MIM Notes ***

MIM Notes 291 · November 15, 2003 · Page 1

MIM Notes

Nov. 15, 2003, Nº 291

The Official Newsletter of the Maoist Internationalist Movement (MIM)

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INSIDE: Under Lock & Key * Kobe rape case * Una Página en Español...

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MIM RAISES THE

COMMUNIST

BANNER AT SAN

FRANCISCO,

WASHINGTON

D.C. RALLIES

San Francisco, October 25

housands of people rallied today

to demand an end to the war in

Iraq, calling for the troops to be

brought home. Activists estimate more

than 15,000 people attended the rally and

marched from the Civic Center to

Jefferson Square Park. Rally literature

and many speakers echoed the theme of

self-determination for the people of Iraq.

For MIM this point is fundamental. The

Iraqi people do not need a better or kinder

occupation force as some people suggest

(i.e. bringing in the United Nations). The

Iraqi people need the right to run their

own country.

The Iraqi people do not see the

Amerikan invasion force as their saviors.

This is why the people of Iraq continue

to attack Amerikan troops in spite of

tremendously inferior forces and possibly

lack of clear leadership and organization.

People have a strong will to fight for their

freedom and self-determination. It is very

clear to the Iraqi people that there will be

even less freedom under Amerikan

occupation than under the Amerikan-

financed puppet Saddam Hussein.

At this rally MIM observed an older

crowd, overall, than at previous anti- war

rallies. This un-scientific estimate survey

of the attendees suggests that young

people, who were drawn into activism

Widow of Chiang

Kai-shek dies at 105

Masses will not mourn loss

of Nationalist party leader

Soong Meiling, a.k.a. Madame

Chiang, died October 22 at age 105 in

her home in Manhattan. She was the

widow of Chiang Kai-shek, the

Nationalist Party (Kuomintang) leader

and former dictator of China. Madame

Chiang actively supported her husband.

She is famous in the United $tates as

And the "Well, duh!" award goes to...

Days after the I$raeli army destroyed

hundreds of Palestinian homes in the Gaza

strip and left thousands homeless, the

chief of staff of the I$raeli armed forces

said I$raeli "military tactics against the

Palestinian population were too

repressive and were fomenting explosive

levels of `hatred and terrorism' that might

become impossible to control."(1)

"Lt. Gen. Moshe Yaalon, chief of staff

of the Israeli armed forces, said that

crackdowns, curfews and roadblocks in

the West Bank and Gaza Strip were

crippling the lives of innocent Palestinians

and that the military's tactics were now

threatening Israel's own interests."(1)

Yaalon's comments remind us of the

split between the German army command

and Hitler over the invasion of the Soviet

Union--as well as the split between some

Amerikan military commanders and

politicians like Secretary of State Robert

McNamara ever Vietnam. The technical

expertise and school-of-really-hard-

knocks materialism of generals

HELICOPTER

ATTACK KILLS

FIFTEEN

AMERIKAN

SOLDIERS

`Tough week' just

the tip of the

iceberg for

occupying army

ifteen Amerikans died and another

score were wounded when

resistance fighters shot down their

helicopter on 2 November. It was the

deadliest single attack since the start of

the ground war and capped what U.$.

occupation chief Paul Bremer called a

"tough week."(1)

News reports said the fifteen

Amerikans killed were soldiers on their

way out of the country on leave. Chances

are they were young, perhaps lured into

the army with promises of easy money,

perhaps too naïve to understand that the

reality of army life is very different from

the hip bravado of recruiting

advertisements. Likely they knew little of

the history of the people they were sent

to conquer and occupy and could not

understand Iraqis' hostility towards

Amerikans. In this sense they were

victims of U.$. imperialism like the

hundreds of thousands of Iraqis killed in

Amerika's decade-long war on Iraq.

Those who talk of "supporting our

troops" would do well to listen to what

one Fallujah resident said to the

Associated Press after the helicopter was

shot down: "This was a new lesson from

the resistance, a lesson to the greedy

aggressors. They'll never be safe until

they get out of our country."(1) Many

Amerikan soldiers have gotten the

message, evidenced by reports of low

morale and low re-enlistment rates.

