MIM Notes ***

MIM Notes 298 · March 15, 2004 · Page 1

MIM Notes

March 15, 2004, Nº 298

The Official Newsletter of the Maoist Internationalist Movement (MIM)

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WHAT KIND OF

DEMOCRACY

IS THIS?

Haiti is a perfect case of the lie in all

Amerikan "foreign policy" which is really

a system, not a policy. In April 2001,

President Bush spoke of all of the

Western Hemisphere except for Cuba as

"free" and "democratic." Proving that

"freedom" and "democracy" are just

covers that he uses, Bush overthrew the

democratically-elected Haitian

government of Jean-Bertrand Aristide on

February 29th.

The key facts are not in dispute by the

U.$. Government. As late as January 6th,

2004, the U.$. Government said that Haiti

had a democratically-elected government.

A press release harking back to a pivotal

FTAA (Free Trade Agreement of the

Americas) meeting read as follows: "In

April of 2001, the ITAL democratically

elected END leaders of the Hemisphere

gathered in Quebec City for the Third

Summit of the Americas [emphasis

added]."(1) Bush said the only exception

in the Western Hemisphere was Cuba.

Hence, Bush himself counted Haiti as

having a democratically elected

government and his February

smokescreen for overthrowing Aristide

was that Aristide resigned. The State

Department put it this way: "At President

Aristide's request, the United States

facilitated his safe departure from

Haiti."(2) Yet, Aristide called it

kidnapping: "Maxine Waters, a

Democratic congresswoman from Los

Angeles, said Mr. Aristide `told me he

had been kidnapped in a coup d'état.'"(3)

The clue is the State Department's opinion

that Aristide's departure: "resolves the

political impasse that is the root of the

violent unrest in Haiti in recent weeks."(2)

That's just the U.$. agenda speaking loud

and clear.

While Bush claims not to have had a

part in the 2004 violence that overthrew

Aristide and that is a deception, the

remaining facts are proof enough that

"democracy" is not the guiding light of

U.$. "foreign policy." It's quite in the open

that the United $tates had a role in picking

the next prime minister and the new

president. The fact that the United $tates

chose also to back replacing the prime

minister of Haiti Yvon Neptune proves

Aristide's contention that he did not resign

but the United $tates forced him out.(4)

A VOTE FOR

THE DONKEY

IS A VOTE FOR

AN ASS

So, you and some of his 700,000 website

followers gave Howard Dean $50 million

(1) and he lost New Hampshire's 2004

primary for the Democratic nomination

for president after spending most of it.

Judging by people who forked over

money, Dean had the support of a broader

mass of people than Kerry. Out of

candidates Bush, Edwards, Kerry,

Lieberman, Dean, Clark, Kucinich and

Sharpton, only Dean and Kucinich

received most of their money from people

giving less than $200 a piece.(2) Kerry,

Bush overthrows elected Haiti government

Lessons from the Democratic Party primaries

The choice is yours, Deaniacs:

The issues or the bullshit

Ralph Nader runs

for president again

On February 22, Ralph Nader

announced that he would run for U.S.

president via an independent bid requiring

1.5 million petition signatures to get on

the November 2004 ballot. Immediately

the ayatollahs of the two-party system

slammed Nader with slogans about how

a "vote for Nader is a vote for Bush."

In 2000, Nader ran as a Green Party

candidate and won 2.7% of the vote.

Many of those would not have voted at

all if not for Nader, but polling data

suggests that Nader cost Democratic

Party nominee Al Gore the electoral votes

of Florida and New Hampshire, and thus

the presidency. MIM accepts that as fact,

but we oppose the ayatollahs defending

the indefensible two-party system

anyway. We're sure the ayatollahs will

name us "communists for Bush."

For his part, Nader says that the same

polls show that his candidacy helps

Democrats running for Congress. If he

were not running and offering an

Edwards, Lieberman and Sharpton all

received less than 20% of their campaign

money that way. In fact, Bush and Kerry

both received exactly 12% of their money

that way. That's another way of saying

big money was on the side of Kerry and

Bush, but money from middle-class people

was on Dean's side.

