MIM Notes ***

MIM Notes 293 · December 15, 2003 · Page 1

MIM Notes

Dec 15, 2003, Nº 2993

The Official Newsletter of the Maoist Internationalist Movement (MIM)

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November 20

housands of protesters took to the

streets in Miami, Florida to protest

the Free Trade Area of the

Americas (FTAA) ministerial meeting,

decrying the international pact as

dangerous for (Amerikan) workers and

the environment, and opposing what many

called "globalization," a watered down

word for the system of imperialism. MIM

calls for global labor and environmental

standards and a global minimum wage as

we fight to bring down this system of

imperialism, but we don't stand with the

protectionist demands of those who worry

about Amerikan jobs being shipped

abroad.

The police response to the protest was

aggressive and brutal. The police used

armored vehicles and helicopters to shut

down the city. Thousands of cops in riot

gear attacked protesters with tear gas,

pepper spray, rubber bullets and various

other projectiles, leading to countless

injuries and hospitalizations. Many

demonstrators reported that police

ordered groups of demonstrators to

disperse while circling the protesters,

making it impossible for them to escape.

Police then arrested these people for

failure to obey a police order. Several of

those arrested were brutalized in jail,

Blacks and Latinos bearing the brunt of

the abuse.

The National Lawyers Guild sent 60

legal observers to the protest and they

report that eight observers were arrested

and four were beaten. Police arrested one

NLG observer riding his bicycle alone,

responding to a call on his cell phone that

a van carrying demonstrators' puppets

was stopped. He stopped at a corner, by

himself, to call for directions when a group

of bicycle cops rode up. He was

handcuffed and arrested, and his tape

recorder, which was recording at the time,

was taken by cops and never returned:

"They snapped my cellphone in half

before talking to me, and put me down

on the ground" (1).

Police also rounded up many reporters

in the protests. A producer of the

Democracy Now! radio show wrote a

statement while sitting in jail in Miami. "I

was arrested because I had not

embedded myself with the Police Dept

before doing my job of covering the

protests for the nationally syndicated

Miami cops attack protestors

Anti-FTAA politics are mixed bag

Photos from http://FTAAIMC.org.

On November 18 the Massachusetts

Supreme Judicial Court ruled that the

state constitution guarantees gay couples

the right to marry. The court gave the

state legislature six months to rewrite its

marriage laws to comply with the ruling.

While marriage is an institution of

patriarchal society, this is an easy issue

for MIM: there should be nothing stopping

any couple from enjoying the legal rights

of marriage if that couple wants to get

married.

We may not have the institution of

marriage under the distant-future system

of communism, when gender, class and

national oppression will have been

eliminated. But right now, under

capitalism, marriage confers economic

and legal benefits on a couple. Denying

those benefits to some people because

of who they choose to spend their lives

with is no better than any other form of

discrimination. Legalization of gay

marriage in the United $tates would be

progress towards eliminating gender

oppression.

The Massachusetts court ruling led to

renewed calls from across the

mainstream political spectrum for a

constitutional amendment to ban gay

marriage. President Bush took time out

from his visit to London to make a

statement declaring, "Marriage is a

sacred institution between a man and a

woman." Bush said he will "work with

congressional leaders and others to do

what is legally necessary to defend the

sanctity of marriage" (1).

Pundits predict this will be a big issue

in the 2004 presidential election,

particularly because a majority of

Amerikans still says they oppose gay

marriage (2). Howard Dean, governor of

Vermont and a leading Democratic

candidate for

P r e s i d e n t ,

signed a law

giving gay

couples the right

to legally unite in

a civil union

equivalent to

Gay marriage

battle in Amerika

Continued on

page 7...

Celebrate

Mao's Birthday,

December 26

by MC44

n December 26, MIM celebrates

Mao Zedong's birthday by

continuing the struggle against

imperialism and applying the lessons of

the Chinese revolution to our work in the

imperialist countries. Part of MIM's task

is to provide communist leadership and

education to a generation of youth today

who became politically aware after the

collapse of the former Soviet Union, and

who have been educated about socialism

and China entirely by the bourgeoisie.