Earlier in the week, Amerikan soldiers

fired on protestors in a suburb of Baghdad,

killing two and wounding seventeen. The

protest started after the Amerikans tried

to shut down a marketplace (see sidebar

on page 7 for the thoughts of "Founding

Father" John Adams on the effectiveness

of occupying troops as peacekeepers).

In response, the Amerikans now require

residents to carry identification papers

with them at all times and restrict their

Thousands march

against Iraq occupation

I$rael rattles Amerikan-made saber

Tough tactics divide reactionary camp

sf.indymedia.org

sometimes gives

them a better

understanding of

the limitations of

military force

than civilian

p o l i t i c i a n s .

However, this

rarely develops

beyond tactical

disagreements,

as Yaalon himself clarified in comments

to an I$raeli journalist: "In our tactical

decisions, we are operating contrary to

our strategic interests."

There are of course kernels of truth in

Yaalon's statements that we've

emphasized since 911. Oppression breeds

Continued on page 6...

WASHINGTON, DC RALLY:

See page 7

Continued on page 8...

Continued on page 9...

Continued on page 7...

MIM Notes 291 · November 15, 2003 · Page 2

What is MIM?

The Maoist Internationalist Movement (MIM) is 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 Maoist Internationalist
parties in Belgium, France and Quebec and the existing or emerging Spanish-speaking
Maoist Internationalist parties of Aztlan, Puerto Rico and other territories of the U.$. Empire.

MIM Notes is the newspaper of MIM. Notas Rojas is the newspaper of the Spanish-speaking
parties or emerging parties of MIM. MIM upholds the revolutionary communist ideology
of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism and is an internationalist organization that works from the

vantage point of the Third World proletariat. MIM struggles to end the oppression of all
groups over other groups: classes, genders, nations. MIM knows this is only possibly 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 humyn history. (3) As Marx, Engels and Lenin formulated and MIM has
reiterated through materialist analysis, imperialism extracts super-profits from the Third

World and in part uses this wealth to buy off whole populations of oppressor nation so-
called workers. These so-called workers bought off by imperialism form a new petty-
bourgeoisie called the labor aristocracy. These classes are not the principal vehicles to

advance Maoism within those countries because their standards of living depend on
imperialism. At this time, imperialist super-profits create this situation in the Canada, Quebec,
the United $tates, England, France, Belgium, Germany, Japan, Italy, Switzerland,

Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Israel, Sweden and Denmark. 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.

Editor, MC206; Production, MC12

Letters

MIM Notes

The Official Newsletter of The Maoist Internationalist Movement

ISSN 1540-8817

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Lives saved and lost:
communism vs.
capitalism

Dear Comrades:

I am engaged in a public dispute with

local Capitalists and Fascists who are

seeking to vilify Communism by inflating

the execution tolls of Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot,

et al. Their figures probably derive

originally from the now repudiated Black

Book of Communism, though tracing the

figures to their sources has been difficult.

I am trying to find accurate, evidence-

based statistics for the execution tolls of

Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot.

In your December 1994 note

"Exaggerations against Stalin," you write:

"One of the most maligned periods of

history in the Soviet Union is the so-called

Great Terror from 1934 to 1941. This

period is also marked by the so-called

Purge Trials of the mid-1930s. According

to Anton Antonov- Ovseyenko, Stalin's

"terror" in that period resulted in 19 million

dead....

"Fewer than 25 million died from all

causes from 1935 to 1941....

"So to arrive at 19 million deaths to

blame on Stalin, there had to be fewer

than 6 million deaths from normal causes

between 1935 and 1941. Again to round

off in our critics' favor, let's assume that

to be 900,000 deaths a year for seven

years as the deaths from normal causes.

So for example, in 1936, that would mean

a crude death rate from normal causes

of less than 5 per 1000 a year, based on a

population of 180.2 million people in the

Soviet Union.

"That's impossible and the death rate

has never been that low in the Soviet

Union, Stalin or no Stalin, not even in 1982,

when the crude death rate was 10.1. In

fact, the crude death rate has never been

below 5 per 1000 a year in U.S. history

either. A more realistic death rate from

natural causes would be around 20. It was

20.3 in 1926, which according to almost

all historians, was before Stalin started

his repression, since he had only just

assumed leadership in 1924."

Unfortunately, this analysis does not

resolve the historical question of the

actual number of people executed by

Stalin during the period 1935-1941. Your

analysis is consistent with an enormous

range of possible figures for the execution

toll. Do there exist any reputable and

accurate estimates of this execution toll?