Adding insult to injury, and as suggested

by the breadth of your monetary support,

you Deaniacs outnumbered Kerry's

volunteers in Iowa and New Hampshire

According to bourgeois newswire

service Associated Press, Miami, Florida

nurses Gaile Loperfido and Dianne

Demeritte face third-degree murder and

manslaughter charges for failing to treat

a 17 year-old

prisoner at a

juvenile jail who

died after

complaining of

stomach pain.

Three top

officials also lost

their jobs.(1)

Another 11 lost

their jobs later.(2) If Associated Press has

reported the details correctly, MIM salutes

the actions taken in Miami and hopes

Miami remains consistent and thorough.

The persyn firing the pigs said: "`The

fact is: an adult human being, a caring

human being, a responsible human being

would not sit there while a child was

vomiting, had diarrhea, was sweating and

was in and out of consciousness, and not

take some action.'"(2)

Over a period of days, Omar Paisley

complained and complained of stomach

pain and requested medical assistance

It's about time: Murder charges

against fascist prison officials

Continued on page 6...

Continued on page 8...

Continued on page 4...

MIM Notes 298 · March 15, 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

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

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

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For general correspondence, contact:

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Has MIM gone off the
deep end?

Dear MIM,

I met a couple of your comrades at the

demo in Washington yesterday and pick

up a copy of MIM Notes. First off let me

say that I haven't read much of it yet, but

just looking at the small bit on page 2

where you call for MIM Notes sponsors

and distributors, I have say that it seems

as though you have gone off the deep

end.

I always thought that the whole point

of the "labor aristocracy" theory was that

it doesn't really matter whether or not an

Amerikan was a liberal or conservative

or even in some cases a socialist or

communist, they all ultimately support

imperialism because they benefit from

this system. You intimate it this segment

that only "knee-jerk patriots who believe

everything Bush says" support

imperialism. The fact is that the vast

majority of Amerikans support imperialism

(including the vast majority who were in

D.C yesterday).

Look I'm a simple person who is not

extraordinarily intelligent in anyway. I am

not a great scholar of Marxist-Leninist

theory or any economic theory for that

matter. But [...] it seems to me that this

whole thing is incredibly simple. The

capitalists need consumers to buy all of

their products. If everyone was poor, no

one could afford to buy anything to make

the capitalist's profits. Therefore, it is

imperative in order for capitalism to work

to have a vast consumer class who live

very well under capitalism/imperialism

and therefore support it. It is equally

important for the capitalists to have vast

regions of the world where they may find

cheap labor and resources. So you see

the vast majority of people in the "Third

World" suffering miserably and the vast

majority in the "First World" enjoying

themselves. As William Blake wrote:

"Some are born to sweet delight, some

are born to endless night."

So just who are the "patriots and

internationalists" who are going to support

MIM so as to "undo the spectacle that

Uncle Sam is creating for its own

benefit"? I really thought that we agreed

that when the imperialists fight wars it

benefits the majority of Amerikans not

just "Uncle Sam". The majority of people

here who oppose the current imperialists'

war(s), do so because they are 1

concerned about "our troops" and/or 2

they don't want to kill third world people

outright. As long as the U.N sanctions all

of the pro-imperialist rulers of "under

developed" countries who starve their

own people, most everyone here is happy.

If I am missing something here

PLEASE educate me. [...]

In Struggle,

Confused and upset

mim@mim.org responds: We have

not changed our line on the white working

class. Taken as a whole, our articles on

the war on Iraq lampoon both the Bush-

is-right authority lovers and point out that

the majority showing up to rallies in the

heyday of the anti-war movement were

Jenny-come-latelies, there more to

oppose Bush (in support of the Dems)

than oppose imperialism. Check this out,

from our review of an April 12, 2003 rally:

We do not want to give people the

impression that all is good at anti-war

rallies in the united $tates. Of course,

we appreciate each and every non-

cop persyn at the rally, but there were

a number of indications of

complacency at the rally. As usual,

there were people at the rally

completely empty-handed, by which

we mean that they did not accept

any literature from anyone. Among

the most common excuses were "I

don't have any hands." The best

excuse for the day why the

demonstrator did not want a copy of

MIM Notes was: "too big, too much

to read. If it was smaller, I'd take it."

"There are two reasons that people

might not engage in struggle and read

other people's literature at rallies.

One is that s/he thinks s/he knows

everything and need not go further.

Another is that s/he is only at the rally

to salve a conscience momentarily

before returning to apolitical life. We

have heard many say that the war

was evil, so "I had to do something."

