Federal Prisons

Before I close, I want to enlighten you on the new draconian mail policy which went into effect on April 17, 2017 in all Virginia prisons. We no longer receive the actual letter and contents of the letter (e.g. newspaper clippings, pictures, greeting cards, etc.) sent to us. We receive only a copy (photocopy) of said letter and all original letters are destroyed. In addition, this policy places a restriction on the number of pages of incoming letters which is three pages (front & back). A copy of the envelope itself counts as one page so in actuality the maximum length of the incoming letter is two double-sided pages and one single-sided page.

If you want to see the actual policy for more clarity and to possibly post a link to it on your page as example of a veiled attempt to censor incoming political literature, you can view it at the following link: https://www.vadoc.virginia.gov/offenders/prison-life/mail.shtm. If comrades in Virginia are complaining about not receiving mail from you since April, this policy and its’ page limitation is the reason why. The packages you sent to me containing the literature above may have gotten through to me because you shipped them to me in a big manila envelope, and so it was handled and processed by the Personal Property Dept. here rather than the Mailroom Dept. So, keep that in mind when sending literature to comrades in the VA Prison System.

In response to “Drugs a Barrier to Organizing in Many Prisons,” first, it’s not many prisons, it’s all! When drugs are present, unity is not. Drugs break the whole down into a degenerate form of individualism. Under the captivity of drugs and/or alcohol, these people are no different than the imperialist sheep that keep us oppressed.

It branches out to affect families of these people. Prison is definitely an overwhelmingly negative environment, but should be a place for personal reflection and growth. I take every opportunity to absorb knowledge, bring those who are in my company up with me. It makes absolutely no sense to become and remain stagnant in here. It pretty much guarantees failure once they return to freedom.

Drugs in prison leads to other criminal acts, such as extortion, violence, etc. It goes nowhere! Lenin vowed that a socialist state would never produce or sell alcohol. Basically prohibition. Alcohol nor drugs were tolerated. Lenin knew the drastic effects they had on people, and the inevitable damage it causes to the unity of the people. Until people realize the extreme hindrance drugs are, unity will be out of reach. All myself and other comrades can do is do our best to educate others, to shed light on truths.

In all situations, we should remember Lenin’s warnings:

“Illusions and self-deceptions are terrible, the fear of truth is pernicious. The party and the people need the whole truth, in big things and small. Only the truth instills in people an acute sense of civic duty. Lies and half-truths produce a warped mentality, deform the personality, and prevent one from making realistic conclusions and evaluations, without which an active party policy is inconceivable.”

People constantly fall prey to ideological lies. They lack a sense of discipline and self-awareness. This exists not only in prisons, but in society. Society is overwhelmingly a slave-morality, following the masses – doing what they believe will satisfy norms, set forth by imperialists. Comrades probably feel like the “minority,” but must always keep in mind that this “minority” is strong, rooted in truth and unity.

MIM(Prisons) responds: Lenin did oppose alcohol in the Soviet Union, both as a question of capitalist enterprise that was bad for the peasants and also as a health issue. On the question of monopolies he wrote:

“This is quite apart from the enormous amount of money the peasant communes have lost as a result of the liquor monopoly. Hitherto they obtained a revenue from liquor shops. The Treasury has deprived them of this source of revenue without a kopek compensation!”(1)

In studying the history of alcohol in the Soviet Union, we came across some writings by Anna Louise Strong from 1925. As she explained:

“The war with drink, like everything else in Russia at present, is not a thing by itself, but is tied up with the ideas of the Revolution. The bootlegger is denounced, not merely as a lawbreaker, but as a man who profits in the misery of others. The advocates of strong drink, when they venture to express themselves, are hotly denounced, not merely as mistaken, but as ‘counter-revolutionists, poisoners of Russia!’”(2)

