Federal Prisons

5 January 2018 – I am writing to inform our allies that D Yard here at Salinas Valley State Prison has been on lock down since 18 December 2017. The reason claimed is that “somebody stole a piece of metal.” All cells have been searched and all prisoners signed papers stating that they have no knowledge of any stolen metal. Yet we still remain on lockdown even after the cops found no weapons or metal in cells or on prisoners.

I am writing to you in regards to the hunger strikes occurring as this is being typed by my good friends on the Powledge Unit in Palestine, Texas.

I have heard on the local radio station that a hunger strike is happening on the Allred Unit. The count is at 45 inmates concerning the conditions of confinement, this has been ongoing in Texas because I have personally litigated many claims about unsanitary conditions of confinement.

On another note, the K-2 epidemic is still mounting here on Powledge, but administration refuses to address the problem. The K-2 is coming in thru the industry here, by employees and controlled by the gang members here. This is supposed to be a G.R.A.D. unit. Gang renunciation unit.

But it appears that it is a gang re-organizing unit. They reorganize once they get free of smart gang intelligence officer and get this dumb one here.

This unit is a geriatric unit for old men and infirmed men, but they continue to fill it with young gang members that want to get high or drunk off hooch made with hand sanitizer. A deadly combination that has claimed four inmates. Our society has no more dumb people than we do.

Offenders are forced to endure the smoke despite their breathing problems and sends the offender to the medical with severe problems, in which medical blames it on some other activiating mechanism like the dust or debris.

One inmate died while smoking K-2 and the inmates brought him back to life before the guards could be alerted. He made parole and has not been seen since.

Your analysis has been enlightening and brought us up to date on the epidemic of K-2. Thank you for your service to this major problem in prison and outside. I look forward to hearing from you soon.

I am currently at Hays State Prison in Trion, GA. I for the record am white, am a Muslim by religion, and tired of seeing all these white trash pigz and klansmen that work here on this kkkompound treat all the inmates like modern day slaves.

There is this level style program called Tier II in GA (see Sop 209.08 Tier II/Administrative Segregation) and here at Hays it is beyond the norm of oppression. Unit managers, supervisors, and officers alike threaten and try to antagonize any prisoner they see as weak. There is an area known to all as simply “behind the glass” its supposed to be level 6 security and the wardens have at times said that level 6 status only will last 30 days, but people are kept in there up to 90 days, for no reason at all. The warden has personally told people, myself included, that “you get no legal library behind the glass.”

The food service here is supervised by ARAMARK, a major imperialist conglomerate in the food service industry, and per the above SOP all Tier II inmates are to receive the same quality and quantity of food as GP. However we don’t receive coffee at breakfast all other state run institutions in the GDC do, our portions are often inadequate and no way possible add up to 2000 calories per day, we only receive lunch Monday-Thursday except on state/federal holidays, meaning on Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays and any and all holidays we only eat twice, the trays arrive cold more often than not.

When officers are confronted with issues they, in some cases, lie and simply move on. Today, 25 December 2017 I watched a nurse refuse a man his mental health medication, I am unsure of this nurse’s name, simply because he wouldn’t go to the back of his cell even though he is no “behind the glass.” When he asked the C.O. working pill pass why he had to step back the C.O. said “I don’t trust you.” When the inmate refused to move the nurse said “you have three seconds then you’ve refused your meds,” and ultimately she refused his medication.

There are many other very cruel things I’ve heard about but until I see the actual use of “the involuntary hunger strike” or an inmate beat to death by staff, I cannot speak on them.

I ask my fellow inmates/convicts no matter your race, religion, gang affiliation, or sexual preference to stand as one at Hays State Prison without using any unwarranted violence so that us on lockdown get what we need. Please y’all come together and fight oppression and racism with me cause I cannot do it alone.

To all my Muslim brothers As-Salam Alaikum and to the Christians God Bless and to the ones I’ve left out be safe and hold your heads up.

I’m writing to you from a prison cell deep in the bowels of a Texas prison. Recently I reread your article “Texas Comrades Need to Step up” in the Sept/Oct 2016 issue of Under Lock & Key. It was well written and a much needed call to arms! One question I have for you though is “Have you ever been to Texas, and if so, have you been incarcerated here?” I ask this because I’ve traveled a lot and have found that most people who’ve never been here have a hard time understanding the typical Texan, much less the uneducated incarcerated Texan.

