I N T E R N E T ' S M A O I S T BI-M O N T H L Y = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = XX XX XXX XX XX X X XXX XXX XXX XXX X X X X X X X XX X X X X X X X V X X X V X X X X X X X XX XXX X X X X X X XX X X X X X X X XXX X X X V XXX X XXX XXX = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = THE MAOIST INTERNATIONALIST MOVEMENT MIM Notes 158 March 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. TRANSFERRED PRISONERS RETURNED TO MICHIGAN 2. AMERIKA WAGES WAR AGAINST IRAQ 3. LETTERS: CHARITY VS. REVOLUTIONARY WORK, A CONFERENCE ON WALL STREET 4. PUERTO RICO: 100 YEARS OF U.S. COLONIALISM GOVERNOR SPEAKS IN SUPPORT OF COLONIALISM 5. D.C. PROTEST AGAINST U.$ WAR 6. AN OPEN LETTER TO ANTI-WAR ACTIVISTS 7. OVERCOME THE BEND IN THE ROAD: DEVELOPING THE PEOPLE'S WAR 8. YOUTH: UNITE AGAINST HYPOCRITICAL AND OPPRESSIVE CRIME BILL! 9. SMASH PORNOGRAPHY THROUGH REVOLUTION 10. HARASSMENT OF MUMIA AND HIS SUPPORTERS CONTINUES 11. PAUL ROBESON GETS A GRAMMY 12. GERONIMO JI JAGA UPHOLDS REVOLUTIONARY LEGACY OF THE BLACK PANTHER PARTY 13. MICHIGAN PRISONS: 14. SMALL GAINS IN PRISONER LITERACY PROJECT 15. WIMMIN INMATES WIN LAWSUIT AGAINST MASS DOC 16. AMERIKAN PRISONS ON TRIAL: 17. THE PEOPLE FIND AMERIKA GUILTY 18. MDOC INCARCERATES: DOES NOT EDUCATE 19. REVISIONIST CASTRO RETAINS CUBAN PRESIDENCY 20. UNDER LOCK & KEY: NEWS FROM PRISONS AND PRISONERS * * * WHAT IS MIM? The Maoist Internationalist Movement (MIM) is a revolutionary communist party that upholds Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, comprising the collection of existing or emerging Maoist internationalist parties in the English-speaking imperialist countries and their English-speaking internal semi-colonies, as well as the existing or emerging Spanish-speaking Maoist internationalist parties of Aztlan, Puerto Rico and other territories of the U.S. Empire. MIM Notes is the newspaper of MIM. Notas Rojas is the newspaper of the Spanish- speaking parties or emerging parties of MIM. MIM is an internationalist organization that works from the vantage point of the Third World proletariat; thus, its members are not Amerikans, but world citizens. MIM struggles to end the oppression of all groups over other groups: classes, genders, nations. MIM knows this is only possible by building public opinion to seize power through armed struggle. Revolution is a reality for North America as the military becomes over-extended in the government's attempts to maintain world hegemony. MIM differs from other communist parties on three main questions: (1) MIM holds that after the proletariat seizes power in socialist revolution, the potential exists for capitalist restoration under the leadership of a new bourgeoisie within the communist party itself. In the case of the USSR, the bourgeoisie seized power after the death of Stalin in 1953; in China, it was after Mao's death and the overthrow of the "Gang of Four" in 1976. (2) MIM upholds the Chinese Cultural Revolution as the farthest advance of communism in human history. (3) MIM believes the North American white-working-class is primarily a non- revolutionary worker-elite at this time; thus, it is not the principal vehicle to advance Maoism in this country. MIM accepts people as members who agree on these basic principles and accept democratic centralism, the system of majority rule, on other questions of party line. "The theory of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin is universally applicable. We should regard it not as dogma, but as a guide to action. Studying it is not merely a matter of learning terms and phrases, but of learning Marxism-Leninism as the science of revolution." -- Mao Zedong, Selected Works, Vol. II, p. 208 * * * TRANSFERRED PRISONERS RETURNED TO MICHIGAN by Ann Arbor RAIL 25 February, 1998 In December, 1997, 38 prisoners from Jackson, MI were transferred to a Federal Prison in Morgantown, W. Virginia. The prisoners were transferred in violation of MCL.791.211.83, a Michigan statute which prohibits shipping prisoners out of state unless the prisoners volunteer for the transfer. The state lied to the media and the public in December, saying that all the prisoners who were transferred had volunteered to be moved, but this was a lie. Prisoners who were transferred were bullied into accepting the transfers. All of the prisoners sent were non-violent offenders, and were in prison for short terms. They were transferred under threat of being messed up with the parole board and other such nonsense harassment. The state of Michigan violated its own laws in forcibly sending prisoners out of state, and then lied to cover up its abusive actions in transferring these prisoners. Prison Legal Services of Michigan, Inc. has filed a motion to show cause, and hopes that the courts will give them a hearing soon. Prison Legal Services opposed the initial transfers and is hoping to prevent future transfers of Michigan prisoners out of state. RAIL has been gathering petition signatures to oppose the transfers which have already taken place and any additional transfers. We wish Prison Legal Services success in getting the transfers stopped and in exposing the reactionary lies of the DOC. RAIL opposes transfers of Michigan prisoners out of state for several reasons. The increased distance from friends, families and attorneys create an unfair burden on prisoners who are transferred. Even in this society which relies so heavily on locking people up and chooses repression over education, it is cruel to push prisoners farther away from their means of support. Governor John Engler has justified the transfers saying that it is necessary to house some prisoners out of state while Michigan builds five new prisons to keep the population locked up. RAIL points to the fact that prisoners in Michigan are very disproportionately Black and argues that prisons are not the vital component of "public safety" Mr. Engler makes them out to be. Rather, prisons are a tool of repression aimed specifically at the Black nation. RAIL opposes the transfers as we oppose all schemes to build additional gulags for locking up the oppressed. Today, the Department of Corrections is stalling its plans to send an additional 470 prisoners to a private prison in Oklahoma. According to an employee at Prison Legal Services the Michigan state legislature will likely try to rewrite the statute on transfers so that prisoners can legally be sent out of state against their will. State shenanigans like these are the reason RAIL opposes the prison system generally. RAIL is glad to see groups like Prison Legal Services keeping watch and making life difficult for the so-called Department of Corrections. It is important that there be some progressive lawyers and paralegals to do legal work on prisoners' behalf and to point out where the state is violating even its own standards of treatment of prisoners. RAIL seeks to work with groups like the Prison Legal Services, and also to raise awareness about the fact that the criminal INjustice system is thoroughly corrupt. Under imperialism, the role of prisons as an apparatus of repression will not be reformed. A system which first makes people poor and then locks them away to treat their poverty will not be turned into something productive. RAIL works for the long term -- for an end to imperialism and to prisons as we know them today. Contact RAIL at one of the addresses on page two to find out how you can help us expose the injustice of Amerika's criminal system. * * * AMERIKA WAGES WAR AGAINST IRAQ Amerika has been waging a war against Iraq for years. The Gulf War was not over when u.s. troops stopped bombing Iraqi people. The on-going warfare waged through the economic blockade and continuing military threat has lead to the death and suffering of thousands of Iraqi people. Military invasion will lead to even more of these deaths and must be opposed by all anti-imperialists. But even if a "diplomatic" solution is found to the current u.s. demands for total control over Iraq, the gulf war will not end until the imperialists withdraw military and economic control and allow the people self-determination to choose their own destiny. As February drew to a close, the United Snakes was moving closer and closer to launching another shooting war against Iraq. On February 16, Defense Secretary William Cohen said he "was sending 5,000 to 6,000 more troops to Kuwait", bring the total number of troops in the region to 9,700-10,000.(1) The 3rd largest weapons contractor, Raytheon, is licking it's chops at the chance for another real test for it's weapons. Raytheon claims to support a diplomatic solution, but a spokeperson erased those words with: "Let's be practical. No matter what happens, the actual battlefield is the ultimate test, isn't it?"(2) Besides the test on flesh and blood that shoots back, Raytheon benefits through replacement sales as well as the advertising to other governments that the media coverage will generate. UN Secretary General Kofi Annan appears to have negotiated a settlement to the stalemate. Iraq's government-controlled media correctly "expressed concern that Annan arrived with a 'prepared script from the United States.'"(3) The U.$ didn't want Annan to go to Iraq, and delayed his trip arguing within the Security Council over the terms to be presented to Iraq. Annan's draft proposal does not create a timetable for the ending of sanctions against Iraq. So even if a diplomatic solution can prevent a shooting war, it will not stop the brutal economic war against the Iraqi people. Truth not an impediment to war machine On Feb 17, Clinton tried to explain to the Amerikan people why Hussein's presidential palaces were so important to inspect. He said that one of the palaces was "about the size of Washington, D.C." or 62.5 square miles. "He did not identify the palace, ... but his national security advisor made the same comparison and identified the site as the Thathar Palace compound." A recent team of surveyors sent by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan reports that Thathar covers 1 square mile.(4) The United Snakes claims that it wants to bomb Iraq to protect the Iraqi people and Iraq's neighbors from biological weapons. Furthermore, Clinton says "We want to seriously reduce his capacity to threaten his neighbors." but all of Iraq's neighbors with the exception of Kuwait oppose an attack upon Iraq.(6) NOTES: 1. Boston Globe 17 February 1998, p. A1. 2. Boston Globe 18 February 1998, p. A7. 3. Boston Globe 21 February 1998, p. A1. 4. Boston Globe 20 February 1998, p. A15. 5. Boston Globe 20 February 1998, p. A17. 6. Boston Globe 18 February 1998, p. A8. * * * LETTERS CHARITY VS. REVOLUTIONARY WORK I would like to take exception to some of your comments regarding the Amerikan welfare system ("New welfare cuts take effect, leaving immigrants hungry," #155, p. 3). I stand with you in deploring the Welfare Deform Act, but I question your understanding of its meaning. MIM wrote: "Its [welfare] purpose is to keep the people from fighting for more." Having welfare does not prevent people from demanding more; in fact, one would think that having housing, health care, and food would make it easier to fight for more. I am by no means suggesting that welfare is an "easy life," but if there was no welfare at all and you had to spend last minute searching out income, it would be pretty hard to organize! I've received food stamps before, but it didn't make me passive because I was already educated. If I hadn't been educated, food stamps wouldn't necessarily keep me uneducated. In a related sentence, MIM wrote: "When charity organizations step in and fill the holes left by government pulling out of welfare programs, they do a disservice to the people. The money spent by charity groups only helps to keep the people passive when it is not coupled with political education and organizing work. MIM does not wish to see anyone go hungry or without shelter but we know that offering a few meals to a few people is not going to change the system that creates this hunger and homelessness." First of all, what is true of welfare is true of charity - having it does not prevent one from demanding more. I would agree that charity ought to be coupled with political education and organizing work, and the best "charity" agencies do this (any example I can name would give away my location). But charity without ed/org is not a disservice; it's just not "full service." Full stomach and still ignorant is better than empty stomach and still Ignorant. Finally, you insult volunteer/paid social work by depreciating it to "a few meals and a few mouths.', Neither charity nor welfare have ever, alone or in conjunction, met all Amerikans needs, but they were/are both widespread and doing a lot. These are minor points but they have important theoretical meaning for effective action. Charity will not "change the system," but it does feed, clothe, shelter many. I accept that MIM genuinely does not want to see people go hungry or without shelter, but I sometimes think that MIM is so concerned with "changing the system" that MIM would be willing to risk thousands of people's starvation for an uncertain chance at revolution. I don't mean this to sound as harsh as it sounds, but since you don't participate in electoral politics, how did you expect to prevent the passage of the Welfare Deform Act? Furthermore, I question whether or not your