Articles will happen, thanks. YM doesn't need commo cards. I don't feel in fear of my life. I have learned my lesson. I will make no mistakes.
I want to take up a struggle I ignored till now. MIM says:
QUOTE The actual production of such art should grant the freedom to err to the "frontline" cultural workers, which means those who do the first drafts of movies and songs to be recycled. In the "dictatorship of the proletariat," artistic workers even of the most political sort can freeze up when overly hounded. Poor "frontline" workers should be removed from their jobs and the resources given to others who would do a better job. They should not be imprisoned, because the history of art production indicates that the state can crush artistic work. It can be both a problem of talent and politics. The solution is to grant the "frontline" workers the freedom to err while giving others oversight authority and responsibility for not issuing egregious errors such as would damage inter-ethnic relations. Oversight workers should be altruistic party members willing to go to prison/re-education camp for failure. These oversight workers should also have oversight assistants who are also free from any threat of imprisonment. Hopefully with the combined efforts of good "frontline" workers and oversight assistants, no horribly misogynist, racist or chauvinist work will see the light of day under socialist auspices and no oversight party members will end up in prison or re-education camp. "Frontline" cultural workers should be judged for their speed and artistry while oversight authorities should be judged by preventing embarrassing errors. All of this depends on getting the recycling started with a correct review of the work to begin with. Such a correct review in turn depends on having an accurate understanding of the weaknesses and extent of the prevailing backward culture--an idea of just how much has to be improved and how little it would take to improve the average culture. If we have an inaccurate and incomplete understanding of the existing culture, we won't be able to evaluate cultural production by the party or under socialism. We will be blaming cultural workers for backwardness inherited from the old society, so writing those reviews of the old society now is crucial both for the struggle now and the future socialist culture. We at MIM do not seek to struggle in culture for absolute principles so much as to improve continuously the culture relative to what it was. That's what we emphasize to be the kernel of our materialist approach. END QUOTE
It's basically correct and explains what I've done and why I'm still here.
I note:
QUOTE In the "dictatorship of the proletariat," artistic workers even of the most political sort can freeze up when overly hounded>>
This goes to my earlier note on the basically individualist and liberal tendancies of art production. It's not so much a problem of state repression rather of individual egos and feelings -- sensitive emotional artists dont produce when they feel bad. It's not the politics --its the artists' emotions. A great expo of reactionary art with criticism and self criticism could be organized with the themes "What the fuck were we thinking?" and also "What don't we do anymore...". We will praise all art *production* (we like to see stupidity on paper before it doesn't happen in reality because we saw it coming and put a stop to it). Likewise, we will critique all art for it's *content*, patiently and compassionately. END QUOTE
SC:Most of my work as art minister in the past year was spent
producing art not
reviewing or critiquing other's art or even my own. One could call that right opportunism. I justify it by the fact that lots of people even (mostly) outside of Maoist circles are being confronted with edgy art. Another justification: "There is as of now a terrible shortage of revolutionary culture." (MIM) Another justification: no one is sending me art to review or critique. IRTR produced some good quality art all of which I did view, though IRTR made the right opportunist error of not marketing it correctly. I'm not doing that -- IRTR can and should put a redirect script on IRTR.org so it's traffic goes to MIM an retag and retitle their videos so people actually look at them. After the spywar settles out IRTR personnel are invited to coordinte with MIM on principled oversight and the correct definition of Maoist art and how best to use the great videos done bt ""SHUBelMorgan".
The enemy uses weapons like marketing and so should we. Anyway, these two opportunisms balanced/cancelled each other out, and MIM says that is okay, to have minor mutually cancelling errors.
eGroup:One day, not yet, MIM needs an egroup to reach out to the lumpen and lift them up to the level of intellectuals. That is not pressing but is on my wish list. E.g., questions like these:
*"Lenin would have said our Amerikan reactionaries are 'decadent.'" Okay but what the hell is wrong with "decadent"? To the lumpen nothing at all! Why are those without compassion decadant? What is decadance? Why is it wrong? To a hedonist or a Reichian "decadant" pleasure is good! That's a serious question I have and need to answer to avoid producing "decadant" art, srsly.
*Does MIM have a view on "microcredit"? I guess MIM would call it subreform.
