MIM Notes ***

MIM Notes 296 · February 1, 2004 · Page 1

MIM Notes

Feb. 1, 2004, Nº 296

The Official Newsletter of the Maoist Internationalist Movement (MIM)

Free

INSIDE: California corruption * Under Lock & Key * Una Página en Español...

web: www.etext.info/Politics/MIM

he ambitions of U.$. imperialism

in Afghanistan and Iraq have left

its military stretched to the point

where its strengths and weaknesses are

readily apparent. Now CNN is concerned

enough that at the end of December it

started a discussion of re-instituting the

draft of men and wimmin aged 18 to 26.(1)

Whether through ineptitude or

intentional chutzpah, Amerikkkan rulers

have done everything they can to make

voluntary military service unattractive

while increasing the hatred of the world's

people for U.$. imperialism. The long

one-year terms of service and the long

call-ups of reserve forces have likely put

a pinch on future recruitments. This can

only serve to speed up the global

revolution against U.$. imperialism.

Now the U.$. military has gone the

extra step and prevented those due to

retire from retiring while also extending

the terms of service of others. The Army

hopes to limit retirement delays to 30 to

60 days, but there is no guarantee at the

moment of how long the Army is delaying

retirements. Word is "up to 90 days."(2)

To be sure, the government is offering

$10,000 bonuses to people who re-enlist

for longer terms, but the killing of U.$.

troops in Iraq has brought new factors

into the equation that U.$. rulers have not

had to contend with since the Vietnam

War. That is no small accomplishment for

the Iraqi liberation forces. If the Arab

people ever gain a Maoist vanguard party

to lead People's War against U.$.

imperialism, we expect Uncle $am to

face even greater difficulty and end up

the same way he did in Vietnam.

The military image of the United $tates

right now is very strong--with the military

budget surpassing the rest of world's

budgets combined being a major factor

in that image. Supposedly there is only

one superpower since the end of the Cold

War.

The United $tates has 1.4 million people

in military services, but many of those are

office and technical back-up personnel.

Of the remaining combat personnel, not

all can serve abroad simultaneously

without seriously hurting recruiting and

retention efforts. Protracted personnel-

intensive warfare is still the weakness of

IS THE DRAFT NEXT?

U.$. military approaches limits

During the Vietnam War, Uncle $am ran into problems at home when thousands of young

men burnt their draft cards, like this one.

See more coverage of the war on Iraq, including an expose of Amerikkkan

efforts to export pornography to Iraq, on page 5.

GOVERNMENT

DIVERSIFIES

CAMPAIGN

AGAINST CIVIL

LIBERTIES

he Bush administration has been

compelled by popular and elite

opposition to diversify its

campaign against civil liberties.

Nevertheless, state surveillance,

repression and persecution continue to

intensify, particularly against foreign

nationals.

The "Patriot Act II" bill circulating last

year--which would have intensified the

repression measures permitted under the

original USA PATRIOT Act, passed

shortly after September 11, 2001--has not

been introduced in Congress. This seems

to be because there was substantial

opposition to the bill. MIM was a leader

in opposing it--last spring we delivered

more than 3,100 signatures to California

Senator Barbara Boxer's Los Angeles

office (1)--but there were also

campaigns by traditional civil libertarians

as well as anti-big-government

conservatives, including many

Republicans.

For example, more than 200 local

governments have passed resolutions

objecting in one way or another to the

Patriot Act.(2) Also, a group of U.$.

