Western Massachusetts

Prison is oppressive Organizing, not meditation, is the answer!

Vipassana's response to this injustice? Don't think about it, but concentrate on yourself, how you hurt society, and seek forgiveness. The introduction of Vipassana mediation into prisons is a thick liberal veneer over a terribly reactionary core of perpetuating this system.

The liberal veneer can confuse some. For example, the Vipassana teachers insist that some guards and prison staff also take the course. In Tihar Jail, the warden sent the most corrupt and violent guards -- under threat of termination -- to the courses. Many supposedly came back improved, less violent people.

Which gets us to the next part of the veneer, that the course helps people to concentrate and reflect on their actions. Any highly structured quasi-voluntary program of doing nothing but listening to your breathing for 10 days couldn't but help people to focus. The corrupt guards learned that their practice wasn't an effective control strategy and it was about to lose them their jobs. The course also made many prisoners begin to feel sorry for their actions against society.

It is important that people take responsibility for their actions. In a just society, crime will have to be dealt with by the people and not an occupation government. Criminals will undergo a process of self-criticism by which they transform their outlook and behavior. But this can only take place when the larger society has some moral authority.

The Amerikan government actively imports drugs into the country with its CIA, and yet it has the nerve to call small-time dealers and possessors of drugs to be criminals. For Amerika to look down its nose at prisoners is hypocrisy at best, and more accurately it could be called a carefully packaged program of changing the subject.

Crime is without doubt a problem, but the solution to crime is increasing social justice. When people live in an honorable society and can contribute to society in a socially useful way, crime will no longer exist. Focusing on yourself -- to the exclusion of society -- merely helps you fit into the dominant ideology of imperialism.

Revolutionary Anti-Imperialist League (RAIL) PO Box 712
Amherst MA 01004-0712
(413) 582-3934 mim@mim.org
http://www.prisoncensorship.info/archive/etext/ma/index.html
Radio Program: "Under Lock and Key: News and Commentary on Prisons" Fridays 5:30pm WMUA 91.1FM.

Instead of covering up the crimes of Amerika, work to end them. The Revolutionary Anti-Imperialist League is currently working to end Massachusetts' use of control units -- tiny illegal sensory deprivation cells used against politically conscious prisoners. We also work with the MIM Books For Prisoners Program which sends political books and academic texts for free to prisoners. We then struggle with the prisoners about politics as they organize their fellow prisoners. We need your help.

Work with, struggle with, finance and join the Revolutionary Anti-Imperialist League (RAIL).

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