Iraqis defending themselves waited

for months for the Amerikkkans to

come. When the Amerikkkans

arrived in Iraq, many Iraqis waited

yet another week or two for the

Amerikkkans to come to their locale

for a chance to fight. Unfortunately,

the way that Amerikkkans "fight,"

thousands of Iraqis died from

bombing without ever seeing any

Amerikkkans. Our point in this is that

Amerikans still have comfort to

retreat to: that's why we insist that

the peace movement not just relieve

its conscience but fight to win. To

fight to win involves training the mind

and body and delivering a long-term

and time-consuming commitment.

Or this, from an article in MIM Notes

281:

There is an urgent problem and

question facing the global anti-war

movement. Although the world is

more than 80% opposed to the U.$.

war on Iraq, that is not the case in a

handful of countries.

The question arises, which

countries are they and why. From the

beginning, the United $tates had the

support of the majority of only one

country--I$rael.(1) Unfortunately,

there are others as well who are

phony in their opposition. England was

never very strong in its opposition,

never reaching the levels of opposition

in say Hungary, where more than

80% oppose the war even if the UN

would have endorsed it. As we go

into war, Tony Blair's government did

not fall despite the Labor Party's hold

on power, and not the Conservative

Party's. In fact, the English labor

aristocracy swung into action for war,

and the English public favored war

by a 54 to 30% margin once the war

started.(2) The rapid shift in opinion

is a clue to all scientific Marxists that

we are talking about a petty-

bourgeois population in its entirety.

Such a quick shift is not possible any

other way.

We've been careful to stress to our

readers--especially those jazzed by the

numbers at these rallies (which have

Continued on page 4...

MIM Notes 298 · March 15, 2004 · Page 3

by MC12

There are good reasons for everyone

in the U$A to oppose imperialism. As we

report in every issue of MIM Notes, we

are all threatened by the militarism and

war-mongering of the Amerikan

imperialists and their government--and

by the degradation of the environment.

And of course, for people with a

conscience, imperialism is a scourge

because the exploitation it wreaks across

the globe causes murder, mayhem and

malnutrition (among other crimes),

affecting billions of people.

Despite all this, some would-be

revolutionaries are always trying to

convince Amerikans to go along with their

so-called progressive agenda by telling

them that imperialism is making us all

poorer and poorer, except for a tiny group

of rich white men. This message is so

obviously factually untrue that few people

go along with it--except others who join

in the fallacy, thinking it might be useful

for mobilizing the broad public.

In contrast, MIM doesn't think it's

worthwhile to try to recruit people by lying

to them about the facts. As we show

below, we are not afraid to admit that,

even for Blacks and Latinos, incomes are

higher now than they were 30 years

ago--and that even holds for the poorest

fifth of each population.

Table 1 shows the average income for

the White, Black and Latino households

for 1973, 2000 and 2001, breaking each

group into income quintiles, or fifths of

the population (then further showing the

incomes for the top 5% of households).

We start in 1973 because that was the

peak economic year before stagnation hit

the U$ economy and wages stopped

growing after the post-WWII boom

(more on wages below). We show 2000

because that was the peak at the end of

the 1990s growth cycle. And we finish

with 2001 to show the effects of the most

recent recession.

The table helps correct three common

U.$. population still richer than ever

Imperialism threatens everyone--but not by making U.$. population poorer

myths. The first and most preposterous

is that everyone but the smallest minority

has been getting poorer. *Every*

segment of each group had greater

household incomes 30 years after the end

of the post-WWII boom. The second is

closer to the truth but still inaccurate--

that the poorest fifth of the population is

poorer than they used to be. Even among

the poorest fifth, incomes have grown.

The last one is a recurring myth--that

the most recent recession has wiped out

the previous gains. Although the last

recession did hurt incomes for almost

everyone, no group was bumped down

more than they gained in the previous 27

years.

Of course, the table does show

increasing income inequality, which is a

clear trend for the whole period: the

incomes of the rich have increased much

faster than those of the relatively poor,

and the most recent recession hurt the

bottom much more than the top. But the

absolute level of income is still higher than

in was in 1973. It also shows very large

income gaps between whites, Blacks and

Latinos, the result of national oppression

and colonialism, ongoing racism, and

some exploitation.