Senators, including Republicans and

Democrats, attempted to pass legislation

at the end of last year that would have

somewhat limited some of the

government's new powers under the

Patriot Act, including "sneak and peak"

searches in which the subject is never

told the search took place. The House of

Representatives effectively limited that

part of the Patriot Act last summer,

denying it funding by a vote of 309 to

118.(3)

[This mainstream opposition to the

Patriot Act was also seen during

President Bush's State of the Union

address, when many legislators applauded

the line, "Key provisions of the Patriot

Act are set to expire next year," instead

of the line Bush wanted them to applaud:

ast year, we wrote that President

Bush used his State of the Union

address to feed the public

"concrete details" proving that Saddam

Hussein had weapons of mass

destruction--details we showed were

either old fabrications or greatly

exaggerated.(1) This year, Bush lapsed

back into vague, hypocritical rhetoric and

sophism, apparently trusting the kind of

"father knows best" quasi-monarchism

exemplified by Fox News to drown out

persistent criticism of his arguments for

expanding the war in Iraq.(2)

Last October, before the ground

invasion of Iraq, Bush and co. claimed

that Iraq had "a massive stockpile of

biological weapons that has never been

accounted for and is capable of killing

millions." Two days before the invasion,

Bush said U.$. troops were to enter Iraq

"to eliminate weapons of mass

destruction."(3) Then, last summer, after

initial reports of weapons discoveries

turned out to be wishful thinking on Bush's

part, Bush backpedaled and talked about

weapons of mass destruction

"programs."(4) Finally, in this year's State

of the Union address, Bush could only

point out "weapons of mass destruction-

related program activities," a phrase that

has been correctly mocked as so vague

as to be meaningless.(5)

Even worse for Bush, David Kay, head

of the U.$. weapons-inspection team and

the author of the report Bush cited as

identifying those weapons-related

program activities, resigned three days

after the State of the Union speech, saying

"I don't think [weapons of mass

destruction] existed. What everyone was

talking about is stockpiles produced after

`State of the Union'

same sad story

Continued on page 4...

Continued on page 8...

Continued on page 6...

MIM Notes 296 · February 1, 2004 · 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

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.

The paper is free to all prisoners, as long as they write to us every 90 days to confirm

their subsciptions. There are no individual subscriptions for people outside prison.

People who want to receive newspapers should become sponsors and distributors.

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tains thousands of documents, with ordering information for many more.

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long as we are credited.

For general correspondence, contact:

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P.O. Box 29670

Los Angeles, CA 90029-0670

eMail: <mim@mim.org>

WWW: <http//www.etext.info/Politics/MIM>

Readers will notice that MIM talks

quite a bit about Amerikan

democracy--a.k.a. "dumbocracy"--in

this issue. We reprint this short essay

to give readers some background on

what we mean when we talk about

democracy and what we think of it.

If we define "democracy" as majority

rule, then MIM opposes democracy in

principle because we prioritize serving

humyn needs --peace, healthful

environment, food, clothing, healthcare

and shelter. If a majority decided (as in

the United States) that a minority or

another country should have to do without

survival "rights," then we communists will

fight that majority to the end, so we

cannot say we are for democracy in

principle. Survival rights are non-

negotiable. On the other hand, in the

distant future, majority rule might be

acceptable in a world where there are

already actually existing survival rights.

Exaggeration

1. The most common reason we oppose

"democracy" is that it is used by

conservatives (including people calling

themselves democratic socialists) to

exaggerate the merits of the status quo.

The public is told there is majority rule

again and again in situations where there

is in fact none. So it is a factual question.

Conservatives believe majority rule of

the world should not apply in economic

matters, matters of property rights. Along

with the European and Amerikan

"democratic socialists" they have a history

of believing the majority rule of their

country should decide what happens in

other countries. For these two reasons

alone, Lenin said communism was

millions times more democratic than the

status quo.

Imprecision

2. Many who use the word

"democracy" including many foggy-

minded scholars use the word to refer to

something that should more precisely be

called the "American way of life." They

are referring to a situation created when

a country kills off the inhabitants of a

continent, empties another continent for

slaves and then builds its wealth. These

people are largely unaware that India also

has democracy, with more people

practicing it there, than in the rich

countries combined. Yet people starve to

death in India by the millions every year.

Doesn't work

3. Democracy is a goal that often gets

people excited and then slaughtered. The

rich and the U.S. government spend

money at home and abroad to win

elections. When the Yankee imperialists

and their lackeys lose elections they send

in the Marines and depose elected

governments or pay to subvert them.

Money or guns settle the matter, not the

interests of the majority.