*[other]
spywars:In the struggle, MIM already lied out the strategic distinctions between CIA and FBI. MIM is politely ignoring ATF, NSA and DIA for various reasons. Here are a few notes on tactics:
(1) FBI generally sees the world in pragmatic atomist & hooverite terms. In this sense we can look at parts of thir work without vomiting, notably when they try to solve (rather than instigate...) murders. We specifically should aim to capture naive, well meaning altruists in the bureau. They aren't all crooked. Some of them even figure out some of their so-called brothers are on the take. A few may even notice that "in the big picture" they are pointless examples of subreform.
(a) Their pragmatism makes the fibbers indifferent to the big picture. It also makes them thick skinned. It's difficult to insult the bureau effectively. Let me "say again, over": LOL @ corpse farm, were not fond of him either. Jar heads, how can you be so scientific with a dead body yet unscientific about society? Big hint, your smashing slot machines, breaking them into analytical bits instead of looking at how The Machine functions, probabalistically, experimentally. Nod to the agency, pachinko, ya zoe ka 2 u, 101.
(i) Y arm the bureau this way? I say again: when you understand MIM you become MIM. By now fibber u have figured out MIM isn't blowing any1 or anything up, and isn't running or selling drugs. Big hint fibbers were also not laundering casino cash. so what are you looking at us 4? Hmmm... u could be told to look at MIM to keep u fromlooking somewhere else.
(2) CIA is the more hypocritcal and violent of the two. They have a "clean" domestic image but overseas lie cheat steal bribe and kill. They see the big picture but are more easily insulted. BTW ely, your being outsourced and sidestepped by the Bu$hies(!)
DEFINITIONS: The following definitions are all from the MIM website. No more notes from the Art Ministry follow in this post. Spies might want to understand this. Sorry it's so long.
Opportunism--in the process of political struggle we find unprincipled people sometimes taking up the cause of communism. "Right opportunism" underestimates what the revolutionaries can accomplish, while "ultraleft opportunism" or "left opportunism," overestimates what can be accomplished in the given conditions. On the basis of both "right opportunism" or "left opportunism" it is possible to attack the correct road, the political path that yields the fastest way out of oppression and exploitation. Opportunism and deviationism may overlap, but deviationism may be more principled but wrong about the balance of forces and the fastest road out of oppression and exploitation.
There were two key breaks with opportunism in recent history. During World War I, Lenin decided that what he was calling "opportunism" was actually worse than "opportunism," thanks to the development of historical events. People he was willing to share parties and conferences with before became beyond the pale. They became known as chauvinist social-democrats while Lenin's followers became known as Bolsheviks. Of course, if people have been called "opportunists" for years, it becomes difficult to change terminology overnight, so sometimes we gather that "opportunists" are also enemies. Thus, there are shades of opportunism.
Mao called "ultra-leftists" those who "used socialist language and ideas to justify extreme actions without first trying to discuss and encourage these intellectuals to change their ways"
Deviation--when there is no recognizable pattern underneath errors, they are just errors, but if we start to see a pattern, the next most serious problem is a "deviation." Underneath a deviation is usually a line that may not be well-expressed but which nonetheless causes a deviation, a pattern of errors. Recently in the Philippines there was an ultraleft deviation that favored urban insurrection. The underlying idea was that the cities have a larger role in the revolution than they do there, combined with some overly simplified copying from other political struggles. The process of deciding what is the correct line and what is a deviation can only be carried out through scientific summation of practice. Deviationists may be disgraced but not necessarily considered official enemy.
Opportunism--in the process of political struggle we find unprincipled people sometimes taking up the cause of communism. "Right opportunism" underestimates what the revolutionaries can accomplish, while "ultraleft opportunism" or "left opportunism," overestimates what can be accomplished in the given conditions. On the basis of both "right opportunism" or "left opportunism" it is possible to attack the correct road, the political path that yields the fastest way out of oppression and exploitation. Opportunism and deviationism may overlap, but deviationism may be more principled but wrong about the balance of forces and the fastest road out of oppression and exploitation.
There were two key breaks with opportunism in recent history. During World War I, Lenin decided that what he was calling "opportunism" was actually worse than "opportunism," thanks to the development of historical events. People he was willing to share parties and conferences with before became beyond the pale. They became known as chauvinist social-democrats while Lenin's followers became known as Bolsheviks. Of course, if people have been called "opportunists" for years, it becomes difficult to change terminology overnight, so sometimes we gather that "opportunists" are also enemies. Thus, there are shades of opportunism.
