I N T E R N E T ' S  M A O I S T  BI-M O N T H L Y

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     XX XX  XXX  XX XX   X   X  XXX  XXX  XXX  XXX
     X X X   X   X X X   XX  X  X X   X   X    X
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         THE MAOIST INTERNATIONALIST MOVEMENT

     MIM Notes 156          FEBRUARY 15, 1998



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.  PRISONER NUMBERS CONTINUE SKYWARD
2.  DC PRISONERS TRANSFERRED FAR AWAY FROM FAMILIES
3.  LETTERS
4.  TKP/ML SECRETARY GENERAL MARTYRED
5.  MIM CUTS BACK INTERNATIONAL MINISTRY
6.  AMERIKAN JUSTICE CONVICTS 22 IN PROTEST OF U.$
    MILITARY DEATH SQUAD SCHOOL
7.  GAY AND LESBIAN ACTIVISTS PUSH FOR WIDER
    PROSECUTION ON HATE CRIMES
8.  BERKELEY OIL BOYCOTTS DEMONSTRATE NECESSITY OF
    REVOLUTION
9.  PIG KILLS UNARMED MAN IN NEW YORK
10. SPECIAL FOUR PAGE ISSUE OF UNDER LOCK & KEY:
    NEWS FROM PRISONERS AND PRISONS
11. HIP HOP BAND DEMANDS FREEDOM FOR REVOLUTIONARY
    LEADERS: REVIEW OF CRITICAL MASS
12. POLICE PEPPER SPRAY BLACK BASKETBALL STAR
13. WHITEHOUSE SCANDALS PALE COMPARED TO
    IMPERIALISM
14. UNTITLED POEM
15. LENINGRAD CONFERENCE IGNORES MAOIST UNIVERSAL
    ON CAPITALIST RESTORATION UNDER SOCIALISM
16. PHONY WAR CRIMES TRIBUNAL EXPOSES NATO
    INTERVENTION: ABOUT PROFIT, NOT HUMANITARIANISM
17. CASTRO MEETS THE POPE



PRISONER NUMBERS CONTINUE SKYWARD

by MC12

The U.$. Justice Department says the number of 
people in prison and jail hit an all-time high of 
1.7 million in June 1997.(1) That is an increase of 
more than 100,000 over the middle of 1996.(2) About 
two-thirds of the total prisoners are in state or 
federal prison, and one-third are in jails. The 
total lockdown population is up 6.2% in the last 
year, according to this report, a slightly slower 
growth rate than the last half- dozen years.

The incarceration rate increase -- from 313 per 
100,000 population in 1985 to 645 per 100,000 in 
1997 -- has continued unabated despite a drop in 
the FBI's official crime rate in the last six 
years.(1) Some reactionaries are saying the 
incarceration rate going up while the crime rate 
goes down is proof that the system "works," but 
these pigs have a much harder time explaining why 
official crime rates were up for so many years 
while imprisonment exploded from less than 500,000 
in 1980 to 1.3 million in 1991, the year crime 
rates started down.(3)

The fact is that mass imprisonment in this country 
has little to do with the bourgeois-defined crimes, 
especially not the crimes that make up the official 
crime rates: murder, legally-defined rape, robbery, 
auto theft. If any "crime" is associated with 
incarceration, its personal illegal drug 
consumption (which isn't part of the FBI "crime 
rate"), but incarceration goes up even as illegal 
drug use falls. The official crime rate has gone up 
and down in the last 30 years while the 
incarceration rate is straight up.

This is why MIM says all prisoners are political 
prisoners. The prison system itself is a political 
system, a tool of national, class and gender 
oppression -- principally national oppression -- 
one that serves a function not explained by the 
slogans chiseled into the courthouse walls. Many 
individuals in this system may have done bad things 
that need to be dealt with by the people, but 
that's not what their incarceration is all about.


NOTES:
1. New York Times, 19 January 1998, p. A10.
2. U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice 
Statistics Bulletin, "Prison and Jail Inmates at 
Midyear 1996." January 1997 (NCJ 162843.)
3. The Real War on Crime: The Report of the 
National Criminal Justice Commission, edited by 
Stephen R. Donziger (HarperCollins, 1996), p. 34



* * *



DC PRISONERS TRANSFERRED FAR AWAY FROM FAMILIES

by a comrade

The recent "bailout" package for the District of 
Columbia, approved by Congress, included 
transferring control of all of D.C.'s prisoners to 
the federal Bureau of Prisons.(1) Two hundred and 
forty wimmin inmates will be transferred in January 
1998, some as far away as Connecticut, Florida and 
Texas. The financial package mandates the shutting 
down of D.C.'s Lorton prison and transferring one-
half of the District's 7,000 inmates to the federal 
system. Many of the D.C. prisoners will end up in 
private prisons.

1,700 male prisoners have already been transferred 
to the Northeastern Correctional Center in 
Youngstown, Ohio, which is run by the Tennessee-
based Corrections Corporation of America (CCA). The 
Wackenhut Corporation, CCA's biggest competitor, is 
seeking a federal contract to build a $50 million 
prison, also in Ohio. If Wackenhut gets the 
contract it will build a 1,500 bed facility for 
D.C. prisoners. With the expected increase in 
inmates transferred to the existing Northeastern 
Correctional facility, the number of D.C. male 
prisoners locked down in Ohio will nearly double 
what it is now-up to 3,500.(1) The former D.C. 
prisoners are now suing the CCA and the District of 
Columbia for the excessive use of force by guards 
and recent inmate violence that has broken out in 
the prison. The attorneys representing the inmates 
blame the District, in part, for not "properly" 
classifying the transferred prisoners according to 
security level.(2) Maximum security prisoners from 
D.C. have been housed with medium security 
prisoners in Ohio.

There is also talk of D.C. inmates being 
transferred to a proposed prison complex in Terra 
Alta, West Virginia. A private company has asked 
the state for a contract to construct a $250 
million facility to house up to 2,400 D.C. 
inmates.(3)

The D.C. wimmin prisoners are being transferred to 
Connecticut , West Virginia, Texas and Florida.(4) 
Families of these men and wimmin will rarely, if 
ever, be able to visits their mothers and fathers 
in prison when they are so far away. The Washington 
Post has rarely reported on the male prisoners 
being transferred, but recently did a large story 
in the metro section on the transfer of the wimmin 
prisoners, who are housed in the Correctional 
Treatment Facility (a separate facility from the 
main Lorton complex) (3). The story focused on the 
fact that the wimmin would no longer be able to see 
their children and other family members. Some of 
the wimmin featured in the Post article have 
children by men who are locked up at Lorton or have 
been transferred out of state.

MIM is not surprised that The Washington Post and 
other mainstream media have given only minimal 
coverage to these transfers, but MIM has found no 
community organization that is making noise about 
these transfers. For example, when MIM went to the 
Web site of Families Against Mandatory Minimums 
(FAMM) we did not see coverage of this issue. While 
the average citizen is happy to be rid of Lorton 
and its inmates, MIM believes that the families of 
the prisoners or progressive groups should be 
organizing against these transfers. MIM hopes that 
Jericho '98 will help to bring mass awareness to 
prison issues, including that all prisoners are 
political prisoners. Until all prisoners of 
imperialism are freed when imperialism comes 
crashing down, it is an especially egregious crime 
to move prisoners away from their families and 
lawyers and the court to which they can appeal 
their convictions.

Contact MIM to find out how to get involved with 
Jericho '98 and protest prisoner transfers!


NOTES:
1. The Plain Dealer, 10 January 1998 p. 5B.
2. Idaho Falls Post Register, 16 January 1998 p. 
A1. 
3. The Charleston Gazette, 10 December 1997 p. 7A.
4. The Washington Post, 7 January 1998 p. B1.




* * *



LETTERS

WHY JERICHO?


Dear MIM, I was just curious, why is this called 
Jericho?
--A friend in the midwest


MIM RESPONDS: According to the organizers, the name 
relates to the "biblical story of people working 
together to create change." One of the organizing 
groups explained it by saying "as the biblical 
story of Jericho shows, when we raise our voices 
collectively, we can cause walls to come tumbling 
down."

Neither MIM or RAIL are religious and so that is 
not the reason that we are organizing people to go. 
In fact, MIM and RAIL see that religion has been 
used to further oppression in most situations 
historically. And even when the purpose of religion 
has been less overtly oppressive, it does not serve 
the interests of the masses. Understanding, 
analyzing and acting on rational, materialist 
perception is how we believe that the interests of 
the majority of the world's people is best served. 
Though, while there is a definite contradiction 
between religious/mystical beliefs and materialist 
analysis, we still work with people who are 
religious as long as they agree that oppression 
must be ended and help us build support for anti-
imperialist struggle.

MIM and RAIL have had a long practice of not only 
supporting the struggles of revolutionary 
prisoners, but of all prisoners. So, our aim it to 
emphasize general conditions of prisons, 
disproportionate imprisonment rates and how we can 
work toward ending this means of oppression.


WRITER FOR ENGLAND ASSESSES MOVEMENT SITUATION

DEAR MIM: In the 1970s many students in britain 
were Maoists or at least commumists. Now after 
nearly thirty years we look back to those times as 
the highest point of the workers movement to 
achieve social justice in social democrat britain. 
The movement has faced problem after problem over 
thirty dispiriting years which have seen the 
workers position worsen beyond imagination. but 
still the workers reject our ideas even in the face 
of poverty, are the capitalists so good at 
propaganda to distort any progressive movement.

--Writer from England January 1998

MIM REPLIES:  We believe you are right that like in 
other countries there is ruling class propaganda in 
imperialist England that fools the workers and 
oppressed generally. However, in all the 
imperialist countries, the problem is qualitatively 
worse than just the problem of what Marx called 
"false consciousness" by the workers.

While a small minority within "British" borders 
faces grinding poverty, the majority enjoys the 
spoils of super-exploitation of the Third World. 
Hence there is propaganda and a real material 
reason for the opposition to progressive movements. 
The labor aristocracy in England is lined up almost 
perfectly behind Blair right now. All the third 
parties catering to the petty-bourgeoisie 
evaporated in the last election, because Blair sang 
the imperialist song of love for the labor 
aristocracy almost in perfect key.


PRINTING PRISONER NAMES

Dear Comrades, In the 15 December 1997 edition of 
"Under Lock and Key", I read the story of a 
Missouri prisoner who is afflicted of high blood 
pressure and denied medical attention. I would like 
to help this person obtain medical treatment, but I 
don't see how I can with the information this 
article has given me.

The readers are instructed to write or telephone 
either Dona Shrino, the state prison director, or 
Moe Cornalian, the governor, but we are not given 
the name of the prisoner, the name of the pig who 
has denied him or her medical attention, or the 
name of the specific prison housing this prisoner. 
There must be tens of thousands of prisoners in the 
Missiouri correctional system. Among them probably 
hundreds have medical conditions for which 
inadequate treatment has been providen, probably a 
dozen of whom are afflicted of high blood pressure.

Assuming we can put enough heat on Ms. Shrino and 
Governor Cornahan to secure their cooperation, how 
can they know about which prisoner we are writing? 
They could rightly say, "We'd love to help you, but 
if we don't know who is being denied medical 
treatment, we can't intervene."

