California Prisons

I just completed my fourth reading of a pamphlet I received from you titled “Shut Down Control Units in Prison,” and I found it in step with my own thoughts on the subject.

Your interpretation on how prisoners are validated is right on point and I’m living proof of it, my validation was based on my being in possession of written materials and an image of a dragon. But the inept way in which I was validated isn’t what made me go into a state of frenzy, it was the fact that after being in the prison system for 12 years, prior to my being validated, I had no idea of what the validation process was. As one who spent a great deal of his time studying the rules and regulations of the prison system, I can only guess that the reason I overlooked the validation process is because I became too busy fighting to make a difference in other areas of the prison system, but now that I’m in the grasp of the demon I’m going to alter the hell he has pulled so many into.

After spending about a year in the SHU trying to figure out how the hell I was validated, I rolled up my sleeves and started working on how to not only get myself out of the SHU, but the multitude of others around me. But I soon found out that a large number of prisoners in the SHU feel so defeated that they have given up hope and become content with being in the SHU. Some have even become proud of being validated and don’t want to hear anything from me about what we can do to get out of the SHU.

One of the first cases that I started studying about the validation process is a case you wrote about in the pamphlet you sent to me which is the Castillo case. Now don’t get me wrong the case knocked on the door of change, but it should have kicked down the door. An example of what I’m referring to is the rule change requiring that a prisoner has to be in possession of items such as written materials or symbols on their body before they are placed in the SHU. But what the attorneys who represented Castillo didn’t ask the court to make a requirement of is that the CDCR must list the names of which written materials, tattoos and symbols are “gang related,” because as we now know the CDCR can say anything that they want is a gang related item.

I’ve written to the attorneys who represented Castillo, and one told me that they no longer work on prison cases and the other one who you wrote about in the article told me that he wanted $5000 to answer my questions about the Castillo ruling. So I filed a 602-appeal, and to make a long story short my appeal was shot down due to my filing it too late, and although that door was closed another one has opened and I’ll keep you updated on the outcome.

Another thing you wrote about prisoners being in the SHU that I agree with is how atrocious it is that a prisoner can be put in the SHU for a determinate term for committing a violent act, but a prisoner who has a tattoo, symbol or certain written materials in their possession will be put in the SHU without committing any violent action for an indeterminate term for a minimum of 6 years (this also is a stipulation that the attorneys for Castillo could have changed). In conversations that I’ve had with some Institutional Gang Investigators (IGI), they have agreed with me about the flaws in the validation process, but also said that it isn’t their responsibility to correct it. I can understand why they would say it, so myself and other prisoners must pick up the baton and run with it towards the finish line of change. It’s time for me to step down from my podium speaking about subjects you already have a full understanding of, so in closing I thank you for all that you are doing for those of us behind prison walls and I look forward to hearing from you again.

MIM(Prisons) adds: Check out our campaign against control units for more information on the fight against these torture chambers filled with people on false gang validations.

I am currently in an Administrative Segregation Unit (ASU) for nothing. I guess you can call it mistaken identity or racial profiling. A group of about eight prisoners (Blacks) got into a fist fight. The pigs rounded up 21 of us and placed us in ASU for participation in a riot. The people who were actually involved fessed up to it like men in order to get the rest of us cut loose who had nothing to do with the incident. But the pigs didn’t want to hear the truth. They placed us in ASU and two days later sent three pigs to interview us one at a time and again the parties involved tried to accept the blame and the pigs told them they were lying. Since no one wanted to tell them what the issue was that started the fight, they decided to issue us all a CDC-115 Rule Violation Report, which is punishable by a 90 day time add and up to six months in the SHU.

These pigs had all 21 of us sitting on the hard asphalt handcuffed for nine hours. After which they put us in ASU and didn’t give us a blanket to sleep under. We were handcuffed for so long without being allowed to drink water, one guy actually passed out and hit his head on the concrete. The pigs and the medical staff did nothing. Two of the brothers went on a hunger strike in protest. One guy lasted eight days. The other guy went for 19 days before they came and took him to the medical facility.