Even 27 years after Mao's death--110

after his birth in 1893--MIM monitors the

portrayal of the Chinese revolution by the

hegemonic bourgeois forces of

academics, journalists, and policy-makers.

To wage our own continued struggle

against U$ imperialism, we need to

understand the dominant culture's view

of Mao and China so that we can

undermine it and build the people's

independent culture and worldview.

Toward the end of his life, Mao made

one of his greatest contributions to the

advancement of the human condition

when he helped launch the Great

Proletarian Cultural Revolution (GPCR)

in 1966. The Chinese revolution had made

great advances since the people's victory

in 1949, and Mao recognized the need for

continued revolution within the communist

Continued on page 8...

Continued on page 4...

MIM Notes 193 · December 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

MIM Notes is the bi-weekly newsletter of the Maoist Internationalist Movement. MIM

Notes is the official Party voice; more complete statements are published in our journal,
MIM Theory. Material in MIM Notes is the Party's position unless noted. MIM Notes
accepts submissions and critiques from anyone. The editors reserve the right to edit
submissions unless permission is specifically denied by the author; submissions are
published anonymously unless authors insist on identification (prisoners are never
identified by name). MIM is an underground party that does not publish the names of its
comrades in order to avoid the state surveillance and repression that have historically
been directed at communist parties and anti-imperialist movements. MCs, MIM comrades,
are members of the Party. The Revolutionary Anti-Imperialist League (RAIL) is an anti-
imperialist mass organization led by MIM (RCs are RAIL Comrades). MIM's ten-point
program is available to anyone who sends in a SASE.

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British comrade
agrees with MIM on
white working class

Dear MIM,

Although I have been aware of MIM's

existence for some time, I haven't always

agreed with MIM's line on a number of

issues. However, my experience with

"left" political groups in Britain has

gradually brought me closer to the MIM

line up to the point where I now agree

with all three of MIM's cardinal

principles.

Acceptance of the first two points

required some historical reading and

reading-between-the-lines. But the third

cardinal proved to be a MAJOR obstacle

for me. While it is really unpalatable to

be told that you are bribed by your

employer, bribed by the state, bribed with

consumer goods and that the value of

those bribes has been extracted from third

world labour and natural resources--I'm

afraid that it IS true. Britain consumes a

great deal, produces very little and uses

military power and trade tariffs to maintain

this state of affairs. I accept that now.

I have some questions regarding the

MIM line on various issues:

1. While the third cardinal is true today,

it will not always be true. As imperialism

unravels and superprofits dry up, how will

MIM respond to this in terms of cardinal

principle?

2. When the dictatorship of the

proletariat comes to those nations that are

currently imperialist, will the uneven

development of these countries cause

revolution in the weaker powers or will

defeated imperialist powers build

socialism under occupation? Which

scenario is more likely?

3. Recently there have been heavy

losses of non-productive sector jobs in the

poorer districts of Britain. The work of

call centres, market research and telesales

is moving to countries like India. Is this

evidence of an emerging labour

aristocracy in Asia?

4. If imperialist-nation tenants

organised effectively against their private

landlords, would this affect the extraction

of super-profit from the third world, either

way? What is MIM's attitude to such

activism?

5. Why does MIM assert that "all sex

is rape under imperialism"? Is this to do

with the prevailing conditions of

patriarchy? What about same-sex

consensual relationships? If you

REALLY believed this line--doesn't that

effectively condemn ALL heterosexuals

as rapists under imperialism? If ALL sex

is rape under imperialism, isn't that like

equating bonded slavery with wage

slavery? Or bourgeois democracy with

outright fascism?

I know you must be busy, so I don't

expect a reply right away. Thank you for

your time.

--A British Comrade

International Minister replies for

MIM: Comrade, we are glad to hear that

you are moving toward the MIM line. We

take your comments in a spirit of struggle

and unity.

With regard to your first question, we

believe that Germany in World War II is

the most relevant model. The labor

aristocracy can receive devastating blows

and endure a ruined economy, yet still

stand with Hitler. Concretely the subject

came up whether Stalin should wait for

the Germans or occupy Germany. He

occupied Germany, and we believe this

kind of question is always implicit in the

imperialist countries--the danger of

taking a soft line on parasitism always

lurking.