In your March 1990 note "Myths About

Maoism," you write:

"Western scholars have estimated that

between 16.4 million and 29.5 million

people died in the Great Leap Forward...

"Mao did claim government

responsibility for 800,000 executions

between 1949 and 1954....

"Mao's enemies in China were more

realistic than the Western propagandists.

They directly blamed Mao and his

followers, the so-called Gang of Four, for

a total of 34,000 executions or deaths

caused by other means of repression

during the ten years of the Cultural

Revolution."

The huge disparity between the

estimates of 16.4 million and 29.5 million

deaths alone casts doubt on their validity.

There are various reasons Mao may have

overstated or understated the execution

toll from 1949-1954. Is there any other

corroboration of the 800,000 execution

figure? And if we take 800,000 and

34,000 as reasonable estimates of the

execution tolls for 1949-1954 and 1966-

1976, what about the remainder of the

period of Chinese Communist rule?

I will be grateful for any further

information you can provide concerning

the execution tolls of Stalin and Mao. (This

historical question is separate from the

moral question of balancing lives saved

against lives lost.)

--A supporter in Missouri, August 16,

2003

MIM responds: Accurate estimates of

executions are a difficult question to

address on a large scale because

numbers from the capitalists are not to

be trusted, but reactionaries are not likely

to believe numbers that come from the

communists themselves. We at MIM try

to steer people away from taking numbers

in the millions referenced in regard to

Stalin and Mao too literally.

In reality, the question of accuracy is

not as important as consistency of method

used. The Great Leap estimates from

critics of Maoism stem from social

assumptions about the birth rate during

the Great Leap. There is no list of people

who died and there was no attempt to

individually count the births by those

bourgeois scholars carrying out these

estimates. Since we wrote that article,

bourgeois academic estimates have even

increased beyond 30 million into the 40

million plus range. It does not mean they

are "inaccurate," even though there is

evidence to build a case that even fewer

than 10 million died from Great Leap

difficulties.

None of these estimates had any

concrete detail that the public is

accustomed to thinking of in say murder

cases. The trouble usually comes when

journalists take academic estimates and

use them to say Mao "killed" 43 million

people. This leaves the public with the

impression that there were the equivalent

of 43 million OJ/Nicole murder cases that

someone tried to cover up. That's not

what it really means and we see a very

similar issue debated in regard to

intelligence estimates of Saddam

Hussein's weapons before the

intensification of war in Iraq in 2003.

Academics and intelligence officers wrote

detailed and arcane reports that politicians

in England and the United $tates

excerpted and spun. Sometimes that's

what the intelligence officers expected,

but sometimes people deeply involved in

the details later have much difficulty

reconciling what they said with what

appears in the media.

There are many situations where the

truth is more closely approximated by

such a method as estimating a birth rate

rather than by relying on lists of people

that may or may not have been done

correctly. To this day in the United $tates,

there is a legal argument over whether

the Census Bureau can accurately count

every persyn within U.$. borders or

whether an assumption-laden approach

would actually be more truthful. From

what we have seen, most believe the truth

would be improved by using assumptions

in the U.$. population count/estimate, but

the law says every head must be counted

in persyn. In countries like China, where

Mao took charge of an illiterate people

Continued on page 9...

MIM Notes 291 · November 15, 2003 · Page 3

by MC5, October 2003

The quasi-revolutionary opportunity of

2003 in England brings to mind the

difference between revolutionary tactics

in the imperialist countries (excluding

Russia and others where the majority is

exploited) and oppressed nations. Roughly

speaking, this difference in tactics flows

from the class structure itself and

corresponding strategies, where in one

situation, the majority of the population is

exploiters and in the other, exploited.

On the difference in tactics in imperialist and oppressed nations:

England in 2003

Lenin, Stalin and Mao taught us at

length about the stages of revolution

corresponding to the class structures and

modes of production of certain countries,

especially those where exploited

majorities predominated. Following from

Lenin, we at MIM say that the case of

the United $tates, England, France,

Germany etc. develops out of what Lenin

said for the imperialist country situation.

