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MIM Notes 309 · October 15-31, 2004 · Page 1

MIM Notes

Oct. 15-31 2004, Nº 309

The Official Newsletter of the Maoist Internationalist Movement (MIM)

Free

INSIDE: Population trends * Buchanan * Korea * Una Página en Español...

www.etext.info/Politics/MIM/elections

ACTIONS

SUGGEST

OTHERWISE

by mim3@mim.org and

mousnonya

President Bush mentioned the phrase

"all-volunteer" military during the

presidential debate September 30th and

Democrats Kerry and Edwards also

claim there is no need for a draft, despite

the ongoing war in Iraq and the rest of

the Third World. At MIM, we would say

not to trust politicians running for office,

but to trust what is happening on the

battlefields--volunteer soldiers becoming

tired and anxious to get home.

Already reports have surfaced of

hundreds of soldiers not returning to the

Army instead of re-enlisting as required

on September 22nd. Less than two-thirds

of the Individual Ready Reserve (IRR)

reported as required. 14 received AWOL

disciplinary status.(1) One deserter from

North Carolina has asked for asylum in

Kanada,(2) which we hope Kanada's

people see to giving.

We celebrate the resistance of the U$

military to the unjust war on the people

of Iraq. Though FOX News refers to

Iraqis as "terrorists" for fighting the U$

invasion, it is really just Iraqi nationalists

kicking out the occupier. A similar thing

would happen in most countries in the

world facing invasion.

As a result of the Iraqi people's valiant

resistance to exploiter-occupation, the

National Guard is falling short by 5000

recruits this year.(3) The Army has also

just announced a reduction of its

recruitment standards, including an

increased willingness to take people who

have not completed high school

education.(4) There is also talk about

reducing tours of duty to six months.

Unless the anti-war movement wins

through a big fight, all the difficulties in

recruiting point to a draft coming,

especially as Republicans and Democrats

make plans for Iran, Syria, northern

Korea etc.

Vice-Presidential candidate Edwards

claims that the United $tates will not have

a draft if the Democrats win.(5) Kerry

earlier had already said that he wanted

to get the United $tates out of Iraq as

soon as possible.(6)

If bourgeois politicians could be trusted

then "politician" would not be a synonym

for "liar" in most people's minds. 38% of

The I Hate Republicans Reader:
Why the GOP Is Totally Wrong
About Everything
Edited by Clint Willis
Thunder's Mouth Press, 2003

Despite having the right title, the book

is not about hating Republicans, not even

slightly. Oh sure, the various articles

lambaste Republican weenieisms of the

last 25 years, but it is still a case where

each Democratic writer "doth protest too

much."

Willis's book seeks to win the non-

existent minds of a public too oppressive

and greedy for even the mild

considerations of corporate power in this

book. Some of the articles are medium to

medium- heavy fire at Republican

positions but many other articles are

passionate little skirmishes generated to

entertain a public too complacent to handle

much more than an anagram or

Quayleism. These skirmishes typical of

Democratic Party activism bring to mind

the quote "His mind is organized like a

factory-outlet store--everything

scattered around and nothing worth more

than $49.95."(p. 265)

As we have pointed out before, "hate"

AGREED,

NUCLEAR

PROLIFERATION

IS A WORTHY

PROBLEM TO

SOLVE

Capitalists Bush and

Kerry can't solve it

Candidates George W. Bush and John

Kerry agreed in their debate September

30th on the most important single issue

facing the president in the next four years.

Kerry called it "nuclear proliferation" and

Bush said it was "weapons of mass

destruction in the hands of terrorists."

They are both talking about how nuclear

weapons may end up in the "wrong

Hands," and Kerry even admitted that

U.$. nuclear testing may itself aggravate

the situation. Our idea of the "wrong

hands" is opposite of theirs, but MIM

welcomes these imperialists to the world

of serious politics: nuclear proliferation is

not a bad choice of subject.

