MIM(Prisons) is a cell of revolutionaries serving the oppressed masses inside U.$. prisons, guided by the communist ideology of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism.
www.prisoncensorship.info is a media institution run by the Maoist Internationalist Ministry of Prisons. Here we collect and publicize reports of conditions behind the bars in U.$. prisons. Information about these incidents rarely makes it out of the prison, and when it does it is extremely rare that the reports are taken seriously and published. This historical record is important for documenting patterns of abuse, and also for informing people on the streets about what goes on behind the bars.
We’ve been a bit strained on support lately. One thing we forgot to do in ULK 81 is promote our annual fund drive for the Fourth of You-Lie (July 4th). The good news is you can donate any time of year! The bad news is, so far we’ve only received a quarter of the amount in donations, and a quarter of the amount in payments for literature from our readers inside U.$. prisons that we received in 2022. But we’re already half way through the year! We have been rebuilding and expanding our reach over the last few years, so there’s a lot of catching up to do to sustain our growth.
Prisoners, the amount we ask you to send is about $4 or 7 stamps to cover a year subscription to Under Lock & Key. We know not everyone has that in prison, so anyone who can send more, all funds go directly to sending materials to prisoners.
Fuentes has written a couple dozen novels and many consider him one
of Mexico’s literary icons. I previously picked up one of his novels
that I never got to finish so when I stumbled upon this novel I was
determined to complete it and learn more about how Fuentes sees the
social reality of Mexico.
This novel is set during the Mexican Revolution, depicting the
mystery of a real life dissapegrande in 1914. Protagonist “The Old
Gringo” is an Amerikkkan journalist who travels to Mexico “to die”.
Fuentes is a skillful storyteller who nudges you through the story
with comedy and nuance. At the end of chapter 2, Fuentes quotes “The Old
Gringo” as saying: “To be a gringo in Mexico . . . Ah, that is
euthanasia”.
Ahh if only . . . It’s known through historical records that during
the time of the Mexican Revolution, at least with Pancho Villas line,
being a gringo in Mexico actually was euthanasia. Villa at one point
gave ‘gringos’ 24 hours to leave Mexico or get the wall. The white
oppressor nation was 86’d, but today, sadly Amerikkkans are welcomed by
the Mexican bourgeoisie and petty-bourgeoisie who partially are
dependent on dollars from El Norte. Mexico’s economy overall depends
largely on U.$. dollars.
The Mexican Revolution was essentially a revolution against
capitalism internally and U.$. imperialism externally, which in the form
of “foreign investors” was exploiting Mexican resources while the people
starved. On page 29 Fuentes writes on this and the remedy:
“. . . flee from the Spanish, flee from the Indians, flee from the
servile labor of the encomienda, accept the great cattle ranches as the
lesser evil, preserve like precious islands the few communal lands, the
rights to land and water guaranteed in Nueva Vizcaya by the Spanish
Crown, avoid forced labour and, for a few, seek to preserve the communal
property granted by the King, resist being rustlers or slaves or rebels
or displaced Indians, but, finally, even they, the strongest, the most
honorable, the most humble and at the same time the most proud,
conquered by a destiny of defeat, slaves and rustlers, never free men,
except by being rebels”.
Here Fuentes skillfully walks us through the dilemma of landless
people who even out of the most humble circumstances are left with one
choice to be free: rebellion. Fuentes also hits on a struggle close to
the Chicano nation, which is the land grant struggle enshrined in the
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Mexican@s, like Chican@s were given land
grants that were to honor contracts and titles for communal lands that
families and villages held since the arrival of the Spaniards. Much of
these lands had been held in common “communally” for even hundreds of
years BEFORE Spanish colonization. During the time of the Mexican
revolution the capitalists on both sides of the false U.$. border began
to disregard land titles and confiscate communal lands by force. Fuentes
rightfully highlights that rebellion is the remedy.
It was refreshing to see Fuentes mention the encomienda system,
something rare in novels these days. The encomienda system was a debt
peonage system in Mexico where, although Mexico is commonly touted as
ending slavery before AmeriKKKa, it continued with this plantation-like
labor servitude before during and after the Mexican Revolution of
1910.
A good chunk of the book is spent on bourgeois ideas of ‘The Old
Gringo’ and the White Teacher, Harriet Winslow who is actually his
daughter. Lots of descriptive wordage is spent in an attempt to
captivate the reader in an agonizing trip that results in a yawner. But
every now and then Fuentes shakes us out of our literary coma with a
sharp and vibrant realness that pulls us back into captivating fiction,
as on page 64 when he quotes Villa’s General Arroyo:
“Ask yourself how many like me have taken up arms to support the
revolution,, and I am talking about professional people, writers,
teachers, small manufacturers. We can govern ourselves, I assure you,
Senorita. We are tired of a world ruled by caciques, the Church, and the
strutting aristocrats we’ve always had here. You don’t think we are
capable, then? Or do you fear the violence that has to precede
freedom?”