Namely, in advanced capitalist

countries, the first task is not to eliminate

survivals of semi-feudalism to install

bourgeois democracy or new

democracy. The task is to go straight to

proletarian revolution, likely through a

stage of civil war brought on by imperialist

war as in World War I and Russia or by

the victory of numerous People's Wars

as explained by Lin Biao and sanctioned

by Mao.

Our tactics in a situation where the

majority is imperialist petty-bourgeois

differ from the tactics utilized in Russia

and China where the majority was peasant

petty-bourgeois. The most important

difference is that the proletarian banner

is pretty much at all times in danger of

falling to the ground in the imperialist

countries (excluding Russia). The task is

more or less to stand out and away from

the petty-bourgeois crowd. In the

oppressed nations, the proletariat can fight

to win over the petty-bourgeoisie, but in

the exploiter- majority countries, only a

very fine line prevents the exploiters from

winning over the would-be proletarian.

In contrast, countries with exploited

majorities will see the red flag hoisted

again and again, despite repression. The

task there is patiently to educate the

Quasi-revolutionary
opportunity arises in England

Umph for revolution lacking in
British anti-war movement

The complete version of this article ran in the last

issue of MIM Notes (number 290, 1 Nov 2003). We

reprint these excerpts to remind readers of the

political and military context in 2003 England.

Few have noticed (including those in the international

communist movement), but since the Iraq War started,

England has pushed itself to the brink of a revolutionary

opportunity. The number of troops currently left "at

home" to defend against a revolutionary movement is

minuscule.

One officer in England said, "`we have not only taken

everything out of the cupboards, we've stripped all the

shelves bare.'"(1) In one move in early 2003, the British

sent over a quarter of the Army to the Gulf. Another

19,000 troops were covering for the fire department

workers on strike, a fact that gives the fire workers'

strike an objectively revolutionary character. [...]

Here is how the British military is still talking about

the situation. "Defence Analyst Garth Whitty, a former

Lieutenant Colonel in the British Army and weapons

inspector in Iraq in 1992, says it may be all that the

Army had to offer in the wake of their recent efforts in

Afghanistan and Iraq.

"GARTH WHITTY: I think the British Armed Forces

are probably already overstretched, but the reality is

there is no alternative but to maintain a presence until

such time as Iraq is stabilized and that could take as

long as five years."(3) [...]

The British troop deployments and shortages faced

by U.$. and British imperialism show that the Third

World does have strength in unity. The imperialists cannot

send enough troops to keep the whole exploited and

oppressed world down. If the oppressed nations put aside

their own conflicts and follow proletarian leaders, they

can turn the world upside-down.

We can say there was a revolutionary opportunity in

England in 2003, but there was no revolutionary situation.

That means that physically the government was

stretched thin, but subjectively the population of

England--which benefits from the super-exploitation of

the Third World by British imperialism--did not want

any revolutionary upsurge. It's not just that it let itself

be robbed and had to learn political tactics. The

population of England is predominantly petty-bourgeois.

[...]

In England, most of those calling themselves

"communist" are some kind of Trotskyist or another.

They believe their "workers" are among the most

advanced in the world, the way all national chauvinists

do. They had their chance for revolution in 2003. Where

is it? The answer to this question lies in economics, not

political leadership and military factors. The majority of

England is petty-bourgeois. When given the chance for

revolution it does not want it. A determined proletarian

minority must form its own pole, fly its own banner and

give the petty-bourgeoisie another option to vacillate

toward.

Dishonest Broker: The U.S. Role in Israel and
Palestine
by Nasser Aruri
South End Press
Cambridge MA, 2003, 265 pp.

This book is about the so-called "peace process" in

the Middle East since 1967. It is a revised and updated

version of an earlier book, "The Obstruction of Peace:

The United States, Israel, and Palestine," and includes

material right up to the end of 2002. As such it is very

useful not only as an introduction to the topic--especially

for readers too young to remember Gerald Ford,

Zbigniew Brzezinski, Alexander Haig etc.--but also as

a guide to current events. Lenin mocked idealist

philosophers of his day for muddling the issues by putting

new window-dressing on 300-year-old failed ideas. We

can say the same about every one of the U.$.-backed

"peace" initiatives, from Carter's Camp David to Bush's

Road Map. Watching the evening news after reading

Dishonest Broker can lead to some serious deja vu.