In 1925 the Soviet Union finally had a good harvest of grain after years of war and famine. This presented an opportunity for serious alcohol production. And one official argued that the government should encourage it and make money off the taxes. Pravda, the official newspaper of the Communist Part of the Soviet Union, denounced this position:

“Now after our long strain of war and famine, when national health is at a low ebb, legalised alcohol would be infinitely more dangerous than it was before,” … “He proposes to get rid of the bankruptcy in our budget. But he would drive that bankruptcy into the bodies and minds and souls of our people. The party cannot overlook such suggestions even in the conversational stage. We understand what you have in view. We have made many concessions because of our poverty, but such a concession as the surrender of our national soberness you will not get. This shall not pass.”(2)

As Strong concludes about the Soviet Union in 1925:

“Drink is attacked as a problem of public health and national morale, rather than a question of individual morals. Repressive measures are occasionally quite severe and public demand is growing to make them even more stringent. But there is also universal agreement, in every article one reads and every official one talks to, that the final solution can come only by substituting an interesting cultural life for the lower pleasures of drink.

“As for state manufacture of vodka, about which rumours from time to time arise, the words of Lenin himself laid down the government’s attitude. When the new economic policy was under discussion and the question was raised in the conference of the Communist party how far they were prepared to go in making concessions to the peasants, Lenin outlined the policy as follows:

‘Whatever the peasant wants in the way of material things we will give him, as long as they do not imperil the health or morals of the nation. If he asks for paint and powder and patent leather shoes, our state industries will labour to produce these things to satisfy his demand, because this is an advance in his standard of living and ’civilisation,’ though falsely conceived by him.

‘But if he asks for ikons or booze–these things we will not make for him. For that is definitely retreat; that is definitely degeneration that leads him backward. Concessions of this sort we will not make; we shall rather sacrifice any temporary advantage that might be gained from such concessions.’”

On Sept 23, 2017, I was transported to a local hospital by EMS, concerning chest pains. I spent several hours in ER before being returned to my unit, the Boyd Unit.

On Sept 26, 2017, I saw our PA (provider) concerning my trip to ER. Again on Sept 27, 2017 I saw another provider concerning same trip to ER.

On Oct 2, 2017, I became aware that my inmate trust account was assessed $100 co-pay and $22.46 removed. Half of my current balance.

This is, as you know, in violation of Gov. Code 501.063 and TDCJ’s administrative directive AD-06.08, stating that an inmate will not be charged for emergencies or follow-ups. The two visits to PA were indeed follow-ups to the emergency.

I have filed Step 1 grievance, and regardless of outcome will file Step 2. Someone needs to take notice of how this is happening. I have also wrote to the US Dept of Justice.

Prisons, for the last 100 years at least, have been consumed with some type of dope. We know that vice of all flavors has found prisons to be hot houses. Slangin’ dope has been institutionalized in U.S. prisons; everyone from the 18 year-old fish to the ranking guard has been caught slangin’.

Some may see it as a means to survive. It is surviving, in a parasitic kind of way. For the prison movement, to engage in the dope trade is to poison the very well you and the people drink from. It’s suicide.

The Drug Trade and LOs

It’s no secret that in prison the drug trade translates to power, in a bourgeois kinda way for the lumpen organization (LO). The LO that controls the drug trade in a particular prison wields power in that prison. Of course the drug trade brings currency to the LO which in turn brings weapons, material goods, investments and respect. But more importantly than 12-packs of soda, LOs use dope as a manipulation tool. The LO which has the dope has all the other prisoners kissing its ass.

LOs are able to “feed the troops” but at what cost? This is where the contradictions arise between the prison movement and prisoners who are more counter-revolutionary.

The dope trade simply feeds the bourgeois-minded sector of the prison population. It allows this sector to expand its parasitic grip on the prison population. The wannabe capitalist sector drools at the idea of getting in more dope to sell to fellow prisoners; to poison the sisters and brothers for profit, for blood money.

Is Slangin’ Revolutionary?