Incidents like this are prerequisites to gang validation. By participating in group disturbances you are being labeled by the administration as an “associate” of a particular group/gang. Three CDC-115 Rule Violation Reports for participation in a riot is grounds for an indeterminate SHU placement. This alone makes you a potential candidate for gang validation. Another way they get you is by the group you congregate with. In this territorial, tribal environment of the prison yard a person has no choice but to hang around the people they know and are comfortable around. You don’t have to be a gang member but the pigs are going to label you an “associate” and as such if those people from that group get into something and get locked down, the “associate” gets lockdown too. The same goes for your cellmate.

Here in CDCR you can’t choose your cell mate. You have to go where they put you or get a 115 and go to ASU. Now if they house you with a gang member then you get the label of being an “associate” of that gang. Then you have to go through a whole gauntlet of stuff to get that label removed. After they tie you in with a certain amount of “misconduct” with a group they label you as being a “member” of then you’ll end up spending the duration of your prison sentence in the SHU unless you “Debrief.” And once you debrief you’re headed to an SNY. A lot of guys get labeled just based on where you live.

To avoid this process a lot of guys are opting to go to a SNY straight off the fish bus, only to find the same stuff going on on the SNY. Once you go SNY, for whatever reason, you can never go back to GP. All the stuff going on at High Desert is nothing but a divide and conquer strategy. Some of those guys are going to break rank and tell pigs whatever they want to hear, even if it’s a lie, to get out of that situation. You see these pigs are playing chess and they’re aggressively attacking the pawns in order to get the king. And if they have to lock us all up until all they have is whole prisons full of snitches, then that’s what they’re going to do.

We as prisoners in this imperialist u.s. prison system need to stop pointing fingers. There’s nothing wrong with constructive criticism. If the criticism is not aimed at uplifting the person or people being criticized then it does no good. Stop calling out names and singling out groups. Instead reach one teach one. Don’t be a commentator, be an inspirator and a motivator. The revolution will not happen overnight. We’re up against a powerful enemy. It took Blacks four hundred years to break the chains of slavery only to become slaves to capitalism. Now we have to figure out a way to break these chains. It’s going to take a group effort. You push me, I’ll pull you. Push, Pull, Strive! And together we’ll rise!

Determining who to write to regarding a specific issue is a tactical question. One day it may be most important to write to the Director of Corrections, the other it may be the Office of the Inspector General. We make tactical decisions based on our conditions at the time. In this circumstance, participants in the campaign to end the Z-Unit Zoo were bringing this issue to many government bodies, including the Director of Corrections and the Inspector General.

In this response from the office of the Division of Adult Institutions, A. Redding advises the participant to exhaust the appeals process. Clearly in the petition, it says that many grievances have been filed and none have been answered. This response is a good example of how inhumane conditions and abuse can hide behind the bureaucracy of the state under capitalism.

The above letter is a response from a Corrections Counselor II Specialist (CCII) of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) to a prisoner in California who submitted to h the grievance for the proper handling of grievances. Even though a CCII is in a position to influence whether grievances are handled in a legal or illegal manner, at least within h institution, in this letter A. Redding advises the prisoner to file a lawsuit or contact the Inspector General on the matter.

In this response to a grievance petition from California sent to the Department of Justice (DOJ), they minimize the widespread scale of corruption of the grievance system in the California state prison system. Instead they are asking for facts and dates related to single incidents or perpetrators.

In “Bad Apples” in the Pig Pen we explained why a focus on targeting individual pigs is incorrect in most cases in our struggle because the problems we address are societal. Although societal problems manifest in individual pigs, focusing all of our energy trying to get one or two pigs fired from our facility doesn’t significantly impact society as a whole.

One may argue that the DOJ just needs a place to begin their investigation. However, the petition makes it clear that this problem is widespread throughout the system. Realistically they could interview prisoners at random for details and receive enough information to begin an investigation. Their narrow and sterile approach to “justice” is just a cover for their interests in maintaining the status quo.

