Federal Prisons

In 1987, the Guajardo v. Estelle case, modifying the correspondence regulations in the Texas prison system, was finalized. One of the results of Guajardo was prisoners with less than $5.00 in their trust fund accounts were considered indigent, and thereby entitled to five one-ounce First Class correspondences per week, and unlimited legal and privileged correspondences.

Circa 1998, Jason Powers, attorney at law, with the firm Vinson & Elkins, contacted me informing me the state had filed a motion to vacate Guajardo pursuant to the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA). Powers solicited my assistance in defending plaintiffs’ objection to State’s motion. Obviously, the plaintiffs failed to prevail.

My concern regarding recent constrictions in indigent correspondence procedures is: Since vacating of Guajardo, indigent prisoner correspondence has been reduced from the 5 personal letters a week and unlimited legal correspondence, to 5 personal and 5 legal correspondence per month. This, when the indigent requirement has remained less than $5.00 since 1978, never being adjusted per the inflated dollar.

As such, I intend to commence a petition campaign directed at State Senator John Whitmire, State Committee on Criminal Justice, demanding not only that the 5x5 weekly indigent correspondence regulations be reimplemented, but that the standard of indigence required be adjusted to reflect a realistic inflated dollar. So fly this by your grievance writers and gauge their thoughts on the matter.

MIM(Prisons) responds: The reduction in indigent prisoner correspondence envelopes has a direct impact on prisoners’ ability to stay in contact with family, fight legal battles, and engage in political education and organizing. The criminal injustice system wants to curtail these activities as a part of the goal of social control. As revolutionaries we support campaigns to expand access to correspondence, as we know this is critical to our ability to reach our comrades behind bars. We look forward to input from other grievance campaign participants about this new tactic in Texas.

Another campaign that is active in Texas is the right to access to a law library. We also recently learned that the Jailhouse Lawyers Handbook has been banned across the Texas Department of Criminal Injustice as of October 29, 2015. Texas is continuing a long history of assault on oppressed peoples in that state, and the only way we’re going to be able to overcome the new (and old) tactics developed (and re-instituted) daily is to overthrow the state apparatus that makes it possible. Obviously Amerikkka’s government system has got to go.

I am responding to your call for campaign updates concerning the grievance petition for this state that another very talented, gifted, and capable comrade put together to address all of our concerns and conditions in Florida. I, personally, think it is a very ingenious, adequate, and brilliant piece of legal work, and believe it sufficiently addresses all of Florida prisoners concerns and problems they might have been experiencing with the grievance procedure in this state. My hat goes off to the ’rade who established this and I offer or extend a firm, tight, and clenched fist salute for hooking this piece up.

The first time I put this petition into effect in Florida was at Dade Correctional Institution in March 2014, about the officials there not acknowledging, not sending me a receipt, trying to ignore or disregard, and not answering certain grievances. The Asstistant Warden for Programs, Mr. J. Williams, called me out personally to his office and told me if I ever had any of these kind of problems again, to just come up to his office personally and if any other staff member asked or tried to stop me just tell them that he sent for me or told me to come up there and he would cover for me - and then he would personally hand deliver to me a copy of the receipt and log number or account for whatever the discrepancy was to make sure that I got a copy of it and received a response to the grievance. Needless to say, I didn’t have any more problems or didn’t have to do this anymore and all of my grievances were responded to in a timely and legitimate manner.

I also received a letter from the Office of General Counsel, for the Secretary of the Florida Department of Corrections (FDOC), acknowledging receipt of said grievance petition and informing me that he was looking into my allegations and directing the grievance coordinator in Central Office (Tallahassee, FL) to investigate it.

Since that time, I have also shared a copy of this petition with various other prisoners for their review and use to solve, initiate, investigate or inquire into their problems with positive results. However, as you know, I have also recently just re-filed this petition again at my present facility (Wakulla Correctional Institution) concerning another issue and am currently awaiting their reply, response or reaction. Will, again, keep you posted and updated.

So I would like to encourage, promote, motivate, inspire, and advise all prisoners in the state of Florida who are experiencing any kind of problems with the grievance procedure in this state, or who are not having their grievances acknowledged, receipted, accounted for, and answered to please send for their copy of this much-needed petition. A firm, tight, revolutionary clenched fist salute to the author of this grievance petition in Florida.