I have spoken to some who have raised the idea that slangin’ can raise funds quick for revolutionary programs. Someone even pointed to the FARC [a self-described Marxist group in Colombia] as “proof” of this. The fact that FARC has recently disarmed shows that their judgment on a lot of things is flawed.

My question is, how could poisoning the very population you are trying to win over to revolution be a good thing? There are too many other ways to raise money than to poison our people with imperialist dope.

Being revolutionary is about transforming yourself and others, not inflicting harm on oneself or others. Being in prison is hard enough, we shouldn’t create burdens like addictions or debts which will prevent our fellow prisoners from becoming new people and contributing. Slangin’ dope is anti-revolutionary.

Slangin’ in the prison movement?

If I were to hear that those within the prison movement were employing a tactic to slang dope I would say the movement had committed suicide. The prison movement is unable to mobilize the people partly because of the interference of dope. Dope impedes our progress. It creates the conditions where the state stays in power without a challenge to its seat.

The fact that often it’s the state agents themselves who flood the prisons with dope is proof enough that the dope trade is actually a weapon of the state. Just as the state floods the ghettos and barrios with dope. The dope dealers are simply pawns used by the imperialists. The flooding of ghettos with crack cocaine is the biggest, starkest example of this.

Overcoming the oppressive nature of U.S. prisons is hard enough. The slim pool of prison writers and intellectuals reflects this fact. It is difficult to survive prison and be able to raise your consciousness at the same time. Those few who do wake up have a hard time waking others, insert dope and your chances are zero.

The only thing the dope trade does to LOs is pull them more to the right. It feeds their bourgeois ideology as a log feeds a roaring fire. Our goal is to have the LOs rebuild the house of the prison movement, not burn it down.

What can be done?

This is a difficult chore for the revolutionaries. LOs have become accustomed to having their luxuries squeezed out of the drug trade so to stop that would of course disturb them. But the drug trade is poison.

The Black Panthers at one point sought to actively eradicate all dope dealers from their communities. In prisons we do not promote violence, rather education will have to do. Start by educating the user, start with your cell mate then move on to your neighbor and folks on the tier. Change the culture so that drug usage is frowned upon. If folks can stop using dope on the street they can stop in prisons. Re-education should be used by the more conscious people.

The prison movement will be destroyed by the dope trade, just as the movement outside prison walls was hurt by some influential people taking up dope. The state was able to relax and sit back while dope wore people down and prevented any real mobilization. The same applies to prison. It would not matter if the prison gates flew open if the dragon was high or if it had sacks of dope in its claws.

As of this moment, as I mail you this notation I’m also sending a letter to an address from your packet: Texas Civil Rights Project, 1405 Montopolis Drive, Austin, Texas 78741-3438.

I am a sickle cell anemia patient and I’ve written numerous requests to render meds, (600 or 800 ibuprofen) but was ignored. I had a sickle cell crisis in October and was unconscious and unresponsive on my cell floor. Prison staff was called to the emergency and walked off twice before finally taking it serious the third time and coming to my aid.

If you know any attorney that’s willing to assist me in this situation it would be greatly appreciated. I am going to file a suit… that’s not even a question. I would like legal assistance because the camera’s footage will need to be gathered and I don’t want that to suddenly vanish.

I thank you for all the help that I have received in the past & will continue to help out as much as I am able to in the future. Hopefully when all is said & done with my litigation I will be able to send another donation to you. My main issues are dealing with: (1) not being allowed to grow my beard for religious reasons of my faith; (2) for the Administration causing me to lose all my property in the world at the passing of my mother due to their retaliation over me grievancing them on the denial of my beard; & (3) of them taking all my Uniform Commercial Code legal books, notes, letters, etc. that I had accumulated over the past 15 years of study & research. They took my Federal West Law books, & my mother’s death certificate to prevent me from using them.

