past year. I enjoy, in particular, the section "Under 
Lock & Key."

I'm a death row inmate and have been incarcerated on death 
row for over nine years. The last two years have been the 
worst; I now live in a high-max facility, H-Unit. 
Corrections officials call it "state of the art," but the 
fact is it's nothing more that a high-tech dungeon. The 
facility is underground, has windowless cells, and each cell 
is equipped with an intercom system. Even the shower has an 
intercom.

Every place within this quad is equipped with either 
intercom or video camera or both. Except the attorney/inmate 
visiting area. And we had to file a class action suit and go 
through a civil trial (Mann v. Reynolds--Case No. CIV-92-
893-C) to get confidential contact with attorneys. 
Apparently, when DOC designed this facility, confidentiality 
between inmate and attorney and the need for it never 
entered their minds. Of course, they are part of the same 
system that is trying to kill us, so maybe it was 
intentionally left out of the design.

The first year or more, no way could we effectively fight 
for our lives. No convict in his right mind would open up 
and give sensitive information to his attorney with the cops 
monitoring every word.

Due to the windowless, closed front cells and nearly 
constant lockdown (we get five hours of recreation time per 
week), the conditions here are harsh to say the least. 
Inhumane is a better description.

The so-called rec-yard we are allowed to use five days a 
week is nothing more than a cement box. It's 20 feet wide, 
20 feet long and 20 feet high with wire fencing material 
stretched over the top. If you're fortunate enough to go out 
in the afternoon and try real hard, standing against one 
wall of the cement box, maybe, just maybe, you can catch 
some direct sunlight.

Lighting in the cells is provided by two fixtures on the 
back wall containing 140 watt bare bulbs, just the right 
height to blind you while sitting or standing. Yet when you 
move to the front of the cell, it's so dark that you can't 
actually utilize the space for any reading, writing, etc.

Over the past 13 years, I've been incarcerated and have 
spent time in various prisons. I have never seen or 
experienced anything like this place. Without question, the 
overall conditions we are subjected to are slowly destroying 
the physical and mental health of every prisoner on the row. 
Over half of this facility's 400 inmates are designated "in 
transit" or administrative-segregation (ad-seg). All will 
eventually transfer out of this dungeon. But for the death 
row inmate, it's permanent. That is, until you're murdered 
by the state or your sentence is overturned.

My point is that most of us are going to be subjected to 
these conditions for many years. Average appeal for death 
row inmates in Oklahoma is approximately 12 to 13 years. 
After two years, many are broken in spirit; I predict that 
in the near future, some will "volunteer" to be executed in 
order to escape these totally inhumane conditions.

Maybe that's part of the logic behind this facility--make it 
bad enough and men will choose death rather than living like 
this, thus saving the state millions in court costs and 
making the Attorney General's job easier.

There is much more I could say in regard to conditions and 
treatment (e.g., medical and psych services are a joke) and 
about the injustice of the criminal justice system as it 
relates to death penalty cases (or anyone, for that matter; 
it's racist and discriminates against the poor and 
uneducated) in general. For now, I won't take up any more of 
your time.

I realize your space is limited, but if you can print any of 
what I've related regarding our circumstances in this 
dungeon, it would be very much appreciated. We need 
publicity; we need to expose this place for what it is. 
Otherwise it will never change, and more and more of these 
facilities will be built and put into use.

Also, would you please put me on your subscription list for 
MIM Notes? As soon as I'm able, I'll send a contribution to 
help support your publication. I appreciate you telling the 
truth and allowing prisoners to share the realities of 
prison life. It's extremely rare for any publication in 
America to do that.

Thanks for your time and any consideration you may give to 
my requests.

Sincerely,

--an Oklahoma prisoner, 4/5/94

P.S. Enclosed is a flier describing a project that was born 
out of the need to bring about change in H-unit. It 
describes conditions in more detail. I am a director and 
incorporator of SHEOL Fund. Anything you can do to help 
promote this project would be appreciated.

SHEOL Fund (Support Humanity and Equality of Life)

The purpose of the SHEOL Fund is to provide funds to remedy 
the inhumane and unconstitutional living conditions and 
treatment of the men and women living on death row. SHEOL's 
initial project is supporting the defense fund to address 
the unconstitutional living conditions on Oklahoma's death 
row at H Unit in Oklahoma State Penitentiary at McAlester, 
Oklahoma.