It's just that Kerry, Bush and like-

minded imperialists can in no way solve

this problem as MIM can. As Prohibition

of alcohol proved and the failed "war on

drugs" proves now, black markets are a

part of capitalism. Where supply is tight,

prices go up. Where there is a ban, the

profit margin increases.

Nuclear proliferation is inevitable under

capitalism thanks to the same logic of

profit for weapons sales, liquor,

pornography, cocaine and everything else.

Thanks to capitalist motivation, scientists

may even invent something new for sale

as a weapon of mass destruction before

someone becomes the proud new owner

of a black market nuke.

Under socialism, we do have law

enforcement to crack down on individual

transactions just as under capitalism. Such

law enforcement is bound to fail on

occasion under any system. Not all

criminals are caught.

The advantage of socialism is that

should a black market transaction

This demonstrator at the Republican National Convention has the right goals.

Candidates deny need for draft

Hate republicans? U$ partisan

divide not so serious after all

should be reserved for something to be

destroyed. It was correct in U$ history to

hate slavery and fight a war to make it

unthinkable. It was not until after that war

that white children grew up not seeing

Blacks as slaves. Change came first and

the corresponding attitudes later.

The cartoon writer for the book says to

"hate the sin" and "love the sinner" in

reference to Republicans. Others say to

distinguish the leaders from the little old

ladies in the suburbs. In fact, in the whole

book, there is not a single article about

how to destroy the Republican Party --

only articles about how to win debate

contests. That's why it cannot be taken

seriously as "hating" Republicans.

At the very minimum, truly hating

Republicans, even within the bourgeois

two-party logic of Amerika would mean

supporting a third party to replace the

Republicans. As of September, 2004, we

can see for example that Democrats are

busy keeping Ralph Nader off the ballot;

hence, Democrats are in no way qualified

to say they hate Republicans. They fully

intend to share power with them rather

than implementing a strategy to sweep

them into the dustbin of history, and this

Continued on page 8...

Continued on page 4...

Continued on page 7...

MIM Notes 309 · October 15-31, fa2004 · Page 2

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.

Sponsors pay for papers, distributors get them onto the streets, and officers do both
distribution and financial support. Annual cost is: 12 copies (Priority Mail), $120; 25
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Mail), $3,840; 900 (8-10 days), $2,200. To become a sponor or distributor, send
anonymous money orders payable to "MIM." Send to MIM, attn: Camb. branch, PO Box
400559, Cambridge, MA 02140. Or write mim3@mim.org.

Most back issues of MIM Notes are available free on our web site. The web site con-

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

MIM grants explicit permission to copy all or part of this newspaper for any reason, as

long as we are credited.

For general correspondence, contact:

MIM

P.O. Box 29670

Los Angeles, CA 90029-0670

eMail: <mim@mim.org>

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

Average Monthly Combat

Fatalities in Afghanistan

A sharp reader pointed out that the chart we published to go along with our story

"No end in sight to Amerika's `war on terror'" (MIM Notes 307, pp. 1, 5) failed to

convey the magnitude of the difference between the number of civilians killed in the

initial bombing raids on Afghanistan and the number of Amerikan troops killed in

combat; it also failed to clearly show that far from declining, the number of combat

casualties has risen in the last year. Here is a reformatted chart using the same data,

which--because a well-painted picture should be worth 1,000 words--we publish

without comment--except to ask readers to keep this chart in mind the next time

they hear some hired talking ass on FOX News or CNN say that Amerika has

brought peace and security to Afghanistan. (Source: http://pubpages.unh.edu/

~mwherold.)

1023.7

24.7

17.7

36.8

4.5

3.6

3.8

200

400

600

800

1000

2001

2002

2003

2004

Source: http://pubpages.unh.edu/~mwherold/

Afghan Civilian

U$ Military

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.