It took generations of parasitism

combined with bourgeois democracy to

build the kind of habits and public opinion

we see now in the Western imperialist

countries. A short-term economic

disaster will open eyes, but it will not create

a socialist superstructure overnight. That

is why we say there must now be a whole

historical stage of time in which the

parasitic classes of the imperialist

countries must adjust to life without super-

profits and the political injustices that went

with them in the forms of national

chauvinism, racism, patriarchy etc.

With regard to your second question,

again we regard Nazi Germany as the

example of what will happen in the

imperialist countries. Upon the fall of

Nazism from power it is important to note

that neither the Red Army nor the

German communists declared that

eastern Germany proceeded immediately

to build socialism. In practice, de-

Nazifying meant not giving "socialist"

credit to people who were Nazis the day

before. An illusory wish for a quick

turnabout from imperialist marauder to

socialist constructor paves the way for a

return to power of the former rulers under

new names. It will be important to take a

"hard line" against the bourgeoisified

classes while not accepting them at face

value when they say they have adopted

"socialism" upon the collapse of the

imperialist regimes.

As Stalin learned in Nazi Germany, top

Nazi leaders offered to switch sides very

quickly and in many cases stayed at their

old posts of Nazi Germany days. To bring

about real change, that sort of thing cannot

be permitted, which means that change

will take more time, a stage of history not

necessary in countries where the majority

of people have a history of being

exploited.

On your third question, as Lenin

explained, the split in the working class is

international and even in Third World

countries there is always at least a small

minority that is bought off and transformed

into a petty-bourgeoisie. Hence, some of

those jobs offered by imperialists in the

Third World or even by local capitalists

will also be labor aristocracy. The

difference is that the petty-bourgeoisie of

such a sort has no chance of numerically

dominating the country in the Third World.

A country must become imperialist as

described by Lenin before the whole

country can be thought of as a candidate

for petty-bourgeoisie.

With regard to tenant struggles in the

Western imperialist countries, such battles

are usually intra-bourgeois struggles that

result in gentrification. If tenant struggles

are beneficial, it is usually for young people

thinking about classes for the first time.

In actuality, a tenant struggle for

betterment of housing conditions in the

Western imperialist countries results in a

push by the imperialists for a greater

crackdown on the Third World's

productive labor force for the raw

materials and manufacturing that go into

housing. In the Western imperialist

Continued on page 5...

MIM Notes 293 · December 15, 2003 · Page 3

We constantly update MIM's

coverage of the U.$. war on

our web site, with news and
opinion, agitation materials,
articles in English, Spanish,

French, Chinese and

Russian!

Read and distribute the

newspaper -- and get the

latest:

www.etext.info/ Politics/MIM

A coalition in California hosted a week

of teach-ins in schools followed by a day

of action on November 19, 2003.

Education not Incarceration began last

May with a large demo in the capital,

Sacramento, to make its demands heard

(www.may8.org). Students met with state

assembly members to voice their

concerns.

MIM and RAIL were two of the

numerous organizations and individuals

working around prison issues that were

invited to give presentations to classes

during the week of teach-ins. We had the

opportunity to work with a number of high

school classes in Oakland, where the

students were engaged and positive when

discussing the relevance of the prison

system.

Many students were quick to respond

to statistics on imprisonment based on

nationality in the united $tates with

responses like "that shows the

government is racist" and "Blacks and

Latinos are in there because of

oppression." The local legacy of the

Black Panther Party for Self-Defense is

also well known by many of the students.

One RAIL comrade made this historical

link by explaining the prison boom

following the break up of organizations

of the oppressed like the BPP, and the

subsequent creation of the Security

RAIL participates in `Education not Incarceration' week

Housing Units (SHUs)-- prisons within

prisons-- to combat organizing behind

bars.

In California, MIM and RAIL have

been waging a protracted battle to shut

down the SHUs, which represent some

of the most torturous conditions in prisons

across the united $tates. We focused on

this topic in our teach-ins, giving the

students first hand accounts of the

sensory deprivation and abuse that

prisoners in the SHU go through. Many

understood that such conditions are in not

in the general interest when people in the

SHU are going to be released back onto

the streets.

