MIM Notes ***

MIM Notes 301 · May 1, 2004 · Page 1

MIM Notes

May 1, 2004, Nº 301

The Official Newsletter of the Maoist Internationalist Movement (MIM)

Free

INSIDE: Against subjectivism * Under Lock & Key * Una Página en Español...

On the web: www.etext.info/Politics/MIM

THE WRITING

WAS ON THE

WALL EVEN

BEFORE

FALLUJAH

How we know the

draft is coming

by mim3@mim.org

The final piece of the jigsaw puzzle of

military recruitment in the United $tates

is in. Retention rates in the military will

be too low to sustain the imperialists'

vision of the world, so the draft is coming

unless there is a desperately radical

struggle that develops soon--something

we find unlikely but which we support

nonetheless. The Amerikan anti-war

struggle will develop, but later than it

should most ideally.

A survey of over 1000 spouses at

military bases in January and February

2004 indicates that half believe the

military will have problems recruiting as

current enlistments expire. This figure

came at a time when 64% said the war

was going well in Iraq and Bush was

receiving approval ratings in the 60s

percentage-wise from the military

spouses.(1) Half of the spouses expect

there to be "major" problems with

recruitment in the near future as people

refuse to re-enlist after their terms are

up and new recruits dwindle for the

mercenary army. 21% of all spouses

were already saying they had wished their

spouses had made another career choice.

Only 39% were certain their spouses

would re-enlist when their terms were up.

According to U$A Toady, the Army fell

4% short of its recruiting goals in the first

half of fiscal year 2004.(5) This number

is likely to drop further as the soldiers who

just had their term in Iraq extended come

up for re-enlistment.

It is not reflected in the press or the

DRAFT LOOMS

Stop it before it starts!

U$ MEDIA

SOUNDS THE

ATTACK ON

THIRD WORLD

MADRASSAS

Amerikan terror

schools overlooked

One of the common complaints of the

New York Times in its drumbeat for war

is that the Arab and Afghan peoples

support religious schools called

"madrassas" too much.(1) MIM

conducted an investigation into the

problem of religious schools in the United

$tates.

"Boys, raised without fathers, were sent

to religious schools, or madrassas, taken

away from daily village life and away

from the influence of women,"(1) says

the New York Times. What a shock: the

New York Times apparently has seen no

gender segregated schools in the U$A.

Nor has it thought of the interpenetration

of the military with countless schools in

the U$A.

The Boston Globe--owned by the New

York Times--is another paper hammering

on the madrassas. "Since the Sept. 11

attacks, madrassas in Pakistan and

Afghanistan have achieved global

notoriety for producing thousands of young

men dedicated to holy war."(2) The

Boston Globe goes on to call for the Indian

government to interfere in India's

madrassas.

It's hard to know who started it, the

government or the New York Times,

because the two have inseparable

approaches to foreign affairs. "Secretary

of Defense" and nutcase Donald

Rumsfeld put it this way in an October

16th 2003 memo: "Are we capturing,

killing or deterring and dissuading more

terrorists every day than the madrassas

and the radical clerics are recruiting,

training and deploying against us?"(3)

We won't bother mentioning other

This question, which the Amerikan

media dismissed offhand before the

renewed invasion of Iraq, now seems to

be the question du jour on editorial pages

and weekend talk shows. As we discuss

below, most of the pundits asking the

question have hidden, pro-imperialist

agendas, which keeps them from getting

to the truth about Iraq or Vietnam.

First, though, we will repeat what MIM

has been saying for more than a year:

"Is the war in Iraq like the war in

Vietnam? Yes and no, but mostly yes."

Of course, to understand the answer,

one has to understand the question. Pro-

imperialist "experts" of various flavors

have their own ideas about the lessons

of Vietnam, which color their answers.

For example, the "stab-in-the-back"

militarists insist Amerika lost in Vietnam

because civilian politicians withdrew

support from the war. Thus they might

answer, "Yes, Iraq is the new Vietnam,"

to encourage Amerikans to not make the

"mistake" they made in Vietnam and

"stay the course" in Iraq. Other militarists

may answer "no," because they have

illusions about the role China or Russia

played in Vietnam, or because they feel

the Amerikans now have an

overwhelming technical advantage--

although they also had an overwhelming

technical advantage in Vietnam, and the

house-to-house fighting now raging in

cities like Fallujah is a matter of small

arms, sledgehammers, and sweat, not

Apache helicopters.