Then they wrote a fraudulent case on me & even stated that I did not do as the write-up stated yet still punished me as if I did do something. They have the nerve to state that T.D.C.J.-I.D. has a “policy that denies the possession of U.C.C. material” which they are not able to produce cause it doesn’t exist period. Then they write up a fraudulent charge of me supposedly coming to the law library to present a fraudulent financial statement to be filed, (which by the way is the only felony on the books that they can give you for utilizing the U.C.C. process), when that wasn’t taken up by anyone.

The “Law Librarian” who was behind it all wrote a fraudulent disciplinary case against me of committing a felony while in T.D.C.J., which I have never been indicted nor have I ever made an attempt to file anything. She even admitted this at the disciplinary hearing, yet in T.D.C.J. they do what they wish to do no matter of the right or wrong involved, cause no one will take them to court. But they messed up when they made me lose everything that my mother had been keeping for me & by taking my actual legal law books from me that I had purchased. As I try to tell them “there is no way you will make me or a Federal Judge believe that a policy (that doesn’t even exist), will supersede FEDERAL LAW.” Anyhow I thank you again for all your help & efforts that you have put in for those as myself in here. Continue to keep up the Good Fight for all of us, as I will myself.

Any help you can offer me to help me educate myself would be awesome. So I’m stuck on a lockdown program here in Georgia. We are locked down 24 hrs a day, with no library, no schooling, and most inmates here don’t want to help themselves, much less anyone else. I have no family help. I’m a lil better off than some, i do have my GED. But I still want to better myself any way I can.

Revolutionary greetings, and salutations my brothers in struggle. I received ULK 58 about 2 weeks ago here in Administrative Segregation Unit (ASU). I also received the CA USW Primer 1st Edition, January 2017. Read it cover to cover, and it had some very good, as well as informative topics and info. I’d like to respond on the article about, “The Biggest Divide - Not Race or Gang”. I am an Special Needs Yard (SNY) prisoner.

I seriously doubt the two sides will ever be able to come together, as far as programming together on the same yards. Personally I have no problem with General Population (G.P.), and there are a lot of things I miss about being there. Things have changed a lot on the G.P. side since they have let validated L.O.s out though. As you say: “Not to fan the flames I’ll leave that alone.” I will say this on a personal level. I do have great respect for every soldier over there who are pushing the MIM theory and line. So I send mine to you comrades. Stay up, stay strong, and keep that “can’t stop, won’t stop attitude.”

MIM, I do understand what our cause is pushing for as far as coming together goes. The only chance I see of that happening is if the G.P. side reverted to the old way of about 2 or 3 decades ago. That is to say letting those of us back on the yard who retired, laid down, stopped reporting, but never debriefed, and our paperwork is clean of sex offenses. Not only that but through the different L.O.s’ contact with guards that are in some of their pockets, letting them know of those of us who have conducted ourselves in a convict’s code of conduct on this side as well. Meaning we haven’t become the C.O.s’ rat bitches. Comrades – if they did allow us back – would only be a small amount of us. Maybe a handful on every yard.

Ultimately I would go as far as to say that I am a real small minority that would be willing to take that chance to unite under the above aforementioned standards. There is definitely a very long way to go on that issue. As you say, it’s also a trust issue. Yes the Agreement to End Hostilities (AEH) is what I want. But if the comrade that wrote that article has ever been in prison, you understand the issues that keep the divide, and there are many of them. Personally I have no issues with my brothers of the past. None. They haven’t given me reason to be hostile, or have any grudge against them, but there are others on SNY that don’t feel the same way for whatever reasons they have.

I have something to say now about the reason I’m in ASU. When I was 6 months to release, I got fed up with the K-9 searching 2-4 times a week, so I refused to come out. I got soaked with O.C. spray. Of course whenever C.O.s either assault us, or spray us, or shoot us with block gun, or bullets, unjustifiably, their go-to “off the books” thing is, “the inmate assaulted or battered me.” I - comrades - did not assault that coward. I’m the one who was assaulted by O.C. spray.