In most cases MIM's policy of maintaining the 
confidentiality of prisoner names is the correct 
one, but in a case like this the prisoner has more 
to gain than to lose by being identified. Surely 
the individual pigs who are oppressing him or her 
already know that this prisoner has received MIM 
Notes and has requested antihypertension 
medication. If this neglect continues, this 
prisoner will likely die soon and has nothing to 
lose. The only way we can save his or her life is 
to notify the pigs responsible that we are aware of 
the situation, which means we should be directed to 
write to the low level pigs who have knowledge of 
it or to inform the high level pigs of the name and 
location of this prisoner.

Naturally no prisoner's name and/or specific 
location should be published without the consent of 
that prisoner and where it is not necessary to do 
so, but in cases like this, exceptions should be 
made to the general policy of anonymity when the 
prisoner agrees to be named and if circumstances 
are such that it is better if the prisoner is 
identified.


MIM RESPONDS:  We agree with this letter writer on 
the question of when to print a prisoner's name. We 
know that having their name in print in MIM Notes 
can mean increased repression for a prisoner. And 
even when they are exposing mistreatment of 
themselves specifically, sometimes having a name in 
print will increase this mistreatment. Our general 
policy is to only print prisoner's names when we 
have the explicit consent of the prisoner and when 
it is clear that printing the name will do more to 
help than to harm the prisoner.



* * *



TKP/ML SECRETARY GENERAL MARTYRED

The TKP/ML, representative of the international 
proletariat in Turkey and Turkish Kurdistan, has 
lost its 4th Secretary General in the heat of the 
struggle!

Workers, oppressed and exploited peoples all over 
the world, revolutionaries, comrades:

The TKP/ML, representative of the international 
proletariat in Turkey and Turkish Kurdistan, the 
communist vanguard of all peoples, minorities and 
workers in Turkey and Turkish Kurdistan, has lost 
its 4th Secretary General, MEHMET DEMIRDAG, on 23 
November 1997, during an armed encounter between 
the fascist Turkish army and the guerrilla fighters 
of the TKP/ML-TIKKO in the Black Sea (Karadeniz) 
region.

The loss of the leader and comrade DEMIRDAG is a 
great loss for our party, the working class and the 
people. His place cannot be replaced in a short 
time. In struggle against imperialism and its 
subordinates, in the struggle for the salvation of 
mankind, the death of MEHMET DEMIRDAG is a great 
loss for the international proletariat and the 
oppressed peoples all over the world. Also for our 
sister parties and organizations and the anti-
imperialist movement with which we carry out 
activities, the death of DEMIRDAG is a great loss.

Because of this great loss, our grief is great. But 
we Communists are aware that we shall lose 
countless leaders and guerrilla fighters in the 
class struggle. The TKP/ML has united with the 
teaching of the working class in every field. It is 
conscious of the tough laws of the class struggle 
and subscribes to these laws. Our party has, for 
these reasons, been able to recreate itself and it 
is continuously able to continue and expand its 
struggle. The 25-year history of our party is proof 
of this.

Our leader and comrade was determined to carry the 
red flag up to his death. We as TKP/ML, his 
comrades, shall continue to carry the red flag with 
conviction. Our class hatred has deepened and our 
will to struggle is stronger than ever. The bond 
with our party, the people, our class, and the 
belief in a world without classes and exploitation, 
namely communism, is greater than ever. The guide 
of TKP/ML is the science of Marxism-Leninism-
Maoism.

The TKP/ML is conscious of the fact that the path 
to revolution experiences many difficulties, 
setbacks and temporary losses. But we Communists 
shall be determined, step by step with total 
courage and strength and without giving up, to 
overcome the difficulties, setbacks, and temporary 
losses that stand in our way. The loss of our 
comrades in the struggle for a society without 
exploitation and oppression will make us all the 
more strong in order to continue the struggle.

Comrade MEHMET DEMIRDAG was a person who mastered 
the science of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism to its 
smallest details. His mind and heart were one with 
the science of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. Comrade 
DEMIRDAG was a nightmare for the enemy and for the 
anti-MLM modes of thinking within the circles of 
the party and other revolutionary movements. For a 
comrade who remained loyal, under all 
circumstances, to the international proletariat and 
MLM teaching.

In the history of our party, comrade MEHMET 
DEMIRDAG played an important role during the 2nd 
Extraordinary Conference which was successfully 
completed in 1995. For he was the architect of this 
Extraordinary Conference. The slogan of our party 
during this 2nd Extraordinary Conference was "FROM 
HEAD TO TOE, REVOLUTION." During this conference, 
the party identified its errors and shortcomings. 
It seriously criticized itself and its struggle in 
the past. After the conference, the party dealt 
with its shortcomings and errors. This led to 
better results which are clearly seen in practice.

Comrade DEMIRDAG put an end to all anti-MLM ideas 
within the party by condemning them and removing 
them from the party. He played a great role in the 
strengthening of the guerrilla struggle by which 
the armed struggle in Turkey grew. He was an 
exponent for the expansion of the armed struggle, 
the guerrilla struggle. He carried out in practice 
the decisions taken during the 2nd Extraordinary 
Conference without any hesitation, without any loss 
of time, and with all decisiveness.

Our leader and comrade was one of the greatest 
enemies of imperialism, capitalism, feudalism all 
other reactionary ideas. Hence, he used every 
minute and all possibilities to attack the enemy, 
weaken their power, and defeat the enemy. In order 
to achieve this, he overcame countless obstacles, 
took upon himself the most dangerous tasks, and 
attained what was impossible. When comrade DEMIRDAG 
was taken prisoner by the fascist Turkish state, he 
suffered the heaviest tortures and cruelties. 
During the very heavy tortures, he held on to the 
culture of communist resistance of our party 
founder and leader, IBRAHIM KAPAKKAYA. He too did 
not yield to the enemy.



* * *



MIM CUTS BACK INTERNATIONAL MINISTRY

MIM has cutback its "International Ministry" to 
reflect its 1997 Congress resolution on the 
subject. This reflects both a reallocation of 
resources and a tightening of security.

In 1993, MIM made some steps toward international 
outreach by attending meetings and visiting with 
comrades. Prior to that time MIM had a very low 
international profile except by INTERNET, where MIM 
was a pioneer.

In summing up the period from 1993 to 1997, MIM can 
point to some positive benefits of international 
outreach. The flow of concrete information about 
Peru and the Philippines has greatly improved on 
account of international outreach. We have also 
learned concretely about the balance of forces 
internationally between imperialism and 
proletarian-led masses.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union, we have also 
learned of several attempts to regroup the 
international communist movement. It is MIM's 
opinion that although the prospects of such 
regroupment are vastly improved over the time of 
the 1980s, it is still premature.

Hard as it may seem to believe, the issues of Cuba 
and Korea still split the international communist 
movement. The revisionists who stand exposed with 
the outright collapse of the Soviet Union still 
sing the same songs about Korea and Cuba. There is 
a greater chance of Castro and Kim admitting past 
errors and launching cultural revolutions against 
the bourgeoisie in the party than there is of the 
international communist movement uniting "from 
below" on these questions. If the Cuban, Vietnamese 
and Korean comrades could see their way to Maoism 
in review of what has happened in the international 
communist movement, we can reassess the 
possibilities of regroupment. Right now we find 
that regroupment is going to happen, and happen on 
a revisionist basis.

In the 10 percent of the world that is imperialist, 
there is an additional roadblock in that the 
individuals and organizations supporting the MIM 
cardinal principle on the petty-bourgeois majority 
do not yet have the international stature, 
connection to the masses and experience to impose a 
successful conclusion on the battle against 
revisionism. Capitulation to the petty-bourgeoisie 
and imperialist parasitism is still the rule and 
not the exception. Although MIM could conceivably 
win some major battles on the question of 
regroupment in the imperialist countries soon, such 
is unlikely to be a stable strategic situation 
unless MIM expands its connection amongst the 
youth, lumpenproletariat and oppressed nations.

This is a fluid time in the international communist 
movement and it is tempting to believe in the 
possibility of major victories in regroupment. From 
examination, summation and experience, MIM can say 
such would be a mistake.

We remind comrades internationally to be on their 
guard against people from the imperialist countries 
posing as communists. In the imperialist countries 
there is not much danger in discussing politics 
with people who may or may not be genuine MIM 
comrades or other comrades. At all times, our Third 
World comrades should protect their own security in 
relation to the supposed comrades of the 
imperialist countries.



* * *



AMERIKAN JUSTICE CONVICTS 22 IN PROTEST OF U.$ 
MILITARY DEATH SQUAD SCHOOL

On 21 January, convicted 22 protestors of "criminal 
trespass" for "participating in the largest-ever 
protest against a U.S. army training school for 
Latin American soldiers." 

On November 16, 2000 people participated in a 
protest at the School of the Americas, located at 
Fort Benning in Georgia, which is a training ground 
for the military leaders of comprador regimes. The 
school's "students" have been linked to some of the 
worst military atrocities in Latin America.

The School of the Americas -- more accurately 
called the School of the Assassins -- exists as one 
of the tools that has enabled Amerikan imperialism 
to repress and exploit the masses of many Latin 
American countries for the last 50 years. This 
training ground equips the leaders and the soldiers 
of military dictatorships with the military 
strategies needed to fight against guerrilla 
warfare; teaches tactics of torture, both physical 
and psychological; teaches commando operations and 
interrogation techniques.

The molding of puppets within the walls of the 
School of the Assassins allows the Amerikan 
imperialist beast to sit fat within North America 
reaping the super-profits and protecting the 
interests of multi-national corporations without 
sending numerous Amerikan troops to fight a direct 
war in the countryside of Latin America. Instead, 
the beast trains those from the Third World who 
will ride in the tail of imperialist profit to 
slaughter the toiling masses of the soil and the 
exploited Latin American workers.

The Latin American Training Center-Ground Division 
was started in 1946 in the Panama Canal Zone. This 
became the School of the Americas in 1963. In 1984, 
the school suspended its operations in compliance 
with the 1977 Panama Canal Treaty. Three months 
later it reopened in Ft. Benning. Since then, the 
trail of massacres, murders and torture of rebels 
continues to trace back to the School of Assassins. 
The assassination of Bishop Romero and over two-
thirds of the soldiers responsible for the worst 
atrocities in El Salvador have been linked to this 
school.

At the protest, some of protesters carried "small 
white crosses and cardboard coffins containing 
petitions". The struggle against the School of the 
Assassins is a just one. The only "criminal 
trespass" MIM sees is in U.$ imperialism trampling 
Third World nations without the consent of their 
people.



* * *



GAY AND LESBIAN ACTIVISTS PUSH FOR WIDER 
PROSECUTION ON HATE CRIMES

In early January, the FBI released 1996 statistics 
on hate crimes -- data collected from participating 
local police departments, as mandated by the Hate 
Crime Statistics Act of 1990. This year, activists 
in the Gay and Lesbian Task Force and the Human 
Rights Campaign, with the support of Attorney 
General Janet Reno and President Clinton, are 
calling on Congress to include crimes based on 
sexual orientation bias in federal anti-hate crime 
statutes. Whereas currently the federal government 
only mandates data collection where gay and lesbian 
victims are concerned, more than one third of 
"states currently include attacks motivated by 
sexual orientation bias in their hate crimes 
penalty statutes."(1)

MIM opposes the expansion of any criminal 
prosecutorial power of the imperialist state. Under 
the dictatorship of the proletariat, the people 
will effectively criminalize oppression, and its 
laws will be combined with the actual dispossession 
of the exploiters of their means of exploitation. 
Only when we get to communism, and the abolition of 
group power, will we truly see an end to violence 
against people based on group status.