To understand Texas you first have to accept that we are programmed from birth to believe that communism is not only a bad thing, but one of the very worst. Communists aren’t just the enemy, they are the boogeyman sent forth from the deepest, darkest depths of hell, by satan himself, to steal babies and rape our cows! There is no place on earth where the capitalists have been more successful at spreading their agenda than in Texas. The reason that most inmates in Texas are not doing those things you address in your article is because they do not believe in our cause. At heart they, most of them, are capitalists who only believe in “me”, not “we”. This, comrade, is the gist of all our problems.

Most of the people who receive Under Lock & Key only support your mission because it furthers their own self-interest of getting out of prison, or making their time easier. When someone has been taught to “not understand” their own best interests, how can one be expected to grasp what’s right for the whole, much less fight for it? What to do about it? I’m still working on that one and will get back to you on it!

The main reason for this letter is to find out whether or not you have any specific caselaw that would help me with my 1983 that I’m in the process of drafting. First, I’d like to say that I completely understand that you must receive hundreds of letters each month from POWs requesting help. While I do not claim to be any more important than any of those individuals, I do believe that my situation is unique in its scope. I say this because I currently have the “standing” to challenge all of the criminal justice issues that your org. has taken a stand against, as well as quite a few other issues. But most importantly, is the vast amounts of evidence that I have compiled to support my claims.

A couple areas in which I’m seeking caselaw for are:
1. The grievance system and denial of due process
2. The $100 medical copay. TDCJ charged me for a medical visit that clearly should have been exempt and has never given me the money back.
3. Good Time. Feds ruled that a state can’t arbitrarily take good time so Texas created legislation that negates the good times worth.
4. Price gouging and profiteering. Texas uses free labor to manufacture products that it in turn sells on commissary for inflated prices that fare exceed the prices of similar products sold at freeworld retail stores.

There are a few more issues that I plan to file on but I’m sure you get the point. The help I seek is minor in comparison to the amount of good that my suit will generate for all those incarcerated in this country. Mostly I need help finding case law. Because they striped our law libraries of the Supreme Court Digest and I’m having a hard time finding what I need. Can you help with this? The topics listed above are my main concern. I would be grateful for any info or ideas you can provide. With that, I will end this here by saying “thank you!” for your time, consideration and the call to arms for Teas inmates. Some of us do truly think correctly. But only after having re-programed our own brains!

It’s more war against each other but if it comes down to it some camps will ride on those pigz because everyone ain’t for it but the trick is we will not stop spending our money with these clowns. If we stop spending on shit they create then we may get the attention we stand for.

Me for example, on November 16, 2017 on breakfast trays there were maggots in the potatoes so I refused all my trays but I get a diet sack 3x7, which means 3 meals 7 times a week. Okay I must admit I did get my diet sack on November 18 but I heard an office say oh you refuse trays but don’t refuse packets? So I thought maybe I need to refuse them as well. So I did. I only went to medical once, that was November 20. Said I was normal upon Nov 20 til Nov 30 I went without nothing. So upon December 1 I never spoke with noone and noone came to speak with me but this fake ass mental health counselor. I told her I haven’t eaten she then said that’s my choice. It’s nothing she can do for me.

So on December 1, 2017 I went to the stone because I then notice they will not help me. I didn’t intend for a hunger strike but I feel I had to act some way. Deputy Warden took pictures of the whole thing still bringing the same trays. These people have brothas living in strip cells who haven’t did shit to be in there. Strip cell you can’t flush your own toilet imagine you make the officer mad? Man these people done put these young dudes on strip cell for yelling out the door only to get attention of the warden to speak with him but they was put in a shower for numerous of hours like 10-6pm and then taken to a room and strip with no clothing no paper gown no socks, crazy shit, but this is how we want to live. Free every mentally power brotha and sista who fight for their cause. I stand and fall for you and with you.

Presently I’m working on two legal issues. One concerns the fact that Texas yards good time for work and good behavior which is as useful as monopoly money. It plays no role in one’s release. My second concern is once a prisoner is released from prison he is never viewed as someone who has payed the price for his conviction. In Texas no one is willing to give one with an X on their back a job or housing that will pass inspection. Should his family be receiving any government housing he is not allowed to spend even one night there. He is also expected to repay the state for all of the food stamps that they received while he was in prison. Bottom line the state is taking the man’s family away from him. Here on this unit we are only given ten hours a week in a room with outdated legal books. We are not given the use of a coping machine.