MIM(Prisons) responds: You can write to us for a copy of the Florida grievance petition, which is also formatted for many other states. We encourage everyone using these petitions to send us your feedback and experiences. We need to know how this campaign is evolving on the ground.

I have been dealing with this unjust system in the federal court for their abusive action. In 2009 I was brutally injured by some TDCJ officers.

The Office of Inspector General (OIG) found one of the Sergeants at fault for non-provoked unnecessary excessive use of force. With the help of his co-workers my tibula and fibula were snapped causing a compound fracture break so serious that the paramedics could not transport me. I had to be life flighted to a free world hospital. Then with it being an “offender and officer” ordeal, medical was lacking so gangrene set into my leg. Plus one of the screws of the hardware had bent and when medical did surgery they left half the broken screw inside my leg.

I thought the Attorney General’s office was to seek justice, but even though the OIGs office found them at fault the AG’s office is defending the officer like they did nothing wrong. To this day my leg is constantly swelling with major pain and I am not given proper pain treatment. I am supposed to be on a single level unit but I am not. I am not supposed to walk over 50 yards (50 feet by specialist suggestion, doctors that are specialists and work for University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) the same medical system that supplies the employees to the units). The doctors on the unit override their coworkers - the specialist - and making me put more pressure on my legs that has not fully healed. The mental stress - at times these officer get aggressive and this triggers an offense/defense mentality issue in me that almost causes me to get caught up in more trouble with this system. Is there a way to get this abuse to the mass media? You have officers jumping on handicapped and older people. The officers pick their battles.

On 20 February 2016, one day before we would mourn the assassination of Brother Malcolm some fifty-one years ago, Stillwater Penitentiary, in honor of Black History Month, welcomed three of Minnesota’s most prominent African American leaders. Bobby Champion Keith Ellison and Spike Moss took valuable time out of their busy schedules and spoke on the topic of how they became who they are today. An appropriate topic considering the month, and the current state of affairs Black men find themselves in today.

I think before I provide my opinion of each speech from the men of honor, I should include the fact per our overseers, the benevolent Department of Corrections, we were shown Twelve Years a Slave, and also Django. Of course I couldn’t watch Django, but Twelve Years a Slave, I watched. After the movie I wondered if the kernel of truth in the movie was supposed to be: all white men aren’t liars, or just wait on the white man because he’s coming to save you. I think the hardest pill to swallow was watching a movie from within a failed system, and being subliminally told that a slave’s belief in a system that makes the slave a slave will save him.

Boby Champion, a Minnesota Democratic State Senator and fabulous orator, spoke about the obstacles he faced in graduating from Macalester College. Senator Champion’s speech took us on a journey of perseverance and fatherhood. He based his success on staying out of trouble, and singing gospel in his group he established. It was Senator Champion’s belief that serving the community completed the healing circle. I thought that was noble, and believed he was sincere in his belief that he served his community through assistance in our incarceration. Yet, I felt as I sat there he didn’t talk about criminal justice, and avoided what I had on my mind, the death of unarmed Black men.

Next to hit the floor was the University of Minnesota graduate, Keith Ellison, Representative of the Fifth Congressional District of Minnesota in the U.S. House of Representatives, fresh off his endorsement of Senator Bernie Sanders. U.S. House Rep. Ellison, with little talk of his life, stayed on topic with a Zinn-esque perspective on Black History. I can only speculate on the reason he didn’t talk about his life. Perhaps if he had spoken on his profession as a defense attorney, in turn the defense and assistance in lengthy prison sentences for those in the gymnasium would have become the topic of conversation. Although House Rep. Ellison was not as energetic as Minnesota Senator Champion, his topic fit with the theme; however, I still wanted someone to speak about current relevant issues.

Finally, Spike Moss took the stage and he didn’t disappoint. Within his Civil Rights history lesson he baptized the crowd in cultural appreciation, and pointed to the lack of cultural markers as one cause for black men losing their minds. At some point his message shifted form uplifting to victim-blaming Black Lives Matter, and African men for being complicit in the death of the black community.

I sat in my chair and tried to figure out where Moss had gone wrong. How did an event about the ascension of Black men, successful men, to relative success, turn into a selective history lesson on the Black community destruction being the sole responsibility of those who have destroyed? The connection between drugs and guns is forgotten. I didn’t understand. It’s true that Black men sold drugs, shot guns and murdered innocent people in the Black community. This is equivalent to white folks paying Black mercenaries to destroy the community in which Black mercenaries live; when the Panthers were imprisoned and murdered, the drug dealer was given the community under police protection. If Spike Moss is willing to accept the fact drugs were placed in our community, then why is he not willing to accept that guns were too?