We should head off a few counter-

arguments and clear up a few problems

with the data. First, this being U.$.

Census data, we don't get to choose the

categories. So, "Whites" here includes

some people classified as "Hispanic"

(which we call "Latino" on the table). In

practice that just means the results for

Whites are really a little better than we

see here. And, "Black" households

include a small number of immigrants

who are "black" by "race" but not

necessarily yet members of the Black

nation in the U$A. Finally, the group we

call "Latino" here includes people from

many nationalities, from more poor

populations like Mexicans to richer

groups like Cubans, and we can't

differentiate them here.

More substantively, many people will

argue that this masks an important change:

the increasing employment of women.

These critics will argue that if household

incomes are rising, it's just because more

and more women are being "forced" into

the workplace just to keep their households

afloat.

MIM counters this in three ways. First,

if more women are employed now than

before, that's good news for them. If they

are making money and buying goods and

services they used to make at home, that's

empowering for them. So if their incomes

are rising as a result, that's not a distortion

of the truth--that's just the truth.

Second, even if you just look at

individual wages (as if families don't share

their incomes), they also rose from 1973

to 2000. The median income of all

workers--white, Black, male, female,

full-time year-round workers and those

who worked less--are all higher in 2000

than they were in 1973.(2) True, incomes

were stagnant for individual men from

1973 to 1993, but they rose sharply in the

1990s, and didn't lose all their gains in the

most recent recession.

Finally, note that the table here is

household income, not per capita income.

In fact, the number of people in the

average household has dropped during

this time--because people are getting

married later, are more likely to divorce,

and are having fewer children. We don't

know the exact change for each of the

groups in the table, but the average number

of people in households overall dropped

from 3.01 to 2.58 during this period.(3)

So if you converted the table to per capita

income, the gains would be even greater.

There is one other set of arguments that

is harder to test, but is not so off-base.

That is: because some things are much

more expensive than they used to be--

--------------------------------------------------------------

Table 1. Average household income by income quintile and top 5%,

1973-2001, in 2001 dollars.(1)

--------------------------------------------------------------

73-00 00-01

Percent Percent

1973 2000 Change 2001 Change

--------------------------------------------------------------

White

Bottom 9,567 11,394 19.1 11,118 -2.4

Second 23,571 27,492 16.6 26,985 -1.8

Middle 37,617 45,487 20.9 44,628 -1.9

Fourth 53,306 69,924 31.2 69,254 -1.0

Top 93,919 150,374 60.1 150,576 .1

Top 5% 143,364 267,458 86.6 269,162 .6

Black

Bottom 5,681 6,558 15.4 5,951 -9.3

Second 13,056 17,624 35.0 16,820 -4.6

Middle 22,187 31,218 40.7 29,477 -5.6

Fourth 34,839 49,023 40.7 47,424 -3.3

Top 63,201 101,502 60.6 96,569 -4.9

Top 5% 92,259 167,397 81.4 155,104 -7.3

Latino

Bottom 8,435 9,251 9.7 8,822 -4.6

Second 18,377 21,322 16.0 20,854 -2.2

Middle 28,189 34,318 21.7 33,624 -2.0

Fourth 40,765 51,859 27.2 51,459 -.8

Top 69,202 101,220 46.3 107,158 5.9

Top 5% 99,010 164,990 66.6 182,145 10.4

--------------------------------------------------------------

especially housing and health care--those

at the bottom are having a harder time

surviving even if they have more cash.

The numbers we show here are adjusted

for inflation, which takes into account the

growing cost of these necessities, but the

adjustments might be skewed for people

at the top and bottom of the income

distribution. We doubt that these

distortions are enough to eliminate the

gains shown here (and in some cases

those greater costs are associated with

higher quality, as in the case of some health

care improvements), but we would

welcome arguments on this question by

people who have relevant data.

In any event, we're confident that for

the top 80% of the population, and

probably even for the poorest fifth, they

are better off now than they were at the

economic peak of the Amerikan empire

in 1973. This does *not* mean that

imperialism is good, of course, because

this continued enrichment has come at

the expense of the suffering of billions of

people in the international proletariat. This

is the bottom line politically, and it's what

everyone trying to organize against

Amerikan imperialism needs to

understand if they are going to make any

real progress.