position is truly Marxist. It may be true to the rhetoric of some black nationalists (Rev. Louis Farrakhan, for example) , but I don't think Marx was interested in making sure things "got worse" (human suffering) so that they'd get better (revolution) - See the "Communist Manifesto" were he wrote "The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degrees, all capital from the bourgeoisie ... " He went on to make a list of a few changes that would occur "on the conditions of bourgeois production," one of which was "a heavy and progressive income tax." What would this money be spent on if not, at least in part, a temporary and partial downward redistribution of wealth? These reformist measures were not, as we know, all Marx had in mind, as they would prove to be "insufficient and untenable." Marx wrote that the "organization of the proletariat ... into a political party... compels legislative recognition of particular interests of the workers, by taking advantage of the divisions among the bourgeoisie itself." Despite the fact that Amerikan workers did not have their own party, they had nonetheless exercised their numerical strength in the 1930s-60s within one of the bourgeois parties to gain a degree of economic security. So, finally, let me relate this to praxis. MIM wrote: "Those truly interested in ending hunger should be working with MIM to develop serve the people programs that provide for the needs of the oppressed in the context of building a revolutionary movement to overthrow imperialism." Given the wealth of charitable organizations and the U.S. gov't, MIM's "serve the people" programs will never be able to compete with welfare or charity. So, I suggest that if MIM wants to reach its constituency, then MIM members ought to volunteer in homeless shelters, food pantries, etc. , and ed/org within these institutions rather than creating ineffective, parallel institutions. The people want results, not rhetoric. In struggle, --a reader in the midwest MIM responds: This reader is correct that some reforms under capitalism are progressive. And although such reforms will not bring about revolution, they can allow people more freedom to organize against imperialism. For this reason, we do fight for some reforms within imperialism while organizing people for the larger fight against imperialism. The key is to figure out which reforms are progressive and which do not serve the people. MIM does not denounce those volunteers who work to provide free food and shelter to the hungry and homeless. But we will struggle with these people to put their time into more effective work. There are many people willing to hand out food and offer this Band-Aid to cover up the inadequacies of capitalism. But this service work will only ever be a Band- Aid and it will never address the underlying problem which is the cause of hunger and homelessness. What we need are more committed revolutionaries working to overthrow the system which perpetuates these problems. It is not just rhetoric to say that historically the progress of feeding the most people, housing the most people, and saving the most lives from starvation has come from revolutions. Food pantries and other hand outs, both governmental and non-governmental, may help a few individuals survive or be healthy a little longer but they have never done more than this. A better example of combining reformism with revolutionary work comes from the Black Panther Party which started Serve the People programs like its Free Breakfast for Children program. These programs combined the work of providing for the people's needs with the work of educating and organizing the people to overthrow imperialism. MIM already has some of these programs in place in the prison work that we do as well as the educational programs we offer. As we grow we expect to take on more and more such work. The letter writer raises the question of how MIM expects to influence things like the Welfare Deform Act if we don't participate in electoral politics. We know from history that it is very possible to influence the system from the outside. It was not just the reformists like MLK that won civil rights gains for Blacks: it was the fear the government had of the independent revolutionaries like the Black Panther Party that sent them running into the arms of MLK, willing to do whatever he wanted if it might pacify the BPP and its supporters. It is precisely because the independent power of the proletariat can be so strong that the government is forced to take extraordinary measures to attack it. The COINTELPRO attacks on activists have always focused on the most radical organizations, those which tend to be much smaller than the reformist groups this writer champions, but groups which are correctly viewed as a much bigger threat by the government. The key to responding to this entire letter is the study of history and so we offer our readers references from the Black Panther Party on our web site (www.etext.org/Politics/MIM) as well as books such as Black Panthers Speak ($10) and an extensive literature list of books that cover many other aspects of relevant history. Send $1 for a copy of the literature list. * * * A CONFERENCE ON WALL STREET from a Michigan Prisoner Jesse [Bourgeoisie] Jackson, leader of the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, held a conference to "beg" and "shuffle" for Wall Street to include Afrikan Amerikans and other peoples of color in its investment of kapital and training for better paying jobs. The three-day event was held in New York starting January 15. It is said that this conference drew a who's who of Wall Street investors and top government officials. People such a Alan Greenspan, head of the Federal Reserve Board, and powerful insurance company representatives, and financiers from investment and brokerage firms such as Lehman Brothers, Merril Lynch, Solomon Smith Barney, Discovery, Morgan Stanley and Dean Witter. President [K]linton was also reportedly, in attendance at this conference. Jackson laid out three main objectives at the conference calling for: (1) to establish consumer education programs in about 50 cities; (2) to set up a Rainbow/PUSH trade bureau that would track the progress of the 400 biggest U.$. corporations in reaching out to "minority" communities and (3) an intense effort to lobby elected officials to use pension-fund dollars to revamp the U.$. infrastructure. Jackson's bootlicking appeal to the racist Wall Street kapitalist is an insult to Afrikan Amerikans and other peoples of color for it is these kapitalist racists on Wall Street who are responsible for poverty, unemployment, homelessness, disenfranchisement, prison construction, slave and sweatshop labor and all the other social deprivations that exist in Amerikkka and globally with the help of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (WB). Further, Jackson has no authority to attempt representing Afrikan Amerikans or any person of color for he is not calling for the same agenda, but who is begging for assimilation and crumbs for from "massahs" plate. These vultures who sit on Wall Street are responsible for the aggression (military aggression) against members of the Third World for kapitalist expansion and imperialist rule by creating neo-colonies of human suffrage and displacement. They are responsible for the police brutality that abounds in Amerikkka; for the racist attacks and divisions among the working class; the continuing assault against First Nations and their right to sovereignty; for hate crimes against the lesbian/gay/bi/tans community; immigrants and those who adhere to the teachings of al-Islam Muslims. The pirates of Wall Street cannot and will not offer a solution to the problems facing working and unemployed people. Wall Street manufactures and orchestrates these problems in their greed for more kapital, power, influence and sadistic domination of the world. Jesse [Bourgeoisie] Jackson only serves the rich by reporting to them what Wall Street needs to do to continue its acts of vileness by mere fact of him crawling for help. This is not a time to crawl, beg scratch or accept the brutality of corporate Amerikkka, its banking and investment systems. Nor is it feasible to seek assimilating into the kapitalist world of business. However, it is the time and the season for the total dismantling of kapitalism, imperialism and neo-colonialism. We must build our own system, our own politics, our own way of distributing the wealth to the people, and seek diligently for ways to dismantle Wall Street, the IMF, the WB, and all other extensions of oppression. MIM responds: We agree with the author's assessment of Jesse Jackson's pleas to the bourgeoisie. But unlike the author, we would not blame the imperialists "for the racist attacks and divisions among the working class." We can see that, as Engels predicted, under imperialism there is a split in the working class and in imperialist countries like the u.s., the majority of the working class is a labor aristocracy bribed with the profits of exploitation of the oppressed nations so that they have a material interest in imperialism. It is not racism that divides the working class but national oppression. The oppressed nations have an interest in throwing off the chains of imperialism in their fight for self-determination but the white nation has an interest in defending imperialism and the benefits it gets from this system of chauvinist national oppression. * * * PUERTO RICO: 100 YEARS OF U.S. COLONIALISM GOVERNOR SPEAKS IN SUPPORT OF COLONIALISM [Note: The print version of this article said there was no minimum wage in Puerto Rico. This was incorrect and was corrected in MIM Notes 160. In fact, U.S. companies in Puerto Rico do have to pay the minimum wage of $5.15. The rest of Puerto Rico is required by Puerto Rico to pay $4.25/hour.] Pedro Rossello', governor of Puerto Rico and willing lackey of u.s. colonialism, spoke at Harvard University in mid- February. A graduate of Yale medical school who later went on to finish his medical training at Harvard, Rossello' was elected chair of the New Progressive Party, a pro-statehood party, in 1991. He was then elected Governor in 1992 and reelected in 1996 by a large margin. He was at Harvard to commemorate Puerto Rico's "100 years of solitude" (100 years of colonialism). It was 100 years ago in 1998 that the u.s. invaded Puerto Rico and took over as its colonial master. At times Rossello' sounds almost radical in his opposition to the current status of Puerto Rico which he correctly labels colonialism while calling for self-determination. But this radical rhetoric is just a cover that helps him sell a referendum on statehood as self-determination for the Puerto Rican people. As a "Freely associated state" or commonwealth, the Puerto Rican people have u.s. citizenship but if they live in Puerto Rico they can not vote on u.s. ballots. Puerto Rican's can and are expected to fight in u.s. wars, and Rossello' pointed out that Puerto Ricans sustain combat causalities in u.s. wars in numbers far exceeding their proportion in the population. Rossello''s goal, like that of other colonial lackeys who desire greater access to their master's wealth and privilege, is to gain full statehood for Puerto Rico as the 51st state. Congressman Young from Alaska has proposed a bill in the u.s. congress, now referred to as the Young bill or HR856, which calls for a political status referendum in Puerto Rico. Rossello' refers to this as the "self determination process," an "orderly method" which would allow the people of Puerto Rico to decide what they want with all the definitions spelled out clearly for them. But this so-called self determination is not real democracy. It is not possible to talk about the Puerto Rican people exercising their right to self determination with u.s. troops occupying their island and the u.s. government controlling the country. The referendum would offer the Puerto Rican people three options: current commonwealth status, statehood, or status as an independent republic. One of the reasons Rossello' is such a supporter of this referendum is that in similar previous referendums Puerto Ricans have supported statehood in large numbers so the chance that it would win is high. In Puerto Rico's last country-wide vote on status in 1993, 48.6% voted to remain a u.s. commonwealth, 46.3% for statehood and 4.4% percent for independence. [Note that MIM in no way sees this as truly representative of the people of Puerto Rico.] Commonwealth status, which dates back to 1952, means that Puerto Ricans are legally u.s. citizens and may serve in the armed forces. But they pay no federal taxes and cannot vote for president. Rossello' said "the Puerto Rican electorate should be given the right to end colonialism." But MIM agrees with the representative from the National Committee to Free Puerto Rican POWs and Political Prisoners who asked during the question and answer period: "How can you speak about self determination without the withdrawal of u.s. troops from Puerto Rico?" Self determination is not possible for an occupied people. Any referendum held under such conditions does not offer the people real power and real freedom of choice. Several Puerto Rican activists protested outside the talk before it began shouting "Piti Yanqui go to Hell, Puerto Rico not for Sale." Those who spoke during the question period in favor of