Likewise, in China, Mao decided that he had some people on his Central Committee that were not just "right opportunists" but wannabe Khruschevs, revisionists seeking to come to power and carry out counter-revolution. Thus he explained it was time to rename "right opportunism" "revisionism," which we explain below.
Revisionism. Revisionism refers to political views that claim to be Marxist yet revise Marx's work fundamentally by failing to apply the scientific method of dialectical materialism. Revisionists commonly downplay class struggle, overplay the struggle to increase production and technical progress compared with political matters, don't believe imperialism is dangerous, advocate reformist means of change and don't uphold the dictatorship of the proletariat. MIM also calls revisionists phony communists or state capitalists if they are in power. Revisionism is bourgeois ideology, enemy politics. It relies on Trojan Horse tactics and we seek to drive it into open bourgeois opposition to Marxism.
The most opportunist revisionism can be difficult to distinguish from outright bourgeois opposition to communism and cops. The cops furthest undercover spout perfect Maoist rhetoric, but there are also cases of revisionism where there is basically no difference in line from the imperialists. Today for example, the revisionists of the so-called "Communist Party USA" favor Bush's occupation government in Iraq and oppose violence against it.
Definitions
1. Fascism, reaction--intolerant violence that can never bring about social harmony.
2. Liberalism--the philosophy of tolerance and individual liberties.
3. Right-opportunism--Liberalism practiced by those claiming to be communists, not Liberals.
4. Ultra-leftism--the philosophy of intolerant repression practiced by those claiming to be communists but which actually targets communist and progressive trends.
5. Subjectivism--celebration of one's own tastes and opinions without consideration how they were produced or are harmful to society in general.
6. Sectarianism--placing one's own organizational efforts above the good of the whole society.
7. Progressive--characterized by advance toward social harmony, peace and improved humyn capabilities, what tends to abolish class, gender and national oppression.
Right-opportunism
The most common mistake in our cultural review work is "right opportunism," which means that the Maoist party itself falls into Liberalism, just tolerating cultural works which are going to cause needless violence. "Right opportunism" could be called "let it slide" ideology. Right opportunists underestimate how much change we can bring about at any given moment. In fact, it is natural to have a bias toward reviewing positive works while ignoring the most rotten. That in itself is a kind of right-opportunism. Having the energy to review all culture is part of opposing right-opportunism and it means unleashing the proletariat to do the job--a vital question of leadership.
Often times, right-opportunists seek to compensate with ultra-leftism and vice-versa. Too lazy to struggle with something? Just ban it. So it is right-opportunism can lead to ultra-leftism. Of course, plenty of progressive accomplishments get lost in the shuffle.
Ultra-leftism, left-opportunism
When anti-communist propagandists write about us communists, they accuse us of what we would call the "ultra-left" error. They say we would lay waste to all culture leaving only a handful of approved state-sponsored works of culture. The anti-communist propagandist often has a profound desire to believe that what happened in Mao's Cultural Revolution for instance was a simple banning and smashing of everything. They twist the facts to suit their Liberal, anti-communist cause.
Of course, when ultra-leftists destroy everything, they also destroy what is progressive. The net result is the same as right-opportunism--making the life of the capitalist system or attempts at capitalist restoration in a socialist country easier. In fact, when the communists make real head-way, the Liberals inevitably team up with the ultra-leftists to destroy the good communist progress.
In real life, there are very few ultra-leftists, and mostly they exist in the world of anti- communist propaganda. On the other hand, they do exert influence within the communist party, even while they are not common amongst the masses, except as passing fads.
Whether they know it or not, ultra-leftists are often religious in inclination or believe that underlying conditions of society are quite advanced, so that everything can be destroyed and the people will still be fine. In the case of intellectuals, they may mistake their own existence for that of the people. While some individual intellectuals might be OK if almost all culture were smashed, the people will not be. Ultra-leftists overestimate how much progress can be made at a given moment.
Steering and materialism
Mao was the "helmsman," because he was steering his country between right-opportunism and ultra- leftism via his party. On the ultra-left side, some reviewers will pick apart a progressive work, because of minor flaws in the work. The fact is that right now most culture is bourgeois. Thus to have any culture, we have to accept and promote some with flaws. On the other hand, we cannot tolerate all flaws either.