In discussing the allegations of `gang

affiliations' that send people to the SHU,

students were able to draw parallels to

their own lives. One student mentioned

having three people on a corner wearing

the same color is enough to get trouble

from the police. Many others had stories

to share about Oakland Police using

excessive force, such putting guns to their

heads. A speaker at the later rally

reiterated this point, talking about

Oakland's anti-loitering and vagrancy

laws. The speaker said these laws

parallel the state's reaction to the freeing

of African slaves, which created an

often-unwanted work force in this

country. One high-schooler talked about

how her history of political outspokenness

has led to unjust punishment by the school.

She also reminded everyone that the

school district brought in the Secret

Service last school year when a couple

of students said that Bush is whack.

From the teach-ins and rallies that we

attended we can say that this week was

a worthwhile step. We stand behind the

oppressed-nation youth of California as

they demand that money being spent to

incarcerate them is used to educate them

instead. As we noted on our report from

the forum on education in Oakland this

July, "The revolutionary content of such

a campaign is inherent in the class content

of those involved. We are asking for

money to be taken out of repression and

put into basic needs" (1).

In our last article we also wrote, "The

main thrust of such a campaign will be

strong only to the extent that our organizing

efforts to get the money allocated

differently will in turn allow us to decide

how that money is used." Most of the over

200 people in attendance at the November

19th rally at Oakland City Hall were from

two small autonomous schools: Street

Academy and the School for Social

Justice. These schools exist within the

public school system but have the

independence in structure and curriculum

similar to a charter school. While staying

within the system, these schools seem to

be a source of progressive and productive

outlets for Oakland students. We do not

have too much knowledge of their

programs, but the students in attendance,

especially those that spoke on stage, were

able to spend their school day speaking

out about police brutality, the prison

system and even Oakland public schools.

The student leaders of this movement

clearly see the links between the prison

system and capitalism and hundreds of

years of oppression and the majority of

the students we interacted with had a

negative opinion of the prison system. But

when asked to come up with alternative

solutions to violent crimes they were at a

loss. Most of the students felt that people

are going to continue to murder and rape

each other and that's just how it is. This

seems to be the biggest obstacle to cross

to unleash a powerful movement of young

people to change society. Once the Black

Panthers showed people that they could

change things, their support in the

community increased greatly. We must

learn from their example and organize

people by serving the people within a

larger framework of changing the whole

system.

Notes: 1. MIM Notes 286, 1 September 2003.

As states around the country face

massive budget shortfalls, it unfortunately

comes as no surprise that prisoners will

pay disproportionately for the problem.

MIM has received numerous letters from

Texas prisoners exposing two basic areas

that the state has viciously targeted for

cost savings: food and medical care.

According to one Texas prison activist,

"some facilities are serving only two meals

daily, while other prisons reduce portion

size and calorie content of the prisoners'

daily fare." A prisoner writes, "Since my

last missive to you, circumstances have

changed for the worse. ... As of now,

here at TDCJ, they are cutting back on

food tremendously. This was a rumor

before, now it's reality. They have cut

back on desserts, three times a week, and

they are making their own syrup. Yuck.

Plus, we are receiving Johnnies for

breakfast (paper sack meals). ...

"The most diabolical scheme they

(TDCJ) have mastered so far is the

violation of religious rights, because of

budget cuts, they are not allowing

inmates to be `pork free.' If you are a

Muslim, or an individual who just doesn't

eat pork, you will not be allowed to

substitute other items for pork (beans,

cheese, bread, etc.). What's on the

general population menu will apply to

everyone. Their slogan is, `If you don't

like it, don't eat it.'"

On another unit, a comrade reports

that, "the chow hall is very filthy here. I

am not from the Health Department but

I would grade the chow hall

unsatisfactory. When you walk in the

chow hall there are puddles of standing

water. The walls are covered with dead

insects. Water leaks out of the cracks in

the wall. They don't give us our 20

minutes to eat.... The plastic-ware that

is provided for us is dirty; food is dried

between the sporks. Food is still on the

trays and the line where food is served

has food from 2 or 3 days ago still on it

-- still sitting in the same place. They

always run out of food, the chow hall

does not ever have ice...."