MIM Notes 309 · October 15-31, 2004 · Page 3

prison stopped at our table to find out

what we were doing. When she heard

we were protesting torture in California

prisons she quickly signed the petition and

told her sister to sign as well. Later she

brought by several friends to sign the

petition and hear about the issue. It is

not only those in prison who are affected;

their wives, children and other family

members on the streets also suffer. With

the high lockup rate of Black men, it is

no surprise that we find tremendous

sympathy to our SHU protest among

Black wimmin and youth like this one.

In San Francisco RAIL comrades

protested the SHU from 12 PM to 2 PM

downtown. Half-way through the protest,

another United Front comrade, whose

son is being held captive by the California

Youth Authority, came by to help with

the petitioning. Progress was slow at first

and many passers-by seemed apathetic.

Comments such as "I like the SHU" were

heard more than once and are a good

reflection of an overall attitude which

seemed prevalent that Saturday. This

area is frequented by tourists and

shoppers along with homeless and former

Continuing our regular protests the first

Saturday of every month, the United Front

to Abolish the Security Housing Units

(SHU) was out on the streets again

September 4th. Protesters took to the

streets to denounce these torture isolation

cells that hold prisoners for years at a

time. The SHU in California is just another

name for a prison control unit, something

that exists in prisons across the country

as cruel, but not unusual, punishment

particularly targeted at politically active

prisoners.(1)

In Oakland the Maoist Internationalist

Movement (MIM) and Revolutionary

Anti-Imperialist League (RAIL) were

helped by the annual Art & Soul Festival,

which brought larger crowds by our table

than usual. We were armed with quarter-

sheet fliers on the SHU for those who

wouldn't stop, and had a constant stream

of people willing to sign the petition and

discuss torture in prisons. In two hours

we gathered over 50 petition signatures.

As usual in the predominantly Black

downtown Oakland, people were

generally aware of what's going on in U$

prisons and were quick to sign.

One 13 year old girl whose father is in

Shut down the control units!

United Front to abolish the SHU September report

prisoners. Youth and street people were

most receptive to our message.

The protest against the SHU was taken

to San Francisco's Golden Gate Park the

following Saturday, September 11th for the

"Power to the People" festival. Activists

from the Barrio Defense Committee and

RAIL gathered about 100 signatures from

a sympathetic crowd. We displayed a 5 x

4 foot poster laminated quote from Steve

Castillo about conditions in the SHU which

shook a lot of people. People stopped

(despite of the busy movement by the

crowd) to read it. The fact sheet was also

distributed. We had some excellent

discussions with people.

This month we also learned of retaliation

by the California prison guards in the

aftermath of the court settlement of the

Castillo case which challenged SHU

conditions and classifications.(2 The

settlement won some reforms for SHU

prisoners. The prisons use secret evidence

and informants to classify prisoners as

gang members, evidence that the

prisoners cannot review or challenge. The

Castillo settlement will give prisoners more

access to challenge their classification, but

still leaves much leeway for the California

Department of Corrections (CDC) to give

out indeterminate SHU sentences with

fake evidence. Several prisoners have

reported increased brutality by the guards,

and attempts to manufacture

documentation "proving" gang

membership to keep prisoners in the SHU

longer.

The CDC recently attacked Jose Luis,

who has been the focus of an on-going

campaign by the Barrio Defense

Committee (an organization in the United

Front to abolish the SHU). The CDC is

using informants to accuse Jose Luis of

gang membership, setting him up to linger

in the SHU indefinitely. Like many other

SHU inmates, he suffers serious physical

health problems from his long-term

solitary confinement. It is cases like this

one that make it clear why we can't just

reform the conditions in the SHU and the

system used to put prisoners there.