Democratic "critics" of the war answer

"yes, but...," to opportunistically blame the

Republicans for getting Amerika into

another "quagmire" without getting

labeled "soft on defense" in return. The

mercenary eggheads at Harvard's

Kennedy School of Government quoted

in the April 16 Boston Phoenix adopt this

Is Iraq the new Vietnam?

Continued on page 4...

Continued on page 7...

Continued on page 8...

MIM Notes 300 · May 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

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.

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
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Mail), $3,840; 900 (8-10 days), $2,200. To become a sponor or distributor, send
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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>

Dear MIM:

I am a 19 year old university student in

Australia. I look to your site as a

theoretical and practical guide in many

respects, particularly with my studies as

my majors are politics and history.

What I am up against now is a project

on the Great Leap Forward, with a

lecturer who is obviously some kind of

bourgeois opportunist, heavily critical of

Mao. I can tell this because of the set

reading for my presentation, a chapter

called "Capable women can make a meal

without food" in the book "Wild Swans"

by Chang.

I have two theories on why MIM has

not written a review of this book.

1) Its credibility is so lacking that you

chose to just ignore it.

2) Nobody has written a review of it

yet because resources are stretched or

the book hasn't come to your attention.

I wish also to thank you for your

excellent information regarding the great

leap forward in the sections "Myths about

Maoism", as well as the reviews of

MacFarquhar and Becker as well as the

Black Book of Communism.

Socialist greetings!

Web Minister replies: I checked

around and we do not have a review of

"Wild Swans" available. At MIM we do

consider it our job to rebut and criticize

all of previous reactionary thinking. We

consider it a means of setting up the all-

round dictatorship of the proletariat.

This also gives me a chance to say that

we are quite a bit behind in all our work.

I have not even posted all the material

we have available on our website in

addition to the fact that articles such as

about "Wild Swans" have not been

written yet.

Our general response is that the

capitalists have spent money and created

markets for many full-time writers

slinging mud or spinning half-truths about

Mao. Journalists and fiction writers are

especially apt to tell one story and think

they have given us a comparison of

capitalism and socialism or even the

Great Leap strategy versus other

strategies of socialist advance. Although

we could also write a lengthy fiction or

journalist story on the life of Jeffrey

Dahmer, the Amerikan cannibal, we

would not claim it to provide an overall

insight even into Amerikan decadence. It

is the bourgeoisie that must glorify

individual stories and lifestyles as a

substitute for class analysis and

comparisons of social systems overall,

because the comparison of capitalism and

socialism at the overall level is always

going to be more favorable to socialism.

Refuting the bourgeoisie, point-by-point

Read hundreds more Maoist

Movie Reviews at the only

Maoist Movie Review website

on Earth

From Aguirre: The Wrath of God ("the humyn

species has chalked up some achievements since

the time of the Conquistadors...") to Yol ("really

about the womyn question under semi-feudalism in

Turkey"), from Alien3 ("basic contradictions of

imperialism underlying the plot also undermine its

triumphant ending") to Z ("If we had the resources

to do our own films, we could do a better job, but

under capitalism, we have to take what we can"),

Maoist Movie Reviews are in a league of their own.

www.etext.info/Politics/MIM/movies

MIM Notes 301 · May 1, 2004 · Page 3

by MC5

April 11 2004

Yo, reader. Yes, you there. Tell us why

you are still paying attention to Democrats

and Republicans. We calling ourselves

communists have more differences than

the Democrats and Republicans.

It's not that the Democrats and

Republicans give you more accurate

inside information on the wars they are

carrying out, so don't tell us you listen to

them for that. The Democrats and

Republicans both said Saddam Hussein

had and would use weapons of mass

destruction. He did not use them in 2003

and now you have to ask yourself why.

They told you the Amerikans were

bringing "freedom" to Iraq, but the recent

violence in Iraq came after the Amerikans

shut down a newspaper there opposing

the Amerikan occupation.(1) These

Democrats and Republicans said the

Iraqis would appreciate what Amerikans

did in the occupation. So, tell us again,

why are you getting your information

from them?

MIM told you before the war about

weapons of mass destruction and we got

it right. When Bush said the war was

over, we did a 60-point headline saying

"The War Is Not Over." Again, we got it

right, and the president with all his billions

spent on intelligence got it wrong.