The pigs at CCI Tehachapi SHU are monitoring revolutionary correspondence and materials coming through the mail; not censoring but delaying them by as much as three to four weeks. This specific instance was a personal experience, but it can be concluded that if one individual’s revolutionary activity is being monitored, then all revolutionaries may be monitored.

Due to a medical condition, I must be taken out of my cell and to medical for a weekly injection which I use as an opportunity to butter up loose-mouth pigs and gather intelligence, catching a general idea of the internal condition of the pigs’ camp. Never at any time have I mentioned or alluded to my revolutionary standpoint or activities in any way.

While going to medical this past week a pig made a very revealing statement inadvertently, immediately tipping me off that my mail was being monitored, specifically what I’d mailed to MIM(Prisons) the previous week. The pig’s statement could not have been reaching because it contained the word “revolution” and related content of a letter to MIM(Prisons).

Let this be a warning to revolutionary activists and comrades across the U.$. injustice system, and California concentration camps in particular, that even if there is no censorship at your facility, if you participate in any serious revolutionary activities, then it’s sure to be monitored.

Practical steps may be taken to combat this issue, such as working with and notifying MIM(Prisons) of censorship issues while going through the grievance and court system, if able to do so. Keeping eyes and ears open to detect if you are being monitored is not difficult to do.

If it feels like you are being watched, then you are. Remember, paranoia can be the better part of prudence in the control unit.

Sergeant S. S. Crandell, Yega, S. Motto, S. Byers, and Fish victimized me on 15 October. They stole my television and lied, saying it had wires sticking out.

Guard Yega handcuffed me and took me to the program office over a 602 [grievance] for indigent envelopes I never received. When I returned to the cell, all my legal materials were in a large pile on the floor, covered with shampoo, coffee, hair styling gel and baby powder. My television was gone. Officer S. Motto threatened to kick my ass if I 602ed it.

Can you please help? My aunt has cancer, and my family is sick living on a fixed income.

The November 2 elections promise some shuffling of the imperialist representatives in government, but as usual with elections where the choices are limited to different flavors of imperialist leaders, there will be no real change. One ballot initiative that did catch our attention is Proposition 19 in California which would legalize and regulate marijuana.

In an attempt to reduce support for Prop 19, on 30 September 2010 California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a law that changes the punishment for possession of less than an ounce of pot to just a fine. This reduces the potential impact of Prop 19 and should cut down on the number of people in prison for marijuana possession. But even arrests and convictions without a prison sentence have negative repercussions, so Prop 19 goes farther in limiting the reach of the state in terms of possession laws.

MIM(Prisons) supports any laws that will cut back on the number of people locked up in prison or otherwise controlled by the imperialist state. We know that drug laws (like other laws) are disproportionately prosecuted against oppressed nations within U.$. borders, resulting in huge numbers of Blacks and Latinos behind bars. For this reason we would support legalizing all drugs to take power away from the imperialist government and its criminal injustice system.

In 2009, just over half of the drug arrests were for marijuana (848,408 out of 1,663,583).(1) Marijuana arrests are growing as a proportion of total drug arrests in the U.$., up to 52.6% in 2009 from 39.9% in 1995. This is driven by arrests for simple possession, the percentage of arrests for marijuana trafficking has not changed much over time.(2)

Adding to these statistics on marijuana arrests is compelling information on the disproportionate use of marijuana laws against Black men in California. The Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice reports:

“African Americans, just 6% of the state’s population…comprise a staggering 45% of the 1,600 Californians imprisoned for marijuana, including more than half of those locked up for marijuana felonies. Blacks are nearly 4 times more likely to be arrested for marijuana than other races, a racial gap only slightly wider than for other crimes. But after African Americans enter California’s ‘Black marijuana system,’ disparities multiply more than for any other offense. Seven in 10 Black marijuana arrestees are charged with felonies, compared to one-fifth for other races. Blacks convicted of marijuana felonies are 3 times more likely to be sent to prison than Nonblack marijuana felons. The upshot of these accumulating discriminations is that Blacks wind up being imprisoned for marijuana at 8 times the rate of Hispanics and 18 times the rate of Whites. At older ages, the Black-Nonblack marijuana imprisonment gap soars to nearly 4,000%… No other offense (including violent, property, and other crimes) and no other drug (including heroin, methamphetamine, and crack) even remotely displays the huge racial discrepancies in imprisonment for marijuana.”(3)