As its name implies, Dishonest Broker debunks the

pretense that the United $tates acts as an independent,

neutral peacemaker in the Middle East. In fact, United

$tates' leaders have publicly admitted they support I$rael

as a defender of Amerikan interests in the region.

"[Israel] is a force in the Middle East that actually is a

benefit to us," then-President Ronald Reagan said in

1981. "If there were not Israel there with that force,

we'd have to supply that with our own, so this isn't just

altruism on our part" (p. 39). Reagan was just reiterating

the strategy laid down in the Nixon-Kissinger Doctrine

(ca. 1970), which placed the Amerikan "hose and water"

in the hands of I$raeli "fireman" (p. 20). Or, as a

spokesman for the I$raeli foreign office smugly put it:

"The United States has come to the conclusion that it

can no longer respond to every incident around the world,

that it must rely on a local power, the deterrent of a

friendly power as a first line of defense to stave off

New book exposes

sham `peace process'

by MC5

It was non-stop Kobe Bryant coverage after a judge

ruled that Kobe must face trial for an alleged rape in

Colorado. At all four different public places this reporter

visited in 12 hours, the TV was talking only about the

Kobe case--this in the midst of the Iraq War and U.$.

negotiations with Korea about nuclear weapons. MIM

itself is not about to send someone to investigate the

Kobe case, so we offer our opinion that this case should

not have gone forward only if the assumptions of fact

we make below are true in this or any other case.

Our opinion should be seen as a statement of principle

more than a definitive investigation of the Kobe case

facts. Both accused and accuser are exploited by for-

profit media and interpreted in stereotyped ways by

detectives and lawyers seeking to pigeonhole the case.

The result is often far from accurate public information.

We advise the public to move away from judging matters

via the TV newscasts, tabloids or Hollywood movies.

If it is true that the accuser flirted with Kobe, went

his hotel room, willingly kissed him and let him touch

her on the breasts and buttocks before saying "no" when

he began petting her vaginal area,(1,2) we at MIM are

opposed to seeing this case go forward. Although the

law says that the right to consent extends to going to a

man's hotel room, kissing him, letting him touch you and

then accusing him of rape, it should not.

Wimmin in both public and private places should be

free of attack and kidnappings, but in the current legal

system, wimmin should not have the right to prevail just

based on their word in date rape cases where there are

no immediate witnesses. Taking the accuser's word as

"proof beyond a reasonable doubt" makes marginalized

men less than equal before the law.

We fully admit that this means wimmin lose some

freedom. More accurately, we acknowledge that they

and others already do not have freedom to go to men's

hotel rooms without occasionally disastrous

consequences. For every Kobe case that goes to trial

there are probably at least two where the womyn

wanted to go to trial for the same or worse and did not.

Yet if we change the law or interpretation of the law

to prevent "he said/she said" cases from going to court,

it is not adult wimmin who lose the most. If heterosexual

wimmin are afraid of going to private places on dates,

because of a change in the law or its interpretation, then

it stands to reason that heterosexual men will lose some

chances to persuade or cajole wimmin into sex. Hence,

men's sexual access will also decrease if wimmin know

that they cannot win a rape case in a private context.

The clear winners if we take away the right to go to

private places and accuse men of rape later--aside from

clarity and the public's intelligence, currently damaged

by sensational sex stories taking up all the news hours--

are children losing fathers to the injustice system and

marginalized social groups which the legal system

convicts disproportionately, such as oppressed

Opinion: Kobe case should not have gone forward

Continued on page 5...

Continued on page 8...

Continued on next page...

MIM Notes 291 · November 15, 2003 · Page 4

nationalities.

In our opinion, if no other important

interests are affected and it can be proved

with videotape when the accused says

there was consent and there was not,

then we should uphold consent. However,

we at MIM believe that the bourgeois law

system is an inefficient and disastrous

substitute for socialism when it comes to

solving the rape problem. We'd rather see

the idea of consent and enforcement of

all other crimes taken down a notch by

making it impossible to convict someone

based on the victim's word about what

happened in a private place--except

when a crime in a private place followed

a kidnapping from a public place.

Whether it is marijuana or date rape, an

unproductive prison system is too much

involved in people's lives right now

especially in the United $tates where the

imprisonment rate is the highest in the

world. We need to make other social

adjustments to reduce that dependence

on the prison system.