In an article in ULK 58 from United Struggle from Within it talks about prison abuse and improper medical treatment. I’m a victim myself. Last year when I was on Telford Unit in New Boston, Texas I was found poisoned and did not receive proper medical treatment. It was during Ramadan 2016. I was complaining to the pigs about the Muslims on Telford Unit not getting treated right for Ramadan, because back in segregation they were making Muslims accept they tray for dinner which was around 4:30pm. Knowing we couldn’t eat after sunset so the food would be cold by then. I told a pig we should go into a race war between the Black and whites and may the best many win, so I was poisoned. I filed a grievance on staff and medical and did not get anything done because of injustice. I also like to thank Nevada for starting the September 9 movement in 2012.

I am very grateful to be receiving “Under Lock & Key.” I’ve just finished reading the Nov./Dec. 2017, No. 59. I agree with 90% of what I read. I noticed that Florida isn’t listed in the data for any drugs.

We here are suffering the same oppression as every other state. We have another one they call molly. I myself am not using drugs. I sit back and watch how it affects the men around me. I attempt to talk to the men and some of them get in their feelings. It’s a lost cause.

Majority of the men who use it is to escape the reality of their situation. Life is not easy at all on this side of the gates. In Florida we are offered nothing.

We do not have jobs. We have no opportunities. They offer us nothing. Especially if you are serving over ten years. We are sent to institution hours away from our families. If we attempt to voice our opinions or try to reach out to express ourselves about the oppression we face daily, by doing so we are putting our lives in danger.

A free world can’t begin to imagine the pain we suffer in here. The loneliness of these prison cells. I have currently served 12.5 years behind these prison walls and gates. I have a 35 year sentence to serve.

I did something so stupid as a kid. Now here I am today as a man suffering for the actions of an immature kid. I’m 30 years old now. I cry out for help, pleading, and begging for one more chance only to be unheard.

I sit in this dorm all day all night praying that those I love are ok. Wishing I was there to hold them, love them, etc. My pain and suffering is unimaginable. Florida inmates do not have it easy at all. The reality is men are being released the same way they come in or worse. We are offered nothing.

My visions are so big. My desires to see D.O.C. change for the better is so great. I know I can’t change everybody, but I don’t want to go a day without at least trying. Men in here need education. They need opportunity.

Society looks down upon us and could care less about us but the reality is these men will be coming home. A few from every prison every day. We’re locked in dorms all day and the only time we get to go outside is when we go out for chow time. We’re lucky to get recreation 2 or 3 times a week for an hour at a time.

Movie Review:
National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation
1989

National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation depicts the struggles (if they can be called that) of Clark Griswold. It is Clark’s quest to have the perfect Christmas for eir family: spouse Ellen and children Audrey and Rusty. Most of the first act of the film is dedicated to comedically exaggerated petty-bourgeois scenarios in this vein: getting the right tree, putting up the Christmas lights, shopping for gifts, and trying to keep the peace among family members (much extended family arrives in the form of both sets of grandparents, Ellen’s cigar-smoking uncle Lewis and senile aunt Bethany, and Clark’s redneck cousin Eddie, accompanied by eir spouse, children and dog). Christmas books and movies have long been vessels for anti-capitalist messages, even if they are tainted by idealism and economism: from Ebenezer Scrooge being frightened into giving concessions to the proletariat in A Christmas Carol(1), to the anti-imperialist solidarity of Whoville in How the Grinch Stole Christmas(2), to the anti-militarism parable of A Christmas Story(3). And a superficial “reading” of Christmas Vacation suggests that it may not only follow the same paradigm but even exceed these works and act as an inspiration for communist revolution (spoiler alert: the climax of the movie involves the forceful kidnapping of a member of the bourgeoisie). However, a deeper analysis reveals that, despite occasional flashes of progressiveness and a candid depiction of the labor aristocracy, the film does not provide useful guidance for revolution.