The new law would not completely eliminate marijuana arrests and prosecutions, primarily because it restricts the legal age to 21 and only allows possession of small quantities, but they would be greatly reduced. In addition, the federal government has promised to challenge the constitutionality of Prop 19 if it passes, and to enforce the federal laws in California regardless. Of course we can’t look at these laws in a vacuum, the criminal injustice system will not cut back on the police force or shrink the prisons simply because one law changes. Cops will just find other reasons to arrest people, and those people will continue to be disproportionately Black and Latino.

Even worse, cities like Oakland will likely be using the new tax revenues to restore its recently cut back police force. The city stands to be one of the biggest beneficiaries if the law passes, as it is home to Oaksterdam University, which will be licensing large growing and distribution centers under the new law. The financial interests behind Oaksterdam University bankrolled the introduction of Prop 19 to the November ballot. Los Angeles campus chancellor Jeff Jones pointed out that support has come primarily from the jobs and tax revenue angle. He says that focusing on imprisonment rates gets little support from Californians.

While the imperialists run the global drug trade, here the state is partnering with corporate interests to take over the local industry, which has been the domain of the lumpen class. Following the national liberation movements of the sixties many in the ghetto who didn’t see the Amerikan dream through integration were able to find an income through the drug economy. By the 1970s, Italians, Jews and others who dominated black markets, in particular drugs, had long been integrated into white Amerika. Whites left the inner cities for the suburbs where they could become richer more easily by joining a growing financial sector, allowing for Black and Latino gangs to take over profitable street crime in their own areas. Organized crime, led by the CIA, backed the most individualistic and destructive emerging groups, while repressing Black and Brown power movements and flooding these neighborhoods with cocaine.(4)

Faced with economic crisis today, white Amerika wants these jobs back. And the state is leading the charge, hoping to reach a new tax source to close huge shortfalls in paying their bureaucrat employees - especially their pigs, who account for 85% of city spending in Oakland (police & fire combined).(5) But whites aren’t forming a new mafia (at least not exactly). Instead they formed a new university to train and certify workers in the industry and they have joined labor unions to ensure wages of $25.75 an hour with pensions, paid vacations and health insurance.(6) In contrast, reports from the 1990s showed that most in the drug game in the inner cities made around minimum wage and worked long hours (needless to say with no benefits).(7) So the state hopes to shrink the workforce in drug sales and production, pay a few trained workers a nice sum, and increase their share of profits from the sale of marijuana to pay cops and other state employees. In the process, the economic crisis will be passed along to the lumpen who will become ever more desperate to make ends meet. This will lead to more violence and problems, and make the need for self-determination more dire in oppressed nation communities that lack legal job markets.

While MIM(Prisons) supports the passage of laws that result in fewer people in prison, we are under no illusions that even full legalization of drugs in Amerika will solve the drug problems here. As we have seen with alcohol, legalization of a drug does not make for safe use. Amerikan culture is alienating and leads to rampant legal and illegal drug abuse. According to a World Health Organization survey of 17 countries across the globe, the U.$ leads the world in users of both legal and illegal drugs. Drug use is correlated with wealth of a country with the richer countries having a higher percentage of drug users.(8)

It will take a revolution to create a culture that allows people to feel valuable, safe and empowered and not in need of the easy escape that can be found in drugs. After the revolution in China, the Maoist-led country basically eliminated drug addiction through community-based campaigns. Drug addiction, particularly to opium, was a widespread problem imported by the British. But after the revolution there was a strong focus on helping drug addicts get clean, and on giving everyone useful work and education as well as health care. This campaign, combined with a strategy of wiping out opium growing and distribution in favor of much needed food crops, virtually eliminated the drug problems in China by the early 1950s. Only with a government that serves the people rather than working to enrich its imperialist masters will we be able to eliminate drug abuse and the criminal injustice system. As we work towards such a system we will support laws that result in fewer people in prison, but we know the impact of these laws will be minimal at best.

