From: SCIENCE@mitvma.mit.edu
Subject:      MIM banned for pro-Shining Path articles
Organization: Indiana University
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 07:22:15 GMT



MIM Responds to Being Banned from Net Conferences

Recently, Harel Barzilai, Rich Winkel, Phillip Zerbo and Jim Dyer
banned us--the Maoist Internationalist Movement--from ACTIV-L and
misc.activism.progressive. Here MIM explains its perception of
why this banning occurred and the differences between the line
of Barzilai et. al. and MIM.

Harel Barzilai et. al. said they banned us because MIM "has
been a steadfast apologist for the reactionary Shining Path thugs
(with its "the SCIENCE of Maoism" [emphasis added], 'Gonzalo-
thought' etc), and is about as 'progressive" as Ronald Reagan
was for 'freedom' and 'democracy.'" Hence, Barzilai et. al. believe
MIM is not "progressive" and should be banned.

MIM does not dispute that the issue of the Shining Path lies
at the center of the ban. We believe Barzilai et. al. were
finally driven to frenzy by our repeated rebuttals of their
fallacious attacks on the Shining Path. In particular, we
refuted that the Shining Path is a follower of Pol Pot.
Barzilai had posted articles not just once but at least twice
on this subject--including once after we informed him of the
difference between Shining Path and Pol Pot. In fact, in
places as far away as USENET conferences on the environment,
MIM found itself suddenly Pol Pot-baited by these self-
proclaimed "progressives."

Those who wish copies of the articles that caused this banning
frenzy should send a message to science@mitvma.mit.edu. You
will see that we showed that it is not literally true
that we Maoists are followers of Pol Pot. Quite the contrary,
Pol Pot labelled us "counterrevolutionary" and now Barzilai
has labelled us as "not progressive." Quite a coincidence, eh?!

After learning this fact about the Shining Path, Barzilai et.
al. continued their falsehoods about the Shining Path and Pol
Pot. At this point, these falsehoods were no longer falsehoods:
they were lies. Barzilai et. al. KNEW otherwise about the facts,
but they continued to inform their readers in their postings
that we (MIM and Shining Path) are followers of Pol Pot.

In this context, MIM received a number of death threats over
the e-mail. Some of these death threats repeated falsehoods
found in Barzilai et. al.'s postings. We were accused of
following Pol Pot and killing 27,000 people in these
death threats.

Were we more legal-minded, it would be rather easy to prove
from various electronic archives, that Barzilai et. al.
KNEW the facts of the matter and yet continued to connect
us to Pol Pot. That is it would be easy to prove that we
were libelled with the resulting damage of ignorance spread
and death threats issued in the context of Barzilai's postings.

What drove Barzilai et. al. crazy is that we showed people
what the literal facts are, not just their social-fascist
interpretation of them. What does it mean to be "social-fascist"?
It means to belong to some kind of "socialist" tradition while
apologizing for fascism,         which is what the parliamentary
"left" in Peru has been doing for some years now, only to
find itself banned by Fujimori's regime.

CONTRAST IN POLICIES

It is a great irony that just a few weeks ago, we demonstrated
our non-sectarian tradition by allowing the Socialist Workers
Party to set up a literature table at an event that we
sponsored with Dennis Brutus. We have this tradition of allowing
(from the beginning of our existence in the early 1980s)
groups such as the (now defunct) Communist Workers Party,
May 19th, Revolutionary Communist Party and Progressive Labor
to come to our events and even set up tables inside them.
MIM has never been afraid to argue with people calling
themselves "revolutionary" or "progressive." Meanwhile,
Barzilai et. al. pointed to articles by the Socialist Workers
Party as a reason to ban us from the M.A.P./ACTIV-L. Those
of us who organize events know how rare it is that an
organization such as MIM will allow a competitor group
such as SWP to set up a table INSIDE the events that MIM
organized. However, despite the M.A.P. ban, MIM will
continue with its policy.

The policy is the same in our newspaper, the MIM Notes. In the
January issue in fact, we published a death threat to us
with regard to Peru. We have a policy of printing letters
from all our critics (and refuting them when they are incorrect).
Additionally, the same and even more expensive policy is
upheld in MIM Theory where we publish at length letters from
our opponents. Although "progressives" Barzilai et. al.
banned us, we continue to welcome their comments in our
forums. They cannot help but clarify the difference
between their anti-communist and anti-indigenous
hysteria and the Maoist revolutionary science dedicated
to finding the most effective road to a world without
the domination of people by people.