Throughout the movie, some potshots are taken at the bourgeoisie, but nothing too substantial. Clark’s next-door yuppie neighbors are depicted as pretentious snobs, while eir boss is gruff and impersonal. But these attacks on the bourgeoisie are based on persynal mannerisms, not economic grounds. Clark is clearly a privileged member of the labor aristocracy. Ellen doesn’t seem to work, and Clark makes enough to afford a couple of cars and a nice house, which ey bedecks with an over-the-top lighting display. Clark does not even seem to work hard to enjoy these things. In the whole movie, ey is shown at work in only three brief scenes. And in none of those scenes is ey actually engaged in labor. In the first, ey is chatting at the watercooler. In the second, ey drops off a gift and unsuccessfully attempts to ingratiate emself with eir boss. In the third, ey is sitting in eir office, looking over some plans for a persynal swimming pool. So Clark does not appear to work that hard, but ey does mention several innovations ey has made for eir company, which seems to be a manufacturer of chemical food additives although no manufacturing is ever shown onscreen.

Could Clark’s mental labor as a chemist still be exploited by the bourgeoisie proper? The answer appears to be no: Clark is planning to pay for eir swimming pool with eir end-of-year bonus. Said bonus represents compensation for the value ey has produced in excess of eir salary and thus precludes em from being truly proletarian. Indeed, eir entire compensation is likely funded by the manufacture of chemicals ey has designed, presumably by Third World workers. Thus, Clark occupies the classic position of a labor aristocrat: someone who may be slightly exploited by the bourgeoisie, but who ultimately receives compensation in excess of the value of eir labor, as a beneficiary of imperialist superexploitation of the Third World proletariat.

As the film progresses, the minor and mainly apolitical subplots fade to the periphery (after some technical difficulties, Clark’s light show wows the family and is never mentioned again), and a political thread assumes prominence. As it turns out, Clark is really counting on eir Christmas bonus. In order to expedite the construction of eir pool, Clark has put down a deposit and written a check that eir bank account can’t cover. Clark is confident that eir performance will earn em a sizable bonus, but that confidence begins to wane as the days go by without word from the company. Finally, a messenger arrives on Christmas Eve with an envelope. Before opening it, Clark, apparently on the knife edge between luxury and financial ruin, expresses both eir anxiety regarding eir solvency and eir hope that the check will be large enough to not only cover the cost of the pool but also airfare to fly over all the extended family present (ten people!) to enjoy it when it is built. To much fanfare, Clark opens the envelope and finds that, to eir dismay, it only contains a subscription to the Jelly-of-the-Month club, a gift of nugatory value. Enraged, Clark launches into a tirade denouncing eir boss’s perfidy and angrily expresses eir desire to see eir boss tied up. Taking Clark’s words literally, Eddie slips out, locates Clark’s boss (conveniently, Clark mentioned the neighborhood ey lives in during eir lengthy monologue), and kidnaps em. Bound, gagged, and festooned with a large ribbon, ey is Eddie’s last-minute Christmas gift to Clark.

There are several issues with this scenario.

First, the stakes are very low. The only thing really at risk is Clark’s bonus. Perhaps ey will have to live without the pool for another year. Perhaps ey will be charged by the bank for a bounced check. Perhaps ey will even have to forfeit the deposit ey made. But if Clark is low on cash, that is a problem of eir own making. We are talking about a persyn who probably spent over three grand just on the electricity for eir 250,000-bulb Christmas light display.(4) If Clark misses out on eir bonus, what is the big deal? Ey might have to pawn eir lights and forgo the spectacular light show next year. Eir family might even have to take fewer of their legendary vacations. But it seems unlikely that they are in danger of going hungry or having to sell the house or even the car.

Perhaps the aspect of Clark’s misfortune which ey most keenly feels – and which is most relevant to Amerikan audiences – is what it represents. Denied an explicit share in eir surplus value (ignoring, of course, that ey still receives a salary of international superprofits), Clark is confronted by the prospect of eir potential proletarianization. Scarier than any Ghost of Christmas, the spectre of economic forces strikes fear into eir heart. Rather than act constructively, however, Clark, true to eir petty-bourgeois nature, reacts by pointlessly venting eir rage at eir family. Ey also attempts to ignore the problem by frantically following family Christmas rituals (providing time in the narrative for Eddie to complete eir mission with eir absence unnoticed). The proletariat of the 19th Century may have had to turn to the hard drug of religion – “the opiate of the masses” (5) – to cope with its actual oppression, but in Clark’s case, nothing so strong is required, just what might be called the eggnog of the masses: a reading of “The Night Before Christmas” and also a Tylenol, washed down by a few cups of literal eggnog.