At the same time that prisoners are

going hungry (there has been no cutback

of the amount of work they're forced to

do, for no pay), guards are living high on

hog. The Texas activist writes: "Hunger

never visits the officers' dining rooms

[ODRs]. There is never a shortage of

soups, salads, eggs, meats, condiments, ice

cream, cakes, pies and other desserts

served continuously and in unlimited

quantities and varieties -- at no extra

charge -- to the 40,000 employees of the

Texas Department of Criminal Justice."

Since the Officers Dining Rooms are open

365 days a year, "some guards visit [them]

for a free meal on their days off rather

than pay for a meal in a local restaurant

or cook a meal at home."

And it turns out that differential meals

in the ODRs, compared with those served

to the prison population, constitute a

violation of state law. The Texas activist

writes: "Section 13 provides that the

TDCJ may provide food items to

employee dining facilities only after the

food requirements of prisoners are met.

Because prisoners never see the types of

varieties of food served in the ODRs, the

prisoners' food requirements are scarcely

met. Guards and staff are served the best

of everything. Prisoners are served

leftovers and scraps. Section 13 goes on

to provide that the food served to prisoners

shall be the same as the food served to

employees. Prison officials, who have

always seen themselves as being above

the law, ignore this provision of section

13."

Our Texas prison comrades have also

written to tell us about cuts in medical

services as a result of the budget situation.

One writes, "They have gotten rid of some

of the medical staff. They do not have a

Texas prisons withhold food, medical care

lab tech anymore. So it will be a long time

before inmates will receive blood tests to

discover if they have HIV/AIDS, hepatitis

and other blood related analysis. ... I am

currently waiting to have a blood test to

determine if I have an ulcer or not. It has

been three weeks, and they have yet to

take the test. ... Brother, this place is going

to the dawgs; actually it already went,

but now the dawg is shitting it out."

It does not surprise prison activists that

state budget cuts are being directed at

the state's most disenfranchised

population, but it should outrage everyone.

MIM urges our readers to get involved in

our ongoing campaigns against injustice

in the U$ prison system.

MIM Notes 193 · December 15, 2003 · Page 4

Miami cops attack protestors

Anti-FTAA politics are mixed bag

public radio and TV program Democracy

Now! Instead, I was swept up late Friday

afternoon with about 70 others as we tried

to obey an order to disperse from an

`unlawful' jail solidarity rally." She went

on to explain that police arrested four

other independent reporters with her, and

she knew of several other arrested

reporters including an Independent Media

Center reporter--police smashed his

camera and charged him with two

felonies (2).

"Free Trade" and Amerikan

chauvinism

Because of significant opposition by

Latin American countries, the FTAA

meeting failed to produce a

comprehensive trade agreement. Instead

it scaled back the agreement to a

statement that countries can make

whatever trade commitments they want

(now called "FTAA lite"), basically

meaning that trade agreements must be

negotiated between countries. This

outcome represented a scaled-back plan

from the pan-Amerikan common market

the U.$. wants. That open market would

include the North American Free Trade

Agreement enacted 10 years ago

between the U.$., Canada and Mexico.

With the failure of FTAA negotiations,

the Amerikan government now must push

for aggressive bilateral trade agreements

with individual countries.

While some are pleased that the

outcome of the talks failed to produce a

comprehensive trade agreement that

could force Western hemisphere

countries to give large corporations free

reign across borders, the United $tates

still holds the power in the region: power

backed by both guns and money. And the

United $tates can force its Latin

American lackeys to do whatever

Amerika wants. Some analysts see these

bilateral agreements as potentially even

more dangerous to the economies of Latin

American countries.

Some activists at the protests (and

around the world) recognize the

economic and environmental destruction

that imperialism wreaks on Third World

countries where regulations are few and

labor is cheap. Amerikan corporations

can make great profits exploiting their

cheap labor, stealing their natural

resources, and avoiding expensive

environmental protections. But it would

be wrong to pretend that this

environmental destruction will be avoided

if these large trade agreements like the

FTAA are stopped. U.$. corporations

have already devastated the economies

and environments of countries across the

Western Hemisphere with the help of

trade agreements negotiated between the

U.$. and individual countries. It is not the

trade agreements that cause these

problems; it is the system of imperialism.