The FBI collects hate crime statistics from "9,500 
law enforcement agencies in forty-five states and 
Washington, D.C. covering seventy-five percent of 
the U.S. population."(5) It is totally up to the 
discretion of the local agencies what to count as a 
hate crime -- so there is wide variation among the 
reporting regions, not to mention the non-reporting 
areas, and wide variation from year to year.

According to the recent FBI report, there were 
1,016 hate crimes against people based on sexual 
orientation, or about 11 percent of total hate 
crimes counted, roughly the same as in 1995.(1) But 
activists insist that this is a gross undercount. 
In November of last year, researchers from the 
University of California at Davis presented 
findings to a congressional briefing stating that 
victims of hate crimes are least likely to report 
to the police. According to the Davis study, "only 
33 percent of hate-crime victims reported the 
incident to the police, compared with 57 percent of 
the victims of random crimes."(2)

At the time of the congressional hearing, Clinton 
hosted the first "White House Conference on Hate 
Crimes" in which he "announced an initiative to 
expand federal hate-crime laws to include more 
potential victims, stiffer penalties, and more 
accurate reporting."(3) And then when the new FBI 
statistics came out, Reno chimed in her support to 
"expand the definition of hate crime in the federal 
hate crimes penalty law to include those involving 
sexual orientation, gender and disability bias, 
making it possible for the federal government to 
more strenuously prosecute offenders in those 
areas."(1)

No oppressed group should treat the state's 
eagerness to expand its prosecutorial powers as a 
victory. But that's exactly what the NGLTF is 
calling for. That group published a press release 
on the day the FBI report was released:

"'Our nation strives for fair and equal treatment 
for everyone,' said Kerry Lobel, NGLTF Executive 
Director, "no one should be a target for bias 
motivated violence because of their sexual 
orientation. Congress must follow the lead taken by 
twenty-one states and the District of Columbia to 
do their part in ending these crimes."(4)

According to FBI reports, there were 2,988 anti-
Black hate crimes, 1,002 anti-gay hate crimes -- 
and 1,266 anti-white hate crimes in 1995.(5) By the 
standard of this bourgeois definition, violence 
against whites because of who they are is the same 
kind of crime as that against other groups. This is 
like pacifists who say killing colonial soldiers in 
a war of liberation is just as wrong as those 
soldiers killing colonial subjects.

MIM agrees with the part of the NGLTF press release 
which states that no one should be a target of bias 
motivated violence -- that line is reflected in our 
fundamental goal to abolish the power of groups 
over groups. But in a patriarchal, imperialist 
society organized around group oppression, the 
concept of hate crimes is misguided and deceptive. 
Poverty and mass imprisonment, for example, are 
crimes against oppressed nationals in Amerikkka -- 
but neither is considered a "hate crime." The 
imperialists are in no position to define, count or 
prosecute such a thing as hate crime.


NOTES:
1. Washington Blade 16 January 1998, p. 23.
2. Trial January 1998, p. 96.
3. Trial January 1998, p. 95.
4. "NGLTF URGES GREATER FEDERAL ACTION TO CURB HATE 
CRIMES," NLGTF Press Release, January 9, 1998.
5. Statistical Abstract of the United States 1996, 
p. 206.



* * *



BERKELEY OIL BOYCOTTS DEMONSTRATE NECESSITY OF 
REVOLUTION

by a friend of RAIL

The city of Berkeley, CA has passed so many 
selective purchasing ordinances that it is having 
trouble finding a supply of fuel for its municipal 
vehicles. Arco, Unocal, Mobil and Texaco have been 
excluded because they do business with the regime 
in Myanmar (Burma). Shell and Chevron have been 
excluded because they do business with the Abacha 
government in Nigeria. Exxon has yet to be excluded 
but it is also the focus of protest by 
environmental activists.(1)

Just as Karl Marx wrote about The Poverty of 
Philosophy in 1847, this situation demonstrates the 
poverty of single-issue boycotts. Many intelligent 
and motivated progressive activists have devoted a 
lot of time, energy and resources into these 
boycotts, but history has shown that boycotts can 
only be effective in the context of a larger 
revolutionary struggle. A good example of this 
would be the Chinese boycott of Japanese products 
during the May Fourth Movement (1919). This protest 
against Japanese imperialism not only involved 
product boycotts, but was part of a larger 
nationalist movement that involved language reform 
and strikes.

Berkeley is similar to a few other Amerikan cities 
(Cambridge, MA; Ann Arbor, MI; Madison, WI; etcŠ) 
in its high concentration of progressives. These 
cities also feature universities that have a 
history of progressive protest politics, and so 
they serve as a mecca for other Amerikan 
progressives who want to be around their "type."

Unfortunately, when activists move to places they 
"feel comfortable," they abandon communities that 
could use their wisdom and energy. They feel a 
sense of righteousness that they are a part of a 
progressive community; meanwhile, though, the rest 
of Amerika carries on as it always has:  either 
ignorant or completely inconsiderate of the 
oppression of others.

MIM has pointed out that youth (including 
university students) have played a historically 
revolutionary role, but youth alone cannot make a 
revolution. There must be a social basis for 
revolution, and currently, the objective material 
conditions in Amerika do not lend themselves to 
revolution but instead labor aristocratic collusion 
with imperialism instead. Boycotts can serve an 
educational purpose, but as long as the 
buses/police/cars/ambulances etcŠ need oil, 
Amerikan cities and individual must "do business" 
with imperialism. An international oil corporation 
that does not exploit Third World workers is a 
contradiction in terms.


NOTES: "Berkeley's Oil Strike," Utne Reader. 
Jan/Feb 1998, p. 12, as reported in Reason, October 
1997.



* * *



PIG KILLS UNARMED MAN IN NEW YORK

RC 4T4

On December 25, 1997 William Whitfield was shot 
dead in a Brooklyn grocery store by a trigger happy 
pig named Michael Davitt. Whitfield was unarmed 
when Davitt show him point blank in the chest.

Davitt has reportedly fired his gun eight times in 
the last fourteen years he has been on the NYPD. He 
was sent for firearms retraining twice, once after 
he fired his gun accidentally, so he claims, while 
chasing an alleged thief in 1995. He has been 
charged with 12 civilian complaints during his 
career. The police and district attorney say the 
case is under investigation. Pig Davitt has been 
placed on modified duty pending investigation. The 
Whitfield family demands to know why William 
Whitfield was fatally shot while unarmed.

The history of officer Davitt is probably not as 
unusual as the NYPD is claiming. As we have seen 
over the last year alone, using brutal violence 
while serving as Amerika's soldiers is commonplace. 
Although it is important that Whitfield's murder be 
exposed, MIM does not see this as an isolated 
incident. Nor do we see it as true justice if 
Davitt is charged and/or dismissed.

Pig Davitt took advantage of the absolutely 
chauvinist "provision in the police contract that 
gives an officer who shoots someone 48 hours before 
he must speak to investigators."(1) The fact that 
such a provision exists is just one example of the 
disgusting injustice of the Amerikkkan injustice 
system. This 48 hour grace period allows the pig 
who shoots someone plenty of time to fabricate a 
story to cover up the wrong-doing s/he has 
committed.

In defense of the New York pig department, Mayor 
Giuliani was quoted in the New York Post, "People 
shouldn't jump to conclusions before all the facts 
are known."(2) Mayor Giuliani's statement is quite 
ironic since the pig who fatally shot William 
Whitfield did not seem to care about the facts 
before he pulled the trigger. The officers 
suspected Whitfield of a crime which they had been 
called to the scene of, and without knowing all the 
facts, officer Davitt shot Whitfield point blank.

MIM sympathizes deeply with the pain of the 
Whitfield family. We urge Black nation members and 
all oppressed in the United Snakes to mobilize 
against the violence of the white nation pigs. 
Amerikkkan imperialism is the fundamental root of 
violence against the oppressed and we mobilize the 
masses to use their anger and outrage to organize 
against these acts of violence. True justice will 
not be a reality until this unjust imperialist 
system is overthrown.


NOTES:
1. The Times Herald Record 27 December 1997.
2. The New York Post 27 December 1997.



* * *



PARTICIPATE, ORGANIZE, MOBILIZE:
RAIL TEACH-IN ON THE CRIMINAL INJUSTICE SYSTEM

MIM and RAIL are helping to build for the March 27 
Jericho'98 march on Washington DC which focuses on 
the release of comrades incarcerated for their 
political activism. As a part of this work we are 
organizing a teach-in in DC on the criminal 
injustices system the day after the march (March 
28). The teach-in will involve people engaged in 
many different forms of activism around prisons and 
we will use this opportunity to build greater unity 
and strengthen our struggle against the criminal 
injustice system by sharing information and ideas. 
If you or a group you work with is engaged in the 
fight against the prisons system, we invite you to 
participate in the teach-in. Write to us for a more 
detailed invitation to participate or send us an 
outline of your topic and presentation 
(approximately 20 minutes for each presentation).



* * *



SPECIAL FOUR PAGE ISSUE OF UNDER LOCK & KEY: NEWS 
FROM PRISONERS AND PRISONS


"THERAPEUTIC" ALTERNATIVES TO PRISON & THE U$ 
INJUSTICE SYSTEM

by facility RAIL

As both MIM Notes and MIM Theory #11 have shown, 
the incarceration rates in the imperialist U$ have 
been steadily increasing. This is part of 
Amerikkka's growing attack on oppressed nations 
within its borders. One of the main weapons in this 
offensive is the alleged "War on Drugs". The U$ has 
been using this "War" as a cover for increased 
repression in both tactics (pigs with M-16's) and 
harsher sentences. As more and more white nation 
youth get caught in the "crossfire", so to speak, 
the same white society that begged for harsher 
measures in the 80's (when they thought drugs were 
only a problem for the oppressed nations), has been 
crying out now in the 90's for the need for 
"rehabilitation." Now that white Amerikkka's 
material interests are affected, the U$ government 
has felt the need to show a change of heart.


A KINDER, GENTLER EXPLOITATION

In response to these calls for "rehabilitation" of 
drug offenders, the U$ injustice system has 
increasingly been working with programs that claim 
to offer this. Various programs called "boot 
camps", "thereputic communities", and "work-
therapy" programs have been proliferating nicely 
off this. While they may all differ slightly on 
minor points, they all serve the same function, and 
operate similarly. Within these programs, 
"patients" often work 11-15 hour days performing 
harsh physical labor. In return they receive no 
payment, and are told their work is in return for 
room and board (as if the state and federal grants; 
mandatory welfare and foodstamps for "patients"; 
and other sources of income are not enough!). This 
room and board usually consists of drafty buildings 
(which are often rodent infested) and high fat, 
high calorie food filled with salt. This way 
"patients" gain weight and "look" healthy. 

Medical and other services are often minimal, 
maximizing profit. Instead of going to the people 
performing the labor, the profits they make for the 
institution go into the exploiter's pockets, 
providing them with an easy source of free labor 
for their business-in-the-guise-of-a-program. In 
addition, these programs use bourgeois psychology 
to attempt to convince the masses imprisoned within 
them that struggle is useless and that society will 
never change. They push the concept of "acceptance" 
on their victims, telling them that "accepting" the 
injustice and oppression of capitalist society as 
essential to their "recovery".