independence got loud applause but only from a minority in the audience: most of the Puerto Ricans in the crowd were Rossello' supporters who cheered loudly when he gave the stupid response to one question about the national oppression of Puerto Rican people in this country "You have a choice, you can go back to Puerto Rico." As if in Puerto Rico the people are all living free from national oppression because they are not in the minority. This demonstrates Rossello' 's total lack of understanding of the concept of colonialism and makes it clear that he only uses the term as rhetoric to appease the Puerto Rican peoples genuine desire for self determination. A Puerto Rican activist with Latinos for Social Change pointed out that in 1917 u.s. citizenship was imposed on Puerto Rico after the Puerto Rican legislature voted against it. And in both Puerto Rico and the united states they have criminalized the struggle for independence. He pointed out that resolution 1514 in the United Nations states that every colonial country has a right to self determination and can use every means necessary to struggle for independence. When Rossello' tried to respond to him by also suggesting he go back to Puerto Rico he pointed out that 60% of Puerto Ricans on the island live off of food stamps, 13% of the island is occupied by the u.s. military and unemployment is 19%. MIM would add to this that Rossello' himself said that as many Puerto Ricans live in the u.s. as on the island (where the population is 3.8 million) so carrying out the struggle for self-determination for Puerto Rican people within u.s. borders is an important part of the national liberation struggle. After he had spoke for about a minute both Rossello' and the Harvard moderator tried to shut up this activist, telling him he could only ask a question and could not state his opinion. They threatened to call security when he went on for another sentence. And rather than respond to the activist's statements, Rossello' said "you have demonstrated what system you would impose on the Puerto Rican people by your actions here tonight." This is ironic considering that the pro-colonialism view is given hours of free speaking time but when the pro-independence view attempts to speak for a minute (less time than several of the other pro- statehood questions), the speaker is threatened with arrest. As we commemorate the 100 years of u.s. imperialism in Puerto Rico MIM fights for genuine self determination for the Puerto Rican people. In the united states, within the belly of the beast, we organize again u.s. military and political control over the island. At the same time, both in Puerto Rico and the u.s., we organize the people for the national liberation struggle that will overthrow imperialism and allow the Puerto Rican people to finally exercise their right to self-determination. Commemorate the 100 year anniversary of Puerto Rican colonialism by joining MIM in the fight to overthrow imperialism. * * * CAPITALIST ANARCHY OF PRODUCTION & DRIVE TO LOWER WAGES HURT PUERTO RICAN WORKERS Workers at G.H. Bass & Co. shoe company factory in Puerto Rico will inherit 350 jobs when Bass' Maine plant closes. The jobs are being moved to Manati, about 40 miles south of San Juan, because it is cheaper for the company. The factory currently employs about 400 workers and Puerto Ricans fear that their jobs will also be moved somewhere even cheaper. Workers in Puerto Rico make $5-$6 an hour while the average hourly wage for a worker in Maine is more than $9. The difference is even greater when benefits are added in. Leather workers in the Dominican Republic earn $1.50 an hour. The move to make manufacturing even cheaper may lead Bass to move business there or to other Third World countries where costs are even cheaper. Last year in Puerto Rico 63 manufacturing plants closed, although the total number of jobs declined only slightly because some plants were expanded. In Manati, pharmaceutical companies Hoechst-Marion Roessel and Hoffman-LaRoche & Co. announced earlier this month they will close their plants. While manufacturing jobs are leaving the united states, this does not mean a drop in the standard of living for the white nation. In fact, most of these workers are shuffled into equal or higher paying paper pushing or equivalent parasitic positions. (See MIM Theory, issues #1, #7, and #10 for the arguments and statistics backing this up.) Unemployment is already close to 20% in Puerto Rico. Aside from the usual reasons for underemployment in a capitalist economy (the anarchy of production, the need for a relative surplus population, etc.), the competition between exploited workers and super-exploited workers is causing job loss for the Puerto Rican proletariat. As a u.s. colony of particular use to the imperialists, Puerto Rico has special status as a "freely associated state" which, along with the u.s. dollar and investments has raised the economy of the island to a position where the standard of living is higher than in most Third World countries. But even with the economic incentives the u.s. offers the Puerto Rican people in an attempt to tame resistance to colonization, the U.$. puppet regime in Puerto Rico still does not allow unionization of workers. Note: Associated Press, 22 February 1998. * * * D.C. PROTEST AGAINST U.$ WAR by a comrade Hundreds of protestors marched through Washington, D.C. streets on February 21, in opposition to a U.$. attack on Iraq. The protest was cosponsored by a number of groups from Workers World front groups to Mumia activists, Catholic Worker, and the Arab American Anti-Discrimination Committee. A large portion of the protestors was immigrants and sojourners from the Middle East. The Washington Post estimated about 2,000 marchers. Most people chanted slogans such as "1-2-3-4, we don't want your racist war!" or "No war -- peace!" One contingent had big models of Clinton and a large dog, and they chanted things like "Monica says, 'make love, not war!'" In Lafayette Park, across from the White House, a speaker from the Workers World's International Action Center described conditions in Iraq under economic sanctions. A good proportion of participants was interested in MIM Notes, whether seeing it for the first time or just glad to get the February 15 issue. As with the protests against the 1990-1991 war against Iraq, the message of the rally was confused by many people who supported Clinton and the U.$. but just didn't want a bombing campaign. So some signs had slogans like "Negotiate harder," or, "Kill the tyrants, not the children." Another set of signs declared that "sanctions are weapons of mass destruction." MIM argues that any U.$. intervention in the Middle East, whether in the form of war, sanctions, or even in the form of "normal" trade, is really a weapon of mass destruction against the oppressed and their land and resources. While MIM has nothing good to say against the Iraqi government, support for any U.$. intervention at all ends up as bottom-line support for imperialism. In WTOP radio's news reporting after the event, one protestor condemned the un-Amerikan practices of other protestors, insisting that they were really all patriotic. This pro-Amerikan attitude is one of the things that weakened the anti-war movement in 1991, and it operates again today. MIM thinks it's good for anyone to oppose imperialist bombing for any reason, but a movement that does that while supporting imperialism in general will have much less lasting impact than one that uses anti-war sentiment to organize for genuine long-term anti-imperialist work. * * * AN OPEN LETTER TO ANTI-WAR ACTIVISTS The Maoist Internationalist Movement (MIM) salutes the rising tide of anti-war activism in North America, most visible on the college campuses. Students at Ohio state brought national attention in their disruption of a Clinton Administration propaganda event on Feb 19. Surely the Amerikan regime will have to be much more careful as to which part of "town" is allowed into future "town meetings" on the question. This tide is rising quickly and perhaps it's rise will pass that of the Clinton propaganda machine. In order to be successful and sustainable, however, it must resolve some of it's internal contradictions as to leadership. A significant portion of the anti-war leadership is coming from Congressional Republicans who see military strikes as ineffective at forcing change upon the Saddam Hussein regime. Other reactionaries want the CIA to kill Saddam Hussein, as if whoever is 2nd in command in the Ba'ath Party in Iraq would be significantly different that Hussein's leadership. Then there is also the ultra-yahoo element that wants a ground invasion to occupy Baghdad and install a puppet regime more loyal to the United Snakes. These are not the portions of the "anti-war" movement that MIM addresses here, although the question of how to lead these elements in a way so as to avoid the resumption of a shooting war in Iraq is an important question to be addressed elsewhere. The movement against the Gulf War in 1990 and 1991 split along the line of sanctions. One side wanted to "Give sanctions more time." Some of these people honestly preferred a different brand of imperialist oppression than the military style of the Bush Administration. The rest just took the opportunist line of supporting sanctions (economic war) to avoid a shooting war. The correct side of the split opposed sanctions as an act of war and called for the United Snakes to keep its hands off Iraq. When the Gulf War ended, sanctions were kept on, and the results of sanctions are now clearly shown to be just as murderous as a shooting war. Analogous to the movement's split in 1990 and 1991, the issue of on what basis to oppose war in Iraq threatens to prevent effective resistance to the on going Amerikan policy that has killed 1.4 million Iraqis. Most speakers at rallies and teach-ins attended by MIM start off with a condemnation of Saddam Hussein. This misses the point and in fact plays into the imperialist war machine. If the oppressiveness of a country's leader or government is the reason to oppose it, then it must be Amerika which should be opposed first and for most. The only country to use nuclear weapons? The U.$. The only country to have been proven to have used biological and chemical weapons in the Gulf War? The U.$. The country that used banned biological defoliants? The U.$. in Vietnam. The country whose police and corrections officers use banned biological weapons? The U.$. Some people may respond that "Saddam Hussein is still bad, so we have to stop him" regardless of the U.$. motives or purity. Hussein's "badness" never stopped Amerika before, as he was installed by the CIA in 1963 and was a loyal ally until the Gulf War. "Badness" doesn't stop Amerika from supporting oppressive regimes around the world, so to support Amerikan action against Iraq allows the U.$. imperialism to continue the system of using puppet regimes to suppress the people, and then changing the top leaders when they become too much of a liability. In order to most effectively stop oppression, we must do so on a clearly anti-imperialist basis. We need to cut through all of the confusion propagated by the enemy and those in our own camp in order to deal concrete blows against oppression. * * * OVERCOME THE BEND IN THE ROAD DEVELOPING THE PEOPLE'S WAR One of the latest documents of the Communist Party of Peru is entitled: "Overcome the Bend in the Road Developing the People's War." This text is dated September 1995, and it contains an excellent report on the current situation in the People's War. The document reaffirms again that Chairman Gonzalo is the leader and guide of the Peruvian revolution. The document has been received with great elation by all the political organisations and support groups that for many years continue to render indefatigable support to the armed struggle in Peru. There are various extremely important elements in this Party document. In this brief note we want to deal with only two aspects: The first is the reaffirmation of the good situation of the armed struggle in Peru, which implies the defeat of the Fujimori armed forces. The second aspect relates to the fidelity that the PCP expresses towards Chairman Gonzalo. This latter factor, deals a heavy blow to the capitulators, traffickers and bogus friends of the Peruvian revolution, who -- using various ruses -- have attempted to slander the leader and guide of the revolution, portraying him as a vulgar capitulator and as the author of the "peace letters." The document says: "Take everything Chairman Gonzalo and the Central Committee have said before as the political foundation, particularly the documents of the III Plenary Session, and those of the Working Sessions of the Central Committee, as well as the document "Against the Mass Murderers and Quislings Dictatorship, Persist with the People's War." It is worth noting that everything that Chairman Gonzalo has said before refers to his political documents, military instructions, speeches, scientific thesis on the national and international situation, that, as a sum total, constitute Gonzalo Thought. This great theoretical legacy, is the ideological, political and military basis upon which the PCP and the Peruvian communists sustain themselves. "Everything Chairman Gonzalo has said before" must be understood within the historical process developing