By focusing on trade agreements activists

are misleading people away from the

problem. "Globalization" is not a new

phenomenon--it's the same old global

system of imperialism that has been

oppressing and exploiting the world's

people for decades.

Amerikan activists frequently argue that

the FTAA means that jobs will be lost to

the Third World. This is why many labor

unions are joining in the anti-FTAA

protests. These protesters display blatant

Amerika-first chauvinism and are the

same people who favor keeping the

Amerikan borders closed to keep out

immigrant labor which might compete for

jobs which they feel are an Amerikan's

god-given right.

At the Miami protests the AFL-CIO

set up a program in the Amphitheater and

held a march through the city with 20,000

people. A large contingent of

steelworkers union members led the

march with t-shirts reading "FTAA

Sucks" as the marchers chanted "FTAA,

Don't Take Our Jobs Away."(2)

An AFL-CIO statement from

November 20 explained their opposition

to the FTAA: "If approved, the FTAA

would eliminate tariffs from 34 countries

with a combined population of more than

800 million and accelerate the staggering

job loss and environmental damage

experienced under the North American

Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). U.S.

workers lost 879,280 jobs and real wages

in Mexico have fallen as a result of

NAFTA in the past 10 years, according

to the nonprofit Economic Policy

Institute." This statement is correct about

the environmental damage, and wages in

Mexico, but MIM finds any focus on

Amerikan jobs being given to Third World

Militarism is war-mongering or the

advocacy of war or actual carrying out

of war or its preparations.

While true pacifists condemn all

violence as equally repugnant, we

Maoists do not consider self-defense

or the violence of oppressed nations

against imperialism to be militarism.

Militarism is mostly caused by

imperialism at this time. Imperialism

is the highest stage of capitalism--

seen in countries like the United

$tates, England and France.

Under capitalism, capitalists often

profit from war or its preparations.

Yet, it is the proletariat that does the

dying in the wars. The proletariat

wants a system in which people do not

have self-interest on the side of war-

profiteering or war for imperialism.

Militarism is one of the most

important reasons to overthrow

capitalism. It even infects oppressed

nations and causes them to fight each

other.

It is important not to let capitalists

risk our lives in their ideas about war

and peace or the environment. They

have already had two world wars

admitted by themselves in the last 100

years and they are conducting a third

right now against the Third World.

Even a one percent annual chance of

nuclear war destruction caused by

capitalist aggressiveness or "greed" as

the people call it should not be tolerated

by the proletariat. After playing

Russian Roulette (in which the bullet

chamber is different each time and not

related at all to the one that came up in

previous spins) with 100 chambers and

one bullet, the chance of survival is

only 60.5% after 50 turns. In other

words, a seemingly small one percent

annual chance of world war means

eventual doom. After 100 years or turns

of Russian Roulette, the chances of

survival are only 36.6%. After 200

years, survival has only a 13.4%

chance.

What is militarism?

workers as barely disguised chauvinism.

Some individual union members quoted

in this statement were even more

blatantly chauvinist: "We need to write

every senator and representative and let

them know that this is a big issue--we

don't want to give away our jobs."(3)

The real solution is Mao's solution of

socialism to end unemployment and

hunger, thus doubling the life expectancy

of his people. We in the imperialist

countries may have food on the table, but

the masses in Third World do not. Maoists

in the Third World do not want to see

their countries enslaved to U.$. monopoly

capital and they have every reason to

have faith in their own people to organize

their countries for full employment and

economic development.

Notes:

1. Miami Herald, Nov 20, 2003

2. FTAAIMC.org, November 23, 2003

3. aflcio.org, Nov 20, 2003 statement

Undercover cops

infiltrated the crowd

and sezied several

protestors, one of

whom was dragged

away, according to

witnesses. (http://

FTAAIMC.org)

MIM Notes 293 · December 15, 2003 · Page 5

We often hear corporate shills

promoting agreements like NAFTA,

GATT, and now the Free Trade Area of

the Americas (FTAA) complain about

barriers to the free movement of

investments and profits. But we rarely

hear them complain about barriers to the

free movement of labor (i.e. people).