Notes:

1. www.etext.info/Politics/MIM/

agitation/prisons/controlunits

2. www.etext.info/Politics/MIM/sfbay/

july22shu.html

www.johnpilger.com

review by MIM,

September 2004

John Pilger appears to be an

independent journalist based in Britain

who contributes to many mainstream

publications including the New York

Times, The Guardian, The New

Statesman(1), the Daily Mirror, and BBC

broadcasts. We say he appears to be

independent because many journalists and

publications claim to be independent but

in reality represent the interests of

whoever is financing their work behind

the scenes, frequently making them

mouthpieces of one imperialist or another.

Pilger's work is, for the most part, anti-

imperialist and so it seems unlikely he's

being paid to do this; in fact it's pretty

remarkable that he gets published in such

mainstream press.

One article on Pilger's web site that

MIM likes a lot is a piece he wrote for

the New Statesman in August of 2004

entitled, "Bush v. Kerry: The Fake

Debate." In it he points out that more

wars have been launched by so-called

liberal Democratic Amerikan presidents.

He notes "Although few liberal-minded

voters seem to have illusions about John

Kerry, their need to get rid of the "rogue"

Bush administration is all consuming."

But Pilger points out "The

multilateralism or `muscular

Internationalism' that Kerry offers in

contrast to Bush's unilateralism is seen

as hopeful by the terminally naive; in truth,

it beckons even greater dangers." And

he points out that as Bush alienates

former allies it is possible he will more

quickly lead to a destruction of the

system that is crucial to Amerika's

hegemony.(2) MIM calls this increasing

inter-imperialist rivalry, something that

revolutionaries can take advantage of to

advance our struggle.

Pilger concludes this article: " The real

debate is neither Bush nor Kerry, but the

system they exemplify; it is the decline of

true democracy and the rise of the

American `national security state' in

Britain and other countries claiming to be

democracies..."(2) We agree that the real

debate should be about the system, not

the lesser of two evils. But this statement

also sums up where Pilger and MIM

differ. Pilger sees a history of true

democracy somewhere while MIM sees

a history of class struggle that we are

fighting to lead to true democracy and

freedom only after capitalism has been

overthrown. Elsewhere Pilger points to the

dangers of "globalization" while MIM

attacks imperialism as the system that has

globalized the world economy. The

imperialist system is the real source of

exploitation and oppression of the majority

of the world's people.

Pilger's work (available on his web site)

includes informative pieces on the war in

Vietnam and Amerika's deceptions and

destruction during that war. He has a

section on East Timor describing the

imperialist complicity in the Indonesian

invasion and massacre of that country.

There are also useful sections on Iraq and

Palestine. Pilger focuses on repression

and terror perpetuated by the U.$.,

Britain, and Australia. During the 2000

Olympic games in Sydney Pilger took the

opportunity to report on the oppression

of indigenous people by the Australian

The independent, anti-imperialist journalism of John Pilger

There is a bothersome trend in the U$

media to talk about northern Korea as if

they really knew anything about it. We

hear standardized propaganda stories

about starvation in northern Korea along

with admissions that the speaker did not

see anything in northern Korea to back

the story. Recently, Jonathan Watts

writing for the "alternative" weekly

Boston Phoenix (and the English Guardian

before that) joined the chorus.

Watts is typical in that he admits he

did not get to go where he wanted in

northern Korea while at the same time

knowing generally that the United $tates

is still at war with Korea--the model for

Iraq where an occupation goes on

forever. The basic facts didn't stop Watts

from writing a story how Koreans are

"paranoid" about Amerikan intentions--

shortly after Bush called Iran, Iraq and

northern Korea the "axis of evil."

X Gen: don't have a cow

35-year-old Watts has fallen for the new

propaganda against northern Korea in an

X-Generation sort of way. He sees tension

and talk of war and calls it "paranoid"(1)

in northern Korea. Poor Kim Jong-il, just

another overcharged baby boomer

without a sense of proportion, right Watts?

"The talk of nuclear bombs and first

strikes sounds premature,"(1) he says.