So, the stakes are low, but this movie is a comedy. Perhaps the events depicted can be seen as a microcosm of the proletarian struggle. Would a mere amplification of things produce a progressive view of international economic exploitation? Sadly, no. Clark is a member of the labor aristocracy, with an imperialist, petty-bourgeois, even bourgeois mindset. Even eir most innocuous actions are tainted with oppression. Eir actions throughout the film appear to be a re-enactment of Amerikkkan history and atrocities, down to a roughly chronological progression from European colonization to Amerikkkan imperialism in the Pacific. The movie opens with Clark driving eir family to the woods to chop down a Christmas tree instead of buying one, a handy metaphor for Amerikkkan theft of the land from Indigenous peoples and destruction of the environment, as well as a reminder that it was the timber of North America that originally drew the English colonizers. Next, Clark moves on to gender oppression. In “The Communist Manifesto”, Marx and Engels wrote that the “bourgeois, not content with having the wives and daughters of their proletarians at their disposal… take the greatest pleasure in seducing each other’s wives.”(6) In multiple ways, Clark displays these bourgeois ambitions, although ey may be considered only petty-bourgeois due to eir lack of success. First, while shopping for Christmas gifts, ey flirts and leers at the female salesclerk. Later, ey has a daydream about eir pool in which the the vision of eir family playing is replaced by a fantasy of seduction by a womyn who the soundtrack implies to be an Indigenous Hawaii’an, thus tying together the gender and national strands of oppression.

Finally, there is Eddie. Despite eir simple appearance, Eddie is the fulcrum of one of the biggest paradoxes in the film: is ey a force for revolution or reaction? An uninvited guest, ey seems to be nothing but a source of problems, but ey ultimately saves the day with eir actions against the bourgeoisie. Is ey proletarian? Hardly. It is revealed that ey has been out of work for seven years. Aha! Perhaps ey is part of the lumpenproletariat. Even if that were true, ey would be part of the First World lumpen and receive a significant benefit from eir position as a resident of the imperialist u.$. Regardless, the facts reveal that Eddie is no lumpenproletariat hero. First, the reason for eir protracted unemployment is that ey is holding out for a management position – a classic petty-bourgeois aspiration. Furthermore, ey mentions that, despite having had to trade the home for an RV, ey still retains ownership in a plot of land, a farm and some livestock. Ey is still petty boourgeois, then; one who, despite reduced circumstances, holds on to a vestige of the family estate. In addition, another troubling aspect of Eddie’s past is offhandedly revealed. Ey mentions that ey has a plate in eir head, provided by the VA. Therefore, ey is not just a passive recipient but an active participant in imperialism: one who enjoys the privilege of free healthcare in exchange for eir role in aiding Amerikan war crimes. Despite this, ey does fleetingly provide the film with its only sliver of appreciation for the destruction wrought by capitalism and u.$. imperialism. While shopping, Eddie asks Clark “Your company kill off all them people in India not long ago?”, referring to the Bhopal chemical disaster that killed an estimated 16,000 people and injured as many as half a million more (7,8). “No, we missed out on that one,” Clark dryly responds, and the conversation moves on, presumably because Eddie doesn’t care. Meanwhile, Eddie causes a chemical disaster of eir own; after emptying the septic tank of eir RV into the sewer, subsequent scenes feature interstitial shots of a menacing green smoke rising from the storm drain.

But let’s get back to the action. When we left the Griswolds, Eddie had just marched Clark’s boss into the living room. Ungagged, eir first instinct is to fire Clark and call the cops. But after all of 30 seconds, ey has a change of heart. Apparently, all that was needed was a brief speech by Clark with an addendum by Rusty that withholding bonuses “sucks” to convince Clark’s boss to drop all charges, reinstate the bonuses, and add another 20% to Clark’s bonus. Clark is so overwhelmed that ey faints.

OK, seriously? If a 20% raise was all that was needed to address the iniquities of capitalism, MIM(Prisons) would disband and recommend you vote for Sanders instead. Actually, even that would be too radical. Fight for 15? More like fight for $8.70. Also, some aspects of Clark’s boss’s repentance ring false: ey calls Clark “Carl” and refers to em as the “little people”. Has Clark received a permanent gain or is eir victory a tenuous and insecure one? We bring this up not to suggest that Amerikan labor aristocrats are truly oppressed, just to point out the vanity and futility of imperialism: despite afflicting so much suffering across the Third World, it has failed to completely resolve the contradiction between workers and bourgeoisie in Amerika.