We Maoists have read history and see

that people have to be prepared to fight a

people's war for their destinies. Some

people in the imperialist countries see the

facts but do not draw the same

conclusions. They know "democracy" is

A MIM Frequently Asked Question: "Why do you oppose democracy?"

not working in practice, but they downplay

the problem or try to reform the system.

Widespread hunger and transcontinental slavery are two of

"democracy's" accomplishments

MIM Notes 296 · February 1, 2004 · Page 3

by MC45

The bar "Damons" in upstate New

York may be the first to receive a waiver

of the state's restaurant and bar smoking

ban. The state is allowing Damons'

customers to smoke indoors since the

bar's owner reported that his business

was down 40%, and he was supporting

the bar with his retirement savings and

social security payments. MIM wants to

know: if the state is going to grant

exceptions to the smoking ban every time

a restaurant or bar is about to go under,

what's the point of the ban to begin with?

MIM supports measures like banning

Profit-friendly NY smoking ban has no teeth

smoking in public places as partial

reforms under capitalism. Under

socialism, profit from peddling cancer will

be banned altogether. For us this is the

whole idea of a ban on smoking in bars

or restaurants. In other words, when the

ban starts to put smoking-dependent

proprietors out of business, that means

it's working. If these capitalists really

can't succeed without getting people

together to promote cancer, we want

them to find something else to do with

their money. (The Damons case is

especially interesting from this

perspective. Clearly the owner is not

depending on the bar to survive--and

before he started losing money he had

only one part-time employee--if he has

government and private retirement

benefits to pay into the bar's coffers. This

is a case where pure profit is driving the

exception to the smoking ban.)

A smoking ban is just part of an

elementary platform on public health, as

is a ban on profiting from meat, alcohol

and candy bar production at the expense

of people's health. We communists are

the most resolute supporters of the

people's right not to be poisoned by their

environment; you won't see us backing

down on these questions to win the

support of capitalists. A dictatorship of

the proletariat--socialism--will be

necessary to fully ban profit from

products that harm public health, because

such will demand placing the good of the

majority ahead of the well-funded

interests of capital. When our post-

revolution policies push some people out

of health-eroding jobs, we will move them

in positions that contribute to the social

good.

Source: New York Times 13 Jan., 2004. For
MIM's program under capitalism, socialism and
communism, see http://www.etext.info/Politics/
MIM/wim/pcongres.html

MAOIST

SEMINAR A

FIRST IN

EX-USSR

The Russian Maoist Party reports that

it held a seminar on Maoism in

commemoration of Mao's 110th birthday.

It was the first such legally held seminar

in the ex-USSR.

The Russian language is the fifth largest

in the world with 320 million or 5% of the

world's people speaking it. For this reason

alone, the seminar would be highly

significant. MIM and the RMP make

Russian language documents available on

our respective web pages and the RMP

has agreed to participate in our

forthcoming DVD.

From MIM's point of view, the seminar

is also important in showing that Maoists

representing exploited white people can

arise. Not all white people in the world

are exploiters and to conduct agitation and

propaganda among those white people

who may be unclear how U.$.

imperialism really attained its wealth is a

distinct task unto itself.

Chairpersyn Dar Zhutayev delivered an

extensive report on the basics of

Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. Comrade

Oleg Torbasow also delivered a report,

one on the task of bringing Maoism into

the Russian language. According to

Zhutayev, "The evening began with `The

East Is Red' and ended with `The

Internationale.'"

Source: Encyclopedia Britannica

Almanac 2003, p. 723.

In January the Los Angeles Times ran

a few stories exposing the California

DOC "code of silence," which protects

guards who abuse prisoners and engage

in corruption. The San Francisco

Chronicle also picked up on the story.

We're pleased to see this story reaching

the pages of the mainstream media and

we hope that people will take this as a

call to action. It is clear the Department

of Corruptions will not reform itself.

The basis of these stories was a report

on the California DOC by John Hagar.