Now look at us communists. We've got

something to argue about. Kerry voted

for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and

co-authored the Patriot Act in the Senate.

Bush carried out the wars and signed the

"Patriot Act." Those are the top two issues

since 2000.

Meanwhile, the "Communist Party

USA" supports the occupation of Iraq.

You heard right. While MIM is supporting

U$ withdrawal and believes the Iraqi

liberation fighters have justice on their

side, the "Communist Party USA" is

supporting a sister party in Iraq that

actually has a seat in the U$ occupation

government. Imagine that: a "communist"

party serving as a U$ lackey in a military

occupation.

Now that's a real difference. MIM says

the nationalist liberation fighters in Iraq

are right and the "CP-USA" supports the

opposite side. So, my decadent Amerikan

readers, if you are looking for sports as in

Bush/Kerry contests, we'll give you

sports. By now you should be bored to

death with Bush/Kerry. Pay attention to

some people with some real differences.

Sometimes their website has more

readers; sometimes ours--and you

thought all that splitting among so-called

communists was for nothing.

See here what we are saying about the

phony "Communist Party USA." Listen

to them explain that the genocide in Iraq

was worth it, because their buddies in the

Iraqi Communist Party (ICP) are now

distributing a newspaper there under U$

auspices: "While the bad news of the

genocidal impact of the U.S. war and

occupation in Iraq permeates throughout

the world, the chunks of gold and hope

are found in the ICP's heroism and

Phony Iraqi Communist Party supports occupation of Iraq

The real debate is here

This is the first in a series of articles.

Further installments will address the

topics of love, sex, friends,

sectarianism and chauvinism.

I. Cigarettes

II. Drugs

III. Music and art

IV. Love

I'm going to talk about subjectivism and

its relationship to our communist goals by

giving a bunch of examples of

subjectivism--the belief that what one

feels or likes is true or supreme. What's

most important is not the individual evils

of subjectivism, but understanding the

overall approach that we as Maoist

scientists apply to everything. We at MIM

are not saying we have some long list of

behaviors that we tack on to the end of

the "Ten Commandments." It's not our

point to bring attention to hypocrisy in

individual behavior--and this is something

that we from Christian, Jewish and

Islamic cultures have to watch out for.

(Buddhism has a little better intellectual

material to work with on this question.)

We Maoist scientists are interested in the

underlying causes of behavior.

Anyone who thinks s/he does not have

something that s/he likes that is tainted

by oppression is just wrong. As Marx and

Lenin warned us, even after

overthrowing the social system of

capitalism, its corpse would continue to

rot among us. There is no way that

revolutionaries arising from capitalist

society can be instantly pure even after

revolution. It's not a leap into Heaven.

Communist purity is not going to happen

in the lifetime of the revolutionaries who

create the dictatorship of the proletariat

unless lifetimes get a lot longer.

In all likelihood, the revolution will be

successful only through the efforts of

Preparing for the all-round dictatorship of the proletariat

Combating subjectivism in all arenas

"hypocrites" envisioning future

generations growing up with better social

influences than they had. Understanding

this is part of understanding materialism,

as when Lenin said revolution is always

made with the imperfect social material

at hand, not by divine perfection of

humyn consciousness first. When one

critic said Mao sought "revolutionary

immortality," he was not all wrong.

Parents and teachers seek influence on

future generations, and Mao simply took

that to a whole larger level and asked to

be remembered only as a teacher.

A persyn could not like a whole list of

bad things that most other people have

as vices, but even then there would have

to be something. Everyone has a vice.

No one is a 100% pure. Hence, MIM

has acted to push aside the politics of

putting lifestyle first. Whoever comes up

with the idea that a party should set up a

list of lifestyles to condone or not condone

is setting up a huge Liberal fight to divide

the party. We have to come up with a list

of bad things, but our attack has to be on

the causes, not the bearers of those bad

lifestyles. With these warnings, I turn to

several examples of subjectivism.

I. Cigarettes

We've all seen the teenager lash into

parents saying: "what do you mean I

can't smoke? You smoke, you

hypocrite!" So the truth is some parents

smoke and forbid their children from

smoking. Yet, this is an example of a

pseudo-rebellion by the teenager, a

rebellion on behalf of the right to make

profits for the multinational tobacco

companies.