Notes:
1. Calculated from historical income tables from
the U.S. Census Bureau, at http://
www.census.gov/hhes/income/histinc/
ineqtoc.html.
2. Calculated from historical income tables from
the U.S. Census Bureau, at http://
www.census.gov/hhes/income/histinc/
incperdet.html.
3. Historical household composition tables from
the U.S. Census Bureau at http://
www.census.gov/population/socdemo/hh-fam/
tabHH-4.xls.

Tough times for Amerika.

MIM Notes 298 · March 15, 2004 · Page 4

alternative, some voters would stay home,

but once they show up and vote for Nader

they also vote for Democrats in the

Congress. That is also factually true,

given the nature of the mushy liberals and

liberal-radicals.

Finally, no one has pointed out that it is

possible to consider Nader as specifically

opposing Bush among the bourgeois

candidates available by serving as an

insurance policy. In this day of Anita Hill

and Monica Lewinsky or worse, no one

can guarantee that John Kerry or John

Edwards would not implode between the

time of winning the Democratic

nomination and the election in November.

The two-party system is just one scandal

away from giving Bush a lock on the

presidency.

Ross Perot showed that it is not

impossible for an independent to win

when polls showed the public disgusted

with both Bush and Clinton before Perot

himself imploded in the 1992 campaign.

Of course, Perot had a billion dollars that

Nader does not, so Nader's chances rest

on dual candidate implosions.

Neither party tolerable

In announcing his run, Nader said,

"`Washington is corporate-occupied

territory, and the two parties are

ferociously competing to see who's going

to go to the White House and take orders

from their corporate paymasters.'"(1)

Truer words have not been spoken, but

MIM still disagrees with Nader, for among

other reasons his protectionist economic

views about keeping jobs in Amerika,

which he recently aired on a television

talk show with Bill Maher.(2) The

international proletariat as a global class

has no interest in whether jobs are in

Amerika or elsewhere. We should not

promote people like Ralph Nader, Patrick

Buchanan, Ross Perot, John Edwards and

Dennis Kucinich who whip up public

opinion and call for government action

against the non-Amerikan proletariat.

World War I and World War II happened

because such views became popular in

Europe.

The one with the catchy Amerika-first

slogan lately is Kucinich campaigning in

the Democratic primaries with "Buy

American or bye-bye America!" He

came in second in Hawaii after John

Kerry. Kucinich's slogan shows that he

has bought into capitalist competition and

sees nothing wrong with stoking up

nationalism as part of that system. That's

why we at MIM insist we are for a global

minimum wage, global child labor

regulations and global environmental

protection. The alternative is the kind of

hostility toward other countries we see

with Kucinich.

In any case, the Nader campaign this

year raises the whole question of the two-

party system. If there were two parties

both opposed to exploitation, then a two-

party system would be no threat to the

dictatorship of the proletariat--though

campaigns where there are too many

candidates for too few jobs inevitably

promote opportunist grand-standing, an

evil in its own right from the standpoint

of publicizing truth. In fact, neither party

in the United $tates is tolerable and hence

the two-party system is not sacred.

Voters should decide whether they can

really tolerate the Democratic Party after

its leaders showed so freshly what war-

mongers they are. Kerry, Edwards,

Lieberman and Gephardt all voted for the

Iraq war. They also issued ridiculous

statements on Al-Qaeda and weapons of

mass destruction since proven false.

These men with official titles of power

proved unable to do anything constructive

with the truth if they perceived it at all--

and this is no small lesson on why

politicians are not a substitute for

movements. For us at MIM, the war and

colonialism questions are not just small

issues about equivalent with whether the

government should intervene in steroid

use in professional sports--though it

remains to be seen which "issue" will

drive more petty-bourgeois voters in 2004.

The two-party system encourages

people to think that nothing is intolerable.

War itself is seen as secondary to the

sanctity of the two-party system and that

is wrong.

Then there are those who say that the

Democrats know better than how they

vote in Congress--for the Patriot Act and

for the war's intensification in Iraq. These

Pollyannas consider it wisdom to mince

words for political purposes and support

politicians who also waffle at best. Not

surprisingly, such "moderates" foregoing

the work of movements to indulge lazy

self-satisfaction with professional

politicians pave the way for a race to the

bottom--a vicious cycle of reaction.