These programs also routinely restrict political 
and religious mail of anyone adhering to a 
non=state- approved ideology and place similar 
restrictions on visitation, all in the name of 
"therapy".


EXPLOITATION & THE COURTS: PERFECT TOGETHER

Representing the latest development in imperialist 
tactics, these programs offer free labor and pro-
system propaganda all in one package. There is much 
good publicity to be gained from this for the 
courts, as well, since they can now say "See, we 
let them go to a program" and such. Relations 
between the directors of these programs and 
government officials are normally very cozy. The 
director of one such program in New Jersey is known 
to be extremely close to both the mayor and police 
chief (the police force in this town is renowned 
for its brutality and corruption, as well as its 
harassment of activists) of the town the program is 
based in.

The profit-based motive behind these programs is 
made clear when it is also understood that certain 
county courts have actual contracts to supply a 
certain amount of individuals; the formation of 
drug courts (DCI) in the state of New Jersey that 
habitually sentence people to lengthy program 
stays; and most programs' participation in the MAP 
program providing for the early release of 
prisoners to programs (not to mention $30,000 a 
head for the "non-profit" program!)

While pointing out the position these programs 
serve in imperialist society repression, it must be 
stated that there is often a much-reduced chance of 
physical harm, and the length of stay is still less 
than that of the average prison sentence. 
Therefore, individuals facing prison time MAY wish 
to look into the prospect of getting stipulated to 
a program. As well, I feel the need to point out 
that the issue of drug abuse is a serious one for 
the revolutionary movement to tackle (MT#9 was a 
good start).

In the way of self-criticism, I formerly abused 
narcotics, but now feel that most drug use is 
simply escapist and serious comrades would do 
better to spend the time and money doing Party 
work. 'Tis better to work to destroy imperialism, 
then use drugs to hide from the horrors of it. Work 
with MIM and RAIL to expose the system of national 
oppression known as the criminal injustice system!


CRITICISMS & SELF-CRITICISM

The [facility] RAIL collective recognizes the 
unparalleled value of criticism and self-criticism 
to the revolutionary. Only through criticism and 
self-criticism can correct revolutionary line be 
achieved, and (in our current circumstances, 
somewhat more importantly) can we recognize, 
compensate for, and correct our errors on a 
personal level. We realize that beyond organizing & 
educating others, and studying on a theoretical 
level, that building for revolution also entails 
changes in our personal attitudes and behaviors as 
we break free of imperialist society conditioning.

We should welcome opportunities for criticism and 
self-criticism as important struggles to become 
better, more effective revolutionaries. In keeping 
with this belief, the collective issues the 
following self-criticisms.

1) Objectively serving imperialism through past 
dealings with drugs. Through our escapist use of 
drugs we sought to hide from the horrors of 
imperialist oppression, rather that organize for a 
revolution to stop it. Through our purchase of 
drugs we served imperialism both by providing an 
excuse for increased pig presence in our 
communities, and money for CIA operations in Third 
World nations struggling for liberation. Finally, 
through our sale of drugs, we led others down the 
escapist path.

2) Failure to struggle to advance the line set 
forth in this resolution. In the past year we have 
seen many good comrades who have had quite advanced 
theory and practice leave the program (often to 
face long prison terms), without taking into 
account the consequences of their actions. 
Criticism and self-criticism could have helped 
avert these occurrences.

As revolutionaries, our primary goals should always 
be to prepare ourselves for struggle, and to free 
ourselves (and others) from imperialist 
restrictions as soon as possible. Thus, if one is 
stipulated to 18 months here or face a 7 flat, the 
comrade should be encouraged to stay in the program 
and reminded of his duty to the People. Finally, by 
carrying out intensive criticism and self-criticism 
publicly, we will show the People our dedication 
and determination, winning their respect.


ATTENTION PRISONERS:
JOIN RAIL IN ORGANIZING THE CRIMINAL INJUSTICE 
SYSTEM TEACH-IN

A clenched fist salute to all brothers and sisters 
imprisoned in U$ gulags. The Maoist 
Internationalist Movement and the Revolutionary 
Anti-Imperialist League firmly support the 
struggles of prisoners as they oppose the unjust 
prison system in Amerika. The targeted harassment 
and brutality of members of oppressed nations and 
of the poor by pigs on the streets; the inadequate 
access to legal resources for oppressed nationals 
and the poor; the denial to a jury of your peers; 
the disproportionate sentences received by 
oppressed nationals; the disproportionate 
convictions of the oppressed; and brutality and 
inhumane conditions in the prisons are all methods 
of war which we are fighting against in solidarity 
with you.

MIM works toward the end of oppression. The battle 
which is at the forefront of the path for the 
liberation of the oppressed is national liberation 
for all oppressed nations. Without national 
liberation and with the imperialist oppressors on 
their backs, oppressed nations cannot struggle to 
eradicate class inequality and gender oppression. 
Without national liberation, a people cannot fully 
develop its own economy, teach its own history to 
its own people and lead its own people in political 
affairs. MIM unites all who can be united in 
genuine support of national liberation.

In the United Snakes, what this means is that we 
oppose the domination of the Black nation, the 
Latino nations and First nations by the white 
settler nation. We oppose the use of white cops to 
occupy and round-up members of oppressed nations. 
We oppose the use of laws created in the interests 
of the white nation to imprison more and more 
oppressed nationals. We see the prison system and 
the entire white nation's legal system as tools 
which are used to continue the domination of the 
oppressed within the United Snakes.

In our organizing work, we work on the outside to 
mobilize activists who are broadly against national 
oppression and we also mobilize people on the 
outside who may only want to work against one 
specific aspect of Amerikan Injustice -- maybe 
people who support Affirmative Action, or people 
who oppose the death penalty or people who oppose 
police or prison guard brutality. The people who 
work on single issues of opposing oppression can be 
important allies if directed by the Party to do the 
most effective work.

Across the country, outside of the prisons, we have 
been holding events to educate community members, 
students and local activists about the systematic 
use of prisons as tools of national oppression, 
social control and genocide. The events are geared 
toward educating people about the facts and 
struggling with them to do productive work that 
will aid our ultimate goal of ending all oppression 
through revolution.

This educational work is only one aspect of the 
work that MIM and RAIL do which is necessary to 
build opposition to Amerikan settler colonialism. 
We also need to further develop various other 
independent institutions of the oppressed. We would 
like your help with pushing the struggle forward. 
We are working on the expansion of programs which 
address some of the needs of prisoners in their 
struggles against oppression. To do this, we need 
prisoners across the country to contribute to and 
expand existing people's programs and direct 
efforts in the most effective way to expand and 
build other necessary people's institutions.

This year we are helping to build for the March 27 
Jericho'98 march on Washington D.C. which focuses 
on the release of comrades incarcerated for their 
political activism. As a part of this work we are 
organizing a teach-in on the criminal injustices 
system the day after the march (March 28). We need 
your help to build Jericho'98 and the struggle to 
End the Amerikan Lockdown. The teach-in will 
involve people engaged in many different forms of 
activism around prisons and we will use this 
opportunity to build greater unity and strengthen 
our struggle against the criminal injustice system 
by sharing information and ideas. We would like 
statements from our comrades behind bars to read at 
this teach-in. Statements about conditions, 
struggles you have been undertaking, or on the 
general nature of the criminal injustice system are 
all welcome. We encourage all our comrades behind 
bars to send us statements and information that we 
can present at the teach-in.

Send statements to educate and mobilize!


PRISONER'S MURDER BURIED UNDER FOOTBALL COVERAGE

[This letter was shortened due to limited space. 
The full letter can be found in Mass Rail No. 11 -- 
MIM]

... Paint peeling gray, tall walls of wretched woe 
encircles MCI-Walpole. The maximum-security state 
penitentiary in Massachusetts currently operating 
in a "pseudo-lockdown fashion". Keeping the vast 
majority of its 900 prisoners confined 22 1/2 hours 
daily, in their respective single cells. 
Rehabilitative, school programming is non-existent, 
other than the substandard GED video educational 
programming administered via the prison's tv- cable 
system. Separated thus and existing so, you'd think 
prisoners continually demonized by "free-society" 
and banished from within its midst wouldn't have 
commonality. Well think again! For being a "Fan" 
enthusiastically endears individuals across the 
human landscape. Nowhere is that more evident than 
New England's Patriot football arena. The 
commonwealth's circus-maximus, adjacent to its' 
Penal Purgatory Realm...

... The home game was the 35th sell-out ... 60 
thousand plus, screaming zealots, who'd driven 
without pause or consternation past the foreboding 
gray structure of MCI-Walpole prison. [Which is] a 
place where prisoner on prisoner, and/or staff 
against prisoner violence is commonplace and 
sometimes fatal. Examples of this can be found in 
the July 25, 1997 incident where a white officer 
got the worse end of an altercation with a black 
prisoner. [The prisoner] who was later beaten 
severely by a host of other white officers. As were 
the four unfortunate black prisoners who'd been 
deemed insolent for laughing at the hurt (in pride 
and physically) officer.

Not even one week later, a Haitian prisoner was 
accosted and severely beaten down by white 
officers, causing his death. His family and 
attorney's poignant pleas that somebody should tour 
MCI-Walpole and investigate the steady stream of 
incidents of violence going on unchecked as 
'reports' indicated, apparently fell on deaf 
(political/judicial/societal) ears. Media coverage 
was minimal at best, but rumors that the Patriot 
might be leaving New England caused a major hue and 
cry from across the commonwealth. Media coverage 
was maximum, telephone lines were overloaded with 
concerned callers all fanatically voicing an 
adamant sense of both anguish and ire that this was 
being allowed to occur.

In the midst of this frenzied-furor, the 
death/murder of Haitian prisoner, Abel Remy, was 
swept aside. Proof positive that the priorities of 
the public are very distorted, immoral and locking 
in humanity. Such that an outpouring of rage was 
not forthcoming when a human being's life was 
snuffed out by those entrusted to watch over it 
within the criminal "justice" system.

20 "seasons" ago, then state Senators, Jack Backman 
and Bill Owens and Rep. Doris Bunte toured MCI-
Walpole with representatives of the media. 
Afterwards they met with then Governor, Michael 
Dukakis, advising him on conditions at MCI-Walpole 
and demanding an investigation into abusive 
treatment of prisoners.

A year later Senator Backman announced he intends 
to file legislation establishing a state policy 
that Walpole be closed and requiring a preliminary 
planning for phase out. In the two decades since 
those courageous politicians asked for human 
changes in correctional operating policies, the 
differences are very superficial and cosmetic at 
best, because the mindset allows Walpole to be 
violent remains intact.

Herein MCI-Walpole, prisoners were occupied August 
31, 1997, with massive television coverage of the 
spectacle surrounding the death/murder of Princess 
Diane (of Wales, England) and the pro-football 
season opening televised games. Early Sept. 1, 1997 
prison -wide, correctional officers dressed in all 
black, went unit after unit awakening and 
transferring pre-picked prisoners within MCI- 
Walpole. Unbeknownst to prisoners was the fact that 
other prisoners located at the MCI-Concord 
(reception center) were also being rousted from 
their sleep to be transferred up to the higher 
security confines of Walpole. Or in the unlucky 
case of a busload of prisoners (about 45) sent to 
Texas in exchange for some prisoners already housed 
there.