This comes from a writer based out of

Tokyo, not far from places called

"Hiroshima" and "Nagasaki." It's pretty

typical of Amerikan pragmatism to only

speak of what has already been

"experienced" persynally. Watts probably

does not realize that all people in the world

do not share the same philosophy. Some

people even learn from other people's

experiences.

In fact, northern Korea is right to treat

Watts as a potential spy for the u.$.

military. He should not be allowed to

travel inside Korea to plan how to attack

Korea just as CIA assets participating in

Continued on page 7...

`Land of the free' censors Korea

Media knows nothing about northern Korea

Continued on page 8...

MIM Notes 309 · October 15-31, fa2004 · Page 4

is reason enough by itself to sweep the

Democrats into the dustbin of history with

the Republicans.

Questions that need answering in a true

"I Hate Republicans Reader" would be:

1) How to overcome the money

advantage of the Republican Party in its

political campaigning without competing

like Democrats do to be Republicans Lite.

2) What are the issues proven statistically

to win away Republicans in the suburbs

and rural areas to something new -- or

at the very least, to cause them to cease

political activism.

To understand U.$. politics as it exists,

one does have to read books like this one,

where the passion is often in the persynal

details about Republican or Democratic

lives--this one having stained Monica

Lewinsky's dress, that one having

avoided serving in Vietnam through

connections putting him in the National

Guard (not the way the National Guard

is today). It's a lot of petty stuff that sells

newspapers and generates TV

viewerships--the kind that generates

fascists around the world. "Give people

some freedom of the press and what do

they do with it?" the fascist hyenas

wonder, "Gawk at Geraldo, Monica

Lewinsky and O.J. Simpson, 24/7."

Those of us not just salivating for

another round of insults about Gennifer

Flowers or Bush's lack of a brain

deserved more in 414 pages. We deserved

to be shown evidence of what works and

does not work in campaigns toward

progressive goals. Without that scientific

political element on how to be effective

all that accumulates is political frustration.

The closest that we got to something

useful along these lines was from Greg

Palast, who showed the readers not how

to defeat Republicans, but how

Republicans win--by voter profiling.

Republicans literally won the Florida

election in 2000 with computer

programming to wipe disproportionately

Black voters off the voting lists. We did

not learn how the Democratic Party or

anyone else is going to defeat such

maneuvers in the future. To this day,

what we hear is that Kerry has lawyers

prepared to go to any state. Yet, given

the political apathy that created the

situation where Florida does not have

sufficient people to staff its own polls,

reality is that solving the voter profiling

problem is tied up with raising political

consciousness generally. Places like

Florida are rife with people in love with

Oliver North-style coups against

democratic governance anyway.

In addition to wiping out Democratic

voters via computer, Republicans also

stacked the Supreme Court with its

partisans who found it unnecessary for

Florida to conduct a correct election.

Again, contributor Alan Dershowitz and

others told us the problem--but not how

to solve it. The fact that Amerika cannot

run an election and that the Supreme

Court does not care is itself very

indicative--but disempowering.

Hate republicans? U$ partisan divide not so serious after all

Bridget Gibson writing on

democraticunderground.com showed

how the corporations known as the media

are funding the Republican Party--Fox,

AOL/Time Warner/CNN, GE/NBC and

Disney/ABC.(p. 105) Moreover, Paul

Begala tells us that Enron was the largest

contributor to George W. Bush's political

career. (p. 165) Most of the writers do

not tell us which corporate donors fund

the Democrats and why. That is why a

socialist perspective is necessary to get

the big picture.

Ralph Nader's and the Greens' solution

is that everyone can get an equal say in

politics if we downsize corporations. That

will level the playing field they think. In

contrast, we at MIM believe it is part of

capitalism to succeed through growth of

large corporations and their influence/

bribery of government officials--the

more influence, the more successful in

business. Breaking up mega-corporations

into smaller ones only starts the process

anew. Hence, the real solution is to realize

that global-sized organization is here to

stay, but the only choice is whether it is

profit-directed or socialist-directed. We

do not seek to get involved in gathering

campaign contributions from mega-

corporate donors. That is their game. We

need to seek power in a different political

system entirely that does not play to the

strengths of the fat-cat donors.