from the sixties until his speech of September of 1992, when he was already a captive of the Peruvian dictatorship. The title of this document by itself, constitutes an homage to Chairman Gonzalo. It raises as a banner of the revolution his famous speech of September 1992, when surrounded by a mob of policemen, snitches, and mercenary hacks from the reactionary media, Chairman Gonzalo proclaimed that his arrest was "merely a bend, nothing more. A bend in the road. The road is long but we shall arrive and win victory. You shall see it!" In this same document we are commenting on -- and as if to leave no doubt regarding the love and respect of the Party towards the leader of the revolution -- militants, sympathisers and masses are called forth to mobilise for the coming December 3, and celebrate Chairman Gonzalo's birthday and the Day of the People's Liberation Army. In this context it is worth asking: What do the leaders of the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement (RIM) and of the Revolutionary Communist Party USA (RCP-USA) -- those who never tire of asserting and spreading the idea that Chairman Gonzalo is the author of the "peace letters" -- say now? It is evident that the issuing of the last document of PCP once again unmasks the dirty game of the RIM and RCP-USA leadership. It is now clear that this Yankee mafia of bogus "Maoists" are trafficking with their feigned support for the People's War and for the PCP. Today, no one can any longer hold the slightest doubt that these individuals are openly opposed and antagonistic towards the line of the Communist Party of Peru, and are dire and overt enemies of Chairman Gonzalo and his Thought. El Diario Internacional No. 41 - September 1997 * * * YOUTH: UNITE AGAINST HYPOCRITICAL AND OPPRESSIVE CRIME BILL! The Senate is currently considering a piece of legislation known as the "juvenile crime bill," mirroring similar legislation passed last year by the House. Packed with provisions for school expulsions for minor offenses, the end of confidentiality of juvenile arrest and conviction records, and the blackmailing of states with block grant money to prosecute and incarcerate juveniles as adults(1), the proposed Senate bill would make an already oppressive reality far more draconian. MIM believes that youth are the vanguard of the white nation in Amerika. In solidarity with oppressed nation youth with whom they share this impending threat, white youth should oppose not just these particular bills -- but the whole capitalist system that wants to stifle their creative potential and throw away the key. The juvenile INjustice system varies greatly among states, including different definitions of juvenile (with some states cutting it off at 16 and others 18), and different restrictions on prosecutors and judges on where they can try cases against youth. And although there are currently federal restrictions on where youth can be held in custody, that might change with this new legislation. The bottom line is, youth are facing an INjustice system that wants to restrict what civil "rights" they have with a wave of new curfews and laws governing their sex lives, and at the same time treat them as adults when it comes to locking them up. In contrast to current federal laws restricting the detention of status offenders (so-called because the crime is only a crime because it was committed by a young person, such as curfew violation, running away or truancy), the new Senate bill "permits the detention of most status offenders for up to 24 hours and runaways for up to two weeks."(1) And, as with the House bill, "14 year old children who allegedly commit a serious violent felony . . . or, a specified drug offense, . . . including conspiracy or attempts to commit the offense, must be tried in adult federal court." In some cases under this new bill, thirteen year olds may be tried as adults, according to the whim of the prosecutor.(2) And prosecutorial discretion, in contrast to judicial or statutory waiver, is probably the most subjective and dangerous route to adult (or criminal) court for youth. According to the ACLU, "Minority youth are disproportionately transferred into adult court under mandatory or prosecutorial discretion transfer systems. Native Americans account for over 60% of the children prosecuted in the adult federal system."(2) The House bill also "mandates states to eliminate confidentiality for juvenile records or proceedings: states must also eliminate the confidentiality of juvenile court records or proceedings in order to receive federal criminal justice funds."(2) Being tried as an adult, under the Senate bill, means that fingerprints and photographs taken of youth "shall be made available in the same manner as is applicable to an adult defendant."(3) Again, these are more examples of the rank hypocrisy of treating youth differently under one paternalistic legal standard (like locking them up for running away from home), and punishing them as if they were adults in another. MIM calls on all youth to organize against the oppression of groups over groups, to fight the capitalist system that both patronizes and vilifies them. Work with RAIL to build public opinion against imperialism and for a just society. NOTES: 1. Washington Post 8 February 1998. 2. ACLU Fact Sheet On H.R. 3 "The Juvenile Crime Control Act Of 1997" 3. S 10. * * * SMASH PORNOGRAPHY THROUGH REVOLUTION by a RAIL comrade Gail Dines is touring the country to promote her new book called Pornography: The Production and Consumption of Inequality. On February 11 at the New Words Bookstore in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Gail Dines read from her book and spoke about the evolution of pornography in the United Snakes as a growth industry. She discussed pornography as a systematic form of oppressing wimmin through violence and degradation. Dines introduced her discussion of pornography as a growth industry by explaining that she approaches this topic from a Marxist point of view. Since MIM has not yet read Gail Dines' book, we cannot confirm that Dines is a true Marxist or only a bourgeoisie perversion of Marxism. However, many things that Dines said make sense in the Marxist understanding of oppression within the state. She traces the beginnings of main stream pornography back to the first publication of Playboy in 1954 and discusses the drastic changes in pornography since the fifties. Dines analyses the marketing techniques used by pornographers in order to create a class consciousness in reference to pornography. Playboy was sold to the middle class with an upper class image to it. Since Hustler magazine came out in the seventies, Playboy sales have gone down. Hustler is disguised as a magazine for the working class, when its "readers" are actually middle-class. This strategy is used because as Gail Dines says "Nobody wants to see themselves as a Hustler subscriber". Therefore Hustler magazine claims to be produced for the working class, who are seen as being beneath the standards of the middle-class. This allows the middle-class male to buy Hustler without feeling beneath the standards of his class, because this magazine is not really made for him. MIM would argue that another reason this kind of advertising approach is feasible is because there really is no working class in the United Snakes. The working class has withered away into people who work in previously designated working class positions but receive middle-class wages, and those who are unemployed or not permanently employed. Like Catherine MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin, Gail Dines discusses the fact of pornography as oppressive within a social and political context. She brings to attention the fact that the pornography industry has made more money over the last few years than the film and music industries combined. She points out that the majority of this pornographic material is heterosexual pornography where the wimmin are being dominated by the men. As pornography has become more and more main stream, it has become more and more explicit and violent. Dines claims that the average contemporary pornographic film requires wimmin being penetrated in three orifices at once by three different men. Snuff films are becoming more and more popular, where wimmin are murdered and the murder is part of the sexual thrill for the consumer. Many of these films have involved actual murder for the making of the film. Dines described a film called "Cherry Poppers" which is basically a step by step instructional video on how to lure and rape a young girl. This film has been at the top 10% of the highest selling pornography films for the last three years MIM agrees with Gail Dines that pornography is a facet of oppression in Amerika, however we disagree with her conclusion about this subject as stated at her talk in Cambridge. Dines, does what so many feminists and pseudo- feminists do when they are looking for a way to help end oppression. She looks to reformism in the form of legislation to curve the effects of oppression. MIM believes that some reforms are good and can help the people in their struggles to achieve overall freedom from oppression. Yet if a reform gives more power to an already corrupt system like the United Snakes government, what good will this do. We see the discussion of a civil rights law against pornography as an interesting approach to a worthwhile issue, but official legislation to censor pornography will not free wimmin from oppression. We urge those concerned about the growing industry of pornography to organize and direct their energy toward a socialist revolution where the oppressed will rise up and fight for true freedom. * * * HARASSMENT OF MUMIA AND HIS SUPPORTERS CONTINUES In mid-February several of Mumia Abu Jamal's friends and political supporters visited him on death row at SCI Greene, Waynesburg, PA. Mumia has been framed and convicted for killing a cop and is facing the death penalty for the crime of being a political activist who opposes the Amerikan imperialist government. The harassment the visitors faced was just one small example of the injustice rampant in the criminal injustice system. The visitors were subjected to a metal detector and then an IONSCAN which is a detector for determining the presence of drugs. It is supposed to detect the smallest amount of drugs on a persons clothing or skin. One of the visitors was turned away from the visit for failing the IONSCAN. The prisoncrats claimed to have found "residue". The visitor asked that guards search him for drugs as he had no drugs or drug residue on him (unless the guards placed some on him). Although they had no evidence of any drugs and this person had walked past a drug detecting dog with no problem, the guards used this excuse to turn away one of Mumia's visitors and ban him from the prison. The visitor later learned that many other people have had similar experiences with the IONSCAN. The government is using this device for political ends. MIM demands freedom for Mumia Abu Jamal and an end to the entire criminal injustice system. NOTES: Press release from Mumia@aol.com 2/23/98 * * * PAUL ROBESON GETS A GRAMMY Paul Robeson, communist, football star, lawyer, singer, actor and scholar, was awarded a posthumous Grammy lifetime achievement award twenty two years after his death. Robeson's activism destroyed his career. This recognition by the bourgeois culture for his achievements can be taken as an indication that the imperialists no longer consider Robeson dangerous. Communists must use this opportunity to let people know about Paul Robeson's ideological and practical support for Lenin and Stalin and the world revolutionary struggle. A son of a slave, Robeson became a supporter of the Socialist Soviet Union while fighting for civil rights in the u.s., singing for Amerikans battling fascism in Spain and supporting other progressive struggles in this country. Robeson understood that national oppression meant that Blacks are not a part of the u.s. and should not be fighting to defend imperialism. He once said that Blacks in the u.s. should not "go to war on behalf of those who have oppressed us for generations." Robeson lost his U.S. passport for his ideological support of the Soviet Union. When questioned by the House Un- American Activities Committee, during the McCarthy era he refused to say whether or not he was a communist. He accepted the International Stalin Peace Prize in 1953. The sacrifices Robeson made, giving up his very successful career to devote his life to the struggle against imperialism and for socialism, are an example for all who live within u.s. borders. Note: Associated Press, 25 February 1998. * * * GERONIMO JI JAGA UPHOLDS REVOLUTIONARY LEGACY OF THE BLACK PANTHER PARTY SANTA BARBARA -- Former Black Panther Party leader and former political prisoner Geronimo Ji Jaga (Pratt) spoke to about one thousand people at the University of California here on February 11. While MIM has important differences with some of Geronimo's speech, we are happy to report that Geronimo upheld the revolutionary legacy of the Black Panther Party. In his speech, Geronimo advocated liberation and self- determination for the Black Nation; he made no apologies for the Panthers' belief that true liberation requires armed struggle; and he emphasized the importance of study and theory for the revolutionary movement. MIM wholeheartedly agrees with all of these points. Geronimo was a leader in the Southern California chapter of the Black Panther Party. He was targeted by the FBI's counter-intelligence activities and convicted in 1972 of a Santa Monica murder he did not commit. The FBI's own surveillance records prove that he was in Oakland the night of the murder. Despite mounting evidence that Geronimo did not commit the Santa Monica murder, Geronimo was not granted a re-trial or even parole for over twenty years. The parole board rejected his parole explicitly because "he remain[ed] a revolutionary man."