The day this took place, I.S.U. didn’t even go talk to him, or take pictures, because there was nothing to photograph. He lied, and broke protocol by crossing the threshold of my cell, with no supervisor present. What makes me mad is him putting his damned boot on my back. He hit me with his metal baton like a lil girl. Excuse my expression, wimmin comrades, I mean no disrespect. Anyway I filed an excessive force 602 appeal – staff complaint – on him. Some inmate told me, “Oh man you’re asking for it now.” Ha! It’s because of those kind of inmates that are afraid to file on them is why they get away with what they do. I have that right. Brothers died so that we can file paperwork. I remember that, when I feel lazy, ’cause I hate doing paperwork, ’cause it’s frustrating and tedious. Anyway comrades that is my spill. Keep the positive work you do going forward. I’ll sign off with a revolutionary salute to all of you comrades at MIM and USW. One day brothers. One day in the distant future you will see, if not you, yours, and our kids will see our world as we struggle for it, to be under one dictatorship, united. Trust and believe. It’s destined to come to fruition. Believe that!

As of today October 29th, 2017 I am in a battle with the medical department here at VA. Beach Correctional Center in the state of Virginia. As of Sept. 6, 2017, I woke up with both eyes really dry, burning and blurry. I submitted a sick call slip. I was seen by a nurse for this problem, and was told that she would see what she could do. That was on Sept. 8, 2017. Since that date I have started losing my eye sight in my left eye, it took a month for me to actually see the doctor, in which he took one look at my eye and immediately sent me to an optometrist who ordered MRI’s, blood work, chest x-rays, and a lumbar puncture. All the results except the lumbar puncture have come back negative. At first the medical department said I had to pay for me to go to an outside doctor, I explained that I was an indigent inmate and could not pay for it, before they even reacted to my complaints (emergency and standard grievances).

This facility has denied me proper medical treatment for so long that there is a possibility that my blindness could have been prevented. So for the last 7 weeks I have been completely blind in my left eye, and they (medical, optometrist) don’t have an idea what caused my blindness. I’m waiting to go to an optometrist neurosurgeon, for further testing. I am currently awaiting for a 2nd standard grievance to be answered, so that I could appeal to the next step, so that I have exhausted all grievances or avenues before I can file a 1983 lawsuit.

I just wanted to write and let you know what kind of issues this institution has made me go through. I also know that if put into restricted housing (SHU) they leave the lights on 24 hrs a day, you’re locked in a cell with another inmate, and your handcuffed to the shower railing by one hand in which you can’t properly wash your body, the only time you come out your cell is for court, medical or showers. This is cruel and unusual punishment.

So if there is any possible suggestions or information you can provide it will be highly appreciated. Thank you for your newletters and a platform to fight the injustices we prisoners face on a daily basis. I’ve tried to get others on the inside to push the abuse and injustice we face. There is no unity at this facility because inmates are scared of the repercussions they may have to endure. Once again thank you for your organization and your cause.

[MIM(Prisons) prints the following as background info on a group that has been engaging with us and with the United Front for Peace in Prisons and Agreement to End Hostilities in California prisons. The purpose is for our readers to have more information on what this group is about. We like their focus on the state as the enemy, while serving to defend transgender prisoners from all reactionary elements. Though we disagree that the state exploits prison labor. We hope to continue to build with 36 Movement to promote integration and inclusion of transgender prisoners into the evolving progressive and revolutionary prison movements.]

The 36 Movement is an in-prison transgender political resistance with a column of militia (Red Roses). We fall with the broader category of the revolutionary movement and including the prison movement. Our origin is in the prisons: by their oppression of us, we acquired a revolutionary political consciousness, tempered mind and resolute endurance, cadre tested in the fire.