MIM's strategic goal for the superstructure
MIM's strategic goal for movies, music and books is to write a scientific review of each existing work in the whole world. Ideally, the party would re-issue every existing book with an introductory chapter criticizing its flaws and extolling its virtues. This would do the most to promote "free discussion," but it requires the energy that only the proletarian class possesses. It is one task of ours to unleash the energy and scientific advancement necessary to review all existing written works at the highest scientific level possible. The better we do in unleashing proletarian energy, the easier it will be to have "free discussion."
The ultra-left view would be to ban everything immediately upon coming to state power and then start producing cultural works from scratch with a view to generating pure proletarian culture. This view ignores the progressive culture that existed prior to socialist revolution and it clears the way for the masses to demand a restoration of capitalism in the name of getting some culture back. That's not to mention that it leaves the old ideas holding back society unrefuted and festering.
When it comes to music and movies, the performance of these arts makes the idea of the introductory chapter in a book impractical. A large portion of the performing arts should be simply banned. Banning too little is right-opportunism and banning too much is ultra-leftism.
We say this fully well knowing that some of our own favorite cultural works will be banned. A lot of songs like "Brown Sugar" by the Rolling Stones are hugely popular but also hugely backward. The ability to ban songs like "Brown Sugar" that are well-liked by progressive and reactionary alike depends crucially on having existing or new culture that is equally popular. The Russians under Lenin had some success with this problem by taking popular songs and changing the lyrics and contexts. We need to change a lot of lyrics in pop music and reissue it as unchanged as possible. Likewise with some movies and theater, we need to reissue/recycle popular works. A failure to reissue popular cultural works on a speedy and approximate basis will lead to right-opportunist and ultra-left deviations and a mixed-up clamour for the total abandonment of the struggle. In reissuing cultural works, we should follow the practice of successive reiterations, which means that speed is important and holding up works that have been vastly improved but not perfected is an ultra-left error.
The actual production of such art should grant the freedom to err to the "frontline" cultural workers, which means those who do the first drafts of movies and songs to be recycled. In the "dictatorship of the proletariat," artistic workers even of the most political sort can freeze up when overly hounded. Poor "frontline" workers should be removed from their jobs and the resources given to others who would do a better job. They should not be imprisoned, because the history of art production indicates that the state can crush artistic work. It can be both a problem of talent and politics. The solution is to grant the "frontline" workers the freedom to err while giving others oversight authority and responsibility for not issuing egregious errors such as would damage inter-ethnic relations. Oversight workers should be altruistic party members willing to go to prison/re-education camp for failure. These oversight workers should also have oversight assistants who are also free from any threat of imprisonment. Hopefully with the combined efforts of good "frontline" workers and oversight assistants, no horribly misogynist, racist or chauvinist work will see the light of day under socialist auspices and no oversight party members will end up in prison or re-education camp. "Frontline" cultural workers should be judged for their speed and artistry while oversight authorities should be judged by preventing embarrassing errors. All of this depends on getting the recycling started with a correct review of the work to begin with. Such a correct review in turn depends on having an accurate understanding of the weaknesses and extent of the prevailing backward culture--an idea of just how much has to be improved and how little it would take to improve the average culture. If we have an inaccurate and incomplete understanding of the existing culture, we won't be able to evaluate cultural production by the party or under socialism. We will be blaming cultural workers for backwardness inherited from the old society, so writing those reviews of the old society now is crucial both for the struggle now and the future socialist culture. We at MIM do not seek to struggle in culture for absolute principles so much as to improve continuously the culture relative to what it was. That's what we emphasize to be the kernel of our materialist approach.
How can you say progressives like some culture and still ban it?
See the definition of subjectivism. People can scientifically recognize that they like something that is not good for society or the future. For example, millions of parents like smoking, but they know that it is no good for their children. These smoking parents have conquered subjectivism.
Likewise, we, progressives and the society as a whole like the most misogynist music there is and pay billions for it while still imagining that the society can do better. It's a matter of being objective about ourselves.
What is progressive?
What is progressive is a matter of study. There is no easy answer, but we have defined it above as that tending to abolish gender, nation and class oppression. Typically, what happens is that a backward cultural work has some aspect that hooks the people's tastes. Cigarette ads are only the most obvious aspect of culture this way. MIM will only succeed in transforming the culture when the people decide to support MIM in abolishing even cultural works that we all currently like. We can alter the tastes of those who are adults today, but even moreso children can grow up in a world without songs and movies glorifying gratuitous violence.