More than in any country in the world

at the moment, comrades in the United

$tates will have to conquer subjectivism

and still make revolution despite

hypocritical feelings and behaviors. The

smoking parent who cracks down on his

or her children is right. It means this: "I

know I have had my subjective feelings,

my very emotions and psychology

conditioned by the cigarette companies and

I know I am addicted. However, I know

that in a better world it would not be that

way."

In contrast, when medical researchers

discover that smoking is poisonous,

principled Trotskyists such as the

Spartacist League go so far to oppose

"totalitarianism" that they will publicly

defend the right to smoke in public (and

thus contribute to the death of more

people, both the smokers and those in

contact with them). These Spartacist

League members contribute to a rebellion

against science and for bourgeois

individualism and tobacco company

profits. They take the subjective state of

the smoker and "respect" it. That's part

of their idea of "freedom" and "opposing

totalitarianism."

When the all-round dictatorship of the

proletariat led by us Maoists gets to power,

the cigarette company executives who put

those toxic chemicals in cigarettes and

resisted medical science in the court

system will be lined up and shot as a small

repayment of their blood debt to millions

killed by smoking. Those cigarette

company executives who conquer

subjectivism will know they should be

shot to set a good example for the future.

II. Drugs

The same is true of drug addiction. How

many times have we seen established

bourgeois people look down on heroin

addicts? Oh how terrible to be in such a

state of control by the drug, we hear. Yet

most of these same people turn around

and say that life is a short experience to

enjoy as it is. They get their jollies from

something else short-term and damaging

to society in many cases.

The fact is that many heroin, cocaine

and crack addicts will say that they have

a profound experience of pleasure from

their drugs. MIM has no need to deny

such subjective statements. Post-

modernists and bourgeois individualists

need to deal with that--and we can't

imagine how they do in their own twisted

minds--but we at MIM say, "sure that

feels good to you, but where did that

desire for that kind of pleasure or pain-

killing come from?" The answer is a

combination of profiteering drug dealers

and a corrupt government defending the

profit-system leaving people alienated

from their own lives.

III. Music and art

Music is another battleground against

subjectivism. For some people, music is

the highest motivation. For others it's a

second or third place source of motivation.

At MIM and its circles we've had more

than one persyn have to get involved in

throwing out reactionary music tapes,

starting with Guns N'Roses. When we

oppose Guns N'Roses and say most of it

should be banned, it's not that we don't

know we're going to be unpopular. We

know it, because right now the

bourgeoisie controls the superstructure

and encourages everyone to be

subjectivists and not unite on an objective

basis to challenge bourgeois rule. Hell,

our reviewer on our web page "likes"

Guns N'Roses, so how could we not know

about the resistance we face right now?

The question is do we wish we lived in a

society where popular songs were not

about sick people burying their girlfriends

in their backyard. Do we wish we could

Continued on page 7...

Continued on page 9...

MIM Notes 300 · May 1, 2004 · Page 4

jubilation of the Iraqi people, but in fact,

the Iraqi people have already landed a

huge politico-military blow against Uncle

$am in one short year. If imperialism

depended on English imperialism as the

lynchpin globally and not Uncle $am, such

a blow landed under Maoist leadership

could have been the turning point to bring

down the whole global capitalist system.

It is the combined imperialist strength of

Uncle $am and others that makes this a

protracted struggle of generations.

Both Bush and Kerry will try to sidestep

the draft issue leading up to elections in

November 2004. In 2005, the push for

the draft will be on.

MIM does not generally like being in

the fortune-telling business, but our record

on Iraq is clear relative to both the

Democrats and Republicans leading the

U$A. We think we deserve greater

credibility than these bourgeois politicians

always catering for votes and corporate

donations. We told the public the truth

about WMDs, the likelihood of Iraqi

resistance and why it is that only sending

dead Amerikans back in body bags

changes the political balance. The peace

movement did not succeed, because of

its petty-bourgeois basis. On all of this

we are right and our printed record can

be checked against any political leader

with access to inside information from

intelligence agencies spending 11 digits a

year in dollars. Now we tell you this: the

draft is coming, so fight now to prevent it

and gain political experience for upcoming

battles.