Fuentes captures the reality of freedom. It is a process that can
only be birthed through the canal of violence. Capitalism leaves no
other option. The reformists will have us attempt
to vote freedom into reality, which has never been realized. Even
many so-called “revolutionaries” have not developed the correct line on
liberating a nation, the truth is that the oppressor will never
relinquish their power willingly. Although conditions today are not ripe
for armed struggle and we do not promote that stage of resistance today,
the truth is as Mao put it: political power grows out of the barrel of a
gun.
‘The Old Gringo’ travels to Mexico to join the revolution. A
journalist and veteran of the U.$. civil war, he goes to die in Mexico.
Perhaps tired and demoralized from an AmeriKKKan life. Yet, he ends up
being the conscious voice of the white nation, especially when Harriet
Winslow defends the “forefathers” in an evening debate with The Old
Gringo. He hands it to her by replying “We are caught in the business of
forever killing people whose skin is of a different color”. And forever
killing non-whites has indeed been AmeriKKKa’s business since its
inception. Fuentes delivers the stark reality of the white nation. Our
ancestors in their graves confirm this and would applaud Fuentes for
translating this even in novel form.
I have read many novels but none that analyzed William Randolph
Hearst, the media magnate/U.$. propagandist. In this novel ‘The Old
Gringo’ is a journalist working for Hearst before leaving to ‘die in
Mexico’.
Hearst was known for war-mongering and saber rattling through his
bourgeois rags in the interest of the U.$. empire. When the Mexican
Revolution popped off Hearst had front page headlines urging AmeriKKKa
to act, prodding the U.S. government to intervene formally.
Fuentes goes past merely mentioning this and even provides a succinct
but excellent political analysis of this in the most simplistic way
where on page 81 he describes The Old Gringo participating in the
propaganda campaign aimed at Mexico during the revolution:
“This land . . . He had never seen it before; he had attacked it by
orders of his boss Hearst, who had enormous investments in ranches and
other property and feared the revolution; but as he couldn’t say ‘Go
protect my property’ he had to say ‘Go protect our lives, there are
North American citizens in danger, intervene!’”
In a nutshell Fuentes deciphers U.$. imperialism. Protecting property
abroad for U.$. interests, well put Fuentes. Many of the wars in the
modern day stem from this protection of U.$. interests. This war was
brought to the surface some years back when U.$. Vice President Chaney ,
who had been part owner of Halliburton, was outed when the public
learned Halliburton profited from the very war that Dick Cheney
endorsed. Capitalism profits from death.
‘The Old Gringo’ ends with General Arroyo shooting and killing ‘The
Old Gringo’ after The Old Gringo begins the papers (land grant deeds)
identifying that the communal lands belonged to the people. The papers
destroyed, the land is no longer the peoples’. One can say that ‘The Old
Gringo’ in the story represents AmeriKKKA, that old land thief AmeriKKKa
who one day will face justice.
I have long been a fan of novels, particularly those revolutionary
gems that capture a world not yet here. Culture, which books and art
fall into, is powerful and a huge tool for our battle in the realm of
ideas. Proletarian literature is crucial to our movement globally and
particularly the Chicano Movement (CM). The CM hasn’t churned out a lot
of revolutionary novels based in dialectical materialism that depict our
social and economic reality. Fuentes could have dug deeper, perhaps
inserted characters from political trends or parties of the time in
order to analyze these political lines, or highlight the fallacies in
them. Nonetheless, despite the shortcoming in the book, it did highlight
some key points and does so in an inviting way and is worth a read.
This prison of Saguaro Correctional Center has been doing prisoners
dirty with the prices. For example, Ramen in the year of 2021 was for a
2-8 oz pack $0.45 and then year of 2022 is $0.56 and now the year of
2023 is $0.63. Ramen in the real world is $0.23 cents, so this is wrong.
Coffee keefe 100% colomb reseal 3oz in the year of 2021 was $4.29, and
then it went up $1.82 to $6.11 and now year of 2023 it went up again
$0.98 to $7.09; and that is so crazy to me. Japanese wash cloth in the
year of 2021 was $3.00 and it went up $1.89 in 2022 and 2023 to $4.89,
and all other commissary goes up as well and that doesn’t include tax.
All that prison does to people that are poor and weak is not doing good
out in the real world and families of prisoners are trying their best
too, but when a prisoner is stuck in the hole in prison it’s hard to get
out and make money.