Dear MIM(Prisons),

I would like to say something about the article by the drop out skinhead who became an SNY. It is good that this person is involving himself in MIM because MIM can remedy some line questions concerning progress. This is i believe the underlying issue with the snitch question, and many other strategies.

Here’s a valuable quote,

“Our public relations policy is based on anonymity, which is to say, attraction rather than promotion; we need to always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, internet, radio etc. Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our traditions, ever reminding us to place principles before personalities. Understanding these traditions comes slowly over time. We pick up information as we talk to members and visit various groups. By following these guidelines in our dealings with others, and society at large, we avoid problems. We still have to face difficulties as they arise; communication problems, differences of opinion, internal controversies, and troubles with individuals and groups outside the fellowship. However we apply these principles, we avoid some pitfalls. Many of our problems are like those that our predecessors had to face. Their hard won experiences gave birth to these traditions, and our own experience has shown that these principles are just as valid today as they were when these traditions were formulated. Our traditions protect us from the internal and external forces that could destroy us.”

This is my objection to going SNY. Only because these three letters mean, “you have told the police information”. You have strengthened the hand of the police by information. You have dialed 911 and gave 411. For me, that’s the foul. Now of course the gangs that these people walked away from have a different objection than this one. But it is very common for gangs to split, or have coups from within, or be taken over by other gangs… examples abound! John Gotti killed his own boss to become the boss, Lucky Luciano made peace treaties with the NY mafias and founded ‘Murder Inc’ - his own army.

Such putchism and naked self interest is not at all a new feature of gang activity and reality. Neither is martyrdom an estranged element of nazism or fascism. Both Mussolini and Hitler were killed in 1945. The drop out skinhead seems to have had a “disillusionment” about his experience with other skinheads. Can it be possible, that a group that espouses an ideology of national socialism, that claims to be not a gang but a “social movement”, can surprise its own members with hidden tenants and protocols? This person talks as if he was conscripted or enslaved by his own group and liberated by SNY.

A motif that puts principle above inter-personalism and sentiment that does not connect to the concepts above about anonymity. Rather avoiding line issue progress, but material canteen, coffee pack type motivations. Disconnected from the imperatives of duty, social progress and revolution! Fascism claimed to be and was revolutionary! Marx explained that the bourgeois has historically played quite a revolutionary role in relation to the establishments that come before it. But also explained how these bourgeois revolutions did not benefit or literate the 3rd estate, the proletariat or the international proletariat. The 4th of July being such a type of bourgeois revolution… while they held others as slave.

SNY (Sensitive Needs Yard) or PC (Protective Custody) is now very popular in prison. I think that many prisons have a majority of PC prisoners over mainline. Both of these concepts come from the cops! and many prisoners have let these concepts creep into their consciousness and thinking. As MIM theory 4 said, “many of these people use FBI reasoning in their politics. You hear the cops foster little comments. For example, The C/O’s start calling our property shit.”Inventory this shit” , “get your shit”, “here’s your shit”, and like monkeys, inmates picked it up.”I’m waiting to get my shit” Stop thinking and talking like the pigs! The C/O’s started calling a cell a house. ” go back to your house”, “is this your house?” inmate monkeys,” in my house”…it’s not a house! it’s a coffin! “Gassing” is another coin they want to circulate. A little system of mnemonics that they propagate, which we swallow up!!! In effect letting pigs create culture for us.