On the question of race, the book has

three good exposures of Jesse Helms,

Trent Lott and Bush by Ernest Furgurson,

Nate Hardcastle and Paul Begala. On the

other hand, these amount to fewer than

20 pages while the section on

"incompetence" is over 50 pages.

The question of Republican

incompetence is perhaps the easiest way

to differentiate a communist view from a

Democratic one. Incompetence only

matters if the goals are good. If the goals

are bad to begin with, there is no reason

to complain about incompetence. Bush's

incompetence may in fact speed

revolutionary victory. In contrast, the

Democratic Party schtick boils down to

saying it would do a better job oppressing

Iraqis, Saudis etc. or whatever else the

bourgeoisified soccer mom of the suburbs

is thinking that day. The incompetence

routine is also why the Democrats can

go to the same corporations as the

Republicans to hit them up for money.

The question of "incompetence" within

the current political system is corporate-

speak.

On the question of civil liberties, we

appreciate that this book did not back

down in front of the Patriot Act furor;

even though Kerry co-wrote the Patriot

Act. Stanley I. Kutler and some other

progressives have even managed to get

the facts onto monopoly capitalist TV--

that Lincoln voted to censure the president

over the Mexican war and president

Theodore Roosevelt considered it treason

not to criticize a president just because it

was war time.(p. 328)

We would add that apparently some of

the Liberal founders of the United $tates

such as Jefferson regarded criticism of

the government as so important that they

would even consider MIM "patriots" for

criticizing. One critic of MIM at Fort

Bragg (home of the U$ Army's Special

Forces) also wistfully compared us with

most of his colleagues who he says do

not care about politics at all.

Hence, the question comes down to

what is a patriot. Some have told us it is

the apathetic who are unpatriotic while

people such as MIM who care about

politics and put our resources into standing

up to power are in fact patriotic. Such a

definition cuts to the core values of

alleged "Americans."(1) If it is "treason"

not to criticize, and it is patriotic to engage

in politics, because that is how America

defined itself originally, then communists

are "patriots" and Nixon's "silent

majority" is un-American.

MIM does not use the word

"patriotism" the way some Liberal

founders of America did. Patriotism has

come to mean greedily putting one's

nation above others. Of course, we would

say that Amerikans benefit from MIM-

style internationalism, but we would also

say slave-owners benefitted from ending

slavery. At a practical level, we know that

slave-owners as a group resisted the end

of slavery, in some cases to the death.

Likewise Amerikan patriots in their

millions are resisting changes needed for

future harmony. Defining MIM as patriots

for being involved in politics and civic

duties has the downside risk of evading

nasty and ugly conflicts.

In the end, MIM shares the political

Liberal, libertarian and anarchist goal of

self-directed citizens consciously guiding

their own futures through conscious

political participation that may become

apolitical in some distant day of the

perfectly harmonious communist future.

We believe the process of getting there

is more like Lincoln's Civil War than the

preoccupation of the prosperous with

Monica Lewinsky's stained dress.

Karl Marx taught us to look at the

groups called classes to understand how

our mutual goal may realize itself in the

future. Marx also showed us how

internationalism is key to the realization

of the goal of self-directed individuals

living without coercion. Patriotism is

useful only to special interests seeking

weapons contracts, Iraq contracts or oil

resources for a select few. Those

American Liberal patriots still seeking the

loftiest goals of Jefferson, Lincoln and

Roosevelt minus the genocide and slavery

should realize that their goals require an

internationalist outlook.

We do not see any real "hate" in the "I

Hate Republicans Reader" and that's a

shame. Corporate politics is an obscenity.

The corporations and their government

lackeys have every bit as much

"totalitarian" surveillance and repressive

power as the Big Brother socialists they

condemn, but the goals of the corporate

totalitarians are greed and more greed--

not universal peace, health care, housing,

and education.