Hagar was appointed to monitor Pelican

Bay prison's progress in complying with

court orders specifying reforms. He was

appointed after the U.S. District Court

found, in 1995, that poor medical care and

guard brutality violated the civil rights of

Pelican Bay prisoners. Last year, in a

federal trial, two Pelican Bay guards

were convicted of beating prisoners and

setting up the stabbing of an inmate.

Federal prosecutors gave the state

corrections officials evidence that at least

three guards lied under oath during the

trial, but the department shut down its

investigation into this misconduct. Hagar

spent the last six months investigating why

these cases were shut down and this

report is his findings.

Code of silence exposed

Hagar's report exposed the "code of

silence" and the leaders who "neither

understand nor care about the need for

fair investigations."(1) For years

California Prisoners have been reporting

in the pages of MIM Notes that their

attempts to legally appeal corruption and

abuse are met with resistance, lost

paperwork, and retaliation. This report

brings the truth of the prisoner's claims

to an even broader public.

As the Times reported, "Hagar's

report, still subject to review, amounts to

a sweeping indictment of the department's

ability to police itself, and recommends

criminal charges against former

Corrections Director Edward S.

Alameida and a high-ranking deputy."

Further, "[h]e concluded that Alameida

was moved by union meddling to

improperly close a perjury investigation

of two guards at Pelican Bay State

Prison, then conspired with others to

conceal his actions. Alameida should be

charged with contempt, and Thomas

Moore, former chief of investigations,

should be charged with perjury for lying

in federal court, Hagar said."(1)

Alameida resigned as Director in

December, and it now looks like he took

the fall for the department so that they

will be able to claim things have changed.

But he remains on the department payroll

and will resume working in an unspecified

post after an extended vacation.(1)

This report comes at the same time the

State Senate has convened hearings on

mismanagement and cover-ups in the

DOC.

According to the Times, "Hagar's

report included other episodes of what

he described as improper union influence,

including a department decision to pay

for the legal defense of an officer who

shot and wounded an inmate at Pelican

Bay."(1)

A Union vice-president stated that he

agreed with the report's findings that the

prison investigations are a problem. But

his view is that there are too many

charges resulting from these

investigations, making things out to be

important when they should not be.

The Chronicle summed up the report

as "[a] sweeping summary of corruption

and cover-up among high-level

administrators, Hagar's 71-page report

depicts a department that has lost control

of its efforts to police rogue correctional

officers, in part because of the influence

of the state's politically powerful prison

guards union. The result, according to

Hagar, is a systemic code of silence

...."(2)

We're pleased to see this information

come to light, but we note that Governor

Schwarzenegger's proposed budget

eliminates the independent state agency

that investigates prisons. While we don't

think that agency is going to solve the

criminal injustice system problems, this

decision, in light of the tremendous funding

given to the DOC, reveals the

government's priorities and lack of

interest in doing anything remotely in the

interests of prisoners.

Folsom prison riot cover-up

In January KCRA Channel 3 reported

that it had obtained documents that

demonstrate "Folsom Prison officials

intentionally allowed an April 2002 inmate

riot to happen and that those same officials

then launched a cover-up." It goes on to

report, "[t]he documents show that a

group of current and former Folsom State

Prison supervisors and staff presented

their allegations before two state senators.

Included in that group is Evette Pieper,

the widow of Capt. D.F. Pieper--a

custody captain who committed suicide

during the investigation into the riot."(3)

KCRA did some further digging and got

a copy of the Inspector General's

investigative report on the riot: "In it,

investigators point out there were

`substantial irregularities' in the prison's

own internal investigation of the riot, and

that those reports "contained statements

contradicted by other information." The

report even shows the warden ordered

an `...audio portion of the riot videotape

to be removed.'" No surprise to those

who understand that the criminal injustice

system is all about protecting it's own, the

Inspector General's conclusion read: "This

investigation did not reveal criminal

misconduct."(3)

As KCRA explains: "Evette Pieper

says state senators need to dig deeper.

She says her husband left a suicide note

behind, saying he did what he did because

of extreme pressure during a cover-up.