We explored some of the developments of the Cop City struggle in our article The Struggle Against Cop City in Atlanta in ULK 81. Cop City, or the “Atlanta Public Safety Training Center” as the state calls it, has recently begun construction in Weelaunee Forest in Southwest Atlanta. This effort is funded primarily by the City of Atlanta and is to be owned and operated by the Atlanta Police Foundation. This is a pig training center with a supposed construction cost of $90 million, which will include a fake cityscape for police to learn tactics for suppressing urban resistance. This pig training center is part of a larger assault by the Amerikan state on New Afrikan communities and neighborhoods, along with the rise in gentrification, mass surveillance, police brutality and imprisonment rates. Some readers may remember the establishment of the community-run Rayshard Brooks Peace Center in 2020 and the subsequent state repression. No one can doubt that New Afrikan oppression is intensifying as the police and prison apparatus of the state continues to wreck havoc for the interests of the Euro-Amerikan nation.
In response to these developments, many diverse groups have organized against Cop City. For a while construction in Cop City was stalled because of forest defender activists occupying the intended site of deforestation, resisting raids by police to move them off the site. In this struggle an indigenous anarchist who went by the name Tortuguita was viciously murdered by police agents in a final raid of the forest.
Ongoing Developments in the Struggle
As the Stop Cop City movement continues, dozens of forest defenders and other protesters have been arrested on various felonies, from “domestic terrorism” to “intimidation of an officer.” For example, on 5 March 2023, Atlanta police arrested 23 protesters on “domestic terrorism” charges due to alleged property damage and trespassing, and that number has since risen to more than 40 over the last few months.(1, 2) These felonies are at least 20-year sentences in Georgia.
The state’s repeated arrests were an obvious cause for concern. A non-profit, the Atlanta Solidarity Fund, organized funding to bail out these protesters who were the target of state repression. On 31 May 2023, the 3 organizers of that fund have also been arrested, charged with “money laundering” and “charity fraud.”(3) This is yet another example of the state suppressing even the most legal forms of resistance.
While the DeKalb district attorney has declined to prosecute the arrests related to Cop City due to the unpopularity of Cop City, the Georgia attorney general has taken the cases and will still prosecute them.(4)
A “Stop Cop City” referendum petition has been filed (and approved on 21 June 2023) that will put Cop City on the Atlanta ballot if 75,000 signatures are produced in less than 60 days after the approval.(5) Many of the groups against Cop City have focused on this effort, which may have the unfortunate effect of completely legalizing the struggle (which is not a strategy for long-term political development).
Bigger than Cop City
As Maoists we always seek to develop a dialectical materialist perspective that correctly denotes the relations of nation, class, and gender at play. Cop City is no exception. One of the most critical weaknesses of the Stop Cop City movement is that an advanced politics (one that is revolutionary nationalist and aimed at the long-term struggle) is not yet a leading line. If this problem is not properly resolved, the movement will give way to movementism and the Stop Cop City struggle will fizzle out like the 2020 BLM struggle, becoming co-opted into liberal electioneering politics.
We must also look at the global nature of Cop City. The Atlanta Police Foundation is funded by Amerikan finance kapital, from the likes of Wells Fargo, JP Morgan, Amazon, Delta Airlines, and Waffle House.(6) Prisons and policing are not a struggle unique to the United $tates. The development of these bourgeois state organs are being rapidly replicated around the world. Cop City can and will be a test run for building pig facilities among the Third World nations as capitalism-imperialism decays. The struggle against Cop City will thus also play a part in the larger anti-imperialist struggle, and this is why developing a revolutionary nationalist line on Cop City is a must in this struggle.
Towards a preliminary analysis, we can say that Cop City is an intensification of New Afrikan oppression in Atlanta. The Euro-Amerikan nation – both Euro-Amerikan kapital and Euro-Amerikan communities – is united towards the policy of increased policing, gentrification, and imprisonment of New Afrikan and other oppressed nation communities. The Stop Cop City movement requires a united front, one that includes all those groups opposed to these methods of oppression, whether these groups be New Afrikan, Indigenous, Chicano, Euro-Amerikan, etc, but maintains some form of dialectical-materialist, revolutionary nationalist leadership in order to expand scientifically.
We have readers often tell us they want to start non-profits, but the Cop City arrests show that there are limitations to this type of organization: the state can and does retaliate against non-profits who pose a threat to the Amerikan state’s interest. The Atlanta Solidarity Fund is one example, where the Amerikan state has no problem arresting protesters or even legal organizers under charges of money laundering if they pose enough of a threat to its expansionary interests.