Yet, even this whole issue raised by self-

flattering lazy "moderates" is a big

diversion. No Democrat can really claim

to oppose any Republican for the simple

reason that the two-party system is

dedicated to alternating power. If not

George Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald

Rumsfeld and Richard Perle today, then

the two-party system guarantees them or

their like later. That's just what happened:

Rumsfeld served under President Ford.

Then came Carter. Eventually it was

Bush Jr. and Rumsfeld was back in

charge again.

It's not enough to say that the

Confederate flag fans and anti-Darwin

activists of the Republican Party are not

Democrats. The question is whether it is

OK to alternate power with such people.

If you think so, welcome to the

Republocrat Party. If not, then identify

yourself as a revolutionary leader, because

politicians have no power to change the

reality of the Republocrat Party.

Democrats not serious

The Boston Globe is screaming at Ralph

Nader and typifies the whole problem of

the two-party system's ayatollahs.

Opposing Nader just before and after he

announced his intentions, the Globe ran

editorials and letters opposing Nader's

campaign and one letter supporting it with

a line intimating that the writer is

Republican.(3) Yet, Massachusetts and

Boston in particular are proof that

Democrats are not really opposed to Bush

or Republicans generally.

Ever since Massachusetts voted for

Democrat George McGovern in 1972,

Massachusetts has stood out as

Democratic Party territory. Every single

member of the Massachusetts delegation

to the U.S. Congress is a Democrat. That

means Democrats are majority voters of

every district of Massachusetts. The

Democrats run the legislature and

override the governor if the petty-

bourgeoisie elects a Republican--and the

only reason the petty-bourgeoisie elects

a Republican in Massachusetts is to

attack inevitable corruption, sometimes

out of reflexive fear of the one-party state.

The simple truth is that if

Massachusetts Democrats would split in

half, with one half forming what used to

be Nader's Green Party and the other

half staying Democrats, the two halves

of the Democratic Party would each have

more votes than the Republican Party,

which might fade into oblivion. That is

how to hate Republicans in practice.

Instead of alternating power in the

governor's mansion with a Mormon

opposed to gay marriage such as Mitt

Romney, the Democrats could alternate

power with Greens.

Instead of contending with a Republican

for mayor or Congress races, Democrats

in Massachusetts could contend with

Greens and alternate power with them.

In no small part thanks to two-party

system dogma, the Democrats choose not

to alternate power with Greens and so

places like Democrat-dominated

Massachusetts and San Francisco prove

that no Democrat is really opposed to

Bush. The reason for that is that

Massachusetts Democrats like

Democrats elsewhere prefer Republicans

to Greens. They prefer Bush to Nader or

Romney to Jill Stein [Green Party

candidate for governor]. That's the

bottom line and until the Democrats in

the one-party states and cities split in two,

they have no business claiming they have

removed people like Bush from power.

That's why a vote for Gore is a vote for

Bush--as inevitably as scandal and

corruption. That's to leave aside the whole

issue of the substance of what the Greens

are saying and look only at an analysis of

power and who is sharing it and treating

it as legitimate.

The Democrats are busy "building

bridges" to the Howard Dean faction and

Greens to keep them in the fold for

November 2004. If they were serious, the

Massachusetts Democrats would have

deliberately split themselves in half and

made a deal with the Greens to alternate

power with them instead of

Republicans--and they would have done

it a long time ago.

At MIM, we realize that the imperialist

country petty-bourgeoisie is going to try

Ralph Naders and Greens before it tries

Maoism. We hope to contribute to the

public's understanding of political power

as it exists and cut through the

Democratic rhetoric about opposing

Bush. Power for change does not come

by taking a few seconds to vote and

months of time adjusting to the ideology

of "moderation." Power for change

comes from obtaining the truth and

spreading it.

Notes:

1. Boston Globe 23Feb2004, p. 1.

2. Bill Maher claims to have voted for

Nader in 2000 and now repents. http://

msnbc.msn.com/id/4356213/

3. See anti-Nader letters Boston Globe

26Feb2004, p. a14. There were two

column inches defending Nader by a

Dean supporter on the Boston Globe

letters page as opposed to 20 column

inches opposing Nader, 25Feb2004, pp.

a18-9.