Even if Kobe had been white, so that

the accuser and accused were the same

race or, even better, the same cultural

background, the interests of any child

involved (3) should take precedence in

date and marital rape. In Colorado, Kobe

could face life in prison for conviction;

yet there is no sentence that would not

harm Kobe's child in this capitalist society

where we still expect both parents to raise

a child and do it often without even the

benefit of day-care and other supports

that should exist for those raising children.

At MIM, we regard adults in the

United $tates as mostly gender

oppressors. Kobe and his accuser are old

enough to enjoy sex. The bulk of gender

oppression occurs in the United $tates

when that fun occurs at the expense of

children and others.

Consent between such adults is not the

only issue involved in combating

patriarchy. It is a mistake to believe that

it is easy to separate male and female

interests even in a rape case. For one,

63.3% of Black men accused of rape are

Case should not have gone forward

accused by white wimmin.(4) Black

wimmin's interests are adversely affected

when whites throw Blacks in prison by

giving a weak interpretation of "equality

before the law" and "proof beyond a

reasonable doubt." Many problems stem

from a shortage of Black men available

to heterosexual Black wimmin and more

importantly, their children. Secondly,

children are of both male and female

biology and all male date and marital

rapists also have mothers and sometimes

wives. Throwing away all those social ties

by putting a man into prison because

someone says he was allowed to put his

hand on her breast but not his penis in

her vagina--that's too much given the

other problems that also need solution in

this society. It should be made impossible

to bring "he said/she said" cases to

court--probably just by a strict

interpretation of "equality before the law."

Under the dictatorship of the proletariat,

the profit-motive will be gone. There will

be no open pornography for profit and no

pornography masquerading as news

media for profit. There will be no public

images allowed that pretend to offer a

stylish, stereotyped and flippant view of

all wimmin's sexual attitudes. Without

entertainment for profit, the whole

"groupie" phenomenon will disappear

along with the corresponding attitudes.

Under socialism, MIM will insist that

whatever diversity there is in wimmin's

sexual attitudes, that it be put forward

accurately by public cultural and political

authorities.

Notes:
1. http://www.cnn.com/2003/LAW/10/20/
bryant.hearing/index.html The CNN website
alone has at least 49 stories on the Kobe case as
of October 24th, 2003.
2. http://www.vaildaily.com/apps/pbcs.dll/
article? AID=/20031009/BREAKING/
310090151
3. Kobe has a young daughter with his wife.
http://www.cnn.com/2003/LAW/10/15/
bryant.hearing/index.html
4. National Crime Survey, 1983. ASI 6066-3,
Table 45.

Continued from previous page...

By PC5 and MC5

As in our other articles on the Kobe

Bryant case, we take the reported

details of the encounter between Kobe

and his accuser as fact, to make an

ideological point. We have done no

investigation on our own and doubt

that extensive investigation could

reveal what went on in that Colorado

hotel room beyond the "he said - she

said" level.

The details of the Kobe case as they

have appeared in the media, whether true

or not, remind one of something Sartre

said about anti-Semitism: "Anti-Semitic

women often have a mixture of sexual

repulsion and attraction toward Jews.

One woman I knew had intimate relations

with a Polish Jew. She would often go to

bed with him and allow him to caress her

breasts and shoulders, but nothing more.

She enjoyed feeling him respectful and

submissive, divining his violently frustrated

and humiliated desire. She afterward had

normal sexual intercourse with other

men."(1)

Wimmin are so used to trading sex for

money and other things that it is not

surprising to hear an anti-Semite use her

body to carry out a power game. It's

obvious that so much sex goes on for

reasons having nothing to do with the sex

itself. Going on an anti-Semitic power trip

is just one more extrinsic reason

seemingly no worse than any other.

There is after all no law against

degrading men sexually the way the

womyn Sartre discussed did, but there

would be a law against the Polish Jew if

he attempted intercourse. This is the sort

of thing that goes around in a vicious circle.

Where people struggle to be respectable

economically and socially, wimmin often

mingle sex and power as a matter of

culture, through no individual's fault.

However, as a result of hearing about "get

a job" and "pay the bills" too much, Black

men talk about all Black wimmin as

whores in the most popular rap music.

Some misogyny arises from an honest

understanding of the condition of wimmin

today, including the lack of intrinsic sexual

desire that many wimmin have while going

through the motions of wanting sex. This

anger needs channeling toward those

conditions instead of the individual wimmin

themselves.