OTHER ISSUES

People who recall earlier disputes on ACTIV-L will see
the pattern of smear-MIM-by-the-progressives followed
by MIM's rebut-the-bourgeois-politics-with-its-own-
contradictions-and-documentation. Facts that we posted
on the white working class and gender issues went
unanswered by our critics who finally just banned us
out of frustration of not being able to at least
Pol-Pot-bait us.

MIM's STAND on FREE SPEECH

In practice, MIM has dedicated considerable energies to
fighting prison administration censorship of mail,
university administration censorship of students and
INS censorship of immigrants. In this last regard
we were a major part of a successful battle in the
early 1980s to keep Dennis Brutus from being deported from
the United States. Dennis Brutus has been on of the
world's leading critics of U.S.-apartheid ties, and
although we had some disagreements with him in the
early 1980s, we were not going to let U.S. imperialism
deport him. It's with this kind of practice that MIM
has often attracted the support of civil libertarians
and anarchists in this country.

At the same time, MIM believes that the ruling class
lies to the people about "free speech." We do not
believe it exists in fact and we can prove it. What
does exist is the power to put forward one's views.
That power depends on organizing.

ACTIV-L was an important forum for MIM and it generated
many arguments as did a Peacenet conference on Peru
before we were banned from it. On the other hand, the
ban itself is very instructive to those interested in
politics. It demonstrates exactly what MIM is talking
about--the issue of power in "free speech" and the
feebleness of the "freedom" envisioned in bourgeois
politics. There is much more to say about the
bourgeois dictatorship we live under, but we digress.
We would like to return to the issue of the Sendero
Luminoso.

PIE-IN-THE-SKY-IDEALISM: AN EFFECTIVE CLOAK FOR THE
STATUS QUO

Unfortunately, the Barzilai et. al. critics of MIM
cannot be taken as simply naive and ignorant
idealists. They repeat known falsehoods shamelessly.

At the same time, their propaganda does appeal
to very simple pie-in-the-sky-idealism. The issue
of violence in Peru is classic. Barzilai et. al.
cite violence by "both" sides in Peru--the
revolutionary movement and the fascist government.
They ask their readers why they should support either.

The answer is simple--material reality. For Barzilai
et. al. it is a kind of arrogance born of willful
middle-class politics to say that the peasants in
Peru are wrong to take up arms. They think that
we at MIM are stupid/evil as are the peasants in Peru for
not following the enlightened road of Americas Watch
or Amnesty International. Yet, it is Barzilai et. al.
who are apologists of massive violence, including
a per capita caloric intake sufficient to feed no more
than 90% of Peru's people at most.

As soon as Barzilai et. al. set up a real society that
follows IN PRACTICE the norms of "human-rights" as
established by Amnesty International, the peasants of
Peru will gladly join them. MIM members too would walk
into the enlightenment of the Amnesty International kingdom.
The peasants in Peru would like nothing better than
to have such a choice and would no doubt happily turn
swords into ploughshares given such a choice. However,
Barzilai and other likely well-fed net users have no
business telling starving and repressed people that they
MUST negotiate and not take up arms. The "rights" to
food, shelter and clothing are not negotiable and to
imply otherwise is tacit acceptance of the massive
institutional violence guaranteed by class society.

Again, as soon as Barzilai et. al. actually establish a
society of human-rights open to all, MIM will cease
its solidarity with armed struggles for liberation. The
reality is though that such a society cannot exist before
communism does. What does exist right now is a ruling
class happy to see people like Barzilai et. al. call on
everyone to respect human-rights or be pacifists. They
know that should everyone do that, the status quo,
the current distribution of wealth and the mass murder of
toilers by imperialists and their lackeys will continue.

Another reality that exists is that a country descended of
settlers that killed tens of millions of indigenous people
in North America alone now criticizes the Shining Path
once again as "savage." Once again a predominantly indigenous
armed struggle related to liberation of the land is
hysterically smeared by those with no concrete sense of the
violence they are complicit with. Yes, we are talking about
Barzilai et. al. and others who are insensitive to the daily
violence of starvation and genocide.
      --------------------------
For more articles on the concept of "institutional violence"
and comparative studies of violence, send a message to
science@mitvma.mit.edu  The same address has articles on Peru,
Kamphuchea, China, Korea and other subjects.