Notes:

1. See www.etext.info/Politics/MIM/

wim/cong/noamericans.html.

Continued from page 1...

MIM Notes 309 · October 15-31, 2004 · Page 5

Imperialist country wimmin are having

fewer and fewer children. The New York

Times finally ran an article in August

admitting that the "population bomb" of

1960s lore looks like a dud. In 1968, the

UN worried about 12 billion people

existing in 2050. Now 9 billion seems

likely--still a 50% increase from now.(1)

The decline is both in the imperialist

countries and the Third World-- the

whole world.

The underlying reason that population

theorist Malthus is proving wrong again

this time (and Mao right by the way) is

the dynamics of leisure-time. After

centuries of being coerced into having

children by parents and grandparents and

by the economic necessity of having

someone as a caretaker in old age, we

are now seeing a drop-off in the birth rate.

Whereas it used to be necessary to have

maybe 10 children to see two survive,

now parents have fewer and fewer

children in the rich countries, because

health-care is good enough to see most

children survive and because wimmin now

have more opportunities open to them than

in the past.

As a larger portion of wimmin work in

the rich countries, we see that on average

wimmin are choosing to put their time into

career and non-children-oriented leisure-

time lives rather than children-oriented

leisure-time lives. Many richer wimmin

have figured out that they will not die if

they have no children. Thanks to various

lacks of opportunity and superstitions,

wimmin only rarely came to that

conclusion in the past.

This is not to say it is the case of every

single imperialist country womyn to give

up motherhood-- of course not. Many

still choose "traditional family." The point

is the percentages or average.

Although the U.$. population is not

declining, it has ceased growing in the old

patterns. According to a Rutgers study,

"just one-third of American households

are choosing to have children. That's

down from 80 percent in the mid-1800s

and 50 percent in 1960. By 2010, the US

Census Bureau projects just one-quarter

of all American households will have

children living in them."(2)

No matter who preaches, a powerful

trend like the one we are seeing now does

not alter course. The Pope is famous for

advocating no birth control and large

families--especially relative to

Protestantism. Yet, in Italy, a recent poll

found 52% of females aged 16 to 24 plan

to have no children.(3) It's powerful proof

of Marx's science that ideas do not move

history: underlying material forces do.

"By 2000, Italy's fertility rate was

Western Europe's lowest, at 1.2 births per

woman. Its population is expected to drop

20 percent by midcentury.

"Italy plummeted right past wealthy,

liberal, Protestant Denmark, where

women got birth control early. Denmark

was below population replacement level

in 1970, at 2.0 births per woman, and slid

to 1.7 by 2001."(1)

The United $tates is averaging 2.13

births per womyn,(1) enough to break

even in population. The crypto-racists like

Patrick Buchanan are concerned that

within that white wimmin have given up

on Christian family like the Europeans.

Apparently, having a Pope in the backyard

is not good enough, so self-professed

"counterrevolutionary" Patrick Buchanan

has given praise to fascist Franco, the

general in Spain who took power with

help from Mussolini and Hitler.(4) Yet,

even there, the land of Franco has

reached a point where it has the lowest

birthrate in Europe according to

Buchanan.

Even in the least Westernized of the

main majority-white countries--Russia--

Buchanan recounts that population will fall

from 147 million to 114 million by 2050

thanks to a birthrate of 1.35 children per

womyn.(4)

One of the biggest changes for wimmin

since Mao's absolutely revolutionary

advances for wimmin is occurring right

now in Japan, where the taboo against

wimmin staying unmarried after 30 is

suddenly gone with more than half

unmarried after 30.(5) In 1985, 30.6% of

Japanese wimmin were unmarried in their

late 20s. Now it is 54%.(6) Among

couples, the average produces 1.32

children,(6) when 2.08 is necessary to

replace Japanese population.