Although former Colorado prosecutor

Mark Silverstein says prosecution of the

Kobe case never should have been

attempted, "Norm Early, the former

district attorney of Denver, thought the

session was most damaging to Bryant.

He said the quick encounter with the

woman left little impression of a mutually

agreeable tryst."(2) We have to ask Early

if he has ever heard of groupies before

and does he know what happens on a

rock band's bus after the show? Has he

ever stopped to wonder why wimmin line

up outside certain hotels and hotel doors?

We'd suggest he collect statistical

evidence on the average length of a

groupie tryst.

By the U.$. legal system, Kobe is

supposed to face trial by his peers,

obviously not guys like Early who do not

know what a groupie is. Kobe's jury

should be Black millionaire entertainer

stars who have had white groupies.

People disgusted by that thought should

take their anger out on entertainment for

profit that creates these stars along with

millions of disempowered fans. The legal

system requires a jury of one's peers and

that system has its merits in bourgeois

context. It should not be abused by those

who disagree with what our current

culture allows of its entertainment stars.

If people want a law against groupie-ism,

they can pass one, but that is separate

from this individual rape case and others

like it.

MIM rather tires of Early's sort of point

especially in bourgeois legal context. The

implication is that had Kobe been willing

to extend his visits with the accuser over

days or weeks or months, that sex would

have been OK. In other words, we can

all imagine that the accuser might have

been trying to have a prolonged affair.

Oh, and by the way, a man is supposed to

go to prison for life, because of the

"credibility" of a womyn who admits to

allowing a married man with a child kiss

her and grope her breasts and buttocks--

all in the good name of her profession as

hotel hospitality extender. Then stupid

media outlets like CNN defend the court

system's handling cases like this based

on the accuser's "credibility."

Now the former Denver prosecutor is

trying to say the accuser is not so "fast."

This is nothing but the reverse of the

argument that is now legally disallowed

in court that the accuser is loose and

probably consented to sex. Yet this kind

of question is bound to come up whether

legally allowed or not (and it's there in a

former prosecutor's mind as we see from

this quote), because courts are involved

in judging the credibility of individuals. If

courts got out of that business and people

sought their solutions to group-level

problems through revolutionary or

reformist means, such questions would

not come up.

Wimmin have a right to consent as a

group. That is an ideological and group-

level statement. It's not the same thing

as saying that individual wimmin can

prove just based on their word "beyond a

reasonable doubt" that they did not

consent.

Kobe's accuser is what we at MIM

call "gender aristocracy." What she has

done in her leisure-time--her little game

with a married Black man with a child--

is hurting a wife and more importantly, a

Black child now faced with having a

father in prison for life. This demonstrates

the accuser's power, gets her the TV

attention she reportedly craved as an

aspiring singer and, no matter what

happens, will end with million-dollar offers

from Playboy magazine to pose nude.

Kobe is even more of a plaything--a

successful one and a leader of leisure-

time society. One basketball club owner

Mark Cuban has already remarked that

the case increases media attention for

basketball. Others pointed out that Kobe

may sell more shoes this way among

young men seeking a tough image and

embittered by issues of crime and gender

in this society. We do not have to find

either the accused or the accuser credible

to know that Blacks have been degraded

by this accusation as if sex with Kobe

involved so much suffering. The laws and

attitudes need to change to account for

more than just individual consent.

The ones who pay the price for playtime

are the poorest wimmin and the youngest

people--children: "More than half of all

African-American women and a third of

Hispanic-American women now find

themselves struggling to raise children

alone, although usually not from choice

and usually with disastrous

consequences."(3) To hell with both the

accuser and accused. Fine Kobe; seize

any money the accuser makes posing for

Playboy or selling her story to a cheesy

TV docudrama; put the money into

daycare for the poor who are absorbing

all these bad leisure-time messages.

Notes:

1. Jean-Paul Sartre, Anti-Semite and

Jew (NY: Grove Press, 1960), p. 48.

2. http://www.usatoday.com/sports/

basketball/nba/2003-10-09-detective-

details_x.htm

3. Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, Feminism

Is Not the Story of My Life (NY: Anchor

Books, 1996), p. 176.

The national aspects of the Kobe case