A prevalent concept i hear those going to SNY is “I want to back away from the politics”… Like Cuban refugees who ask for political asylum, but come to Miami and work with the CIA agents to overturn a political movement. Like the bay of pigs. That is not “Apolitical” like they say. Who cares what people say? Science is not about opinion and subjective narratives, but observation, strict non-fiction. The drop out skinhead relates that SNY’s are more violent than mainline now, and i agree! Statistically SNY is one of the most violent of yards now. It wasn’t always like that, and we can identify factor’s as to how this came about. The DOC lowered its standard for letting people go to SNY. Before you had to snitch, nowadays all you have to do is ask!! This is because the DOC created a legal category of protected prisoners for its own administrative convenience, but when challenged in court became more of a burden than anything else. Opening up lawsuits and legal dilemmas… They just opened the doors.

I want to caution righteous activists who hate snitch logic, to not think of all PCs as weak cowards, some are, but know some PCs are very dangerous! They do exercise routines also, and many pack heat religiously as we do… Sammy “the rat” Grivano, was not a wimpy sissy at all! but a determined fierce weasel, who killed more than anyone he snitched on. Just like cops are not all fat pigs, some are committed murderers. Like Johannes Mehserle, straight executioner! You have to be like Karl Marx, who acknowledged the impressive violence of the bourgeoisie, but qualified this violence with a philosophical analysis of who it served, and what it meant for the workers of all nations, never denying the inextricable link between thought and action - Theory and Practice. Defining violence by its direction and and constitution.

MIM will help all of its students develop a deliberate super-structure, not insulate concepts like the pigs! The pigs use slight of hand mind control, MIM has criticism and demonstration instead of this. SNY’s need to look hard at their own political line and ask whether or not they push revolution, and what kind of revolution, and not act like rag dolls caught in the currents of a river they chose to jump into. That’s real politics not identity politics.

– a California Prisoner

D12 for MIM(prisons) responds:This comrade’s understanding concerning the need to stay away from identity politics is good. It will guard the movement, and prevent revisionism. This comrades reason for seeing the SNY as only those who give 411 go to the SNY is not accurate. The CDC has long held the policy to segregate prisoners from the general population who have criminal records which would warrant their assault on the general population, or due to the identity of the prisoner, i.e pigs, k9s, and so forth. Due to the gang problem the CDC has had to change its policy to allow former gang members who would be assaulted, or killed if they remained on the general population, as well as prisoners who enter the prison and face a choice of being forced into a prison gang or to follow the underground rules set up by the prisoners.

The comrade states certain examples of cooperation between those engaged in the unlawful market and the state, lets not forget that Lucky Luciano aided the U.$. against fascist Italy. The main point that needs to be remembered is that while these lumpen organizations have the greatest potential for revolution in a parasitic imperialist country. They are still lumpen, and have not shed their lumpen skin to stand with the Third World proletariat as communists. The very nature of the lumpen is predatory, not to the degree of the big imperialists, but they have a lot of work to do. Many lumpen groups have revolutionary concepts as their teachings, yet you still see them killing each other or distributing drugs in to our neighborhood, robbing and stealing. It is not surprising that many people join these lumpen organizations and are let down, causing them to look for a way out.

History has shown that the revolutionary rhetoric espoused by the LOs where brought in by those in the 60’s and 70’s who were involved in the struggle for liberation. What we see is revolutionary nationalism within the oppressed nations that are engaged in capital enterprise. We have to recognize that it is the will of the state to play prisoner against prisoner; to disrupt the educating and organizing of prisoners for revolution. It’s the state that is ready to welcome prisoners and offer them a “safe” place to do their time when the prisoner breaks a rule that would warrant his assault or death from a lumpen organization. Or to welcome those who no longer see any logic in participating in these LOs due to political difference even when they tried to stay and convince the others within their org. It is not MIM(Prisons) policy that a prisoner should risk his safety when the prisoner doesn’t have to. You’re more valuable alive, on the streets, and if in prison then you should be able to move around and do political work. Engaging in chauvinism and ultra-left behavior sets the movement back. While there is a point when one should not cooperate with the state, we will not encourage a persyn to stay in the SHU serving an indeterminate term, when that persyn is a communist revolutionary and the tide is on his or her shoulders. What matters is what one does as a communist revolutionary. The line that one has will prove them to be for or against the people. A friend or our enemy.