Cop City reminds us of the need for independent institutions of the oppressed which are flexible and secure, and involve the masses at every step of operation. Campaigns like “Stop Cop City,” or “Abolish Control Units,” attack the war apparatus that is aimed at the population within U.$. borders, especially the internal semi-colonies. As the above recent events demonstrate, we must build organizations that are prepared for the repressive response of the state.
I was reading ULK 81 when I came across a conversation on whether or not to ally with sex offenders and I feel that I have a fresh perspective to contribute to this conversation. FCI Seagoville, for those unaware, is a low-security federal prison with a majority sex-offender population. I have made friends with and enemies of pedophiles, and as such I have experience working with them. It would be almost impossible for me to organize in here without interacting with sex offenders. For example, I am the only member of my 7 man Narcotics Anonymous group who is not a sex offender.
The two main federal S.O. charges are pictures and enticement. An emblematic picture case is that of a friend of mine, who became addicted to opioids during the crisis and enjoyed the rush of getting away with all kinds of criminal behavior while high. He expropriated his neighbors’ lawn furniture and dumped it all in a business parking lot. He also surfed the internet while high and looked up child porn. He became dependent upon the feeling of getting away with things he knew were wrong, and the pursuit of that anti-social feeling led him to federal prison.
The vast majority of enticement cases are sting operations. A non-S.O. comrade of mine, J, contends that sting enticement cases should be judged not by the fact that they were stings, but rather by the ill intentions of the one being entrapped. The sting usually goes like this: an agent poses as a young person on a dating site. They are matched with someone, engage them in conversation for a few days, and then reveal that they are under-aged. If the person messages back saying that they want to continue the relationship, an investigation is opened into them. This gets at the wider issue of us prisoners using the oppression of the state as a justification for and personal forgiveness of our immoral actions. When I talk about immoral actions, I mean actions that would require self-reflection and self-criticism under a proletarian system of justice. Many of the enticement cases claim that their actions hurt no one, that the government set them up, and that the government is the largest distributor of child pornography. None of these claims are untrue, yet all of them serve to minimize the S.O.’s role in their own offense.
These minimizations on the part of the S.O.’s belie a genuine understanding of the severity of their actions. S.O.’s were exposed to just as much fear mongering propaganda about pedophiles as the rest of us. To associate that propaganda with yourself often leads to a searing self-hatred. To my understanding, the prison system seeks to imprison each of us with shame and guilt over our crimes, in our own heads. The fear mongering media propaganda apparatus plays an active role in priming us for a mental imprisonment alongside our physical imprisonment. Nowhere is this method of mental domination more apparent than in the case of sex offenders.
Comrade J states: “S.O.’s are no different than ‘normal’ people when it comes to reliability or revolutionary potential. It is rather that their status as sex offenders, if known, may be weaponized against the movement.” As to the question of whether to ally with sex offenders, I have this to add: my closest, most reliable comrade is a sex offender. He gave me the copy of ULK 81 that inspired this response. I can offer no better proof of the reliability of S.O.’s as allies and comrades than this, the existence of my contribution.
Mutulu Shakur passed away on 6 July 2023, about 8 months after being released from prison. From a young age Shakur got involved in the Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM), and soon after became a citizen of newly founded Republic of New Afrika in 1968. Ey was a leader in the movement in eir late teens.
Shakur was a Prisoner of War for 36 years before eir release this winter. Shakur was imprisoned for the Brinks robbery case where a guard and two cops were killed. This incident is analyzed in detail in the book, False Nationalism, False Internationalism by Tani and Sera.
While in prison, Shakur spent most of eir years in torture cells. Ey was sent to the original control unit in Marion, IL for eir organizing of young New Afrikans, and was later sent to the infamous ADX prison. During this time ey also worked with step-son Tupac Shakur to develop the THUG LIFE code.(1)
Mutulu Shakur is also well-known for eir participation in the Lincoln Detox Center in New York, where ey spearheaded the practice of using acupuncture, as opposed to methodone, which the revolutionaries of Lincoln Detox saw as just hooking the people on another form of dope.(2) This history has been an inspiration to our own work, and the development of the Revolutionary 12 Step Program, which we aspire to develop into a Serve the People Program at the level that Lincoln Detox did in the early 1970s.
While Shakur continued to have an impact, as an educator, and especially through eir collaboration with Tupac, the decades spent in solitary confinement were a great loss to New Afrika and all oppressed people. There is no question that Shakur had decided to wage war against U.$. imperialism, renouncing eir citizenship at 17 years old. And the imperialists waged war against em through the prison system and the extreme isolation of the control units. This is why shutting down control units and supporting prisoners organizing against imperialism remains an integral part of the anti-imperialist struggle to this day.
This Black August, we will remember Mutulu Shakur, along with many others who gave their lives to the New Afrikan Liberation Struggle.