The new H-Unit facility in McAlester is proclaimed as a 
"state of the art" facility by corrections officials. In 
reality, it is nothing more than a modern-day "high-tech 
dungeon." H-Unit is underground. There are no windows in 
cells. Virtually no natural light filters into the cells 
from the only central skylight window in the center of the 
unit.

No fresh air enters the cells. A central heat and air system 
recirculates air which enters cells through one 7 x 7 inch 
vent. Even after more than two years in this unit, concrete 
dust and other debris continuously blows into the cells. 
Walls are unpainted gray concrete. Cells are closed front 
with boxcar type doors, which prevents any air circulation.

Requests for medical, psychological or dental treatment go 
unanswered for weeks at a time or are ignored completely. 
Those with chronic illnesses such as heart problems are 
unable to exercise even though that is prescribed by 
doctors. Other documented medical needs often go untreated.

H-Unit is designed for non-contact and for isolation. Forced 
double-celling has two men confined in a cell together 24 
hours a day. Other than a cell partner, the men are almost 
totally isolated from all prison personnel, from other 
inmates and from the outside world. The only contact is 
strip-searching before entering the recreation "yard." All 
other communication between inmates and staff is over the 
intercom located in the cell and to which the inmate has no 
access for turning on or off. Closed front doors make 
communication with neighboring inmates or anyone passing by 
virtually impossible.

Even though H-Unit is designed to hold up to almost 400 
inmates, no kitchen facilities were designed into the unit. 
Food is transported from the old kitchen facility behind the 
"walls" at the old prison in McAlester. By the time the food 
reaches H Unit, it is usually cold. Hair and other debris is 
frequently found in the food, including roaches and roach 
parts. Remains of previous meals are also found on the trays 
from unsanitary washing. Food portions are much smaller than 
proper, and because H-Unit is so far removed from the 
kitchen, second helpings are not provided.

Inmates have no outdoor recreation area. Five days a week, 
one hour a day, five men are allowed to go to an indoor 
"yard" which is a cement enclosure approximately 20' x 20' 
with 20' walls. This cement box is open to the air at the 
top with a fence covering the opening. The only recreation 
is handball. Yard is frequently canceled. There are no 
facilities on the yard for drinking water or bathroom.

In a nation that proclaims its civility and adherence to 
human rights, this facility is an embarrassment since it 
does not provide the most basic essentials to life that we 
provide for stray animals.

Please help us: contribute generously! Your money will go to 
end the inhumane treatment of men who are treated more 
harshly simply because they live in H-Unit. Corrections 
officials around the country agree that death row inmates 
are the best behaved and most easily managed inmates in the 
prison system. To house them in this dungeon within the 
prison is not only unnecessary but is inhumane.

Your donation will go toward legal and investigative 
expenses; community organizing costs such as fliers, mailing 
costs, phone/fax and traveling expenses; and media-related 
costs.

Send membership fees ($15/yr. Inmates: $1/year (stamps ok)), 
donations, and offers to help to:

SHEOL Fund
P.O. Box 5726
Norman, OK 73070

Prisoners fight fires in California

When brush fires threatened upper class neighborhoods in 
California last fall, one important fact never made it onto 
the evening news: 4,000 of California's firefighters are 
prisoners. Twenty percent of the 8,000 firefighters used to 
fight last fall's brush fires were prisoners.(1)

"More than any other state, California has relied on 
carefully selected and trained prisoners to fight the forest 
fires that strike nearly every fall. The inmate firefighters 
were especially tested last October when a hot, dry summer 
combined with arsonists and the Santa Ana winds to imperil 
and destroy hundreds of homes in the Los Angeles region."(1)

The prisoners are paid like other California prisoners: $1 
per day. When they are fighting fires, however, their pay 
"jumps" to $1 an hour. "Professional firefighters earn $10 
to 15 an hour."(1)

When not fighting fires, the prisoners live in 40 remote 
camps and do conservation work.

Forest firefighters work at high altitudes on steep terrain. 
They work "15-hour shifts digging up brush and dry grass" 
and removing dead wood to stop the spread of the fire. The 
work is dangerous: "three prisoners have been killed 
fighting fires in the last few years and many others 
injured."(1)

With prisoners risking their lives for a buck an hour, where 
is the labor aristocracy?