Black people don’t know a Black drug dealer who own cargo ships, and Black people don’t know Black gunsmiths or a Black gun store owner. Moreover it’s through the lens of these facts a capacity to destroy a city is severely minimized. The Uzi machine gun comes from Israel, yet in the 1990s it was the weapon of choice. How does it get to Los Angeles? The FBI and CIA are involved.

In defense of Spike Moss, because most, if not all of those persons in prison think he is a snitch for actively turning dealers and gang members in. It is only prison gossip and I have not verified it for the record, but in defense, not excuse of his “Negro of two minds position,” I believe he’s scared of the white man, and the unconscious mercenary Negro. I think his fear is justified. I am in prison with them, and from far off they resemble that thug that Jesse Jackson said “he was scared might run up behind him.” But what must be understood, even a domesticated dog will bite his owner in the right conditions. Freud once said: “That which you fear, and are afraid of is that what you truly desire.” In the case of Spike Moss, his double conscious mind actually inversed and he hates the thing he helped create; the incarcerated youth.

I am neither for Black Lives Matter, nor am I for Mr. Spike Moss, but believe they both represent positive activism, and have the betterment of Black people in mind, Therefore, I say “seize the time.”

After the show I stopped House Rep. Keith Ellison and asked some of those relevant questions I thought the voiceless had a right to ask:

“Why did Hennipin County District Attorney Mike Freeman only charge the white boy who shot at the protesters with a single offense that at the end of the day will get dropped down to a misdemeanor offense? Because if that was some brothers, who done the same crime they’d be charged with a drive-by shooting, and reckless firing of a firearm in public place. They’d be charged not only with the victims that were shot, but with every potential victim, and every person in the area would have aiding and abetting charge. I know people right now in the gymnasium that Freeman charged and got a conviction with suspect evidence, and in the white boy’s case Freeman gots the gun, witnesses, and him on Youtube.”

I also told him: “It seems to me and a few of the brothers here that ever since Blacks started migrating from the south to northern cities, whites have saw fit to enact legislation, specifically to target our behavior and gave more time.”

After listening to three of the most prominent African American men in Minnesota, it was hard not to feel like I was Platt Epps in Twelve Years a Slave. With a voiceover Malcolm X narrates from a speech he performed some fifty-one years prior, called “Message to the Grassroots.” As my voice, Malcolm attempts to argue that African American men should not be dependent on the white man:

“And if someone comes to you right now and says, ‘Let’s separate,’ you say the same thing that the house Negro said on the plantation. ‘What you mean, separate? From America? This good white man? Where you going to get a better job than you get here?’ I mean, this is what you say. ‘I ain’t left nothing in Africa,’ that’s what you say. Why, you left your mind in Africa.” (Malcolm X’s speech “Message to the Grassroots,” December 1963)

We were destined fa defeat
with the institution of enemy politics
causin our retreat
So we changed our stature
Realizin’ cadre must be solid
then spread out to unite any
factions
Checks and balances
scientific analysis at the onset
before any decided action
Then satisfaction?
Not without total destruction
of the entire economic substructure
Then set about changing the culture
smashing out any lingering traces
of imperialism parisitic vultures
… on to our goal…
equality for humynkind…
Aristocrats will pay the toll

Since 2010, after the so-called “Arab Spring” that caused governments in North Africa and the Middle East to crumble, those regions have been in all-out war at the expense of the people who populate them.

Over here on this side of the world, people have prejudiced animosity towards the people who populate war-torn countries like Syria and Yemen. First World nationalists and the bourgeoisie, along with the petty-bourgeoisie, believe that the displaced people risking their lives to come to the United $tates or European Union threaten their First World lifestyle. What nerve these money hungry, war-mongers have. It’s a fact that very few First Worlders have actually seen war, or experienced hunger, or had to give up everything and risk their lives taking a chance migrating to a new country, sometimes even a new continent, to have a so-called “better life” and partake in the “Amerikan dream” that everyone talks about.

600,000 people crossed into Europe this year, sometimes 10,000 a day.(1) This is a cycle that goes back centuries, but now that it’s affecting the First World’s backyard, the imperialists have no choice but to admit that it’s gotten out of hand. Now the imperialists are calling it a “world crisis.” My question to them would be, what world are you talking about? I doubt they’re talking about the world as a whole.