Notes: 1. MIM(Prisons), March 2009, Peace in the Streets, Under Lock & Key No. 7. 2. Wiawimawo, November 2017, Drugs, Money and Individualism in U.$. Prison Movement, Under Lock & Key No. 59.
The first topic I’ll like to respond to in Issue 81, is the article that reads “Colorado Prison Censors New Afrikan Literature”. The brother pointed Colorado’s contradictions with allowing certain white reactionary novels as opposed to the Black revolutionary ones. The Wisconsin DOC for a long while was banning books like Know Thy Self by Na’im Akban, Revolutionary Suicide, Soledad Brother, Blood In My Eye, Assata, Seize the Time, A Taste of Power, This Side of Glory, We Want Freedom, Isis Papers, Destruction of Black Civilization, and all of Amos Wilson’s books until the courts got involved and the WDOC reasoning was that the books were inciteful and accusatory towards Amerika and people of European descent. Yet they allowed in all of Donald Goines, ICE Berg Slim and often “hoodbooks” that promote Pimping, drug dealing, Black on Black homicide and anything that glorifies the “Black Criminal Mindset” because it keeps us in Lumpen-criminal-colonial state of mind. This state of mind justifies the mass incarceration of anyone of Alkebulan (indigenous word for the continent commonly named Africa today) diasporan descent, while the Revolutionary mindset poses significant threat to Uncle Sam’s “Economic Station.” The brother who wrote MIM needs to know ICEBerg Slim, Donald Goines and anyone of Alkebulan (Black & Brown) Diasporas descent promoting and glorifying the exploitation of our people and all oppressed nationals are unhealthy and they are just as much enemies to our own people as Adolf Hitler, J.B Stone, David Duke, Richard Spencer, Donald Trump and the like, you dig? I would advise the brother to read books by Black authors who believes and write about the advancement of Black people oppose to the destruction of us. It’s impossible to discuss pimping, drug dealing, gang-banging without mentioning white supremacy, OK.
The next topic from Issue 81 is “ULK 80 Responses on Sex Offenders, Pedophiles, Gunnas and Gangstas”. In it you write that sex offenders don’t practice reactionary thug life politics (drugs, shootings, etc) and that’s completely false. Most sex offenders claim to be part of lumpen organizations (CRIPS, Bloods, Vice Lords, GD’s, BD’s LK’s, etc). I believe sex offenders are irredeemable and permanent enemies of and to the “people”. By sex offender, I don’t mean a 17 year old dude having sex (consensual sex) with a 16 year old girl because I do not consider that rape. Some of these Gunnas who rape other Kaptives are sex offenders, homosexuals and the list could go on, OK. I would argue that both groups are enemies to the people. Those who refuse to abandon the thug mentality for a revolutionary one are enemies of and to the people. I do concur with your assessment regarding how the fascist system use both lifestyles as political points to further the dehumanization of these groups. I’m not against homosexuals, transgenders and what have you, I’m against those who hunt and oppress women and children. Those I do not condone their lifestyles.
I’m not bothered by referring to a transgender man who see’s himself as a woman and a transgender woman who see’s herself as a man as She and He. The problem is that most transgender men-women in prison are sex offenders, they are in for preying on children. I’m a former Black Gangster Disciple (from 1983 to 1998) and I’ll be the first to say that Growth & Development literature reflects Elijah Mohammad’s “Message To The Black Man” and that it was not founded to destroy our communities, yet that’s what it’s doing and I am against it and any gang (its not an organization) that terrorizes its own people or people period. Members of these groups are “Redeemable” and we must not turn our backs on them unless they refuse to open their eyes and do the work of the civilized.
As you know, I am the Founder and Chief Advisor of Freedom Fighters, Inc and we do not condone the distribution nor usage of alcohol and drugs nor any lifestyle that poses a threat to the moral fabric of humanity/the human race. In closing, though I understand the nexus you made with brother Comrade Slaughter regarding drug dealers and sex offenders, I still feel that it’s out of context. The drug dealer and gangbanger is “redeemable”. The sex offender isn’t. I was molested, violently, from the age of 7 to 11 by a female relative who is still alive and to this day, in her 60’s (I’m 47 and have been enslaved since the age of 17 - 1993). She’s still sick.