Military illusions

1) The crumbling of military illusions

and the manipulation of the military for

political gain are the reasons the draft is

coming. The loose situation in Fallujah

and Afghanistan benefits a political

agenda that says more troops are

necessary in Iraq and therefore a draft.

The rulers will make it appear that the

demand for a draft came from the

situation itself, not any particular military

official or the president.

Keeping control on the ground for

contractors to do their business in Iraq

cannot be done with Predator spy planes

alone. Even driving about expensive tanks

eats up fuel. Putting unemployed or

potentially unemployed people on the

ground of Iraq seems a cheap solution

for the rulers.

2) The military thinks that Iraq has

much less population than Vietnam did

and GI Joe is much better technically

equipped. In fact, the longer the troops

stay there, the more experienced Iraqis

will get in fighting, while Amerikans rotate

in and out. Johnson had 500,000

Amerikans in Vietnam at the peak. The

military thinks it has already reached that

level in Iraq, proportionately speaking, and

its illusions about the Vietnam War say

that China and the Soviet Union were the

reasons for failure there. Bush will believe

his own rhetoric about a "small minority"

of "terrorists" and "thugs" fighting, (600

killed in Fallujah alone in one week)

because certain Amerikans never realized

it was not "outside agitators" doing the

fighting in Vietnam. This confidence in

victory in Iraq will lead to the draft.

3) There has been talk in Congress

about raising pay and improving mail

delivery to improve retention.(2) This

angle will fail miserably. That fact will

also point to the draft.

Neo-conservative illusions

1) The neo-conservatives believe

correctly that a portion of rural white U.$.

society is dumb enough to believe that

September 11th 2001 is connected to

Iraq. For many in the rural areas and even

some in the suburbs, it is difficult to

distinguish Third World or rich Arab

peoples in general. Iraqis, Saudis,

Muslims--it hardly matters, because a

solid 30% of the whites is of the Crusader

mentality. In the military that figure is 37%

evangelicals based on the spouses' poll--

a plurality.

Making use of the attack on Amerikan

soil and the rural whites correctly referred

to as "hamburger meat" by one self-

described politically incorrect humorist,

the neo-conservatives erred in thinking

they can transfer that into making Iraq a

Japan or Germany. They really have no

idea how FDR, Truman and Eisenhower

did it. After filling their heads with Ann

Coulter, it's a wonder neo-conservatives

know anything. The truth about

"hamburger meat" only led the neo-

conservatives to make an error related

to thinking Iraq is not Vietnam.

2) Neo-conservatives told the public

that Iraqis would roll over and play dead.

They told this tale partly to get the war

started. This suited the Zionists and

apocalypse-centered Christians.

The rulers do not know why their

repressions in Iraq and Afghanistan fail

while they succeeded in Japan and

Germany. This is the central hit-or-miss

proposition of bourgeois dictators

everywhere. The vast majority of

bourgeois authoritarians fail in their

missions for reasons they do not know.

They repress and repress and get no

where, unlike Lenin, Stalin and Mao. In

Iraq and Afghanistan, even though the

United $tates represents a more advanced

mode of production, Uncle $am is not able

to bring progress and therefore stability

and peace on Amerikan terms.

3) Afghan warlord Dostum is kicking

up a storm as we write this. Mao had a

solution for warlords in China. The neo-

conservatives think they do in

Afghanistan, but they do not. The

imperialists have no idea how to bring

progress and hence stability to

Afghanistan. That means they will try to

employ more troops. That means the

draft.

4) The single greatest hope of the neo-

conservatives is this: they believe they

negotiated with Saddam Hussein and

Osama Bin Laden in the past, so why is

it impossible to strike up a deal with Sunnis,

Shiites and Kurds in Iraq now they

wonder. If there is such a deal, the

military resistance should roll over and

play dead (they think) and the draft won't

be necessary.

MIM has to admit that the resistance

in Iraq is not proletarian-led. Nonetheless,

we do not believe this critical neo-

conservative assumption that the Iraqis

can be bought out will prove correct. This

appears to be a miscalculation. Easing the

sanctions and spending U.$. tax dollars

will not create the bridge of stability to a

future where Iraq pays for its own

quietude. Already the New York Times

has reported on cooperation among

Kurds, Sunnis and Shiites to kick out the

Amerikkkans. Economic reality says that

they will be better off sharing their

resources among themselves rather than

among themselves and the Amerikkkans.

