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THE MAOIST INTERNATIONALIST MOVEMENT
MIM Notes 128 DECEMBER 15, 1996
PRISON AWARENESS WEEK CULTURE EVENT
On November 22, RAIL and MIM held the final event
of Prison Awareness Week at the University of
Massachusetts at Amherst. It was designed to be a
Revolutionary Cultural event and fundraiser for the
MIM books for prisoners program.
While the event did not meet up with our
expectations in terms of turnout and fundraising
for a variety of reasons, we did have an active
struggle over the importance of producing
revolutionary culture and the meaning of the works
presented.
One RAIL comrade performed a song by Bob Dylan
about George Jackson and his murder by prison
guards at San Quentin prison in California. This
sparked a discussion about why MIM calls all
prisoners political prisoners. George Jackson was
imprisoned for a small time crime--the theft of
$70. Within the walls he became a revolutionary
leader, and joined the Black Panther Party. He
wrote 2 books that were very influential to the
revolutionary movement of the late 1960s and early
1970s. George Jackson was causing Amerika too many
problems with his anti-imperialist organizing so
they had him killed.
When MIM says that all prisoners are political
prisoners, we do not mean that all prisoners were
arrested for openly political acts or are openly
political. What MIM looks at, however, is the
unjust political system that calls some people and
their actions "criminal", and calls other people
who harm their global neighbors to greater degree
"chairman of the board" or "President of the United
States." A system that enforces poverty for a
targeted population has no legitimacy to complain
about the lack of morality in people breaking the
imposed rules. Furthermore, MIM would call the
daily war against the Third World, be it in the
form of IMF imposed starvation, Clinton raining
bombs on Iraq, or Union Carbide poisoning the
people of India the largest crimes in the world.
Stealing seventy bucks doesn't even come close to
this level of "crime."
The next performance was Doctress Neutopia who read
an essay about her being denied access to the UMass
computer system last year. Doctress Neutopia is a
post-modern Internet activist, known for starting a
pacifist religion and promoting "lovolution" over
revolution. The December 1 issue of MIM Notes
covered a talk by the Doctress that was ostensibly
about human rights in Turkey. As MIM has already
spelt out its differences with Doctress Neutopia,
we chose to instead focus at the event and in this
article on issues that come up more often: the role
of intellectuals and the future of socialism.
Last year, Doctress Neutopia had an Internet
account at UMass to use for research purposes,
although she was no longer affiliated with the
school. When she took some copyrighted news
articles from one part of Usenet (a network of
discussion groups within the Internet) and posted
it to another, she had her Internet access revoked.
UMass pays for access to some wire service news
reports from ClariNet, and the Doctress spread a
few articles around the world for free. ClariNet,
the owners of the information, demanded "justice",
so UMass pulled her plug.
MIM has no doubt that the Doctress was turned in to
the owners of the material because some vigilante
didn't like her politics, and that the University
found her politics distasteful and therefore choose
the most severe of the possible penalties. But that
doesn't mean that we want to get caught up in
arguments about her "deserving" Internet access.
There are no rights, only those things we can
organize to seize and maintain. We expect nothing
from Amerika except its eventual defeat.
As MIM as explained previously, copyrights and the
ownership of ideas is a reactionary part of
capitalism that holds back progress. ClariNet has
useful information, but withholds access to it to
only those who pay for it. This keeps information
away from those who can use it productively.
This is why MIM Notes is given free to those--
principally prisoners--who can not pay for it. MIM
Notes is not copyrighted for a similar reason. Some
libraries restrict the photocopying of archived
literature in order to protect the publishers
copyright. While some capitalist publications might
want to withhold information, MIM would like to see
our information spread as widely as possible, so we
explicitly do not copyright material and encourage
people to copy it.
Neutopia is correct that in a just society people
would have equal access to the tools of mass
communication, including the Internet. So in that
sense, a criticism of Amerika's Internet policy for
excluding the great majority of the world would be
correct. At best, it's opportunism of the worst
sort for someone with a Ph.D. to scream oppression
because they have to pay for Internet access. Part
of the Doctress's defense is that she gets "only"
$900 a month from her father so that she can sit
around and develop reactionary lovolution
philosophies with her time.
The Doctress responded to this criticism by
demanding Internet access for the world. When RAIL
hammered Doctress Neutopia to admit that food, safe
water and getting imperialist nations out of their
country were important, she meekly said of course,
and then added "and Internet access", with the
emphasis on the Internet access.
Fundamental behind Doctress Neutopia's line is an
intellectual elitism. She believes she deserves to
sit around all day and philosophize about future
societies, archologies and the lovolution. She
wants peasants to slave in the fields all day so
she can jet around the world to criticize
revolutionary movements where she can't even speak
their language.
A RAIL comrade explained the Maoist view that the
division of labor in society is social. This
comrade posed a rhetorical question, asking if the
Doctress thought that some people dug ditches and
plowed fields, and others sat around in coffee
shops talking about philosophy because of
biological differences. The Doctress exposed her
belief in biological determinism answering that
some people are big and like physical work, and
some people don't.
MIM does not waste time developing reactionary
philosophies that lead the people of the world down
dead ends. Instead we organize for socialist
revolution to liberate the people of the world from
the oppression and exploitation of imperialism. One
of the most important stages in global liberation
will be the former parasites of the united states
and other imperialist countries paying reparations
to the Third World. Such a scenario would offer
great material aid to the Third World, and lower
the standard of living for Amerikans to something
globally sustainable. For an Amerikan to do
physical labor all day and end up with the
Doctress's "oppressive" $900 a month might be quite
lucky indeed.
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