(1) Geronimo's conviction was overturned just last year by the bourgeois courts, because - unknown to the jury and Geronimo's defense at the time - the main witness against Geronimo was a paid FBI informant. Geronimo is still charged with the Santa Monica murder, however, and the Los Angeles County District Attorney recently appealed the decision to overturn Geronimo's conviction. The bogus legal harassment and imprisonment of Geronimo Ji Jaga are more evidence that Amerikan courts and police are tools of the Amerikan bourgeoisie, that Amerikan democracy is hypocrisy. "Check and cross-check" In his speech, Geronimo repeatedly stressed the importance of studying revolutionary history and theory. He quoted Sun Tzu, the Chinese military philosopher often cited by Mao: "Know your enemy and know yourself, and you will win a thousand battles." You must also study the roots of oppression in order to combat it effectively. As a RAIL representative said when s/he addressed the audience before the speech, "Theory without practice ain't shit, but practice without theory is blind." Of note, Geronimo opposed reductionism, saying, "It's not race, not class, not gender alone." This is a significant position. Those who talk about class to the exclusion of nation and gender, those who talk about (their) nation to the exclusion of class and gender, etc., are often looking to cut a deal for their narrow group, be it the labor aristocracy, the gender aristocracy, or the national bourgeoisie. MIM adds that while we must oppose all three forms of oppression (nation, class, and gender), we must also decide what the principal contradiction is and focus our work on that. Right now, the contradiction between imperialism and the oppressed nations is principal - in other words, the class and gender contradictions in both oppressed and oppressor nations cannot be resolved before the oppressed nations win their liberation and exercise true self-determination. In the question and answer period, Geronimo clearly stated that the Panthers studied the works of Marx, Lenin, and Mao. He said that much of the Panthers' time was taken up with study and theoretical struggle. A typical day at the Panther office might look like this: Make breakfast for the children in the morning, patrol the police at night, and study, study, study, during the day. Geronimo briefly lamented that current activists are theoretically illiterate compared to the activists of his day. Books such as Mao's "Little Red Book" and Fanon's "Wretched of the Earth" were universal reference points. MIM strives to raise revolutionary literacy levels, so it distributes these books, as well other Marxist classics and important non-Marxist books (write to the address on p. 2 for a literature list). Geronimo encouraged people to study the history of the Amerikan government's psy-war and counterintelligence programs against the Panthers and other activists of the 60s. The Panthers and others had a faint idea of what they were up against; we can learn from their experiences and be better prepared this time. When studying the history of these counterintelligence operations - as when studying anything - Geronimo encouraged his audience to "check and cross-check" their sources. Geronimo also advocated study as a tool to expose "false panthers" - people who distort the true history of the Panthers and what they stood for. MIM agrees completely. That is why MIM distributes articles from the Black Panther newspaper (www.etext.org/MIM/Politics has a section devoted to archiving the Black Panther's literature), and books like "The Black Panthers Speak" and "To Die for the People." Some ex-Panther sell-outs like Bobby Seale have gone so far as to suggest that the Panthers were about electoralism and reformism from the beginning.(2) Geronimo made it clear that the Panthers were leading a revolutionary struggle for the liberation of the Black nation, and that they were preparing for armed struggle as a necessary step towards liberation. Indeed, thanks to the many provocative attacks on the Panthers by the FBI and other Amerikan military organizations, the Panthers were actually engaged in armed struggle. On several occasions, however, Geronimo made vague favorable references to revisionists or reformists, more or less because they used to be or appear down with the struggle. For example, he hailed some former Trotskyists for "applying the theory of Leon Trotsky." MIM knows that the "theories" particular to Trotsky amount to a negation of the revolutionary nationalist struggle. Indeed, Trotskyist parties like to Sparticist league or crypto-Trotskyists like the Progressive Labor Party denounce the Panthers as narrow nationalists and uphold the pernicious and incorrect slogan, "All nationalism is reactionary." Geronimo also voiced his approval of former Panther Bobby Rush, without clarifying that Rush is now a bourgeois politician. These errors only serve to emphasize that when we evaluate leaders of the past (and the present), we need to do so based on a thorough study of their line and practice, not based on their "credentials." Armed struggle Geronimo made no secret of the fact that the Panthers believed armed struggle was a necessary part of the struggle for liberation. Geronimo himself helped train Panthers in the tactics of armed struggle, and his tactics are credited with saving his life and the lives of other Panthers during police assaults. At the same time, he emphasized that armed struggle serves a political line, not the other way around. When one audience member asked Geronimo to suggest where s/he could learn military tactics, Geronimo told the audience member to mobilize people politically. As for military tactics, Geronimo said when the time came you can learn that in a snap. MIM agrees. If we do a good job building political support now, then learning how to build Molotov cocktails or where to buy guns etc. will be easy - the masses will know and learn these things. On the other hand, if we are technically competent but lack a mass base, armed actions will pose little threat to the Amerikan military and we will be easily isolated, and imprisoned or killed. Geronimo emphasized that armed struggle is not a game to be taken lightly, and said that he constantly had to guard against ultraleftism when he was training Panthers in self- defense tactics. "You had to be careful what you taught people, because they might hurt themselves or hurt others." While MIM believes that armed struggle will ultimately be necessary for the overthrow of u.$. imperialism, we believe that now is not the time to wage armed struggle, since we are too weak and our enemy is too strong. Instead, we seek to build public opinion in support of revolutionary armed struggle and hasten the day when the Amerikan bourgeoisie will become truly helpless. All prisoners are political prisoners Geronimo agrees with MIM that "all prisoners are political prisoners," for identical reasons: The definition of what is and is not a crime, sentencing regulations, and enforcement are all political (Why can the CIA kill and run drugs with impunity, while more and more oppressed nation people are imprisoned for petty drug offenses?). Geronimo also criticized Amnesty International for bourgeois hypocrisy on the question of political prisoners, saying "You cannot be a revolutionary unless you act based on your consciousness." Amnesty does not recognize those who have committed "crimes" (as defined by reactionary states) in the name of their politics to be political prisoners. MIM is happy to report that Geronimo confirmed that MIM's Books for Prisoners Program is successfully getting revolutionary literature to our comrades behind bars. When a MIM supporter approached Geronimo with an issue of MIM Theory with an article on the Black Panthers in it, Geronimo recognized it and said that he had read it. Geronimo's speech was organized by Asian Sisters (and Brothers) for Ideas in Action Now! (ASIAN), a mass organization of progressives and anti-imperialists unaffiliated with either MIM or RAIL. Notes: 1. MIM Theory 11, pp. 78-79. 2. Seale releases this noxious fart in "All Power to the People!" * * * MICHIGAN PRISONS: SMALL GAINS IN PRISONER LITERACY PROJECT In the past six months, MIM has made great strides promoting our Free Books for Prisoners program in Michigan prison libraries. RAIL has shown tremendous success in raising both money and books to send to prisoners. Michigan prisoners have shown their appreciation for RAIL's and MIM's work by helping to pull these books inside the prison walls. Successful book drives on the University of Michigan campus, and contact with the Overseas Development Network and Student Book Exchange on the campus in Ann Arbor have been a boon to RAIL's work for Free Books for Prisoners. ODN and SBE have contributed boxes of books left over from their own work and it is now RAIL's task to work with MIM and get these books to Michigan prisoners. To consolidate some costs of getting political, historical and legal books to prisoners in Michigan, it is MIM's goal to get Michigan prison libraries to accept donations from us. Sending donations en masse will allow us to get more books to more prisoners for less money. The libraries may also be able to receive books which the prison mail policies would keep from prisoners. Students, progressives and activists can help with this work, as can prisoners. People on the outside: contact RAIL to donate your labor to the large task of getting in touch with prison officials around the state. We do not want to waste books or money, so we need approval from these officials before we send books into the prisons. Prisoners: if your institution's library has not yet received a donation from MIM's Free Books for Prisoners program, try to find out why. Is the librarian willing to accept donations? Does s/he know that our program exists and that prisoners are interested in getting more quality books into the library? While legal, political and historical books are the most frequently requested, we do also receive donations of politically relevant fiction (Richard Wright, Chinua Achebe, etc.) and academic theory on topics like race and ethnicity theories and sociology. Prison librarians in Michigan who wish to receive donations should contact MIM at the address on page two. Please let us know if you have a preference for the type of books you would like to have. * * * WIMMIN INMATES WIN LAWSUIT AGAINST MASS DOC Wimmin at Framingham prison in Massachusetts won a lawsuit against the Department of Corrections for brutalizing and harassing the inmates. On September 1995 masked prison guards dressed in black forced 112 inmates and pretrial detainees from their beds and publicly strip-searched (including vaginal and anal searches) 16 of them as a part of a training exercise. This month the DOC settled the suit by agreeing never again to use such techniques and paying the wimmin $80,000 in damages. The DOC still insists it did not break any laws. During this raid the guards destroyed prisoner's property while searching their cells, denied wimmin medical care when they requested it, and refused to tell the wimmin the purpose of the whole "training exercise." After hours of detention in common areas the prisoners returned to beds and clothing covered with officer's boot prints. The DOC promised not to unnecessarily humiliate or subject its charges to severe emotional distress. Their promises state: Correction officers will not conduct searches in garments that conceal their identities. Guards will refrain from deliberate actions that inflict emotional distress on inmates. Random urine tests will no longer be conducted between 11pm and 7am. Inmates who request medical attention during raids will be grated the attention in a timely fashion. Strip searches will be done in relative privacy and with as much dignity as possible. The searches will not be conducted by members of the opposite gender or in the presence of people not conducting the search. Correction officers will not unnecessarily destroy or disrupt inmates' property. These rules of behavior would be a huge step forward for the Massachusetts Department of Corrections if they were applied to the prisons in the state. Currently both men and wimmin in prison in Massachusetts face regular brutality and negligence at the hands of the guards. This legal victory lays the groundwork for future lawsuits from other inmates experiencing similar harassment. Forcing the MDOC to pay damages is a strategy that could force improvements in the conditions in prisons if we can make it costly for the guards to brutalize the inmates. MIM agrees with the strategy of pursuing these winnable legal battles both as a way to expose the criminal injustice system and to win small gains within the system. But this strategy must be