Even though a sex offender is capable of coming to terms with his or her own sickness, they remain sick in the head and sick in the heart, maybe. Tookie was a byproduct of his environment and when he woke up he didn’t fall back asleep. The sex offender falls back asleep because he or she is innately. The vast majority of sex offenders was never molested or raped, it was in them. I know a lot of bothers/men who were molested and never became molesters themselves. I have never raped nor molested anyone, never even had the thought to do so. I have never sold drugs either, but its different. I’m mentally ill, I was raised in mental institutions (and it could be said that prisons are also Mental Institutions) and I was exploited by the older members of BGD to rob and kill white people and once I came to terms with this, I renounced black racism and I will never rob or kill someone based on race. I was sentenced to life for killing a woman who robbed my guy and charged at me with a machete, and though my actions could be justified, I still partook in the genocide of our people and I’ll never engage in such idiocy ever again. And though I see the nexus you made, I just don’t agree with it. I do, however, respect your position. Disagreement is healthy and we should never tear each other down due to it unless the disagreement becomes detrimental to the organism, you dig?
Wiawimawo of MIM(Prisons) responds: We welcome critiques of certain “hood” writings as the comrade offers above. Yet we still recognize their biased censorship as part of national oppression, and the struggle against censorship in prisons can make strange bed fellows as we’ve discussed with the struggles around nude and non-nude pictures.
As for the sex offenders issue, this comrade has been debating us on this since back in ULK 64. I welcome the correction regarding sex offenders practicing thuggish anti-people activity as well. There is certainly an overlap between the two behaviors that i was ignoring in my sloppy language in ULK 81.
Next point, no one is arguing that “those who hunt and oppress women and children” are communists or allies. So that’s a moot point. Nor are those who are hunting, killing, poisoning, and oppressing men for that matter! And we seem to have agreement on that, as far as various forms of anti-people activity go. Yet, this comrade echoes the point made by Slaughter that it is only the sex offender that is unredeemable. The argument being that the sex offender is innately oppressive towards other humyns. Yet no evidence is offered to support this. In fact, we can point to statistics that sex offenders have the lowest recidivism rates.(1)
It is also odd that you seem to favorably cite Elijah Muhammad who is a known child predator who never atoned for the abuses he committed against at least 9 young girls and wimmin, and exploited eir cult of persynality to cover up those crimes while using metaphysical interpretations of the Quran/Bible to justify the acts. This was exposed by el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz (Malcolm X) shortly before he was brutally murdered for promoting a revolutionary nationalist interpretation of Islam separate from the NOI.
If we look at socialist China we see the virtual elimination of all sorts of crime, drug abuse, prostitution, etc, in a very short period of time. We addressed this in more detail in ULK 59 on drugs.
We are the last ones to say that everyone is a comrade. Usually we are being criticized for being too pessimistic about the revolutionary potential in this country. But we are engaged in the project of uniting all who can be united in the prison movement.
We aren’t saying we can reform all anti-people criminals today. But we are saying that we can under the dictatorship of the proletariat, which is what we are fighting for. And to get there, we need to break down these phony barriers between the oppressed based on idealism.
On Sunday, 28 May 2023, Santa Clara County Main Jail went on full facility lockdown shortly after pill call when evening program (out of cell time) began.
This is not all that unusual by itself, as Main Jail goes on lockdown on average 10 times a month, often more, as it is facility policy to lockdown the entire complex for ANY disturbance, almost as if they fear a replay of the Attica uprising in September 1971 or the Lucasville uprising at Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in April 1993 (which I could see being a distinct possibility).
Yet what was different about this lockdown was the guard taking off at a sprint out of our unit after screaming “lockdown!”, before making sure we all were in our cells locked down (which is against operations protocol). We could see out our unit door to the 7th floor control booth where the guards rushed by into the elevator to get to wherever the incident occurred (our Main Jail is a tower complex).
After getting back to my cell, the guards who came by to do their hourly checks were extremely close-lipped and stone-faced which they usually aren’t after their usual “reindeer games” of hosing down with O.C. spray and prying apart lumpen-on-lumpen conflicts (they’re usually giddy after getting their adrenaline fix).
The next day we knew something “big” (at least in the pig administration’s eyes) had occurred when all GTL tablets were confiscated from prisoners without a word as to why or when they would return.
Persynally, this was only a minor inconvienance, as the only thing I really use my tablet for is to use the phone app in the privacy and quiet of my cell, as the “edutainment” platform “Edovo” on them is full of bullshit and bourgeois drivel aside from several collected works of Marx and Engels though even those are contained within a course with video lectures from the bourgeois perspective of a Yale professor.
It wasn’t until after reading an article in Wednesday, 31 May 2023’s San Jose Mercury News(1) and hearing whispers gleaned from the looser lipped pigs that the full picture started to come together.
A prisoner in one of the protective custody units on the 6th floor had taken his tablet, busted it down, and out of the smashed wreckage was able to make a “crudely made knife” as the article called it, and with said knife assault two pigs with it.