Who decides what is progressive?
The party does in light of knowledge of the people. In situations where the party has succeeded in bringing to the fore the opinions of the exploited (not the majority population of the imperialist countries), those views will help sort out the banning and promotion process.
The sooner we arrive at a world with no premature deaths from war, starvation, disease, homelessness etc., the sooner the practice of banning will become superfluous. MIM has its priorities straight and urges Liberals to give up their views given the current global emergency. We call the stage when banning cultural works is necessary because of the existing emergency status of socially-caused violence the "dictatorship of the proletariat."
The MIM would not be able to come to power without the support of the people, a profound support given how powerful the existing state is. There is nothing saying that the people cannot choose to put someone in power who will decide what is progressive and what is not. Likewise, as Mao tried to instruct in the Cultural Revolution, there is nothing stopping the people from overthrowing that which they do not like. Hence, by putting MIM in power, it is the people who ultimately decided what is progressive. We communists always fight for the interests of the oppressed nations, genders and classes, whether we are in the majority or not.
What is sectarian?
A sectarian approach to culture reviews might be to support only that culture generated by party- created organs, even when the party has no state power or resources of that magnitude! Underlying such an approach might be the "local control" and petty-bourgeois view that says large-scale culture production is inherently oppressive.
The imperialists today have managed to create a culture that often addresses large portions of the whole world. Thus singer Michael Jackson can be heard by people globally. We should not mistake large-scale culture production for imperialism.
For actual social harmony and peace to exist, people must be able to feel each other's presence concretely. Shared cultural experience is one aspect of unity.
In fact, it is only after a large number of people have had a common cultural experience that is progressive that small numbers of small independent producers can have progressive impact. The contrary view rejecting Stalin led to the ethnic cleansing in ex-Yugoslavia and the rest of territory ranging from Estonia to Azerbaijan.
Guidelines for MIM reviews
1. When MIM disapproves of a movie or song today, even in today's politically backward conditions, it means that that work is especially backward and will only look more so if the political situation advances enough to put MIM in power. Hence, when we disapprove of something we mean to ban it upon seizure of state power. Reviewers should keep that in mind and avoid a strictly academic or review- for-its-own-sake approach. It means keeping in mind what the masses will turn to instead if we ban a particular cultural work.
2. Reviewers should criticize all reactionary aspects of a cultural work, but they should indicate whether or not the work is progressive overall, again so the party can promote the progressive and reject the backwards.
3. If the reviewer can suggest alterations that would redeem the cultural work in question, that is best. There is as of now a terrible shortage of revolutionary culture.
4. The party has yet to approve a specific percentage of films and music that it believes should be banned. This will be a task of a future party congress. Judging from reviews done so far, I would guesstimate it appears that MIM would ban 95% of existing performing arts culture. To prepare for such a party congress decision, all people can undertake the same exercise. The next time in the video store, make a judgement what portion of movies can be banned with no one missing them or with society being improved. We invite public input. Send a message to mim3@mim.org on your opinion of what percentage of movies or songs should be banned in their current form.
5. Don't forget to include concrete details like year produced, title, length in time, movie G-PG-R-X rating etc. in your individual reviews.
*A number of Western writers recently misunderstood the situation of one opera production unit in China as representing all of China's arts. There was a heated debate in China over the number of works Jiang Qing of the "Gang of Four" turned out, with the revisionists saying it was too few. This debate drew historical attention from the outside world, but it was misunderstood, and in some cases, consciously distorted. The Western onlookers correctly understood that the critics of Jiang Qing were closer to their Liberal views and sided with the revisionists such as Deng Xiaoping. Unfortunately, many onlookers on this debate within China mistook what was being said to mean that there were only a handful of operas or plays in all of China and MIM receives letters to this effect thanks to anti- communist propaganda. Nonetheless, the stereotype of a country with only a handful of approved works is useful as one extreme possibility and point of reference in discussion. Among other things, the critics do not understand that the masses continued to produce their own works of art during the Cultural Revolution, and having only so many works authorized by the party's top opera production unit did not mean there were only that handful of works in the whole country. Instead, there was an argument over what the central state organs should put their resources into airing.