She says the Office of the Inspector

General's official report even lends some

credence to her claim. The report points

Reports of California prisoncrat

corruption go mainstream

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

Continued on page 7...

MIM Notes 296 · February 1, 2004 · Page 4

U.$. imperialism; yet protracted

occupation is what the U.$. imperialists

want to re-order the Middle East the way

they re-ordered Japan and Germany after

World War II. The imperialists believe

they can accomplish more of their

goalsthe longer they are able to keep

troops in the Middle East.

MIM cannot confirm the analysis of the

Associated Press on this question, but the

general questions raised in the following

quote are correct: "Back-to-back wars

in Afghanistan and Iraq have stretched

the Army thin. Nearly two-thirds of its

active duty brigade-sized units are

deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan. When

the troops currently in Iraq rotate out this

spring, the U.S. plans to lean heavily on

the National Guard and Reserves for

replacements. The Pentagon said

Wednesday that the number of U.S.

military reservists called to active duty

jumped by more than 10,000 in the past

week."(3)

The U.$. army served as a "rent-a-cop"

and Japan the "cash register" to pay for

it in Gulf War I, and the truth is that the

U.$. military is not 1.4 million people who

are going to fight to the death in any

politico-military situation. They are 1.4

million rented people, people who will

often complain about one-year terms

abroad. There are only so many rural

white kids thrilled to go off to war no

matter what Bush says the reason is. The

more people the Pentagon needs, the less

pliant the people available will be--not

so much for political reasons of opposition

to war and empire, but for simple selfish

reasons limiting how long one is willing to

serve in the military in exotic but

unfriendly places and at what salary.

Bush's greatest ally right now in military

recruitment is the unemployment rate.

It would be a mistake to fail to give the

proper tactical respect to the U.$. military,

but we should also understand the longer

term forces acting on the U.$. armed

forces. Long before anyone faces 1.4

million armed people in the field, the U.$.

forces acting outside U.$. borders for the

oppression of Third World people will be

soundly defeated.

MIM would warn that the situation of

the U.$. rulers is not exactly the same as

the British. There is a lot more room in

the U.$. force for shifting people around

into different roles, because of the size

of the force relative to its obligations. The

talk of the military's difficulties may be

aimed at Congress's budget deliberations

and it may encourage attacks in Iraq that

the rulers would like to see there instead

of elsewhere. We should not forget that

Bush said "bring them on" as in "bring it

[the fight] on" in response to questions

about U.$. enemies in the Mideast and

Iraq in particular. That could be pure

DRAFT NEXT?

U.$. military approaches limits

macho ineptitude pandering to certain

Bubba-type voters or it could reflect the

flawed calculation that the United $tates

would rather fight in Iraq than at places

like the World Trade Center.(4)

The very size and complexity of the U.$.

military relative to the British one allows

the British to shift around troops without

drawing international attention. The

stretched situation of the British military

is much more important for political

reasons than for logistical reasons on the

ground in Iraq or Afghanistan. At times,

the U.$. imperialists may want to cover

for the weaknesses of its ally and at other

times, it may want to see the British

contribute combat troops in proportion to

their population. That's a question

concerning relations among imperialist

countries who are not bound by a selfless

ideology.

In addition, the British situation is

objectively more developed than the U.$.

political situation for other reasons. One

is that England has its own oil and it is

difficult to persuade the English labor

aristocracy that it is completely necessary

or beneficial to serve as the tail on the

Amerikkkan dog in the Middle East.

Secondly, the anti-war movement in

England has already demonstrated its

strength with a much higher portion of

demonstrators than in the United $tates.

2.5 million out of 60 million in England

demonstrated simultaneously against the

war. In contrast, with 290 million people,

the United $tates may have had only the

same 2.5 million demonstrators at the

greatest point of upsurge.

In MIM Notes 290, "Britain faces

quasi-revolutionary opportunity," MIM

explained how, absent logistical cover

from the United $tates, the British military

is operating at its limits. Although the

same general reasoning process applies

to Uncle $am, the development of the

revolutionary situation is not as far along.