coupled with the fight to overthrow the entire system. Only by eliminating imperialism will we be able to establish a just system where poverty, national origin and political activism are not crimes. Note: Boston Globe 2 February 1998. * * * AMERIKAN PRISONS ON TRIAL: THE PEOPLE FIND AMERIKA GUILTY The Ann Arbor Revolutionary Anti-Imperialist League regularly holds revolutionary educational events and has been slowly and steadily building opposition to Amerikkka's crazed proliferation of prisons. Here we sum up two recent events for the readers of MIM Notes because many of our brothers and sisters are under lock and key are do not have the freedom to organize as we do on the outside. To those comrades: work with us on future events and help us to continue to get your words out to intensify opposition to national oppression and social control and specifically Amerikkkan prisons. On January 23rd, our scheduled event to have Big Black speak at the UM campus was canceled because he was very sick and unable to come. But half of the initial crowd, about 60 people, stayed and heard speeches from RAIL, from a local progressive lawyer, and from a Black man who had been incarcerated for 16 years in Amerika's gulags. Many left saying that they learned a lot and some were turned on to doing work with RAIL in support of prisoners' struggles. Even people with fundamental disagreements with RAIL helped out writing letters to prisoners and generally getting the word out. We outlined the main reasons that we oppose the Amerikan prison system and specifically talked about Engler's ploy to increase public support for the proliferation of prisons in Michigan by sending prisoners out of state. RAIL also outlined the case of Michigan prisoner Steve Wilcox who has faced punishment because he filed charges against a prison guard who raped him. Generally RAIL and MIM oppose the current prison system because it is one of the most fascistic elements of Amerikan society and serves as a tool to intensify the settler nation's war against oppressed nations within the illegitimate borders of the United Snakes of Imperialism. RAIL emphasized the need to intensify opposition to disproportionate imprisonment of oppressed nationals, continuous brutality faced by prisoners, censorship in prisons and all of Amerika's oppressive tactics used to corral the oppressed into the gulags. But as we emphasized during the events, we can work to lessen some oppressive tactics or free up some organizing space used against the oppressed, but fundamentally, this system which breeds on exploitation and brutality cannot be changed without revolution! Ad-hoc event builds support The local progressive lawyer explained how the current way that plea bargaining is done only results in longer sentences for prisoners. He also emphasized support for public viewing areas in prisons so that people are able to see how prisoners are treated. Gary Fareed explained his experience of becoming politically conscious while under lock and key for 16 years. While incarcerated in about 20 different Illinois kkkoncentration kkkamps, Fareed became political in part because of the influence of groups like the Black Panther Party and also because of his continuous transfers and repeated problems with filing grievances. Reading from RAIL's anti-prison pamphlet, Fareed exclaimed "The Revolutionary Anti-Imperialist League - now that's hip!" He emphasized to students, and in particular Black students, that it is necessary to reassess strategy if anti- imperialism is not part of their program. Fareed also explained how the military-style structure of prisons reinforces the fact that prisoners are thoroughly controlled by their captures. He added that the way that prisoners are treated strips them of skills necessary to be successfully independent after release. Black womyn leader advocates for prisoners RAIL rescheduled the panel with Big Black for February 20th and Cindy Owens, a local activist, discussed the Michigan prison system as a part of the panel. RAIL had little disagreement with what she said so we print some of it here. "I'm specifically going to talk about the prisons in Michigan because I visit many of the prisons here in the state. I am an advocate for the men locked up, predominantly Black men - over 50%. I am an advocate because I am a mother of a son who is 30 years old and his chances of going to prison are very great. So I speak for those who cannot speak up for themselves and I speak for those who are locked behind the prison bars. And I visit many of the prisons throughout the state and hear the problems and concerns and I do assist and try to aid as much as I can regarding many problems we do have in the state of Michigan. "We have a governor here who is driven somehow by whatever forces to build more prisons in the state. Well, my position is to educate versus incarcerate. Give people an education and if you give people a sense of self, people will not commit criminal activity "I wanted to make sure I drive the point home to let all of us know the problems that exist in the prisons here in the state of Michigan and the reasons behind why the governor wants to build more prisons. "Michigan prison population is at a staggering total of 43,000 and rising as we speak. There are 42 prisons in the state of Michigan with five new prisons being built by the year 2000 - which will total 47 prisons in the state. Governor Engler has proposed a total of 10 prisons by the year 2010. Please note that for 42 prisons with 43,000 inmates, 50.3% are Black men. White males make up 41.9%. Black men make up half of the population in the state prisons in Michigan. "Let's compare the percentages of females incarcerated in the state prisons. Black wimmin total 430 which is 4.3% compared with white wimmin which totaled 346 or 3.4%.(1) "Why are there more Black men and wimmin in prison in the state of Michigan? The Black population is approximately 14% of Michigan's 8 million total population. Yet over 50% of Blacks are locked up in what many inmates call koncentration kamps, with a k - a modern day slave system. "Crime does pay" "Why did I start my speech with these statistical facts? I cite these numbers first because in all of the many prisons that I visit, I see predominantly Black men. I cite these facts because they are real and the old adage that crime does not pay is a lie. Crime does pay. Crime pays billions of dollars to contractual companies and businesses who make millions of dollars perpetuating and embellishing criminal activity." "With the proliferation of drugs, guns, longer and unfair prison sentences, how ethical is it for private corporations to run prisons when they have so much to gain by keeping them full - particularly of Black men? "Yes. Crime does pay. Aramark a so-called correction facility service, the first business in this country that contracts with prisons to take care of their mechanical system And yes, it also pays big salaries. Aramark also contracts to take care of the electronic system They make billions of dollars each year. 'The founders and managers of Aramark Correctional Facilities Services bring to the firm a history in criminal justice planning and design - over three billion dollars worth .' "Crime pays Correctional Corporations of America (CCA) - a multi-million dollar corporation that has seized the dominant market share of private prison industry and has fueled a historic rise in stock value. CCA now has 30,000 beds operating in 47 facilities in 11 states. [Also in Puerto Rico, England and Australia.] In 1995, the [CCA stock] soared from $8 a share to $37 a share. CCA is one of the corporations on the cutting edge of prison businesses in this country and the privatization revolution currently sweeping the prison business in much of the United States. "Ten years ago the country had barely 1,000 private prison beds, today there are as many as 70,000 inmates incarcerated in 104 private facilities in 19 states. In the last five years, the prison industry has grown at an aggregated rate of 34%. "Because of the mindset that has spawned a new global industry, corporations and powerful corporate players who seek to make money off a new enslaved system has hatched a new species of consultants, lobbyists, investment bankers, stock analysts, and industry academics. "The prison industry pays big bucks to the Wackenhut corporation - that is poised alongside so-called Corrections Corporations of America. Many companies are competing to capture a lion's share of the growing market for private prison beds. "Nation-wide spending on prisons is the fastest growing item in America and in Michigan. The prison industry is shifting priorities from social programs and education, building more prisons to warehouse more people. Don't believe the hype: The criminals are in Lansing "The state of Michigan has a governor who refuses to fund schools. He refuses to fund welfare to feed the poor. [He] recently closed Highland Park Community College that provided educational opportunities for those who could not attend the higher institutions. The state and other officials saw fit to close the school yet they have proposed to build ten new prisons by the year 2010 - building five new prisons as we speak. Wonder where you'll get all those people from! "Feeding the prison industrial complex and driving the current tidal wave of privatization are two forces. 1) Feeding the public with the fear of crime 2) So-called criminals for the pursuit of profit. The so-called war on poverty became a war on poor Blacks and poor whites. Cindy Owens continued and stated that politicians use the hyped up myth of Black street crime to win their campaigns. Owens noted Bush's use of the Willie Horton case as an example. "So many politicians won elections by talking about building more prisons and crime. " "I ask you: Who is more criminal those bureaucrats who sit and plan criminal activity? Like the CIA who allegedly put crack cocaine in the inner cities of America. It has been in the best interests of many politicians to enforce conservative law. "The deterioration of the inner cities and the so-called war on drugs has put far too many men and women in many prisons throughout the state. The unfair and inhuman 650-lifers law is a law where low level drug dealers are put in prison for life. It's an unfair, unjust law. Owens continued and explained how the felony murder law unnecessarily imprisons more people for longer periods of time. Currently there are at least 260 men and wimmin locked up under the felony murder law. The Michigan Supreme Court ruled that this law was unconstitutional in 1980. But the law was not applied retroactively. So the men who were convicted before the court's ruling are still locked up. Owens talked about her regular visits to Michigan prisoners and said, "I go because there are people there that need us. I go because they are locked up and many of their rights have been taken from them. So we have to speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves." "Black men are stopped by police more than white. Livonia, Michigan for example, a predominantly white community arrests over 50% Blacks in that city when Blacks only make up less than 1%." "So that's why I go. Because of the vast injustices, the lack of education, high unemployment and other systemic social forces that can lead to criminal activity. At the prisons that I visit I see predominantly Black men." * * * MDOC INCARCERATES: DOES NOT EDUCATE "Black men are now denied minimum educational opportunities in the prisons. They have discontinued GEDs in many of the prisons in the state of Michigan." "They work from 8 to 10 hours a day Cleaning the facilities making furniture and cleaning land, even in the northern region of the state. You've got people out there cleaning the land - for snowmobilers, for hunters. Prisoners out there cleaning the land, but there's no education for them. "There used to be several prisons in the state that offered college courses. They've discontinued that. Now there are only one or two that you can take college courses from. So there's no correctional system in the prisons. They're just warehousing people. "I go to see them to keep abreast of what's going on behind those bars. I want to know what is going on. The inhumane treatments that are taking place, the rape that occurs daily in prisons Putting the guys in the holes without clothing, food, water. I go to have first hand knowledge of the many crimes committed by the prison officials. "As a society we pay more and more tax dollars to lock folks up than to spend educational dollars to stand folks up in life. We cannot reduce the very complex issues of crime to political expedience and good old boy popularity. Owens talked about the need to examine the history of oppression against the Black nation. "America, too, must learn from its hard past and the injustices that have been perpetuated on a people." Isolation of prisoners Owens then talked about the problems faced by prisoners' visitors. "Because Michigan's prison population has grown, so too has the number of people visiting the state correctional facilities. Currently about 2,300 people a day visit Michigan prisons that's about 820,000 visits per year. The volume of visitors has brought much concern to the Michigan Department of Corrections. Therefore, the MDOC director, Mr. McGinnis, has put in place obstacles to