Of course the bourgeois media reported the usual drivel from the sheriff’s office, that it was a “shocking and unprovoked attack”. Knowing the hystory of Main Jail in recent years, from the 3 pigs who beat mentally ill prisoner Michael Tyree to death in his cell, to the recent report of the mistreatment of another mentally ill prisoner Juan Martin Nunez at the hands of pigs and medical staff in the psychiatric unit on the 8th floor of the jail which in the aftermath left the prisoner paralyzed, this seems highly unlikely.(2) Oh and don’t forget their usual closing line, “Our correction deputies (sic) play a critical role in maintaining law and order within the correctional facilities and this attack serves as a stark reminder of the risks our deputies (sic) face daily.” The lumpen can see these for the fearmongering lies they are.
In the aftermath many crafted grievances to attempt to get eir tablets back, which I decided finally against as the assaulting of 2 pig guards along with the problems comrades across the California gulag archipelago (as well as across occupied Turtle Island) are having with their facilities’ worthless grievance systems made a win highly unlikely.
Instead, I spent the time trying (actually with some success!) to get my collection of revolutionary literature (by comrades George, Mumia, Maroon, etc and all my MIM literature) out to the masses of New Afrikan, Chican@, white, and Asian/Pacific Islander comrades who suddenly had nothing to occupy their in cell time. Many finished books/zines from my collection, some only read an article or two from ULK, but it was all-in-all a positive outcome.
On 21 June 2023, the tablets were returned, with the pigs now lording over them and having to fill out a checklist every morning and night to make sure all tablets given out are returned to the charger carts at night. Yes, it took them almost a month to come to this “brilliant” idea.
While many have gone back to eir program of zoning out on their tablets all day, I am happy that at least a few have had eir interests piqued and luckily just before another organizing opportunity, Black August.
Notes: 1) Austin Turner, 31 May 2023, “Sheriff says inmate attacked 2 deputies”, San Jose Mercury News. 2) Robert Salonga, 12 May 2023, “Jail report angers county leaders”, San Jose Mercury News.
Recently a comrade wrote us upset that someone else “got credit” for
an article ey identified as eir own. This confusion came from our
assigning this comrade a USW# alias, as we do for authors who are
members of USW and have not chosen their own alias. This comrade signed
the article with a known alias within eir lumpen
organization/association. Such aliases are well-known by the pigs and
are the equivalent of printing government names. If you wish to go by a
specific, anonymous, USW alias, let us know. If you disagree with
MIM(Prisons)’s 6 points or do not wish to be a part of USW, please let
us know that as well. Otherwise, regular authors will be assigned a
random USW byline.
Printing bylines is a form of accountability, to track where ideas
are coming from in an anonymous fashion. There is no “credit” to be had.
All work submitted to and printed by MIM(Prisons) belongs to the
movement. We do require people to cite us if they are going to reprint
articles from our website/newsletter/publications. Again this is about
political accountability. There are no individuals that can gain fame or
fortune by claiming to own the content of our proletarian media outlets.
Anyone who does is not a member of MIM(Prisons) or the organizations it
leads.
Another reader recently rejoined our mailing list with an article
submission, and responded by writing,
“As for MIM(Prisons) policy of not publishing authors names or known
aliases, that should be a decision made by the individual. I’m sure this
policy has been implemented to protect us, nonetheless I can relate to
the honorable George Jackson,”I”m in a unique political position. I have
a very nearly closed fortune, and since I have always been inclined to
get disturbed over organized injustice or terrorist practice against the
innocents – wherever – I can now say just about what I want, without the
fear of self-exposure.” So with that being said I ask that any of the
writing I submit be published under [my alias]. Why is this of
importance to me? When the less politicized prisoner see another
prisoner he knows having his writings published, it engenders a belief
that they can do it as well.”
We respect the rights of prisoner to publicize their cases and their
works under their own name. There are benefits
towards self-preservation of having an outside support base, we do
not deny this.(1) But we do not agree that there are political benefits
to publishing authors’ names.
As far as reaching and inspiring those around you, if you are
reporting on actual organizing in your location, then the masses around
you will recognize that. Our comrade in Maryland who has been reporting
on the mass campaign
around conditions at ECI is no doubt known to the masses there who
are reading ULK and encouraged by eir reporting even though we
print eir articles without even an alias.(2)
We have seen the self-appointed leaders of the so-called “panther”
movement within U.$. prisons build cults of persynality around
themselves seemingly as a rule. One such persyn we reported on proved
to be an informant according to the SF Bayview.(3) This is not
surprising to us as persynality cults are bourgeois tactics, and that
persyn’s opportunist political line and self-promotion identified em as
a confused mis-leader at best to MIM(Prisons) long ago. Another leader
of that “party” was expelled, leading to the formation of a new party
after allegedly utilizing movement events and funds for eir persynal
benefit. Perhaps we are seeing a pattern?