I want to send a fraternal embrace to everyone. I am writing from the Pelican Bay Security Housing Unit (SHU). I write this letter in response to some stepped up repression that seems to have increased here starting last year in 2009. It is important to understand when these restrictions occur so as to see more broadly if such occurrences are random or a wider campaign. I have within the last year had “returned to sender” eight pieces of mail from MIM(Prisons). I was never notified from the prison, and I had no idea of these returns or rejections until MIM(Prisons) notified me of these refusals. I reach out to highlight this situation, this tragedy that is occurring to me so that these lessons may be used by a receptive ear, worked with in some way, and possibly overcome in the future.

Censorship exists, not censorship of some technological weapons or some type of recipe for a plague of sorts but censorship of ideas, banning of political theory that is not compliant with the state norm. I have always taken on legal battles, jailhouse lawyer activities, anything to right a wrong and resist an injustice system that was built on the land of my ancestors. For this prison resistance I am rewarded by the state with an aggressive push to keep excellent political theory from reaching me, from comrades being able to send a letter of encouragement or perhaps a book on political science.

I was receiving literature and Maoist books from MIM for several years while on the “mainline” general population and I delved into those works so many times that even though I am currently subjected to censorship of political correspondence from MIM(Prisons) I have a strong understanding of the society we live in and the need for political power. It is situations like what I am currently undergoing that really drive home the need to liberate oppressed nations. Here in the SHU, Raza cannot even learn or read about their ancient pre-Columbian languages as the state says this is gang related. Now political science, the ability to theorize and have ideas of a society outside of what currently exists, is denied us.

Occupation is done on many levels all over the world. In some countries occupation may be more subtle but if you look close enough the similarities are there. When the Japanese occupied Korea after the war the Korean language was banned; the Korean people could only speak Japanese. All Korean history and political literature outside Japanese imperialism was censored. We must learn from history; not just our specific history of our particular country of origin. A study of all histories will show that what is occurring here has occurred many times.

The situation in California prisons in particular should be noted and learned from; the censorship we are experiencing has been employed in years past. This targeting of political organizations has been seen and felt on many levels, but today’s censorship comes at historic times. It is because contemporary ideas and revolutionary theory in general and Marxism-Leninism-Maoism in particular is essential for future struggles and because of the current “awakening” of oppressed nations people in prisons that CDCR has begun a program of censorship particularly in its control units, i.e. SHUs where it is no coincidence that the most politically advanced are held captive. Getting the independent press, such as ULK, in the hands of the imprisoned masses is of extreme importance.

The people are fighting to educate the political prisoners, uplift the consciousness of prisoners, and bring politics to the prison houses nationwide, and build the prison base for revolution. At the same time the ruling class sees the 2+ million potentially revolutionary prisoners behind bars and knows that every prisoner who takes up the struggle for a better society is another addition to resist their program. They understand that prisoners in general are becoming radicalized yet they know they can’t shut down all so called “freedom of the press,” so they spend their time and resources on what they feel are their prime target group or persons of influence which are what they label the people held in control units. By doing so they are basically isolating these comrades from correspondence, political literature or study material of any sort, even of basic contact with comrades on the outside.

This is being done to dull or attempt to dull the revolutionary edge in the prison population, starting in SHUs and expecting this dullness to permeate the rest of the population. The need for people who still have the ability to receive any papers, newsletters or literature from MIM(Prisons) to do so is of utmost importance, with vigor and hunger as if you will never get the chance again because once in a SHU you will be censored. The need to support independent press like ULK is on top of the priority list and should be done financially or any other way. It is times like now that I appreciate a crisp uncut publication like ULK; when only watered-down periodicals are allowed to reach me I see how precious ULK is.

I am embarking on another legal battle for the censorship here in Pelican Bay and i encourage others to do the same. United we will overcome this battle.