The "justification" for all these moves was, as 
reported by local media, working in collusion with 
prisoncrats and politicians, attributed to "safety-
concerns" from an alleged increase in problems with 
(minority) gangs at the Concord facility. Which 
[the Concord facility] was even then locked down 
ostensibly stemming from an Aug. 27, 1997 melee in 
the prison's main-yard, involving between 30 -40 
Hispanic and Black prisoners. When the truth 
eventually became known, the reason why the 
prisoners were incited was because of the many 
rumors running rampant within the general 
population of an impending transfer of prisoners to 
Texas. Which eventually became a reality.

In insidious and racist fashion, malevolent 
administrators were able to circumvent state law 
and constitutional mandates prohibiting segregation 
of prisoners by race using the vague and nebulous 
reasoning of safety concerns for their further 
stigmatizing and locking-down of these transferred 
minority prisoners in a newly designated Security 
Threat Housing Unit. Bringing the total up to six 
units.

All in all these racially tainted MDOC-machinations 
ratcheted up higher to boiling point in an already 
seething caldron of prisoners' emotions, stemming 
from the lightly media-publicized death/murder of 
Haitian prisoner, Abel Remy. A Black man who was 
screaming in agonizing pain from the brutal beating 
given to him by all white correctional officers 
herein Walpole, Mass. While in New York, a fellow 
Haitian, Abner Louima was screaming in similar pain 
due to all white law enforcement shoving a plunger 
up his rectum! 

Because violence in Walpole is such a common 
occurrence (be it staff on prisoner, or prisoner on 
prisoner). When an Asian convict was tossed from 
the third tier and the sight of his brain matter 
splattered on the floor caused a rookie officer to 
rush from the scene, visibly distraught from what 
he'd seen, some prisoners found cause to laugh and 
joke about the overall situation. Sad, but true 
none-the-less...

Neither the incident with the Haitian or Asian 
prisoner was cause for a great hue and cry from the 
general public herein Massachusetts, because people 
were more alarmed and concerned with the possible 
move of the New England football team out of state. 
With everyone having an opinion on radio and tv-
pundits encouraging the citizenry to vent their 
anger at politicians in the upcoming local 
elections if the Patriots are allowed to leave 
Foxboro. 

One suggestion floated by a harried state 
legislature looking for feasible financial packages 
to pay to keep the Patriots in the commonwealth, 
was to get prisoners to press Patriot logo license 
plates. Which would be then sold to the public at 
$55 dollars a set. This in turn was estimated to 
quickly raise about 1.5 million dollars. That would 
help pay debt services on the borrowing of the 20 - 
30 million dollars need for Foxboro Stadium 
renovations. 

Once again the priority of people in Mass. are 
shown to be misplaced. All money raised is better 
spent on other pertinent public services in dire 
need of financial infusion. [Services] that the 
legislature says isn't readily available because 
the state can't afford these "liberal luxuries". 
Meanwhile the communal infrastructure continues to 
decline into decay. The Circus Maximus games must 
continue at all cost and the legitimate social 
concerns are deemed to be trifling issues.

Money could also be well spent here in Walpole, 
where the "Pat's Plates" are to be manufactured. 
The first place to start could be within the food 
service area. Which is serving substandard small 
food portions. [Substandard portions are served] so 
often that on September 24, 1997, prisoners, who 
had access to the prison's chow hall, began a 
weeklong boycott in protest. The only thing that 
came out of this unified showing of prisoners was 
the `leaders' were placed in segregation and the 
min-end of Walpole was placed on "pseudo-lockdown". 
Money was also a central issue of why a Muslim 
prisoner was removed from Walpole. He was seeking 
funding similar to that received by the Christian 
and Catholic departments respectively. Even while 
stating that their money was constrained with an 
overburdened budget, as with every new fiscal year, 
the MDOC [Massachusetts Department of Corruptions] 
spent money needlessly. This year it was on 
replacing perfectly good windows in the units' 
observation galleries with new reflective, tinted, 
one-way mirrored windowing. Painting of the units 
was also done unnecessarily at an exorbitant coast, 
herein the Circus Maximus. Meanwhile prisoners and 
plebeians in the public, cheer on the Patriots!

Some prisoners, not completely inundated by the 
mass entertainment culture and asleep to the 
sleight of hand tricknology of the Mass Department 
of Corrections, voiced displeasure with the latest 
policy change. Which rescinds prisoners from being 
able to receive two and a half days per month 
participation in the institutional GED video 
programming schooling, because the MDOC provided 
program was deemed to be substandard! Truly the 
time went backwards more than one hour this year at 
daylight savings time, and the Circus stays open.

 -- A Massachusetts Prisoner, 15 November 1997


"MY NAME IS NOT MUMIA ABU-JAMAL"

Even though, with all due respect, my name is not 
Mumia Abu-Jamal, I am one of a million people that 
are incarcerated in this country for political 
reasons. Yes, that's correct. There are over one 
million political prisoners in this country.

This fact may shock most people but the most 
shocking aspect of this fact is that the vast 
majority of those incarcerated in this country for 
political reasons are not aware of the fact because 
the vast majority have no politics, per se.

Now, logic begs to ask, if someone who doesn't have 
a political bone in their body, let alone exercise 
it, how then, can they be incarcerated for 
political beliefs? The answer, of course, is that 
we're not incarcerated for our political beliefs 
but for those beliefs pressed on us or oppressed 
upon us by the system, for we live in a system that 
now defines social problems as public health 
problems.

We also live in a system that seeks more ways to 
incarcerate more of its people instead of seeking 
more ways to free them. The war drums of the system 
upon its people can be heard loud and clear 
throughout this nation. Specifically in California 
where anti-affirmative action, anti-immigration, 
and anti-bilingual education is not only the law of 
the land but politically correct.

Dostoyevski's challenge, to all citizens, still 
rings true today, in that, "The degree of 
civilization in a society can be determined by 
examining its prisons." I'm saddened, though, that 
most people will not take up this challenge because 
they are truly afraid of what they will find which 
is sadly a truth within itself.

 -- A California Prisoner


OPPRESSION BREEDS REBELLION

... These fascist type gestapo lackeys are at it 
again within South Karolina's Department of 
Koruptions (SCDC). Just the past week, these neo-
pigz cam and got myself along with three other 
brother/comrades to place us back on the so-called 
bad side of the Special Management Unit (SMU) at 
Lee for not abiding with grooming standards.

As for this placing Askori Souljahs on the chains 
or full security in what they call level I: For 
some time now, the oppressive pigs have devised 
this so-called level system to pacify the prisoners 
with things such as radios and tv's; phone and 
visit privileges, etc. in return for allowing them 
to continue the oppression.

But one who has studied the strategy of revolution 
knows that oppression breeds rebellion. Therefore 
they could place me under this kamp and i would 
still be politically conscious. And i would strive 
to liberate the thoughts of anyone around me. 
For an individual as myself, who was placed in the 
control unit for my STG (Security Threat Group) 
status, which the pig Michael Moore has targeted to 
obey the commands of the devil in a white shirt 
(Captain Hall), it would go contrary to my 
ideology.

...In the tradition of comrade George Jackson, i 
rage on against any and everything that advocates 
this unjust society, plots to imprison the young 
souljahs, and keeps us away from our own form of 
social equality. Until the pigs die and their 
empire crumbles, i remain as always.

In Struggle,
 -- A South Carolina Prisoner, 11 December 1997


POOR MEDICAL CARE IN MASSACHUSETTS

...Currently I am on isolation for refusing they 
say, "to give a urine sample". I was unable to give 
them a urine sample simply because I could not 
urinate on demand. The so-called free medical care 
which inmates allegedly receive is a hoax. It is a 
fraud perpetrated against inmates who are powerless 
to resist it. 

Not only is the medical staff here totally useless, 
the frequently call inmates to HUS (the prisoner 
hospital) for the most ludicrous things, all the 
while completely ignoring any real serious 
problems. A month ago, I was called to HUS at 8:30 
AM to give a blood sample to check for syphilis, 
which I am absolutely sure I do not have. 
Meanwhile, I was not seen till nearly 10:30 AM, two 
hours later, thus wasting my morning. I of course 
refused the blood sample. Not only have they done 
nothing about my lower back pain or the two torn 
rotator cuff muscles I have, they waste my time on 
top of it. They are not only utterly useless, but 
worse then useless.

Of course they are all paid extremely well to do 
little more than pass out aspirin and band-aids, 
while ignoring serious medical problems. I was 
informed today, I will receive five days isolation 
and four weeks loss of canteen for, they claim, 
"refusing to supply a urine sample". In any case, I 
will end this letter saying I regret very much that 
I am unable to receive your literature. It is a 
totally irrational decision, but one I am powerless 
to appeal....

 -- A Massachusetts Prisoner, 5 December 1997


TEXAS PRISONER CRITICIZES UNDER LOCK AND KEY

I am an indigent prisoner in the Texas slave 
plantations. Recently I was permitted by a fellow 
slave to read 4 old issues of MIM Notes still 
circulating here....To open my comments, I saw in 
the Sept. 1, 1997 issue, your response to a letter 
in which you said: "We also disagree with the 
writer that Amerika is currently fascist." And you 
also said: "We must correctly analyze the enemy and 
current conditions."

If you were serious about the latter statement, 
then I fear that whoever is responsible for doing 
your analyzing has died and you haven't yet 
noticed. Amerika is in fact currently one of the 
most outrageously fascist oligarchies ever to 
disgrace the human race.

Next, in the same issue, prisoners in New Jersey 
and Pennsylvania complain about the "low wages" 
they are paid for their work. You poor, underpaid 
workers have our deepest sympathy from Texas -- 
where we are not paid a solitary cent for our 
forced slave labor. [Labor] ranging from eight to 
fifteen hours per day, five to seven days per week. 
Despite the fact that our prison industries each 
year extract thousands of dollars from the 
taxpayers for what they list as "wages for inmate 
labor".

I saw discussions from some inmates complaining 
about not receiving enough channels on his cable 
service, and one talking about turning off the TV 
in his cell. By the Gods! Do you also have a 
swimming pool, a golf course and tennis courts? I 
would damn sure love to trade places with either of 
you!

There was one in Michigan who complained that the 
pig he got arrested for sexually assaulting him 
didn't get enough punishment. How did he work the 
impossible miracle of getting him arrested? The 
free-world mother in Huntsville would like to know. 
Since she caught one of our pigs in the act of 
sexually assaulting her three-year-old daughter, 
and all they did to him [the pig] was to reassign 
him to another unit.

For the prisoner in Georgia, in the September 15th 
issue, who after complaining of work with no pay 
said, "the only answer is the court room." I say 
use it while you can friend; it's going fast. They 
have already removed the law libraries from prisons 
in some states. Here in Texas they have a simpler 
solution -- they just automatically dismiss all 
actions filed by prisoners as "frivolous". 

In the July 15 issue a South Carolina prisoner 
complains that clowns run the prisons from high 
positions. Here the prisons are run by the 
individual guards, each of which makes up his/her 
own rules minute by minute. The only function the 
clowns in high positions serve is to prevent anyone 
from investigating. Want to make a bet on which 
system is worse?