Our first principal agenda is the accurate analysis of the concrete conditions in which we live in society and in prison, which guides us in our second principal agenda, that of confrontation with the oppressor. Towards the first, political study is key. Adamant discipline fortifies us and facilitates success in our endeavors. These culminate in initiative. Our current political initiative is that of resistance against our oppression and to educate transgender people in the moral right and obligation to oppose our oppression and to do so proactively and within a revolutionary framework.

Our condition of being oppressed and persecuted in prison by the pigs and the reactionary element must be effectively challenged for our survival and peace of mind, a united and organized effort with learned and experienced leadership. Where pigs are concerned, we employ the tactical political weapons of knowledge of the rules and the laws to counter their maltreatment of us and hold them accountable, filing administrative complaints and lawsuits about our needs in prison in retaliation to our transgender status and discrimination against us, and outreach for public support and to educate of our conditions and our resistance. Where the reactionary element is concerned, we function as needs be. Although we are not on a military offensive, a military wing under the control of the political wing is indispensable within a revolutionary party formation. For one, it serves as deterrent. Establishment of a citizens’ militia is not against the law; in fact, it is a constitutional right. Many exist.

We are a multiethnic formation. We discourage drug and alcohol use among our cadre as a matter of political discipline and to foster good health and a clear mind towards our objectives, and discourage criminal thought and behavior. We respect on a mutual basis. We practice genuine unity among ourselves by sticking close together, trusting and sharing. Each of us is accountable for our individual and collective responsibilities.

Having first educated ourselves as to the best way to live our lives under a prison and political system tyrannical and genocidal towards us because of our transgender disposition and prisoner status and lack of political power, we likewise educate other transgender people and organize them to struggle together in a united offensive for our freedom from oppression and for our livelihood and to have political power.

We hold that as a people oppressed from multiple quarters, the principal enemy is the State. The State is always the first enemy. We acknowledge other enemies in the form of the reactionary element within and without. Whatever our engagement with these, we are not diverted from political confrontation with the State.

By the State is meant the economic and political system of capitalism that has resulted in millions of economically oppressed people, and both the domestic law enforcement apparatus that protects its interests and the military complex that ensures its foreign resources and dominance of nations otherwise known as imperialism, capitalism’s most advanced stage: the bourgeois strata that dominates the means of production and access to them and thus the flow of the domestic economy and that includes economic and financial blocs, the bureaucratic political apparatus that allows for and is corrupted by the bourgeoisie; the militarism that forces itself upon and exploits nations for their natural resources and cheap labor and as strategic geopolitical location for capitalist control of the world economy and warmongering, briefly. Prison is government, a State enterprise, and represents and upholds all of this, is a part of it, itself exploits the cheap or free labor of prisoners for capital gain. Who fights against prisons, fights against capitalism and imperialism.

Our prison experience has been one of heightened consciousness: we perceive prisons as camps of systematic indoctrination and training for a revolutionary outcome, prison-spawned revolutionary consciousness and organization along a political matrix, restructuring criminal mentality into revolutionary political consciousness, the revolutionary weaponization of prison, turning the State’s prisons against the State. Our experience is one of becoming and creating revolutionary cadre out of one of the most degrading features of the State, its prisons, filled to over capacity with wretched souls; how to see and economize on the concrete reality of our misery to forge a new type of human being, an upgrade of the species, a more worthwhile person, one to construct and partake in a more worthwhile and humane socio-economic-political reality.

This is our theory and practice within the revolutionary theater at this time. We have politicized our minds, indoctrinated and trained, which enables us to discern and analyze our circumstances concretely and so live our lives. This is the space our formation occupies and is putting into practice, the accurate development of revolutionary cadre in prison, and tactical political engagement with the oppressor.

Trans prisoners in all prisons are encouraged to become politically aware and politically active against our mistreatment in prison and to join the 36 Movement. Our power lies in our organized unity. 36 cadre must be vetted through the leadership at this location. Refer: Natalie Alvarez / 3102 E Highland Ave #25 / Patton, CA 92369. All power to the people.