Basking in their newfound affluence, however petty it may be, the Griswolds are rudely interrupted by the arrival of the pigs. Usually not motivated to do much work, the kidnapping of a member of the bourgeoisie has kicked the pig machine into high gear, and SWAT teams storm the Griswold home from every conceivable entrance, including several pigs rappelling through the windows. (Some pigs even kick down the door of the neighboring house; although this scene was probably meant to provide some comic relief and comeuppance to the yuppies, it also wouldn’t be the first or the last time that property and lives were endangered by pigs getting the address wrong). The deference of the pigs to the bourgeoisie is further underscored by the arrival of the wife of Clark’s boss in a car driven by a persyn whose heavily decorated dress uniform marks em as the chief of police. This persyn would also be identified by most viewers, on the basis of eir skin color, as “black”. In fact, ey is the only non-white character with a speaking role in the entire movie. This detail is significant on several levels. First, the fact that the Griswolds live in Chicago, a city with substantial New Afrikan and Chican@ populations, but appear to interact exclusively with white Amerikkkans represents an likely-inadvertent, but nonetheless true-to-life, depiction of the highly segregated nature of housing and employment in Chicago. Second, we must wonder: what was the motivation of the moviemakers in casting a New Afrikan in this role? It could be mere tokenism, giving the sole New Afrikan actor a role that is effectively a chauffeur. Or perhaps they were being ironic, casting a New Afrikan as the head of the pigs, the institution that has perhaps committed the most violence against New Afrikans in recent decades. One shudders to think that perhaps they thought they were being progressive by casting a New Afrikan in a strategically Euro-Amerikan role and creating the illusion of an egalitarian, racially-integrated police force. The true contradiction in Amerikkka is that of nation, not race. Hence, a persyn who might be labeled as non-white can still, in some cases, manage to join the Amerikkkan nation and rise to the role of head pig (or even, as in the case of Barack Obama, war-criminal-in-chief); the situation in this film, then, seems prescient of the modern-day prominence of sheriff Clarke of Milwaukee, another midwestern town. Perhaps a Christmas comedy is the wrong place to look for an inspiring depiction of New Afrikan revolutionaries, but it is still unfortunate that all we have been given is a bootlicker to the bourgeoisie.

Many people have been killed by trigger-happy pigs, and a kidnapping on Christmas Eve seems like the kind of high-stakes situation that would bring in the pigs with guns blazing, but the predicament faced by the Griswolds is resolved with miraculous ease. After Clark’s boss explains the situation, everybody relaxes, although Clark’s boss is still admonished all-around for his idea of cutting Christmas bonuses (the head pig even says that ey’d like to beat em with a rubber hose – a seemingly progressive action that, due to its focus on individual retribution, is actually little more than adventurism; and even that idea comes across as an outburst that is never fulfilled). What about Eddie’s toxic waste spill? An errant match tossed by Uncle Lewis ignites it, but the resulting explosion only serves to launch a plastic Santa and reindeer into the air, creating the perfect Christmas tableau in the sky and prompting a confused Aunt Bethany to spontaneously break into a rendition of the “Star-Spangled Banner”. As the Griswolds and the pigs dance to Christmas songs in the house, Clark stands on the lawn and basks in eir achievement. “I did it,” ey says. The perfect family Christmas.

But for us communists, things are far from perfect. Any potentially lumpen characters in the movie, who may have been teetering between revolution and reaction, have, by the film’s end, fallen firmly on the side of reaction. Everyone else – the labor aristocrats, the bourgeoisie, pigs – was already there. This movie is best enjoyed not as a blueprint for revolution but as a satire of the Amerikan way of life. It offers hints of Amerikan brutality both domestically and abroad, as well as a depiction of the manner by which government institutions become tools of the bourgeoisie. But most of all, it exposes the reactionary nature of the labor aristocracy: the decadence of its “workers”, the hypocrisy of its “morals” and the futility of any “revolutionary” action among the beneficiaries of imperialism.