We have a comrade who is locked back up, in no small part because of
an organizing approach that was very public and social media-based. This
comrade has also benefited from public support in the past. As ey sits
in a jail cell with future unknown, we must double down on our assertion
that public personas and revolution don’t mix.
Yes, our policy is about protecting imprisoned comrades’ identities.
It’s also about not letting the pigs put poison information out through
our media. It’s also about not letting people use proletarian media for
self-promotion. It’s also about setting a good example of effective
organizing practices and good security. It’s about building a resilient
movement. It’s about trying to win for the proletariat as a whole.
For those who need to build up their persynal support base, there are
other news outlets aimed at prisoners that do not have proletarian
politics and will happily print your names. Bourgeois media loves
stories that highlight an individual’s story, “their truth”, some
photos, descriptions of persynal characteristics – that’s why we tell
our comrades on the streets not to talk to bourgeois media. Under
Lock & Key is a place to put proletarian politics in command
and we welcome your submissions that share that mission.
Notes: 1. A Virginia prisoner explains the importance of
outside supporters in the campaign for eir clemency in the June 2023
article “Proven Strategies for Waging an Effective Campaign for Clemency
in Virginia”. 2. A Maryland Prisoner, April 2023, Support
Incarcerated Citizens of ECI Mobilizing to Improve Conditions, Under
Lock & Key 81. 3. MIM(Prisons), December 2021, Keeping
Opportunism and Self-Interest at Arms Length, Lessons from a Recent
Betrayal, Under Lock & Key 76.
Thanks for sending the Power to New Afrika booklet. I am
still studying and understanding the knowledge within it. Before I pass
it along, I would like to speak about some stuff I read today in ULK
81. It’s about inflation
and commissary prices.
I have been incarcerated for 15 years for seeing people get killed
and refusing to give information to detectives. Anyhow, prices for the
basic things a human being needs I have seen skyrocket over these 15
years. #1 I am in solitary confinement, which means I do not have a job
and I can only spend $60 at the prison’s canteen [in California]. This
60 bucks can’t go too far when generic brand or no name toothpaste is 5
bucks, one top ramen noodle is 50 cents, a deodorant is 4 bucks and some
change, purchasing bags of chips for 3 bucks and half the bags are
empty. The items that the prison sell we can purchase at the 99 cent
store for a $1.07. It is simply robbery. Prior to me being sent to
solitary confinement, back in 2019, Top Ramen soups were 20 cents and a
Dial roll of deodorant was a dollar.
I have been a cook in the kitchen, yard crew, building and education
porter. I worked for free in each job I had except as a cook in the
kitchen I was paid 11 cents an hour. I work from 12 noon until 8pm five
days a week. I had to prepare food for over 600 inmates in four
buildings. We were getting payed once a month and my checks after 55 %
was deducted for restitution was only between 10 to 13 bucks each month.
If I still had this job, all I will be able to get from the prison
canteen is a deodorant, toothpaste, and maybe a bag of chips.
Ridiculous. Most jobs in California prison are not paying jobs. I
shoveled snow at 5AM at High Desert State Prison. I cleaned building at
North Kern and cleaned bathroom and police offices at Salinas Valley, I
cleaned showers and Corcoran State Prison and couldn’t even receive an
extra dinner tray. I was payed 0 dollars.
When we refuse to work for free, cops, they take our privileges; no
phone, no yard, no packages we receive a write up which also messes up
our board hearings. What some in society do not understand is just
because I am in prison doesn’t mean I should be degraded, humiliated,
and worked to death for free labor. These are all extra punishments.
When the punishment is being incarcerated away from our family. This is
the actual punishment.
Due to inflation and being in solitary for 4 years, even though I
spend my $60 at commissary once a month, that $60 truly doesn’t amount
to anything due to the high prices for items that are not truly worth
it. Being in here we still are forced to spend because the prisons do
not give hygiene products and we are not allowed packages as if we were
on the yard. In the SHU you get 1 bar of soap a week, 5 sheets of paper,
1 toilet paper roll, and some tooth powder. So as you see we truly need
to purchase items from the prison and I know that they are truly aware
of what they are doing. And in order to even spend 60 bucks my family
has to send me $120 and I still owe restitution. I’ve been in prison on
different plantations for 15 years and still have not paid off all this
restitution. I am not rich.
This is why they need to pay more for every prison job. This prison
industry can afford to pay us minimum wage. Before my incarceration, I
was receiving $6.25 an hour working retail. And a prison can never run
without prisoners who are incarcerated. But this is how we are treated.
Prisoners cook, clean, do construction, pain, tutor, clerks, grounds
keepers, and so much more.
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