Then in the July 1 issue, I saw the Maryland 
prisoner who thinks those locked up for child 
molesting and for killing blacks should stay in 
prison. Does that include the black who killed a 
black he caught molesting your child? Does it 
include the man here serving a fifty year sentence 
for repeatedly raping a child. Despite the fact 
that the state's own medical doctor who examined 
her testified that even now, she is still a virgin, 
and shows no sign at all of ever having any sexual 
activity of any kind? Perhaps it is a certain 
Maryland prisoner who should stay where he is until 
he learns to put his brain in gear.

 -- A Texas Prisoner, 15 November 1997


MIM RESPONDS:  This letter demonstrates that 
prisoners in Texas live under horrible conditions. 
It is important to know that the conditions on 
Texas are worse than many other states but at the 
same time it is the entire prison system in Amerika 
which serves as an imperialist mechanism of 
oppression. Because prisoners are murdered and 
brutalized and forced into labor in Texas does not 
mean that Amerikan oppression through prisons is 
insignificant in states where there is less overt 
tactics of oppression.

Under Lock and Key, as well as other programs of 
MIM and RAIL to expose the use of the prison system 
as a tool of national oppression and social 
control, cover a wide variety of atrocities which 
the white settler nation commits. We use the pages 
of MIM Notes and other organs to build unity 
against imperialism. The pages are not used to 
state that only the very worst tactic of 
imperialist domination should be fought. It is the 
entire system which we must force to crumble!

We argue that all prisoners are political 
prisoners. This means that it is the entire corrupt 
capitalistic Amerikan society that creates the 
conditions of poverty, unequal education and 
opportunities which the oppressed are forced to 
endure. All imprisonment under the dictatorship of 
the bourgeoisie is characterized by injustice. 
Whether it is looking at the statistical facts of 
disproportionate imprisonment of oppressed 
nationals or looking at the fact that the oppressed 
do not have adequate legal assistance or fair 
trialsŠ Amerika uses prisons as a tool against the 
oppressed and this is political. Again, the tactics 
of oppressed must be exposed. But it is not only 
the worst tactics which we fight - we fight the 
entire Amerikan system!

Note that many of this prisoner's criticisms were 
addressed by MIM responses in the issues mentioned. 
So, they will not all be completely rehashed here.

First, as we have stated in MIM Theory #11 and 
elsewhere, Amerika is not currently fascist. 
However, we point to the Amerikan prison system as 
the most fascistic part of Amerikan society. The 
reason is that in the prison system you can see the 
merging of state and capital and the use of force 
to exploit the masses.

Important to the analysis that Amerika's system is 
not entirely fascist is sizing up the political 
position of the middle classes in Amerika. The 
middle classes in Amerika currently support 
imperialism and the flow of super-profits from 
oppressed nations to puff up the Amerikan standard 
of living. The middle classes in Amerika are not 
being squeezed as they were during the development 
of Nazi fascism in Germany. Because of 
imperialism's ability to super-exploit the masses 
of oppressed nations, the Amerikan government and 
capital do not need to force the middle classes 
into labor as what would be necessary under 
fascism.

It is a minority in Amerika where are forced to 
work under fascistic relations. The majority in 
Amerika is not forced through fascistic relations 
to labor for profit of the state and capital 
combined. Though there are seeds of fascist 
ideology among the middle classes, white nation 
chauvinism to support imperialism is sufficient at 
this time to perpetuate the interests of the 
Amerikan settler nation. A threat to these 
interests would be a well-organized and strong 
communist movement. And at this time, this threat 
is not strong enough for the middle classes in 
Amerika to firmly support fascism.

We do not conclude that the united snakes is 
currently under a fascist system but instead a 
dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. The dictatorship 
of the bourgeoisie enables the settler middle 
classes to benefit from imperialism. When state 
powers are delegated to capital, capital uses those 
powers to increase its influence over the state. 
This decreases democracy and at this point in time 
there is no need for the state and capital to 
decrease democracy for the majority in Amerika 
because the majority in Amerika supports the goal 
of imperialism.

The injustice system in general and the prison 
system in particular is the most fascist part of 
Amerikan society. The injustice system in Amerika 
is one of the main tools in oppressing Amerika's 
internal colonies through force. You are correct to 
point to the outrageous exploitation and oppression 
which Texas prisoners face, but remember that it is 
the entire system that is used to oppress and that 
is why we expose it in its entirety.

You are right that prison industries extract 
thousands of dollars off the labor of prisoners. 
The prisoners do not benefit in Texas, New Jersey 
or Pennsylvania. Texas prisoners get paid nothing, 
New Jersey Prisoners get 28-30 cents and hour, and 
Pennsylvania prisoners work 8 hours and get paid 
for 7 (wage amounts were not mentioned). Texas 
prisoners are the worst off but it does not mean 
the objectively the prisoners in other states which 
are being paid pittances are not exploited.

When we expose the lack of control that prisoners 
have over things like reading newspaper or watching 
TV, we are exposing the fact that prisoners are 
controlled. We expose the fact that prisoners do 
not have the ability to gain further education in 
most cases or the fact that their books are 
censored when we send them out. Sure, these things 
are not as egregious as prison pigs murdering 
prisoners, but we expose it to teach people that 
Amerika is not about democracy and prisons are not 
about rehabilitation. Too many people on the 
outside want to increase the number of Amerika's 
prisons. It is our job to expose the many aspects 
which show that prisons are only about controlling 
the oppressed, they are not about stopping crime 
and are not about helping people to become 
productive members of society.


MONEY FOR EDUCATION -- NOT PRISONS

This prison has approximately 600 prisoners, and 
only two teachers to serve the ones who wish to 
learn. Each teacher spends about three to five 
minutes once a week with a prisoner. The 
administration here refuses to pay the money for 
the teachers, and refuses to open the school 
building here at X prison. Inmates or residents 
here have in cell teaching. Out of Y years in 
prison, I have never seen such a low level of 
teaching in the State of Michigan. There's a lot of 
young guys here, who really don't care about 
getting an education, and yet we know this is the 
reason that we are in here, for the lack of 
education.

I believe that it is relevant that this institution 
make reading, writing and math more sufficient for 
inmates or residents.

--a Michigan prisoner, 19 December, 1997


My white teacher dropped me from her class, and 
claimed her five books back from me but I feel 
there is no education or rehabilitation in here. 
The teachers spend five minutes with you. If you 
are in the hole they drop you some books and expect 
you to do the work. Also if you want to take the 
GED test you can't do it from the hole only 
population.

--another Michigan prisoner, 4 July, 1997


The educational set-up is prisoners can take GED 
classes [at Michigan Department of Corrections 
expense]. I have a GED so I am not allowed to 
attend any schooling. If I request educational text 
books I am told they need them for prisoners who do 
not have GED. There are no college teachings at all 
so if we have GED and wish to continue schooling it 
has to be done by our own resources. The MDOC does 
not aid once you have the GED.

--a third Michigan prisoner, 19 December, 1997


MIM RESPONDS:  MIM believes that the lack of 
education for oppressed nationals in Amerika is 
part of the same system of oppression as the 
prisons system. Lack of schooling does not cause 
people to commit crimes and be put in prison; 
rather lack of schooling is part of the systemic 
denial of the basic needs of the oppressed under 
imperialism.

Having whites serve as teachers and guards and the 
majority of DOC staff overall is another aspect of 
the same oppression -- it's not enough to lock up 
the Black, Latino and First Nations in 
disproportionate numbers, but they must be 
supervised by white captors as well.

Even under imperialism, MIM advocates that money be 
spent on education rather than imprisonment, and we 
believe that there are winnable battles within this 
general goal. Our Free Books for Prisoners program 
is designed to provide resources to prisoners which 
the DOC will not provide.


OPPOSE THE AMERIKAN LOCKDOWN
MICHIGAN PRISONER RAPED BY HIS CAPTORS

January 10, 1998

***In the next couple of months, there will be an 
important parole hearing in Ann Arbor. A prisoner 
originally from Ann Arbor will be appealing his 
denial of parole, because he believes the denial 
was an act of retaliation for his exposure of 
brutality within the Michigan prisons. The judge 
who will hear his parole appeal is Donald Shelton, 
in Washtenaw County Circuit Court. Read more about 
this case and give your support to this prisoner 
who has been harshly abused by the Michigan 
Department of Corrections (MDOC).***

X* was raped by a prison guard in March of 1996. By 
his own accounting it took more than a year of 
repeated complaints from him, and his own 
submission to a lie detector test, before the MDOC 
would even begin to investigate his rape charge. 
Now that the charge is known to be true, the state 
has let this violent guard plead guilty to charges 
less than rape, which X says "is the last thing I 
want," because "as long as the MDOC can sweep this 
under the rug, nothing will change, and more POWs 
will be abused."

RAIL sees this case as another nail in the coffin 
of the MDOC's image as a rehabilitative system. As 
X points out, sexual abuse of prisoners is "an 
everyday affair" in Michigan's prisons. Based on 
their authority over prisoners and their impunity 
in the face of the law, prison guards are in a 
position to abuse prisoners who have never been 
abusive to anyone. The system is set up so that 
prison will further worsen the condition of 
prisoners who are already in bad shape, and degrade 
the conditions of those prisoners who are 
relatively healthy before they are imprisoned. It 
is always to the credit of the prisoners who 
struggle against this system, never to the credit 
of the system itself when prisoners survive in 
spite of it.

In a statement demanding reform of the miserable 
conditions at Attica Correctional Facility in New 
York, months before prisoners there rebelled in 
1971, "under the facade of rehabilitation we are 
treated for our hostilities by our program 
administrators with their hostility as a 
medication." Here in Michigan more than twenty-five 
years after the Attica rebellion, prisoners are 
still treated with gross hostility.

Join RAIL in struggling against these abusive 
prison conditions. Work with us to support X in his 
struggle for fair treatment, and join us in putting 
the spotlight on Michigan's criminal INjustice 
system.

*In general, RAIL and MIM do not print the names of 
prisoners in connection with their cases. In many 
cases, prisoners can be politically active without 
bringing consistent attention to themselves. In X's 
case, he has already suffered rape at the hands of 
a prison "guard" and is now enduring retaliation 
for his resistance. Where we are building support 
for this individual's appeal, we will print X's 
name if he asks us to. We will not do this without 
permission first.


Source on Attica: A Bill of No Rights: Attica and 
the American Prison System by Herman Badillo & 
Milton Haynes.


BRUTAL BEATING IN MISSOURI
EXPOSE THE PIGS! IT'S A MUST!

...I've had an altercation here at Potosi 
Correctional Center that has more than jolted my 
thoughts. I'm now in the hole due to a situation 
that's taken place. Please let me explain.

Some time ago, I recorded this article out of a 
Black Islamic newspaper called the Final Call. 
There was this article untitled "Black man accept 
your own" in it. It seemed to have made some 
interesting points, so I copied it down. It spoke 
about how we black people need to start building 
educational systems for our youth, love one 
another, buy our own land, and stop being so 
dependent on those who mean us not good --i.e. The 
Amerikkkan Government. Also that America has 
inflicted injustice upon our ancestors all the way 
up into this present day.

We were going out to school. Since this plantation 
is on the verge of being on total lock down, we 
have to give our folders to the pigs and get pat-
search before we get hauled off to school. Walking 
single file, like a bunch of military guinea pigs! 
No talking, no waving at other prisoners at the 
windows. Just single file marching with pigs 
everywhere waiting to fabricate a reason to write 
you up! 