The brief flicker of revolutionary action that does occur is quickly extinguished due to its limited scope and unsystematic nature. As Lenin once said, “When the workers of a single factory or of a single branch of industry engage in struggle against their employer or employers, is this class struggle? No, this is only a weak embryo of it” (9). How ironic then, that on the (probably mythical) day of Jesus’ birth, the embryo of revolution was delivered as a stillbirth. Let us look forward, then, to December 26: the (real) day of Mao’s birth. Beyond eir persynal achievements, ey stands as a symbol of real revolution. A genuine proletarian revolution, not a phony one led by Amerikkkan “workers”, promises real solutions to the real problems facing the world: an end to the insatiable exploitation by capitalists, an end to the callous destruction of the environment, an end to the violence perpetrated every day by pigs. When that day comes, the workers of the world will unite and we can sing the “Internationale” together.

Sadly, we as prisoners, in many instances take the judgment of our enemy, the injustice system, as truth even when knowing first-hand their ability to get a conviction has little to do with facts or justice. This knowledge should be enough that we not begin to persecute or torment any member of the lumpen class based on convictions and charges that derive in these kangaroo courts. The contradiction is that actual violations of this nature by any member of the lumpen class is a violation against us all. I have served justice on a street level against such violators. Yet I am in prison due to a sex crime conviction that was racially motivated. Even when the alleged victim was impeached for lying and video was shown proving my innocence a jury of 12 whites found me guilty of the crime. I have continued to defend my innocence, lead many groups in prison and stayed politically engaged. Yet I have to deal with the stigma that is created by this label. I continue to use my voice to awaken members of the lumpen class about the poisonous beast of capitalism and educate them about the benefits of socialism.

In the book Soul on Ice, Eldridge Cleaver has a chapter called “The Allegory of the Black Eunuchs,” which I would advise all revolutionaries to read. Also to all my New Afrikan comrades our politics are clear on this issue as it was dealt with in the Ten Point Program produced by our revolutionary forefathers, The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense. Point #8 of the program states, “WE want freedom for all Black men held in federal, state, county and city prisons and jails.”

Marc Lamont Hill, author of Nobody: Casualties of America’s War on the Vulnerable, from Ferguson to Flint and beyond, commented in the August 2016 issue of Ebony Magazine on p. 109:

“To many people, including Blacks and radical activists at the time, the call for releasing all prisoners was the most controversial tenet of the Black Panther Party’s original Ten-Point Program. After all, how could we justify releasing criminals into society?

“For the Panthers, however, it was impossible to separate ‘criminals’ from the circumstances that criminalized them. Racist police forces, unjust laws, unfair trials and biased juries all made it impossible to determine whether someone was truly guilty or simply the victim of a rigged system. Even those who were guilty, they argued, had their hands forced because of the oppressive conditions of capitalism and White supremacy. Essentially, the question was, How can you blame someone for becoming a thief when he or she doesn’t have a fair shot at an honest job with honest pay?”

But the Panther Program did not end with releasing New Afrikan prisoners. Point #9 continues to explain:

“We believe that the courts should follow the United States Constitution so that Black people will receive fair trials. The Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution gives a man a right to be tried by his peer group. A peer is a person from a similar economic, social, religious, geographical, environmental, historical and racial background. To do this the court will be forced to select a jury from the Black community from which the Black defendant came. We have been, and are being, tried by all-White juries that have no understanding of the ‘average reasoning man’ of the Black community.”

Here Huey P. Newton was referring to the tenets of the United $tates Constitution to justify a move towards building independent institutions of the oppressed. Newton was always conscious to not get ahead of the masses, but to lead them towards viable solutions. And the Black Panther Party leadership knew that getting justice for New Afrikans in the United $tates was not viable; that only the New Afrikan nation could apply a just morality in judging the actions of its people in the context of being an internal semi-colony of the United $tates white power structure.

So my conclusion to the sex offender debate for issue 61 of Under Lock & Key is that at no point should we take our enemies word or level of injustice over members of the lumpen class, when those lumpen maintain their innocence. Yet we should stand against these violations if they are knowable facts. We should get to know each member of the oppressed lumpen on a personal and individual basis, while understanding the history of the white supremacist criminal injustice system of labeling political prisoners with these kinds of charges in their effort to get them assassinated by other members of the oppressed. Just think of how we lost big Yogi a year or so ago.

Freedom or Death!