As proved by the success of Paris

Hilton in the reality television show that

gained higher ratings than Bush did talking

about Saddam Hussein's capture,

Amerikkkans may be more nationalistic

than the European imperialists, but skin-

deep beauty is still deeper than any notion

of group--whether nation or class--in the

United $tates. The selfish and narrow

concerns that drive men to pornography,

video games and drugs are an excellent

defense of the status quo of bourgeois

society, but they limit the ability of

imperialism to go on offensives to re-order

the world. Most young men would prefer

to stay at home and watch Paris Hilton

on TV than join military operations in

Afghanistan. That is the particular nature

of how U.$. culture relates to its military

strength.

Hot air can only go so far. Tony Blair

of England said that England would have

had to invade Iraq if the United $tates

did not. However, reality is that England

would have to pare down its ambitions or

work out a new deal with French, German

and Russian imperialism if it were not for

the U.$. imperialists. The British military

simply does not have the ability to do all

that the United $tates covers now and

for the foreseeable future the same is true

of any other combination of imperialists.

Only Amerikkkan imperialism can fill the

role it does right now and the Iraqi people

have already started to expose the limits

of U.$. power. This gives us a slight

inkling of how the end of imperialism may

come about.

Notes:

1. http://www.cnn.com/2003/

ALLPOLITICS/12/29/timep.draft.tm/

2. http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/01/05/

army.delay.reut/index.html ; http://

w w w . r e u t e r s . c o m /

newsArticle.jhtml?type=domesticNews&storyID=4076094

3. http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/news/

story.jsp?floc=FF-APO-1107&idq=/ff/

0001%2F20040107%2F194828439.htm&sc=1107

4. http://www.usatoday.com/news/

world/iraq/2003-07-02-bush-iraq-

troops_x.htm

Continued from page 1...

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?

MIM Notes 296 · February 1, 2004 · Page 5

Thousands of Iraqis and hundreds of

Amerikkkans are dead from the latest

round of the Gulf War, but the only

"freedom" the Iraqis have so far is the

freedom to buy pornography and see

prostitutes--this admitted by the

bourgeois media which has reported on

Amerikkkan shootings of anti-U.$.

demonstrators and Iraqi journalists.(1)

Under Saddam Hussein, prostitution was

illegal while effectively available to the

rich. Now there are popular pornography

publishing houses making a fast buck and

ordinary Iraqi men also have the U$A to

thank for their freedom to utilize the

services of prostitutes.(2)

At least when it comes to the

oppression of wimmin, Amerikkkans can

say they are no hypocrites. George

Bush's television interview on the capture

of Saddam Hussein received fewer

television viewers than a competing

special featuring Paris Hilton of

pornography video fame.(3) Now there

are men in both the U.$.A. and Iraq who

can say the war was never really about

weapons of mass destruction, Saddam

Hussein, or even oil: for many apolitical

men, it's about sex, because everything

is about sex and trying to talk politics with

them is almost a waste of time.

Paris Hilton is the "socialite"--polite

language for parasitic playgirl--heir to a

multi-million dollar fortune. Her sex acts

on video have stirred up the world's

pornographic fascination concerning the

availability of a rich white man's daughter.

There seems to be some dispute as to

whether Paris Hilton knowingly posed

nude or gave proper permission, and

that's all that was necessary to make the

video of Paris Hilton extra special.

While many suspect that oil is the

reason for the war on Iraq, we have to

admit that Iraqis have gained some

Amerikkkan-style freedom. The

pornography and prostitution allowed in

Iraq today are the first signs of respect

by Amerikkkan men for Iraqi men. Just

to show the Iraqis how special

pornography is and to add to the taboo

excitement of it all, the British arrested

two of their own troops in Iraq for owning

pornography in Iraq, one for child

pornography and one for adult

pornography.(4) Meanwhile, one Iraqi

accused U.$. troops not just of owning

but distributing pornography to Iraqis free

The fact that Paris Hilton's appearance

on a reality television show had higher

television ratings than Bush right after the

capture of Saddam Hussein (1) shows

that young men in the U$A have taken

pornography to a whole new level. After

September 11th, 2001, it was a source of

some embarrassment that

nakednews.com had to stop operations

for a few days. The viewers realized that

maybe their grip on politics was not what

it should be and that at least for that

moment, nakednews.com would not do.