disallow visitors - particularly children. The MDOC belief is that more people visiting escalates the ability to bring in drugs. " Owens explained the ridiculous nature of this alleged fear considering the intense security at MDOC facilities. She explained that the MDOC just does not want people visiting the prisoners. "What they are trying to do is isolate the men from their loved ones. And once they isolate them, they begin to experiment on them. And once they experiment on them, extermination is next. That is the order of the day." "We need to be aware of the horrors that are going on behind those bars. They want to ship a lot of the people out of the state." Cindy then told the story of a young 16 year old who was in a juvenile center and then shipped out of the state. "They shipped her out in the middle of the night, her mother got a call saying that she was in the hospital and that they had to take her kidney. Her kidney was taken from her - and was given to someone else. That's what happened." "She was only 16 years old and they took her kidney and gave it to someone else." After this case, Michigan stopped transferring juveniles out of state, but currently Michigan is maneuvering to ship 500 adult prisoners out of state. Owens warned of the privatization of prisoner medical care. She warned that there are no controls to protect prisoners from experimentation - and Amerika has experimented on Black men and Third World wimmin before. Owens quoted from a bourgeois source, "'Michigan tax payers could save 10 million dollars a year on a contract that turns much of the state prison system's medical care management over to United Correctional Management Care - a private company in Anaheim, California. The cost-cutting move by the Michigan Department of Corrections is among the first steps toward fully privatizing health care in the prison system.' So they're going to privatize the medical inside the prisons and a lot of experimentation will go on." Owens reported that revolutionaries and radical men are being experimented on with implants. She stated that an IBM chip is implanted that allows the captures to put these men to sleep at random. She also stated that she has seen young men go into prison healthy and then in a short time they are sitting in wheel chairs needing kidney dialysis without clear explanation. Whether or not these specific experiments can be verified, we know that Amerika has knowingly experimented on Third World people inside and outside the United Snakes and there is no reason to think that Amerika has discontinued using the oppressed as guinea pigs. The audience and speaker got into a heated debate about the ways in which drugs get onto the streets. Owens and other audience members agreed that the government is responsible for this and that Amerika is not spending the necessary money to help people stop using drugs. Owens also talked about an upcoming announcement of activists in Detroit filing a suit against the CIA for bringing drugs into Amerika. [For more history on this topic, help RAIL hold a showing of "Guns, Drugs, and the CIA" in your area.] Cindy ended her speech by saying that Engler must go. RAIL adds that Engler's plans for prisoner transfers, prison construction are particularly hideous, but ultimately any man or womyn sitting in his chair will make little difference. Only the liberation of the Black nation and all oppressed nations will completely end the Amerikan Lockdown. In closing, she read a poem inspired after visiting many prisoners held in Michigan's gulags: Brilliant Black Men Born Free Held captive in America for the world to see. Broken spirits. Broken wills. Locked in Prisons where thousands live. Like wingless birds that cannot fly The Black mother womb weeps and cries For Brilliant Black Men Born Free Held Captive. NOTE: 1. Corrections Management Information System (CMIS) 1996-1997. Pick up the next issue of MIM Notes for coverage of Frank "Big Black" Smith's lecture on the University of Michigan campus. * * * REVISIONIST CASTRO RETAINS CUBAN PRESIDENCY Long-time revisionist Fidel Castro was elected to a fifth term as Cuban president on February 24th. Castro was the only presidential candidate. Cuba's 601 member parliament was elected in January and it opened its five-year term by re-electing Castro and other top members of the council of State, which works in conjunction with the Cabinet. While MIM supports Cuba in its fight against u.s. imperialism, we do not consider Cuba socialist. The country entered into a dependent economic relationship with the Soviet Union almost immediately after the revolution in 1959. The Soviet Union, having turned to state capitalism under Kruschev's leadership, took advantage of Cuba by forcing it to produce sugar as its principal crop rather than diversifying and working towards self-sufficiency. Kruschev forced Cuba to send troops to fight on the side of social imperialism in Ethiopia and elsewhere. Cuba's dependent relationship on the Soviet Union made it into a neo-colony. In his speech to parliament Castro denounced a proposal before the u.s. congress to distribute limited aid through u.s. charitable organization as "humiliating." "We accept with dignity that any country wants to help us," he said. "But we are not disposed to play the role of beggars." Unfortunately this was not true with Castro's relationship to the Soviet Union and it was this relationship that resulted in Cuba's failure to achieve self-sufficiency. Furthermore, recent "reforms" aimed at luring foreign currency to Cuba go beyond the realm of necessary compromise and are in fact clear departures from the principle of self- reliance and other basic principles of Marxism-Leninism. The advances achieved after the revolution in Cuba were undeniably progress over the colonial position Cuba faced prior to 1959. But progress alone does not make socialism. Neither the economic dependency nor the political development which left out the essential cultural revolution (the only possible way to prevent bourgeois takeover under socialism) are socialist. Notes: Associated Press, Feb 25, 1998. For more information on Cuba's relationship to the Soviet Union send MIM $2 for a copy of Kosmas Tsokas' essay "The Political Economy of Cuban Dependence on the Soviet Union." * * * UNDER LOCK & KEY SEVERE BEATING REQUIRES LIFE FLIGHT I must bring to your attention that today, one of our comrades was assaulted, and beaten unconscious and was near death whenever these pigs sent him to the Hospital on "Life Flight," via Emergency Air Ambulance. Our comrade was beaten merely because he requested knowledge as to why his MIM Notes were taken from his cell. Other comrades came to the warden for an answer as to the reason why comrade "X" was assaulted, because he merely asked a sadistic pig guard why his MIM Notes were taken. -- A Texas Prisoner, 5 January 1998 PRISONERS RUN INDEPENDENT LIBRARY ...I have a personal library which is used by a large majority of the prisoner population here. I keep track of the conditions of the books, who has them, and when they are returned, which is 9 to 14 days from the day checked out and can be re-checked out after inspection of the un-kept condition of the materials. The prison library here is greatly insufficient and will not stock revolutionary, nationalist books, literature, or materials. So I have started through donated materials a library of my own which is run by myself and several other revolutionary warriors of our cause rather efficiently. But I am an orphan and also what is considered a "Lifer" in prisons. This is my life now, but many of the men here are going to be back in the free world and so I imbibe the cause not only into their ideals but also into daily lives and living values. I am vastly in need of all types of materials such as MIM Notes, MIM Theory, Notas Rojas and other revolutionary literature. We have very limited to no real access to educational activities and resources. It is primarily up to us prisoners to educate ourselves as the supposed justice system just locks us away and then forgets about us. They don't have any money to spare on us, but they expect a change in us. Although they don't even try to supply us with the abilities and courses or programs to make a change. Here in this letter [from MIM], it was stated that "some prisoners in Texas start out making 24 cents an hour..." Well in all T.D.C.J. -I.D. prisons, there are no wages paid for any type of labor done, no matter how simple or how great that labor may be. The T.D.C.J.-I.D. systems have revoked the college course programs and there is only limited access to GED classes and the prisoner must pay for half of the costs required. The Legal Law Library has recently made a new policy that states, "Prisoners who are in need of legal materials must give an active case 'cause number and must submit a copy of the order from the court stating that such is required. There will be no books checked out to prisoners in any other matters (i.e., just to educate yourself to the law...)." We are allowed both hardbound books, paperbacks, (plastic) spiral bound, copies of literature, photocopied literature, pamphlets and literature on loose paper, newspapers. All materials must be sent from a bookstore, an organization, or an address, which is typed under a heading of such a place. I am in the process of getting statements, testimonials, and explanations of what is going on, on the inside and being hidden or covered up and not made known to the public. At this time, this unit has been on a total lockdown and there is no movement by prisoners. We are fed 3 meals a day which consist of at breakfast, 1 boiled grade A egg, 1 small biscuit made of flour with a teaspoon of diluted peanut butter, 1 small box of cereal. No beverages are served. Then at lunch we are served one sandwich which consists of 2 slices of white bread and 1 slice of cheese, or 1 teaspoon of peanut butter and 1 sandwich which is either 2 slices of bread with 1 slice of bologna or 1 slice of salami, or 1 sandwich which consists of 1 hotdog bun and 1 uncooked hotdog. The same lunch is served at last chow meals. No beverages are served. We must drink water from the tap. These harsh meals have been going on for 17 days now and we are informed that this is going to be this way for 90 days total because of lack of funds. And because some of the prisoners on this unit have been writing grievances on the unit administration offices and those offices' employees. This is also going on because the unit is under investigation by the Texas Prison Board. We must, in order to be fed, get off of our bunks and kneel with our backs to the door, ankles crossed and hands on top of our heads. The meals have no assigned times to be served an hour or two apart or all at once; it's up to the whim of the officer. It is his or her decision as to how they want to do it personally. ...We need the help of our brothers and sisters in the free world.... We need a lot of books in all the aforementioned topics and subjects as our library now consists of 56 books and is greatly inadequate to our group which has 387 members at this month's count and is still growing.... Always in Struggle, A Clenched Fist Salute to All Comrades and Revolutionaries! -- A Texas Prisoner, 30 December 1997 A CALL FOR HELP: MISSOURI PRISONER NEEDS MEDICAL CARE ...I am having serious problems getting adequate medical attention from the medical staff here at the Cross Roads Correctional Center. I am having problems swallowing. My throat stays sore all the time and this infection is causing my tongue to have sores on it. I have serious nose bleeding due to the fact that whatever is stuck in my throat is also effect my nasal passages. I have put in several medical requests concerning this problem. I have even gone to the extent of filing a grievance about my medical problem, but nothing is being don for me in the medical department. Every time I go to the doctor's office for an examination the doctor just looks into my mouth and nose with a flashlight. And then tells me that nothing is wrong with me. This routine is frustrating and depressing to me because I am in constant pain. I am suffering and can not get any medical attention from the medical staff here. I know for a fact that I am being discriminated against because of my race and the fact that I am a revolutionary. They know I am a revolutionary from my politics and my reading material. I am very aware of what I am dealing with in this concentration camp. I know the history of how these prisons use their medical staff to murder certain political prisoners who have power and influence among the masses of people. I am being held in maximum security lockdown. I am isolated from the general population. So whatever happens to me back here in isolation is hidden from the eyesight of the rest of the prisoners in general population. For all of you comrades who are locked up in Administrative Segregation at any prison, I am sure that you can identify with my plight. All of this is political, my comrades. The prisoncrats are keeping the money, which the taxpayers are giving them for our medical care. The prisoncrats receive $50,000 a year for each inmate they hold in the system. [We could not verify this -- MIM] No wonder why the prisoncrats, the modern day slave holders, are crying for more prisons to be built in the United Snakes. The Imperialists and