A grand jury is set to convene on May 16 to investigate 
charges that two volunteer firefighters set last fall's 
blaze. "Investigators believe the two men set the fire on 
Nov. 2 in order to put it out and be hailed as heroes, 
thereby winning full-time firefighter jobs."(2)

--MC234

Notes:
1. Inside Journal Easter 1994, p. 1, 5.
2. Reuters 5/7/94.

Ohio to build super-max prison

In the wake of the April 1993 rebellion at the Southern Ohio 
Correctional Facility (SOCF) which left 10 dead, Ohio 
prisoners and prison activists had hoped the state would 
examine its policies which resulted in Ohio having the 
highest level of overcrowding in the nation at 178%. The 
state's response has been one of more repression. 

The state has announced plans to build a super-max prison 
similar to the facilities at Pelican Bay in California and 
the federal penitentiary at Marion, IL. These super-max 
prisons have prisoners locked in their cells 23 hours a day, 
deprived of human contact and virtually all communication 
with the outside world. These prisons have been criticized 
by human rights groups and are the focus of extensive 
litigation concerning both conditions of confinement and 
brutality that occurs within them.

The Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction (DRC) 
has formed a committee to develop plans and recommend a site 
for the new super-max prison. If the general assembly 
approves the funds, the prison will have 550 beds. Since 
Marion became a lockdown prison in 1983, some 37 states have 
built super-max prisons. This trend is now reaching Ohio 
which already has a super-max control unit at Lucasville.

--reprinted from Prison Legal News, 3/94

Maryland prisoner assaulted while in chains

Dear MIM,

You have my deep and earnest apology; I had intended to 
write before now. I have been very busy here on this front 
in a battle with the prison officials at this Maryland 
"Super Mess." I was recently assaulted while in chains by 
two of this Super House of Doom's prison guards; all I was 
able to do was to spit in one of their faces.

I did nothing to provoke said attack other than to speak out 
against the cruel and inhumane way that we are being treated 
here in MCAC and to file several suits in the state and 
United States Federal Courts, United States Supreme Court 
included; I guess they don't like me very much. But I 
couldn't care less!...

--a Maryland prisoner, 5/4/94

No money, no medicine

Effective immediately, all offenders must purchase over-the-
counter medications through the commissary. The DOC will not 
provide any more over-the-counter medications for offenders. 
This includes medications for colds, ulcers, flu, 
hemorrhoids, etc. The DOC will not provide shampoo, 
toothpaste, etc. Offenders are expected to purchase these 
items out of their state pay of $12.50 per month. But the 
DOC fails to pay about 30% of the offender population....

--a Westville, Indiana prisoner, 11/25/93, in the 1/94 
Coalition for Prisoners' Rights Newsletter

Aux prisonniers politiques...

Dans le but d'e'tendre a' l'ensemble des prisonniers 
politiques communistes, anti-impe'rialistes, anti-facistes, 
le be'ne'fice du travail d'information re'alise' par 
l'Association des Parents et Amis des Prisonniers 
Communistes au profit des prisonniers des Cellules 
Communistes Combattantes, l'APAPC met a' la disposition de 
tous les camarades emprisonne's un bulletin d'information 
mensuel en langue franc'aise comprenant un dossier de 
presse, une revue des revues militantes et des documents 
politiques annexes. Ce bulletin sera envoye' aux camarades 
emprisonne's qui en feront la demande a' l'adresse suivante:

B.P.6; Saint-Gilles 1; B-1060 Bruxelles; BELGIQUE.

--Association des Parents et Amis des Prisonniers 
Communistes (APAPC), 1/3/94


* * *

ANTI-FASCISTS MARCH IN BOSTON

On Saturday, May 7 the white supremacist Nationalist 
Movement was scheduled to march in Boston. In response, a 
coalition (led by the Workers World Party and its front 
groups) called for a protest rally that drew 400 to 500 
people. In response to all of this, the police department 
sent out 800 troops. The Nationalist Movement never made it 
to the event, or at least no more than 18 of its supporters 
showed up. The city spent $800,000 to fund this event and 
many people, including the local press, built it up for a 
big exciting conflict.(1)

The anti-fascist protesters were encircled by the police 
throughout their march through the historically (and 
currently) reactionary South Boston on their way to the high 
school where the Nationalist Movement had promised to march. 
Using tactics that should not surprise leftists, the city of 
Boston attempted to diffuse the anti-fascist rally by 
calling for its own rally the day before the fascists 
planned to march. This rally drew the endorsement of the ADL 
and a few other groups, but few people showed up.