By the end of 2003, the pornography

consumer openly ditched politics for Paris

Hilton.

It is actually a return to "normalcy" that

less than three years later, Bush captures

Saddam Hussein and the under-40 crowd

changes the channel to Paris Hilton. That

is a huge political watershed moment. It's

tempting to say that when Amerikkkans

are watching their porno videos at least

they are not lapping up Bush-league

propaganda. The government has tried

so often to link Saddam Hussein and his

sons to unrestrained sexual appetites

indulged in luxury pads that then become

the subject of tabloid story after tabloid

story. Yet, now it is difficult to tell if this

was just a way of getting the attention of

readers. There is obviously good money

to be made in telling and re-telling the

stories of the sex lives of men who

supposedly procured wimmin at will.

The next image from all this that comes

Amerikkkans export their pastime

Iraqis freed to drool and whore

on laser disc.(5) It makes us think that

maybe R Kelly took the child pornography

charge as part of a team contribution

called for by the U.$. military, because

he subsequently dedicated a song for the

troops in Iraq. OK, we're just joking, but

it shows how impossible it is for

Amerikkka to do anything, even

supporting its troops, without a heavy

pornography undertow. (Even if R Kelly

is innocent of child pornography, there is

no doubt he is making adult pornography

a part of his profession.) Every arrest of

pornography producers under capitalism

only restricts supply and causes the price

to go up. The rise in price may even come

with a rise in demand thanks to the taboos

violated by those willing to risk arrest. In

any case, as the price goes up, the people

willing to supply the product also

increase. Capitalism can in no way break

out of the cycle.

As an attempt to placate the people of

Iraq into accepting the U.$. colonial

administration, the pornography/

prostitution strategy is bound to bring

some converts while antagonizing others.

On the whole, we do not believe such a

strategy can work where a people's

economic livelihood is at stake as it is in

Iraq today.

Notes:

1. http://www.dissidentvoice.org/

Articles7/Fisk_US-Censorship.htm ;

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Articles8/

Fisk_Iraq-Censorship.htm ; A newspaper

closely linked to British military

intelligence has reported it all. There is

no dispute of fact: "Two months after

`liberating' Iraq, the Anglo-US authorities

have decided to control the new, free

press." www.independent.co.uk

2. See for example New York Times

17Dec2003. Newspapers and television

media throughout the Third World have

been criticizing the united $tates for the

spread of pornography and prostitution in

Iraq.

3. http://www.cnn.com/2003/

S H O W B I Z / T V / 1 2 / 1 8 /

offbeat.hilton.bush.reut/

4. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/

2968472.stm

5. Associated Press (AP) reprinted

here: http://www.sltrib.com/2003/Dec/

12132003/nation_w/119583.asp

to mind is a military juggernaut moving

forward and crushing all underfoot, while

most of the staff of the juggernaut pays

no attention, because it is too busy with

pornography. The Amerikkkan military

can accomplish quite a bit with some

degree of efficiency even while most of

the country continues in its oblivious and

privileged existence.

By coincidence, at the end of 2003, the

bourgeois media did some thorough news

stories that show how pornography

gained mainstream acceptance in the

United $tates. At $10 billion a year in

business, the porno business is equal to

the music industry or the non-porno big-

screen industry.(2) Especially noteworthy

is how pornography videos are the key to

some cable television and hotel profits--

not in the adult entertainment production

industry, but in "mainstream" businesses

catering to pornography consumers.

CBS reported it this way: "Last year,

Comcast, the nation's largest cable

company, pulled in $50 million from adult

programming. All the nation's top cable

operators, from Time Warner to

Cablevision, distribute sexually explicit

material to their subscribers. But you

won't read about it in their annual reports.

Same with satellite providers like