In the European Union, right-wing parties that promote xenophobia were on the rise way before the displaced people started pushing through the borders.(1) Now protectionist E.U. governments are complaining that Europe will change for the worse because of the mass migration plaguing their countries. They complain that the displaced people will “take their jobs, get spoiled on government benefits, and worst of all change the identity of Europe.”(1) Wow, I say fuck their identity, for centuries they’ve been destroying ours.

Thanks to globalization, smuggling displaced people has become a full-blown enterprise. Smugglers charge up to $1,200 a persyn and children at half that. This is big business with a lot of activity in the Mediterranean. So much so that 100 boats leave Turkey for Greece almost daily, each packed with over 40 people. All this adds up to over $5 million a day for the smugglers.(2) This is true capitalism, getting rich off the people of the Third World.

Imperialism, the highest stage of capitalism, is to blame for the wars in poor regions like the Middle East with the real victims being our children. Our youth are being poisoned with bourgeois culture, and parasitic class ideology. That type of mentality is everywhere: in books, magazines, TV, and the radio. No matter what part of the world you’re in, all you hear about is how great Amerika is, the so-called land of the free where nobody’s poor, or hungry, or cold. People, some still children, leave their home countries because they want to believe in a utopia where they are safe from bombs or stray bullets. Only thing is that the imperialist propaganda machine doesn’t tell them that the “Amerikan dream” is for a chosen few. I know because I am one of them that risked it all at a young age for a piece of that “Amerikan dream” and now here I am locked away in a humyn warehouse. According to an ABC news report aired on Good Morning America, “5,000 children crossed the U.$./Mexico border alone in October.”(3) Now they’re in koncentration kamps being processed to be deported back to their poor, war-torn, inhumyn countries. Every one of them treated like an animal, locked away in so-called “refugee camps.”

The imperialists call this “radical ideology,” but as materialists and students of Maoism we point out the fact that the First World exploits the Third World for its cheap labor and resources. These bureaucratic pigs justify their imperialist policies by claiming to promote democracy and Liberal capitalism. But in reality they flex their muscles in the Third World to intimidate other nations for the purpose of exploiting their oil fields or mines that are rich in minerals, and any nation that resists is called “undemocratic” or “ruled with an iron fist,” attacked by the imperialist propaganda machine. Now that some nations want some of that wealth (that was made off the oil or minerals) the imperialists stole, the imperialists push policies to block any of those nations from entering the empire and partaking in the benefits that the wealth provides. It’s all in the hystory books for anyone to see. The First World exploits the Third World in the form of neo-colonialism.

As anti-imperialists we oppose U.$. and E.U. aggression in the Third World, and we put them on blast for their crimes against humanity. If NATO could stabilize the Middle East with their billions of dollars/euros they would have done it by now. Now the imperialists see that they have awakened a giant, not in the form of socialism, but still, in the form of anti-imperialism. The bourgeois media gives off this false perception of the people of the Third World as illiterates, uncivilized, and religious fanatics, but hystory is on our side and just like in China, Cuba, Vietnam, etc. the people of the Third World will prevail.

Just like in Nazi Germany the United $tates is using white nationalism in the form of patriotism to use fascist-like tactics and policies to repress oppressed nations here in the United $tates. It’s sad really, some actually believe that imperialist forces overseas are actually protecting their freedom. And to those who speak up on the crimes the state department commits against their own people, well just look at Edward Snowden. And if you’re against the war crimes committed by the U.$. forces, well just look at Bowe Bergdahl. Both are considered traitors.

We must educate the youth that flashy cars and jewelry is not what life is really about. The reason that people have for coming to the United $tates is that they too want to get rich and own a mansion in Beverly Hills. This is what the United $tates preaches and then they complain when others flood their borders to partake in the “Amerikan dream.” We must expose the real criminals. Down with the imperialists and their puppet regimes, all power to the people.

I passed out some of your grievance complaint forms. I can’t speak for anyone else because i haven’t had a chance to follow up, but i turned my own in immediately. The way they do grievances here is ridiculous. If your complaint has enough merit its either refused for some exaggerated reason, it goes missing somewhere along the line, or its answered with some obscure reply and ignored. I’ve even had grievances tell me i was wrong and then they fixed the problem to make me look like a liar! Just recently they changed the entire process. It’s all computerized now, which means we don’t get carbon copies of anything. They’re supposed to ‘mail’ us copies of the paperwork but that doesn’t always happen. I have a tort claim in on the Department of Public Safety now for some of my property that was lost and I had to file the initial grievance three different times before they actually ‘received’ it. That’s not the only time that’s happened.