Well I forgot that this article was in my school 
folder. I gave the pig my folder and he searched 
through it curiously and spotted the copied article 
in it. He stated, "What's this." I asked to see it 
but he wouldn't allow me any view of his now 
delight. During the course of some indifferent 
chitchat he finally said that he's not giving it 
back. 

I got agitated with his arrogance and just snatched 
my paper out of his hand. Before I knew it there 
were pigs everywhere. "Grab his arms, get his 
legs!" is all they yelled. I resisted being slammed 
to the ground, so they politely rushed me against 
the building and smashed my face into a protruding 
brick wall, and bloodied it all up! Then they 
sprayed mace in my eyes, nose and mouth, after they 
drug me to another designated spot. After I was on 
the ground they suffocated me by pressing their 
knees into my back.

I screamed, "I can't breath, I can't breath!" 
because I was choking on mace and gasping profusely 
for air. The only response I got was, "So what, you 
should of thought about that before you snatched 
that paper you fuck, you ass-hole!" They covertly 
punched me in the face and sprayed mace in my mouth 
again.

I could breath no longer. Lost my sight for a short 
while and felt as if I was going to die. So I just 
said unto myself, "Fuck it. I'm going to die!" But 
as these words pushed through my mind I was lifted 
and drug to this cell. Stripped of all my clothes 
and comforted by cold steel and concrete for four 
days.

These pigs mocked me for my efforts to stand on 
what I believe. This is a prime example of the 
American Justice System. Also it's a prime example 
of manifest destiny syndrome. Who made these 
bitches my keeper? I almost lost my life because I 
used an improper method in their eyes to stand up 
for my beliefs. I guess if you're not white, you're 
not right, huh? This just goes to show imperialism 
in its purest form.

 -- A Missouri Prisoner, 4 December 1997

P.S. By the way they're talking about prosecuting 
me because after they slammed my face against the 
wall and almost cracked it open, I tried to free 
myself from anymore bruises. They "say" I elbowed a 
pig in the chest, punched on in the shoulder and 
kicked one in the testicles. So they're going to 
charge me for a fabricated assault on three pigs. I 
get fucked up for taking a damn piece of paper and 
in the process of attempted liberation, I get 
charged for assault. 
Bullshit! I need help. Is there anyone I can talk 
to about this matter? These pigs are probably going 
to try to give me 10, 20, 30 years for some Bull!


MIM RESPONDS:  We're printing your letter to expose 
this pigs' brutality and also request more advice 
from Jailhouse lawyers and prisoner paralegals 
reading MIM Notes. First try the local ACLU and 
National Lawyers Guild and the sidebar contains 
some legal resources that were recommended by 
fellow prisoners.


LEGAL RESOURCES:

The National Prison Project of the ACLU
1875 Connecticut Avenue, NW Suite 410
Washington, D.C. 20009
(202) 234-4830 www.npp.org

NLADA Directory
16525 K ST, 8th Floor
NW Washington, DC 20006
Provides a national listing of free legal services

Prisoners Rights Advocacy Centers of America Inc.,
204 Elmo Ave
San Antonio, TX 78225-2140
Attention: Anna M. Dobbyn, Founder



* * *



HIP HOP BAND DEMANDS FREEDOM FOR REVOLUTIONARY 
LEADERS: REVIEW OF CRITICAL MASS

Suite No 192 72
VanReipen Ave
Jersey City, NJ 07306
Beep: 201 693 1860

Critical Mass is a new political hip hop band out 
of New Jersey. They are currently on tour of the 
East Coast doing benefit concerts for the Jericho 
March. Critical Mass is using their tour to build 
consciousness for the march as well as raise funds 
to pay for buses to the march. In some areas, RAIL 
has organized concerts for Critical Mass to perform 
at. Here MIM reviews the demo tape "Rise Up!" 

Critical Mass is firm in their support for the 
incarcerated revolutionary leaders who languish 
behind the walls in Amerika's gulag. They sharply 
link the question of those incarcerated for their 
political beliefs and actions to social conditions 
in Amerika's ghettos to U.$ imperialism in the 
Third World.

Critical Mass exposes what MIM has long said, that 
the real criminals are the imperialists for 
carrying out genocide through enforced starvation 
and military suppression of the people's 
organizations. Critical Mass exposes the role of 
the police on the front line of Amerika:  "cops are 
military forces/in our urban areas/causing mass 
hysteria."

The emphasis on this demo tape is the need for a 
revolution to end this unjust system and a defense 
of those incarcerated for their revolutionary 
politics. "Organize/Legitimize/Mobilize/For our 
freedom fighters/Tighter fist raised up." Critical 
Mass links the incarcerated revolutionary leaders 
with their movements against imperialism:  
"Amerika's based on a fucked up foundation... 
/Emancipation was a lie/ ... The stole the land 
from Peltier to drink Perrier."

Critical Mass enlarges the issue of incarceration 
as political beyond those arrested for their acts 
and beliefs, at one point singing "All prisoners 
are political." MIM wouldn't go so far as to say 
"Free all prisoners" or to "Smash all prisons" like 
Critical Mass. MIM does not say "Free all 
prisoners" because some prisoners did indeed commit 
crimes against the people for which they should 
make self-criticism. We do call all prisoners 
political prisoners, however, because under the 
dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, all imprisonment 
is substantively political. We also don't advocate 
prison abolition because we believe that prisons 
will be necessary -- along very different lines -- 
under socialism.

At another point Critical Mass sings a song about 
Black Liberation Army leader Assata Shakur. The 
song doesn't make it explicit that the song is 
about her and it also serves as a strong testament 
to the inhumanity all prisoners are subjected to.

Based on a review of their demo tape, MIM has two 
significant disagreements with Critical Mass. 
First, we believe that now is not the time for 
armed struggle in the imperialist countries. It's 
correct to oppose the illegitimacy of white rule in 
North America, but we disagree that "It's time to 
rise up/It's time to get it back/It's time we start 
shooting/cops in the back/of the head/face full of 
lead/the only good cop/is one that's dead." We must 
do as Mao said, and wait until the imperialists are 
"truly helpless." To not wait until the time is 
ripe will unnecessarily send comrades to their 
graves or the prisons as has been so well proven by 
the number of the people's leaders lost in the 
1970s.

Secondly, we disagree that marijuana's use is 
progressive or revolutionary. "I take a puff of the 
herb/to get back my nerve/to pull the trigger/cause 
I figure cops got to do down/before they take my 
body and put it six feet underground." In doing our 
work we must be in full control of our facilities 
at all times. The Black Panther Party didn't allow 
members to do political work or be in their offices 
while high. MIM takes this further, not allowing 
its members to use or possess illegal drugs, 
recognizing how the pigs use drugs as an excuse to 
bust members and recruit informants.

MIM is glad to have been introduced to this hip hop 
band. We are inspired by their concrete support to 
the cause of raising consciousness in general and 
the Jericho March in particular.

Upcoming Critical Mass Show:
Amherst, MA appearance: Friday, March 6, Student 
Union.



* * *



POLICE PEPPER SPRAY BLACK BASKETBALL STAR

According to the Prince George's County (Maryland) 
police department, the cop who pepper-sprayed 
Washington Wizards basketball star Chris Webber was 
justified even though he didn't even warn him 
first. Webber, 24, was convicted on the spot of 
being a young, athletic Black man with a $57- 
million contract and an attitude, driving a kick- 
ass 1998 Lincoln sport utility vehicle.

The pretense for pulling him over was his alleged 
speed of 70 in a 50 zone. Police say Webber failed 
to produce his driver's license and registration, 
instead showing the cop his credit card. When the 
cop ran the license plate and found that the car 
was registered to someone with the same name as the 
credit card, he apparently decided Webber could be 
assumed to have stolen both. He told Webber to get 
out because he was going to impound the car. Then, 
according to the cop, he started to open the door 
and Webber slapped at his hand -- that's assaulting 
a police officer, up to 10 years -- and so the cop 
fired his pepper spray without warning. (Webber 
hasn't discussed the incident on the advice of his 
lawyers.)

Impounding the car under those circumstances is 
discretionary on the part of the cop, the police 
department says, as was the pepper spray. It is up 
to the pig on the spot to determine how bad the 
situation is and to act accordingly. The Washington 
Post reported, "Steven Edwards, an analyst at 
National Institute of Justice who studies the use 
of pepper spray, said [officer Raymond] Kane was 
right to use the weapon if he felt he was losing 
control of the situation. He also said a warning 
might have prompted Webber to escalate the conflict 
and perhaps even try to drive away." And driving 
away, which would have resulted in a Black man 
driving his own kick-ass Lincoln sport utility 
vehicle, was obviously out of the question.

When Webber arrived at the police station in 
handcuffs, the genius cop at the station with 
"special training in recognizing the effects of 
drugs" looked at Webber's red eyes (remember the 
pepper spray) and declared that he was driving 
under the influence of drugs. Cops later claimed 
they found the butt of a joint and some suspect 
ashes in the ashtray of the Lincoln.

MIM takes from this story that a rich Black man 
can't take for granted the things rich whites can 
in Amerika. White Amerika often makes some 
exceptions for star athletes, but Webber 
unfortunately ran into a redneck who said he didn't 
immediately recognize Webber. Webber is lucky to be 
alive, as people in his situation are often deemed 
too dangerous to let live.

This racism is the kind of behavior that limits the 
progress of the Black national bourgeoisie. In this 
case, Webber's riches as an athlete are at the 
mercy of the white establishment, but the cop's 
actions are indicative of the limits on his 
privilege. Once the pigs get their act together 
they might figure out to let Webber off with a slap 
on the wrist, but the boundaries have clearly been 
drawn in any case.


NOTES: Washington Post 22 January 22, 1998. p. D1.



* * *



WHITEHOUSE SCANDALS PALE COMPARED TO IMPERIALISM

by a MIM investigative team

Sources say Clinton was not monogamous, and he used 
his job as governor to make profits on shady land 
deals, and when his lawyer friend Web Hubbell got 
in trouble on the land deal Clinton got his other 
friend Vernon Jordan to get Hubbell overpaid legal 
work at Revlon to shut him up, and around that time 
Clinton tried to get free sex from state employee 
Paula Jones, like he did from other wimmin as 
governor of Arkansas, only that backfired years 
later when Jones sued for sexual harassment, at 
about the time that a Special Prosecutor was 
charged with the job of chasing down Clinton's land 
deal, and both Jones's lawyers and the Special 
Prosecutor Star eventually got permission from 
judges to investigate Clinton's whole sexual 
history, at about the time Clinton was having an 
affair with 21-year-old White House intern Lewinsky 
(a graduate of Bel Air Prep after transferring from 
Beverly Hills High), and a White House staffer 
named Trip (now at the Pentagon at $80,000+) 
decided she had better start taping Lewinsky's 
bragging rants, including Lewinsky playing 
Clinton's sexy answering machine messages over the 
phone to Trip, and then when Trip and Lewinsky were 
both subpoenad to testify in the Jones trial on the 
matter of Clinton's sexual history, Trip brought a 
tape to Star with Lewinsky saying Clinton told her 
to lie about the affair and promising her a job 
courtesy of yes-man Jordan, and then Lewinsky was 
offered a job at Revlon that was even better than 
her top-secret clearance job at the Pentagon, and 
so Star wired Trip to get more dirt on Clinton and 
Jordan from Lewinsky, which she did in a four-hour 
conversation, and about this time the U$A bombed 
300,000 Iraqis to death and starved many thousands 
more children with an embargo, and millions of 
oppressed-nation children died from preventable 
diseases and another million Black men went to 
jail.