Democratic Party illusions

1) Led by Ted Kennedy and the

European-sympathizing imperialists, one

wing of imperialists wishes the 2003 war

on Iraq was through the UN. Some

continue to believe there might be a way

to coax the UN back in, which concretely

means getting Russian, Chinese and

French troops on the ground followed

quickly by Indian troops and others.

At this point, as Kerry said about Bush

making things "harder" for military

success, the UN is not likely to get

involved. Most of the rest of the world

does not want to cover for the United

$tates and has no interest in sanctioning

U.$.-led pre-emptive strikes. The global

imperialists would have to make a hell of

a deal to salvage Iraq and we do not think

it is likely. It is more likely that the rest of

the world's bourgeoisie realizes that Uncle

$am cannot salvage the situation. Without

UN troops, the draft for Amerikans is

more likely.

2) Although many wishy-washy anti-

war people belong to the minority

Democratic Party, even the minority

Democratic Party is divided on the draft.

That's why it will go through. The anti-

draft members of the Democratic Party

will look the other way as the leaders let

the draft through. After all, the Democratic

Party never took a clear stand against

the war and even most Democrats who

opposed it want to stay and "finish the

job" now.

One place where one can see the

growing trend of calls for the draft is in

the website called

democraticunderground.com. Because

Democrats do not have the spine to

oppose the war, many are now clamoring

for a draft.

3) The pseudo-feminist wing of

liberalism has representatives in Iraq and

Afghanistan trying to teach Iraqis and

Afghans how to live the pseudo-feminist

lifestyle. They think they know how to

bring advance in the wake of U.$.

repression. They don't. They've been

attacked by the Iraqi people, and rightly

so, but in no way will the pseudo-feminists

be able to bring progress in Iraq or

Afghanistan or the desired stability and

hence a reduction of troops according to

imperialist wishes.

Labor aristocracy illusions

1) The labor aristocracy is used to

telling white lies on a daily basis to win its

share of super-profits. When Bush told

the country clearly in public several times

that he planned on a 15 year or more

occupation of Iraq, the labor aristocracy

did not listen and did not believe him once

the casualties started. When Bush and

Rumsfeld kept talking about Japan and

Germany after World War II, the

hamburger meat did not stop to think

troops are still there in Japan and

Germany, today--sixty years later. After

all, the labor aristocracy trusts Bush

enough and Paris Hilton was about to

appear on TV, so the labor aristocracy

did not have time to go into the politics

and history.

Since the neo-conservatives told the

labor aristocracy that Iraqis would greet

them cheering with roses and rice, the

labor aristocracy filed away any thoughts

contrary to the war. This same labor

aristocracy is now to be found wondering

when its children will come back from

DRAFT LOOMS

Stop it before it starts!

Continued from page 1...

Continued on next page...

MIM Notes 301 · May 1, 2004 · Page 5

This article originally apeared in

MIM Notes 247, 15 Jan 2003. We

reprint it here for those who missed it

the first time; it complements this issue's

articles on the draft and Amerikan

madrassas.

There is a terrible dispute afoot in the

world about the U.S. military budget.

Some contend that the U.S. military

budget each year is only more than the

next 10 closest countries combined.

Others say 13, 15, 25 and some say the

whole world combined spends less than

the United $tates on the military. A writer

in Pakistan said, "Americas commitment

to peace is best exemplified by the fact

that its annual military budget, at $360

billion and counting, now exceeds the

military budgets of the rest of the world

combined. You can't get much more

committed to peace than that."(1)

Despite the obscenity of U.$. military

power, yahoos like neo-Confederates

Senator Trent Lott, Attorney General John

Ashcroft and President George W. Bush

cling in an irrational way to their

militarist ideas. Through organs like the

"conservative" Weekly Standard they still

speak in praise of "peace through

strength."(2)

Rednecks supported these yahoos for

decades and now the U.$. military is by

far the strongest. So why is it that we still

have war? And why are civil liberties

more trampled than ever in the United

$tates? It seems that "peace through

strength" could not be more false.

Here is what the Amerikkkan founders

said in the "Federalist Papers," a

collection of essays defending the U.S.