I bring it up because i saw that you were asking for an update on it in the last ULK. Any other questions you have I’ll be happy to answer. Till next time.

Earlier this month I was taken out of my “cell” and off of the seg-cell-block, and was assaulted by these pigs! My hands were handcuffed behind my back. yet these pigs continued to twist up my wrists, arms and shoulders. When I told the pigs to go fuck themselves and asked em if they felt “big and bad” cause they were assaulting a man in handcuffs they then slammed my head into the wall 3 times and placed a spit mask on my head and claimed that i tried to spit assault one of their officers. All to justify their actions.

It seems that these pigs feel that it is okay to assault us inmates. However, when we defend ourselves these pigs then jump us, beat us up, pepper spray us, place us in a cell with nothing more than our underwear and then file charges on us through the Oregon courts, for assault on a pig!

The name of our study group is Royal Descendant People Politically Intelligent Revolutionary Units. We encourage Peace and try to be problem solvers when it comes to New Afrikan on New Afrikan violence. We encourage people to think instead of just reacting. We get leaders to talk before violence starts.

We encourage Unity among different New Afrikan organizations. We will work with other organizations not New Afrikan for a common kause like going against Pork Khops (correctional officers) and their pig counterparts, the agents of the oppressive and exploitative state security and information gathering system. Our first duty is to campaign which is to spread our ancestors’ and leaders’ revolutionary kulture. We are democratic socialist chanting down capitalism and imperialism. When it’s time to go against the real enemy we will unite with those who share a common enemy. We are working on bettering our communication system. People write but we have a hard time finding someone to print our zines and books. That’s why I am reaching out networking to get support. Beside our education program we have a military training program which consists of eating right and exercise. We work mind and body.

MIM(Prisons) responds: We are always happy to hear from groups building unity and independent institutions of the oppressed behind bars. And this comrade demonstrates an important aspect of these groups: study. This organization seems to be well aligned with the United Front for Peace in Prisons’s points of unity, peace, growth, internationalism and independence. We look forward to studying and building with them in the future. Others who have groups, even just a few folks studying together, should get in touch with MIM(Prisons) so we can provide materials to support your studies. And get plugged in to the United Front for Peace in Prison.

MIM(Prisons) compiles and distributes study materials through our Free Books for Prisoners Program. We are open to printing pamphlets made by our subscribers so long as they fit into a revolutionary Maoist agenda.

We facilitate Maoist and anti-imperialist prisoner organizing through United Struggle from Within, and help writers develop their skills and politital line through our correspondence study courses. Our advanced study group, the ULK Writers Group, is where the vanguard of the Maoist anti-imperialist prison movement gathers to write articles, pamphlets, and even books. Work through these organizations to ensure your work is the most effective at fighting oppression.

As each holiday season reminds us, there are certain tunes sung again and gain for generations. Perhaps a word or two is altered as language changes, but the message is the same.

A man named Carolus Linneaus is honored by most amerikkkans as “one of the greatest scientists of the Western world” for his message back in 1738.(1) While the terms aren’t in use in today’s language, let’s see if we recognize the time.

Modern imperialism was in its nascent stage back then. Powerful and power hungry Europeans were attempting to find a reasoned justification for dominating and destroying other people in order to take their resources. Good ol’ Carolus Linneaus - brilliant scientist - had already classified the world into the various families, genus, types, etc. that we learn in biology. But most hystory books don’t tell us he also made four classes of humyns:

Homo Europeans: people who are light, lively, inventive, ruled by rites

Homo Americanus: people who are tenacious, contented, free, ruled by custom

Homo Asiaticus: people who are stern, haughty, stingy, ruled by opinion

Homo Africanus: cunning, slow, ruled by caprice

This is a timeless tune, isn’t it? I suppose we could add to this “Carolus” the jingle of Donald Kunt, er Trump kkklassifying Latinos as murderers, rapists, and criminals. I mean, if i classify you as not quite humyn then I can freely treat you as other than me. Like it’s okay to steal a duck’s eggs ’cause ducks don’t have rights.