This is because monopoly corporations

-- and the privilege enjoyed by First

World countries generally -- depend on

the depressed wages in Third World

countries. Workers in the Third World

earn an average of $0.48 an hour, while

U.$. workers earn $16.40.(1) How is this

possible? Those Third World workers live

under death-squad governments, which

use force to set wage rates and attack

union organizers.

Those regimes that do not use military

force are competing against those that

do--and they face the threat of covert

and overt military aggression. Witness

U.$. sponsored coups or invasions in Iran,

Guatemala, Vietnam, Chile, etc.

So if the big capitalists are going to

clamor for a WTO to protect their "free

market" -- never mind that the "free

market" is dominated by First World

monopolies and the WTO is controlled

by a few bullies like the united $tates --

we should demand WTO-like protections

on a global, free, fair labor market.

Professor Voradvidh from Thailand has

it right: "`We need a GATT on labor

conditions and on the minimum wage, we

need a standard on the minimum

conditions for work and a higher standard

for children.'"(2) Countries that use death

squads against union organizers should

face severe trade penalties. Unions

seeking to obtain wages higher than

minimum wage should get to go before a

WTO-like body.

Of course, a global minimum wage and

other guarantees for a "free and fair"

labor market are reforms within a

capitalist system, currently dominated by

big monopoly capital from the First World,

a.k.a. imperialism. The Maoist

Internationalist Movement believes a

revolutionary struggle for socialism --

where people's needs are placed first and

individual profit comes last or never -- is

a necessary step to eliminate exploitation

and the related evils of poverty, disease,

and starvation that kill millions every year.

Anti-imperialist struggle with a socialist

perspective in Third World countries can

remove those countries from the dictates

of First World monopoly capital and all

its institutions: the IMF, World Bank,

WTO, etc. The best thing we can do here

is prepare to topple Amerikan imperialism

when the time is right--and make sure it

never arises again.

That said, global regulations on labor

conditions are a progressive reform

countries, it fits in the category of "no

good deed goes unpunished," as with so

many things under capitalism.

On the last point, we ask people to read

Engels on the nature of the patriarchy and

particularly to note those passages where

he equates marriage with prostitution

under capitalism. For example, a passage

in the "Communist Manifesto" says that

capitalism turns family relations into

monetary ones. From this we gather that

Marx and Engels did not think gender

oppression was a question of lifestyle

choices, the line undergirding sexual

Liberalism. At our party Congresses we

have wrestled with the line that "all sex

is prostitution" in the spirit of Engels and

consequently that "all rape is like theft"

and we consciously chose to deny these

lines for reasons we will get into.

Since the day of Engels, the bourgeois

system has attempted--as Marx and

Engels predicted--to put more and more

customs and culture (including sexual

ones) on a contract basis with its attendant

ideology. In Engels's day, there was no

such thing in law and culture as "rape in

marriage." Now there is that in addition

to rape of prostitutes and "date rape."

The notion of freely given consent in

individual contracts is the essence of

bourgeois ideology and does in fact

represent an advance in many aspects

of culture that oppress wimmin. The

Letters

whole idea of "marital rape" is an example

of how the bourgeois culture aims at

making every moment of every

relationship consensual on an individual

basis, no matter the inequality of the

underlying groups of people making those

agreements. We do not believe it should

be the role of the communists to disagree

with the evolution of sexual mores within

capitalism--especially when we can see

that that evolution in expanding the

concept of rape was attempting to handle

some kind of oppression which also

existed before capitalism.

Rather it is the job of the communists

to attack reformism and individualism. It

is our job to show how capitalism cannot

ever fully eliminate gender oppression

despite expanding the bourgeoisie's

influence through ideas like marital rape

or date rape. Looking at this evolution

since the days of Engels, MIM concluded

that lifestyle Liberals are dividing the

gender oppressed with their concepts of

rape and sexual harassment and that not

all gender oppression is ultimately about

money. For that reaso