Constitution that conservatives usually

claim to uphold. "The safety of the people

of America against dangers from ITAL

foreign END force depends not only on

their forbearing to give ITAL just END

causes of war to other nations, but also

on their placing and continuing themselves

in such a situation as not to invite hostility

or insult; for it need not be observed that

there are pretended as well as just

causes of war."(3)

The Amerikan reactionaries have

focused on the latter part of the above

statement, the fact that in modern times,

military weakness invites attack. Yet, now

the United $tates is the undisputed military

power of the world and according to the

Bush administration itself, we are in a long

"war on terror."

Logic says that there are now countless

countries--more than 200--that are

easier marks than the United $tates to

attack. That leaves only one conclusion:

that the war Bush says the United $tates

is in is not an opportunist war of

"pretended" cause. Rather it is a war

where the United $tates gave "just causes

of war to other nations."

Whether today's reactionaries know it

or not, that is where their logic leads.

Those are the assumptions behind their

views--that weakness invites opportunist

attacks. Conversely if the United $tates

is strong, we must conclude that the

attacks from much weaker powers that

have much weaker potential targets than

the United $tates have a basis in just

cause. That is part of realism.

Instead of concluding that their thinking

is wrong and their leaders incompetent,

the Amerikkkan redneck votes fear and

fear alone. The "founding fathers"

warned repeatedly on the danger involved

in a permanent military built on the basis

of fear.

"The violent destruction of life and

property incident to war, the continual

effort and alarm attendant on a state of

continual danger, will compel nations the

most attached to liberty to resort for

repose and security to institutions which

have a tendency to destroy their civil and

political rights. To be more safe, they at

length become willing to run the risk of

being less free. The institutions chiefly

alluded to are STANDING ARMIES and

the correspondent appendages of military

establishments."(4)

The "founding fathers" believed

something was wrong if a country could

not summon an army for two years, get

a job done and then disband it. Once a

nation formed and demonstrated its

strength, the "founding fathers" believed

that other nations stood up and took

notice.

The U.$. military is the most powerful

in the world having spent 12 digits a year

for decades at a time. Its existence goes

way beyond what the founders envisioned

for the United $tates. Yet, still there is no

peace.

Long ago it was time to conclude that

our leaders do not have a working plan

for peace, even with the strongest military

in the world at their disposal, not to

mention the world's largest economy.

Rather than surrendering more freedoms

and more money while suffering ever

higher tech atrocities it is time to throw

the dopes out and find leaders who know

how to make peace.

Notes:

1. http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/

default.asp?page=stor y_13-12-

2002_pg3_8 ; This is also the impression

of the mainstream Kanadian press. Bush

friend Paul Martin slated to be a future

Prime Minister of Canada says as much,

e.g., 29 Nov 2002, Ottawa Citizen, p. a9.

Others say U.$. military spending is only

more than the next 25 nations combined,

e.g., http://www.globalissues.org/

Geopolitics/ArmsTrade/Spending.asp

2. http://www.weeklystandard.com/

Content/Public/Artic les/000/000/001/

842sqqsk.asp In case anyone dares to

question MIM's facts on U.$. imperialism

again, we suggest reading the Weekly

Standard's Max Boot. He admits it all,

dredging up a series of Amerikan

provocations and usurpations from 1945

to 1991. "The reality was a good deal

more sordid. What did containment

entail? It meant support for the Greek

colonels, the Argentine generals, the shah,

Pinochet, Marcos, Somoza, and other

unsavory characters who were in `our'

camp. It meant helping to overthrow

rulers, such as Mossadegh in Iran, Arbenz

in Guatemala, and Allende in Chile, who

were seen as drifting toward the other

side. It meant major wars against North

Korea and North Vietnam. It meant

invasions of the Dominican Republic and

Grenada. It meant support for anti-

Communist guerrillas in places like Cuba

(the Bay of Pigs), Angola, Nicaragua, and

Afghanistan." Boot only left out that

Allende and Arbenz won elections and

the U.$. imperialists put in a king to replace

the parliamentarian Mossadegh. Boot is

referring to U.$. destruction of

parliamentary democracies in Greece,

Iran, Guatemala and Chile.

3. Federalist Paper #4 by John Jay.

4. Federalist Paper #8 by Alexander

Hamilton.

U$ military budget would have

angered Amerikan `founding fathers'

Iraq and the war will be over. It did not

listen to Bush and now it vacillates

somewhat. The decrease in labor

aristocracy enthusiasm among volunteers

for the military means that the draft is