A VOTE FOR THE DONKEY IS A VOTE FOR AN ASS

already drastically levelled off)--that the

mood at few protests in big coastal cities

is not indicative of the mood of the

majority of Amerikans. Yet at the same

time, the fact that many attendees are

newbies creates an opportunity for us to

make our case for revolutionary anti-

imperialism vs. reformism or electoralism

to fresh faces. Our hope is that some (not

all, of course, nor even a majority--our

line on the WWC makes that clear) will

be moved towards the revolutionary

camp.

Reader questions dead
prez review

In your CD review of [hip-hop group

Dead Prez'] "Get Free or Die Tryin" [the

last CD on http://www.etext.info/Politics/

M I M / b o o k s t o r e / m u s i c / h i p h o p /

deadprez.html], you mention all the good

tracks. What about the "Animal in Man"

(Animal Farm) track? Isn't this a rap

version of MI6 agent Orwell's anti-

'Stalinist' fairy tale? Does DP hate any

political system where whites hold power

so much that they don't uphold Stalin but

do uphold Mao (who is practically the

same in the eyes of counter-

revolutionaries) and the BPP? What's up

with that? Have they gone with Orwell,

skirted the issue, or changed it to their

perspective? Given that you criticized DP

hypocrisy on gender in your review, I

would appreciate some commentary of

MIM's opinion of the content and

inclusion of that track.

mim@mim.org responds : Here is

what the persyn who wrote that DPz

review had to say:

"I believe the content of this track is

appropriating the Animal Farm story from

the perspective of the oppressed. To my

knowledge DPz has no line on Stalin, and

I have no reason to believe they wrote

Letters

Continued from page 1...

Continued from page 2...

Continued on next page...

MIM Notes 298 · March 15, 2004 · Page 5

In the U.$. political system, if judges

do not stand up for minority rights,

democracy will kill those rights. When four

brave Massachusetts judges did the right

thing and said gays/lesbians could marry,

because it was an example of a

constitutional right guaranteed to all

individuals, the response of religion-

encrusted feeble minds everywhere was

to call for a statewide referendum,

because a majority of Massachusetts

voters oppose gay marriage.

Legislators also called a constitutional

convention for Massachusetts to amend

the constitution to prohibit gay/lesbian

marriage. The convention recessed at the

end of February and will resume on

March 11. Even if the legislators vote to

pass an amendment, it will not get to the

voters until 2006 at the earliest.

So let's see, here in Amerikkka, we can

sell tobacco without majority support; we

can set up pornographic websites without

majority support; we can instigate other

countries to buy weapons from

companies we set up without majority

support. We can even buy and sell the

right to pollute air as certified by U.$.

government regulations; yet, we need

permission from the majority to get

married.

When are those same four judges going

to declare a right to eat, have clothing,

have a job and live without war risks

concocted by politicians serving

corporate paymasters, we wonder. In

many ways, communism is just a very

tough and thorough conception of minority

rights. No one has the right to live a life

that endangers other people's lives more

than the minimum. Profit from drugs,

arms and pornography should not be an

individual right. Individual profit from

owning farmland and the means of food

or clothing production is obscene.

Gay/lesbian sex is not obscene. The

that song with the USSR in mind.

"The `Animal in Man' referred to by

the song is the willingness of the

oppressed to stand up violently to the

oppressor. The plot of the song definitely

describes a mass uprising that is turned

on by the leadership. But in the song the

masses immediately recgnize this and cut

off the new oppressors just as quickly.

My interpretation is that the masses will

rise up against all oppressors, both the

blatant and those posing as leaders of the

oppressed.

"The lesson of the story? violence is

necessary/inevitable/justified. I see no

evidence that DPz was making any of

the points that Orwell was. The only

general parallel to Animal Farm is that

the pigs turn on the other animals."

I will add that *in general* (with no

specific reference to DPz--I haven't

heard "the animal in man" in several

years), when "Animal Farm" ends up in

contemporary pop culture it usually refers

to the idea that "absolute power corrupts

absolutely." This is a naive idea,

dangerous in its own right (see our

comments on "Sleep Now in the Fire" in

http://www.etext.info/Politics/MIM/

bookstore/music/alternative/ratm.html)--

but does not imply a worked-out line

against Stalin.

Reader gives MIM
grief for stance on
patriarchy, imperialism

I am questioning your page with the title,