Throughout the anti-fascist march the residents of South 
Boston lined the streets to shout insults (and occasionally 
throw things) at the marchers. The cops did little to try to 
restrain these residents, but at the smallest sign that one 
of the marchers might respond to these residents, the cops 
were quick to respond, clearly showing which side the cops 
supported. 

In spite of the strong police threat, this rally was an 
important statement against fascism and a clear defeat for 
the Nationalist Movement.

Notes: Boston Globe 5/8/94.

* * *

PRIVATE PROPERTY HOLDS BACK SCIENCE 

In April, a federal grand jury charged an MIT student with 
aiding in the transmission of stolen software. We believe 
the legal case against the student is weak, but more 
importantly the whole approach of the government and 
academia to the situation demonstrates why capitalism is 
doomed.

As any computer programmer knows from experience, copyright 
laws are the bane of a more productive existence. The MIT 
student is being charged with making society more 
productive--nothing more, nothing less. 

Under the system we live in now, the owners of software and 
other scientific implements argue that they need to be paid 
for their goods through royalties or other private property 
arrangements or there would be no incentive to produce 
scientific advances. In contrast, we say hogwash, and if 
necessary the government should bribe engineers and 
programmers with millions of dollars to invent products 
useful to society; although we also think that many 
inventors would like to make inventions for a living because 
of the interesting nature of the work and the prestige 
associated with helping others through inventions. 
Increasingly in the future, money will have less to do with 
productivity, especially as the ability to invent things 
such as software becomes less and less the preserve of the 
educated elite and more and more the ability of the masses 
as educated in a socialist system where advanced education 
is the norm and not a privilege of the upper and middle 
classes.

Once an invention has been created, the society has no 
interest in keeping it to a limited circulation. It is only 
the institution of private property that keeps scientific 
inventions from being proliferated more rapidly. Yet, 
everywhere the corporations sing the praise of capitalism by 
talking about "security" on the Internet computer networks.

Even the academic institutions praise capitalism and 
corporate profit in the name of security. One would think 
that universities would be the one place to realize that 
what advances scientific knowledge and its application is 
not always what produces profit for a capitalist. The reason 
universities don't seem to realize this is that the people 
who sit on boards of universities are also people who sit on 
the boards of corporations, and increasingly in recent 
years, university presidents and boards have come to the 
conclusion that universities are for-profit institutions 
after all--businesses just like any other. Being a part of 
the capitalist system, there could be no other result for 
the universities, much as they try to hide it from the 
students and scholars.

Boston University serves as an example of university 
concerns about "security" nationally: "The same people who 
have access to the MIT computer systems also have access to 
certain aspects of Boston University's computer resources." 
And so it is that we the readers of such capitalist 
propaganda are supposed to go into white fright with regard 
to the activities of supposedly criminal hackers--based 
partly on the public's ignorance of computers and partly on 
the real need of the capitalist class to go on the offensive 
to justify its own outdated existence.

As a result, Boston University has hailed the development of 
methods to cut back public access to the computer system 
with fascism. "Smartcards to sniff out trespassers on UIS," 
reads the front page headline of its administration 
newspaper.

The capitalist class will settle for nothing less than the 
perfect 1984 repressive machine that keeps it in power. It 
wants to know everything about the enemies of private 
property and is willing to violate the supposed rights and 
privacies of everyone else to do it. Yet, computer software 
and the Internet are one arena of class struggle where the 
imperialists risk alienating the petty-bourgeoisie--the 
middle classes--in the pursuit of "security." When a few 
people stand up to point out that the emperor has no 
clothes, millions will see that capitalism is holding back 
the advancement of society.

Note: Boston University Today 4/18-4/24, 1994, p. 1.

* * *

MAOIST JOKE:

How is electricity generated in China today?

Mao Zedong spinning in his grave.


Don't get it? Read about the restoration of capitalism in 
China.
Order:

China Since Mao, Charles Bettelheim. $4 The most well-known 
demonstration 
that a revisionist and capitalist coup took place in China 
in 1976.

The Capitalist Roaders are Still on the Capitalist Road. $10 
Colorado Study 
Group, An excellent treatment of the capitalist 
counterrevolution in 
China written within months of its occurrence. Excerpts from 
the best of 
Cultural Revolution arguments against Deng and company.

Political Economy of the Counterrevolution in China. $10. 
Traces the restoration 
of capitalism from 1976 to 1986.