Capitalists are getting fat off our captivity and enslavement, while we are suffering and dying in these prisons by the thousands. This is just a business for the white power structure. We can't look for any mercy or expect any sympathy from the ruling class in these prison systems. They are like hungry lions feeding off the blood and guts of the lambs and sheep. We are nothing to them except a meal ticket. They don't care about our medical care. They don't care a thing about our pain and suffering. They only care about their own greedy capitalist interest. We must build a strong united front to work for our own common interest. We must fight against Imperialism and all forms of oppression. We prisoners have to come together all over the world and design a think tank to combat all the injustices toward us. I am need in support... I need comrades to put pressure on the prisoncrats to give me the medical attention that I need. My throat is hurting me to the point where I am having severe headaches. It's difficult for me to sleep at night because the pain is almost unbearable. My complaint is not a joke or a prank. I am in need of some serious medial attention. Please address your letters and phone calls to the people below. Governor, Mel Cornahan, State Capital Building, Jefferson City, MO 65102, (314) 751-3222 Prison Director, Dora Schrino, 2729 Plaza Drive, PO Box 236, Jefferson City, MO (314) 751-2398 Medical Director, Dr. Rhonda Almanza, Missouri Department of Corrections, Cross Roads Correctional Center, Cameron, MO 64429 -- A Missouri Prisoner, 26 December 1997 PLEA BARGAIN UNDER PROTEST Greetings from the Gulag. In way of an introduction I am a man twenty-four, (24) years imprisoned as a result of a plea bargain made UNDER PROTEST, (in open court) after spending nearly four months in 4-point restraints, and medicated with huge doses of psychotropic medications. I am now in federal court litigating that conviction, but am up against tremendous odds.... I am a man of simple but compelling truths, (from essay) who wants to join the struggle. P.S. "If a law or policy is wrong, we are bound to oppose it with the same will it acts to thwart. If any plot exist which might deprive us of our humanity, then the plotters shall feel the full weight of our solidarity..." -- A California Prisoner, 30 December 1997 EXPOSING THE HYPE Peace and Revolutionary Greetings MIM, ...This shit-uation that's been going on here in Trenton has been that of harassment and repression. The New Jersey Department of KKKorrections has considered, categorized and labeled Five Percenters as a "Gang" (Security Threat Group [STG]). As it stands now, they have compiled a so-called "STG" list of anyone who associates with Five Percenters or has any of their literature in their possession. They have been placed on this STG list and shipped to Northern State which has a control unit specifically for so-called "gang members". They claim that prisons throughout New Jersey are infested with gangs and violence. Nevertheless, this move is an attempt to isolate political and conscious prisoners by lumping them together under the banner of security measures. Prisoners in New Jersey are beginning to re-awaken and are re-organizing. The Department of KKKorrections is fully aware and they are frightened because the oppressed are seeing the contradictions between the oppressors and the oppressed. Once we prisoners organize and build public opinion against Amerikkka's KKKriminal injustice system and replace it with proletarian justice, the bourgeois injustice system will collapse. I am, I remain, In struggle, -- A New Jersey Prisoner, 4 January 1998 STILL STRUGGLING IN SOUTH KKKAROLINA I've received your publication about a week ago. It arrived almost a month late. Hmm, i wonder was holding my mail. ...i am flat broke! And the Devils are stopping pay come Jan. 1, 1998. As you know all hell is going to break loose down here in Klanolina! I'm still on a Security Detention Unit (A new term for lock- up) since April 28th 1995. For being a security threat, a 5%er or member of the Nation of Gods and Earth. The sad part is that legally The System is winning. Right now our lawyer... is appealing to the Supreme Courts, which will take another year (?) to get a damn answer! And Black so-called helpful organizations don't struggle with us! We are DEAD down here! At least MIM speaks with us from time to time. What about the organizations we represent? This jive is enough to make me give up! I can see why many revolutionaries quit struggling. How can you fight a monster when everyone is against you or running in fear?! Yet I will continue to fight regardless of no support. The 5% is in the Struggle, -- A South Carolina Prisoner, 30 December 1997 UNITY GETS RESULTS Greetings, I am a young Asiatic Black youth who is in search of a lot of things. I am incarcerated at Odom Correctional Facility, which is located in Jackson, North Carolina. At the present moment, I am separated from general population for a variety of infractions. These came about because a sergeant was trying to take a ring that I constructed at the wood shop. They asked me for it stating it was contraband. I refused. The pigs also asked for my tam [Rasta Cap]. This time I replied, "No Devil." The remark got the sergeant radiated and I was maced and jumped on by three pigs. Well I want to start a movement within the system to put an end to how they treat us. Before I was separated, I was working or getting brothers to stop doing slave work in the fields, kitchens and various places. ...I am twenty-two years of age, and I know that all it takes is unity and results can happen. I will get long term but that's no problem as long as I study and read things that may benefit the brothers here or within North Carolina that are downpressed daily.... I'll be trying to teach prisoners what's going on.... Peace and Love, -- A North Carolina Prisoner, 25 December 1997 THE STRUGGLE INTENSIFIES The struggle goes on! At this time I'm still on segregation. I've passed our publication [MIM Notes] around to a few like-minded comrades on lock-down. The publication has been received with a warm welcome and dialogue has been transformed. We speak of the oppression our people are under, in particular the education institution. ... At this particular time the DOC [Department of Corruptions] has intensified their oppression of their captives. The adjustment procedures have drastically been changed. Comrades are being held on segregation for weeks without an adjustment hearing. And visits are being terminated indefinitely in an attempt to cut off all outside and family support. The climate is being set for revolutionary reaction. The struggle intensifies! Psychological liberation is desperately needed. Your Comrade, -- A Maryland Prisoner, 3 January 1998 PIGS HARASS REVOLUTIONARY PRISONER Yesterday, I was under the impression that my captors were keeping my subscription of MIM Notes from me, and filed a grievance against my oppressors, and as I just mentioned comrades, today I was given my Nov 1, 1997 and Nov. 15, 1997 issues of MIM Notes. But my oppressors, as a result of me filing a grievance against them, have taken my radio, typewriter, coffeepot, etc. as a form of harassment. One pig guard even went on to say that it was behind me receiving revolutionary literature. I told the pig guard that by them harassing me and confiscating my property, that it only enforced what I already know. That is, that a pig will always do whatever he can to down a revolutionary comrade in the struggle. I also informed this same pig guard that my comrade brothers and sisters of the Maoist Internationalist Movement firmly support their comrades in the unjust prison system in Amerika, and are in solidarity with me in fighting against the brutalities and inhumane conditions in the prisons. ... And in the end...justice will win! I know that this pig guard did not really understand what I was pointing out to him, because justice is something he don't understand.... Your Comrade in Struggle, -- A Texas Prisoner, 2 January 1998 PIGS THROWING SPITBALLS AT BATTLESHIPS MIM, Comrades Hotep, Here at Smithfield Prison Camp in Pennsylvania, the Klan is no longer hiding. There has always been common knowledge that the KKK and the more elite Aryan Brotherhood has filtered into the PA prison system, and other prisons across the country disguised as Correctional Officers, Counselors, and into the Medial Department. Because in the Prison Camps they don't have to plan their clandestine move against Blacks and other oppressed POW's, --They can be their good old boy self and practice their kicks, swing and biological warfare and lying skills without consequence. Smithfield is so vicious and brutal that anyone who has stoop up for his basic prison right, has been beat down and locked down in solitary for 60 to 120 days. Until the Klan Staff feel you have learned your lesson which is to keep your head down, And go along with their program -- NKYP (Nigger Know Your Place). This is the only state institution in Pennsylvania to make up their own SHU (Special Housing Unit). Where they continue their harassment of all willful POW's who stand on their principles. As the warrior knows principles are what we live by and sometimes die for. Anyone can look around any of the three holes at Smithfield. You will see they are only trying to break the Black and Brown prisoners. We want our Comrades and Supporters to know that our enemies who control Smithfield are throwing spitballs at battleships trying to break out spirits. We still recognize that we need the people out there to combat this ongoing racial treatment by Smithfield pigs. We are in a corner, and we who are in the intestine of this beast at Smithfield ain't going down without a fight. The battlefield is any place you say enough is enough. And we had enough. Here our cry. -- A Pennsylvania 1 December 1997 P.S. ...We both know what Mao meant when he said: As the wind blow change We must learn to build a windmill And direct it. I'm in the hole... and I thank you for reaching out to all the dragons who are left behind these walls, bars, and breathing fresh air underneath our wings.... FAMILES PROTEST FLORIDA'S DEPARTMENT OF CORRUPTIONS "FDOC Policy = Get Tough on Families" "Cut out the middleman, Allow Prisoners to Keep Their Property and We'll send our money directly to Lawton Chiles" "Stop the FDOC Monopoly" "FDOC Profit Statement: Inmate Canteens, Inmate Telephones More Inmates!" These were just a few of the slogans that appeared on poster signs in a citizen demonstration in front of the capitol building in Tallahassee on October 15, 1997. Several family members and friends of Florida prisoners travel to Tallahassee to participate in the rally that included carrying signs, talking with and distributing flyers and information to pedestrians and motorist about the Florida Department of Corrections (FDOC's) price gouging and monopolistic practices toward prisoners' families and associates. The demonstrators, consisting of men, women, and children, were surprisingly well received and encouraged by numerous supportive comments from the public and capital employees. This was the first of what is hoped to be a series of demonstrations that are intended to challenge the FDOC's policies and practices. These policies are artificially creating the appearance of "getting tough on prisoners" but in reality only financially punish and double-tax prisoners' families and friends. This demonstration was initially proposed by staff from Florida Prison Legal Perspective (FPLP) at a recent Florida Prison Action Network meeting, which consists of Florida based groups that include: FPLP, Families with Loved ones in Prison (FLIP), Florida Institutional Legal Services, and the Parole Elimination Network (PEN). The intention was to raise awareness of the growing financial burdens being imposed against Prisoners' families, friends and all state taxpayers by the FDOC. Our approach was to organize and hold a demonstration in the state's capital to raise the awareness of the public, our state legislators, and other elected officials. The first issue expressed in this demonstration was the FDOC's plan to take all Florida Prisoners' personal property on January 1, 1998. But allow their families to send them money to replace the property with identical or similar property to be purchased from the prison canteen at recently inflated prices. The second topic was the monopoly and gouging that is occurring against prisoners' families and friends with the exorbitant collect telephone scheme being operated by the FDOC. ...Thank you, to those who showed up and participated [in the demonstration]. Your participation was important and greatly appreciated. I think we all had a good time and learned a lot. ... Widespread notice will be given on the future demonstrations that are to occur so that everyone will have the opportunity to participate. In other news, another Florida Prison Action Network meeting was held on November 2, 1997. It went very well. These important meetings, to which everyone is invited, are being well attended and strengthening the voice of Florida prisoners, their families, friends and associates. Attend these meetings to learn about what efforts are being taken to change and improve our criminal justice and correctional system in Florida.... -- A Florida Prisoner, 30 December 1997