Here's another interesting leisure-time

dynamic--Japan's check-ins at love

hotels are off 20% or more in the last

five years. Love hotels used to have one

purpose dedicated to a couple hours of

action. Now they have shifted to Karaoke

and video games.(6)

Meanwhile, Japanese divorce has also

increased from 1.3 divorces per 1000

people in 1990 to 2.3 in 2002, which is

still below the U.$. 4.0 per 1000 people.(6)

The most revealing of all is that economic

factors appear to underlie the new

choices of wimmin. Young wimmin live

with prosperous parents who do not have

overcrowded houses as they did 50 or 100

years ago. The perception of both male

and female singles in Japan is that living

together with the opposite sex would result

in a decrease in living standards--59.9%

in the case of wimmin who live with their

parents and 58.2% of men who live with

their parents. Even among singles living

apart from their parents, most perceive

not much gain in shacking up. Only 20.9%

see their living standards would increase

that way among wimmin singles and

14.2% among men.(6) These economic

and sociological complexities have found

their expression in the idea that "the good

men are all married." "Good men"

translates as sufficiently richer than the

wimmin's parents that Japanese single

wimmin would not feel a disadvantage of

doing chores around the house.

In many ways, the Japanese situation

is the most revealing of all the imperialist

country situations, because the situation

of Japanese wimmin had been most

backward of the imperialist countries--

with no permission for careers or staying

unmarried after 30 up until recently.

Today we see that Japan may have to

choose between letting wimmin work or

taking in immigrants, something very

psychologically difficult for the Japanese

labor aristocracy and rulers. A survey has

also uncovered what really used to keep

the Japanese family glued together--not

love, but money. It just so happens that in

this odd moment in history, Japanese

wimmin expect to have a lower standard

of living if they marry Japanese men. It

is better to live with one's parents

economically- speaking--not in every

case, but on average. So now, Japanese

wimmin have lost interest in Japanese

men--not in every case but on average.

This shows in the statistics and disproves

ages of received "wisdom" on the family.

The Japanese case definitely reinforces

MIM's theory that leaves open the

possibility that sex may disappear as non-

sexual coercion of wimmin disappears.

It certainly seems that if desire is only

the eroticization of power, when power

disappears, desire may also. Already

Japanese report having sex less than one

third as much as Amerikans--36 times a

year to 124 for Americans.(6)

The Japanese statistics raise the

question whether Japanese men will be

able to change a few cultural habits and

then woo Japanese wimmin again or

whether there is a more profound trend,

even more radical than that by Japanese

and international standards. Right now it

looks like the truth may very well be that

Japanese wimmin submitted for centuries

as a favor to men and as a factor in peace

at home. Now that wimmin are OK

economically in Japan without boyfriends

or husbands, the romance culture goes

out the window--not in every single case

but in the majority.

The reactionaries may oppose the trend

by giving ever steeper tax cuts to people

who have children. As that becomes the

only way to bribe people into having

family, the traditional brainwashing on the

family will stand only more exposed. The

risk is that the entire people will realize

that money holds the whole thing

together.

MIM does not have a theory for all the

leisure- time reasons that well-off people

prefer a life of partying or socializing to a

life of raising children. The invention of

the pill may be an explanation for some

of the increased leisure-time spent

enjoying life instead of raising children.

However, we can say that the facts prove

that coercion was an essential part of the

family unit prior to the economic

prosperity and independence of wimmin

seen in the imperialist countries today.

There is no other possible explanation for

why better-off wimmin choose to have

fewer children or forego gender relations

entirely as in Japan.

Even Patrick Buchanan admitted the

truth about wimmin's choices--if only in

one sentence in a whole book in which

he tries to invalidate those choices: "This

is not a matter of conspiracy but of

consensus, of free choice. European

women have decided they want one or

two children, or none, and they have the

means--contraception, sterilization, and

abortion."(7) Birth rates are higher in