NOTES: classified.



* * *



UNTITLED POEM

by Dennis Brutus

The perfume of freedom has burned my mind
with grief for my country:
while I walk the ammoniac streets
reeking of urine and vomit,
while shadows move in and out of shadows
gesturing with flapping empty trousers,
while gnarled and soiled both hands
thrust and review with skeletal fingers,
dead eyes stare glassily, unconnected
to the hourse whispered words of thanks
and I stare against the blank wall
of a despaired and despairing future:

the perfume of freedom has burned my mind
with grief for my country:
but I remember that seeming ultimate journey
to the bottom end of a continent
to an island graveyard of corpses and hopes
and an indestructible assertion
"We shall survive"


Dennis Brutus 1996-1997
San Francisco/Santa Clara/San Jose/Capetown



* * *



LENINGRAD CONFERENCE IGNORES MAOIST UNIVERSAL ON 
CAPITALIST RESTORATION UNDER SOCIALISM

In November, 1997 from the 6th to the 9th, there 
was a conference of parties in Leningrad upholding 
Stalin. 23 parties signed a declaration attacking 
Khruschev revisionism. Most of the signatories were 
from the former Soviet Union.

Khruschev came to power in the Soviet Union after 
Stalin died in 1953. Khruschev denounced Stalin and 
set about making the economy profit-run.

Today, with the advent of Boris Yeltsin and the 
restoration of open capitalism in the ex-Soviet 
Union, those who used to be in the fog of 
Khruschevism have in the main moved right into 
social-democracy, reformism. Another portion has 
now taken up "Stalinism."

Among the oddities of the November, 1997 Leningrad 
resolution reflecting ex-Soviet politics are the 
following:  "Financial oligarchy, transnational 
companies, whose assault troops are American 
imperialism and international Zionism, under the 
banners of deceit and "World Democracy" exert 
increasing pressure in order to instore a world 
order." Although Israeli imperialism is certainly a 
ranking and aggressive imperialism, pairing it (and 
not even by name) with "American imperialism" as if 
it were equal with it and referring to 
"international Zionism" is a way of deflecting the 
question from Israeli imperialism to one of 
international Jewry. It amounts to catering to the 
unrealistic illusions or outright reactionary 
nationalism of anti-Semitic people, mostly in the 
labor aristocracy, which is not the majority in 
Russia, but which is still substantial and 
influential.

No where does the resolution even mention the split 
in the working class; although such an issue is 
certainly important in attacking the social-
democracy of the Gorbachovs and Zhuganovs.

The declaration signed is especially the reflection 
of the work of Ludo Martens in Belgium. Ludo 
Martens is the author of the excellent book Another 
View of Stalin, which he unfortunately uses as 
capital or credentials to introduce revisionism 
into the international communist movement. He has 
taken his party from a pro-Mao position into 
defending Gorbachev and trafficking with Deng 
Xiaoping. Now he is at the center of opportunist 
efforts to unite all who uphold Stalin -- or in the 
case of some, at least do not openly oppose Stalin!

According to Ludo Martens, at his conferences, 
"There was a better understanding that parties who 
used to belong to different tendencies, who 
supported the positions of Mao Zedong or Brezhnev, 
of Che Guevara or Enver Hoxha, can unite on the 
basis of Marxism-Leninism, proletarian 
internationalism and the struggle against 
revisionism."

Here is what Ludo Martens says about Maoism. 
"Certain Maoist parties have also put forward this 
principle of "struggle for ideological unity 
without compromise". For them, ideological unity 
consists in recognising Mao Zedong Thought as the 
third stage of the revolutionary proletarian 
theory, after those of Marxism and Leninism. These 
different positions, seemingly "firm on 
principles", amount to maintaining the divisions 
between the parties that used to adhere to the 
Maoist, Albanian or Soviet orientation and the 
parties that have followed none of these three 
tendencies."

He adds that "the works of Mao Zedong are not 
sufficient to maintain the unity among the parties 
that adhere to them, for at least five different 
orientations can be distinguished among them. These 
divisions and subdivisions necessarily diminish the 
richness of the discussions and exchanges within 
each grouping. Similarly, they facilitate the 
adoption of unilateral positions that could have 
been avoided through larger, contradictory 
debates."

Hence, Ludo Martens is at the center of efforts 
attacking Khruschev revisionism without attacking a 
bourgeoisie in the party. He maintains there was 
class struggle in the Soviet Union, but he points 
to no bourgeoisie. The idea of a class struggle but 
no bourgeoisie has always been a vexing problem for 
the international communist movement, but now that 
we have seen what has happened in the Soviet Union 
and China it is inexcusable:  Khruschev, Hua, Deng, 
Alia were the bourgeoisie. Class struggle under 
socialism was not against thin air.

That is the difficulty with all the Brezhnev, 
Castro, Che, Hoxha and Kim Il Sung defenders. They 
are not able to admit that Mao was right about this 
crucial point and so they are being allowed by Ludo 
Martens to overlook it. When the open restoration 
of capitalism in the ex-Soviet Union should be 
allowing the whole international communist movement 
to be making rapid gains, there are those like Ludo 
Martens seeking to put a brake on the process.

Far from adding to the richness of the 
international communist movement, those who cannot 
face the stern realities imposed by capitalist 
restorations need to add to our movement by 
subtraction out of it.


NOTES: http://www.wpb.be/icm/icm.htm



* * *



PHONY WAR CRIMES TRIBUNAL EXPOSES NATO 
INTERVENTION:
ABOUT PROFIT, NOT HUMANITARIANISM

During the war in the former Yugoslavia, the 
Amerikan imperialists first tried to publicly 
ignore the genocide, and then concocted a clever 
story about humanitarianism to justify an Amerikan 
involvement. This charade suffered its first major 
unraveling in the fall, when Clinton announced that 
the Amerikan troops would not leave in June 1998 as 
originally "planned." Now it's becoming more 
obvious, even to the bourgeois papers, that the 
International Criminal Tribunal for the former 
Yugoslavia at The Hague is a farce.

The tribunal was charged with prosecuting war 
crimes, namely genocide through ethnic cleansing 
and rape. Reports of systemic round-ups of young 
men for execution and brutal gang rapes of women 
provided fuel for reformists to demand 
intervention. The various imperialists that 
constitute NATO as well as Russian imperialism 
wanted two things in the former Yugoslavia:  
stability, so as to protect their current 
interests; and an expansion of their influence. 
While all the imperialists covertly or not so 
covertly aided the combatants (often while 
pretending neutrality), they could not openly 
intervene for fear of sparking an inter-imperialist 
conflict. The Dayton "Peace Accord", signed in 
1995, created a framework to ensure this stability 
and ended the War.

The Tribunal was created by the imperialists to co-
opt the masses' desire to see justice served for 
these horrible crimes, as well as to placate the 
reformists in the home countries. An additional 
benefit of the Tribunal to the imperialists was 
that its powers could be used selectively against 
those within the former Yugoslavia who disrupted 
the Dayton Accord's egg-cart. But so far, the 
Tribunal has shown itself to be a powerless sham. 
Because the Tribunal is being run by the 
imperialists, MIM does not care that is has no 
power as any power it wields would only be used to 
aid the imperialists. But the farce of this 
Tribunal does serve to expose the imperialists lack 
of interest in genuine peace and justice.

Of the 78 Bosnians indicted in public warrants for 
war crimes, 56 of them were still at large.(2) The 
Dayton agreement requires those harboring people 
indicted of war crimes to turn them in, and if they 
refuse, the NATO troops are supposed to size them.

In fact, the NATO forces have gone out of their way 
to ITAL not END arrest indicted war criminals. The 
Washington Post recently detailed a July incident 
where indicted war criminal Miroslav Bralo, a 
Bosnian Croat, attempted to surrender to NATO 
troops but was refused. Apparently, there was a 
miscommunication between the war crimes tribunal 
and NATO, but when they straightened that out, U.S. 
army generals blocked pleas from the tribunal to 
pick him up.(1) 

A State Department deputy spokesperson said "We 
have really nothing to be ashamed of concerning our 
track record on the arrest of indicted war 
criminals or their detention over the last several 
months." Foley wouldn't discuss the Bralo case with 
reporters.(1) 

Official NATO policy is that the troops will arrest 
indicted criminals when they come across them, but 
they aren't even following this weak standard. 
Foley attempted damage control, as the Post 
summarized:

"NATO-led peacekeepers 'retain all the options' in 
determining whether 'it's possible to apprehend an 
indicted war criminal in a given circumstance or 
not.' 

"It was for the commander on the scene to determine 
on the basis of tactical considerations, 'but it 
remains a live possibility,'" Foley said.(1) 

In the case of Bralo who was trying to surrender, 
there shouldn't be any tactical concerns. What 
makes Foley turn NATO policy into just a 
"possibility" is a strategic concern: namely that 
prosecuting those leaders indicted of war crimes 
would jeopardize the comprador relations these 
leaders have with various imperialists. 

It's possible that the comprador regimes and the 
imperialists will find more palatable political 
clones for those indicted. These new leaders could 
start where the old tainted leaders left off. Such 
an arrangement wouldn't alter the fundamental 
injustice of the war crimes tribunal, which targets 
only a small number of Serb, Croat and Muslim 
leaders and ignores the fact that the genocide was 
manipulated and created by the imperialist system.


NOTES
1. 9 Dec 1997, Reuters
2. 19 Dec 1997 Reuters, 9 Dec 1997, Reuters
See also Boston Sunday Globe, p A1 for coverage of 
the imperialists' sudden disregard for the 
prosecution of gang rape.



* * *



CASTRO MEETS THE POPE

Fidel Castro made a number of comments agreeing 
with the Pope on the Pope's visit. Recalling 
Nixon's visit to China, MIM sees nothing wrong with 
having the Pope visit, but Castro went much 
farther.

"Holy Father, we feel the same way you do about 
many important issues of today's world and we are 
pleased it is so; in other matters our views are 
different but we are most respectful of your strong 
convictions about the ideas you defend. . . .

"Mankind has seen its population increase almost 
fourfold just in this century. There are billions 
of people suffering hunger and thirst for justice; 
the list of man's economic and social calamities is 
endless. I am aware that many of them are cause of 
permanent and growing concern to the Holy 
Father."(1)

There have been any other such statements from 
Castro, some even more positive. "There is a great 
concurrence between Christianity's objectives and 
the ones we communists seek, between the Christian 
teachings of humility, austerity, selflessness and 
loving thy neighbor and what we might call the 
content of a revolutionary's life and behavior.'' - 
speaking with Chilean Christians, 1971. (2)

"I believe that the teachings of Christ are very 
revolutionary and completely coincide with the aims 
of socialists, of Marxist-Leninists.'' - 
conversation with Nicaraguan Christians, 1980.(2)

Castro was raised a Jesuit.(3)

NOTES:
1.http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/9801/21/castro.text.ap/i
ndex.html2.http://www.boston.com/globe/nation/packa
ges/pope/quotes.htm 
3.http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/1998/cuba.pope/icons