Federal Prisons

Unwashed bodies
mortal stink
scrunches your piggy nose
to your moral wreak
you do not smell
anymore than our torture
you do not feel
anymore than they tell you
bloody bodies
necks twisted from nooses
carted off like junk
our chests blown out
our backs
by four all-amerikkkan chumps
you must hurry and get away
pass out pills then scurry away
cringe and laugh
be disgusted
it’s not your mind and body
lying here busted
we suffer because of you
cursed U.$.
not in spite of you
and these racist tests
worsen worsen
extend and crumble
lay down in your fucking grave imperialism
lie down beast
stumble, sputter and mumble

From our birth they installed limitations on what we may acquire and achieve,
Diluting our minds and aspirations, making it virtually impossible to succeed.
See 28% of men are dead or imprisoned by age 21
Yet they say there’s equal opportunities for everyone.
20% of the 28% are from neighborhoods like yours and mine
But these #’s don’t seem to equate in my mind.
The urban culture is being oppressed by a politically corrupt society simply and utterly
Because they’re afraid of what we may become if given true equality.
So I implore you do not succumb to temptation,
Stand up and speak out for what you believe in,
let liberty and prosperity be your motivation,
because it’s beyond our time to achieve it.
I drop these simple words of inspiration cause knowledge is power,
As for the urban culture and my entire generation, this is Our Darkest Hour

Welcome to the school of hard knocks,
where it seems the clock has stopped,
trapped in a prison industrial complex,
the size of city blocks,
guns cocked in gun towers,
Ever so slowly passes, years, days, months and hours,
time devours all - tempus edax rerum
And here I live in this correctional slum
I’ve never been dumb, but I’ve done dumb things
and this brings me to:
As long as I’m alive, I strive,
Sometimes striving means simply surviving,
I could have went to Penn state,
but instead I’m in the state pen
Surrounded by 1200 people, but not one friend
I sent a letter to my family, but it seems that they’re mad at me,
Because they only seem to respond semi-annually,
But I still have a strategy
to increase intellectually,
they may have my body, but they don’t have the best of me,
I’m 30 now, I’ll be released at 41,
In the futuristic year of 2021
The sum total of my incarcerated years will be 20,
But the total of the tears of me and my family is too many,
Plenty places, all over the state they have sent me,
tortured occasionally with tear gas and electricity,
they think that they’re breaking me, but they’re only remaking me,
I’m taking a breath while they’re trying to smother,
And brother, in this world, if you break it down statistically
you’ll realize you have to do your own part individually,
and realistically, I can see, if I don’t improvise, educationally,
In FL DOC, I’ll never go further than GED,
So I’m striving and searching, reaching and seeking,
trying to gain more knowledge, give my life more meaning,
in this institutional, “correctional,” demeaning existence,
to improve yourself, takes a lot of persistence,
and one day prove useful to communist resistance

On July 9 at around 2:30 p.m. the announcement was made that the official verdict on the trial of Johannes Mehserle, the transit pig who shot Oscar Grant in the back and killed him, would be released that day, and immediately people started gathering at the major intersection of 14th and Broadway in downtown Oakland, California. At about 4:15 p.m., the verdict of involuntary manslaughter was released. This is the lowest charge that the jury could have chosen to give Mehserle, and as expected, the people of Oakland were pissed. Our comrades attended the protest, equipped with fliers emphasizing that the movement needs to be elevated from rioting into conscious revolutionary struggle generally, and national liberation struggles specifically, if people want to stop the murders of more Oscar Grants. The flier suggested Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth and Black Panther Party original documents as good starting points for a successful transition into a movement to truly end police brutality.

Government employees in the downtown area were under a mandatory evacuation, and business people were high-tailing it out of there as fast as the freeways could take them. The state and the media had hyped it up to be L.A. in 1992. That was far from the case. Still many large buildings were boarded up 20 feet high for days; others were frantically drilling in plywood as protesters converged. The hype was so extreme that even one discount grocery store located a mile from the epicenter of the protest boarded its windows as soon as the jury went into deliberation - as if a crazed mob would travel so far to loot their expired yogurt.

The City of Oakland set up a sound system in front of Town Hall that was supposed to serve as a speak-out, but was just playing funk for a few casual dancers, sometimes so loud that it seemed like they were attempting to drown out the actual protest. The rest of the 1000 people were gathered around a much smaller sound system in the adjacent intersection, having their own speak-out. The soap box ran from about 5-8 p.m., and the “don’t tear up Oakland” position that was emphasized so strongly at past protests seemed to have taken a back seat on the collective agenda of the group. Most messages were that this verdict is bullshit, the system isn’t going to give justice for Oscar Grant, and we need to organize. There was also a strong recognition that Black people were the targets of this violence and of the need for Black nationalism.

The typical divisive tactics that we had reported on at previous at Oscar Grant movement events was also present. One man insisted on addressing “just the Oaklanders” and advised the Black youth to not get “pimped” by “outside agitators.” The response from the crowd was cold. The next speaker said he was also asked to speak on “outside agitators” and went on to point out that Martin Luther King, Jr. was called an “outside agitator” everywhere he went in the South. He said that no one is “outside” the struggle for justice, and went on to point out that the only people who are coming from outside the movement to cause problems were the pigs. This brother received enthusiastic cheers.

This theme was one that had been playing out for weeks within the organizations preparing for the verdict. Reportedly, non-profit leaders and those working with the City government were spearheading the line that the Black youth of Oakland couldn’t rebel without white people from the suburbs telling them what to do. This racist bullshit had already been struggled against for weeks leading up to the verdict. While some in the crowd were dismissive of white speakers, telling them to get down, ultimately it was the content of what was being said that the protesters recognized. While there was a strong contingent of self-proclaimed locals saying “be cool” and using the local slang to attempt to create divisions, their effect seemed minimal.

During the speak out, pigs were lined up several blocks from the protest, controlling foot traffic and warning “unsuspecting” bicyclists of the “danger” ahead. At 8 p.m. the soap box was shut down by the City and everyone was hanging out in the streets, occupying several blocks of Broadway. After about thirty minutes, a trash can was lit on fire but protesters put it out within a minute. Occasional bottles were thrown at the pigs, and when any excuse was given to the pigs to attack, many of the protesters would run like hell. The pigs were surprisingly non-reactive, however, and would just occasionally change positions, pushing the protest north on Broadway. This didn’t prevent “Fuck the Police” from being the most popular chant of the night.

A Foot Locker was looted, and many people made out with fresh kicks and jerseys. A group of three to four protesters started guarding the Foot Locker and tried to appeal to the protesters to not loot, which they said would prove that they are just ignorant Black people and would prove “them” right (“them” presumably being the white legislators and City officials who they hope to ask for justice). On the other hand, the guards correctly emphasized that there are Black organizations to get involved in to deal with these issues, and that looting the shoe store won’t stop killings. If there was a strong Black vanguard in the area, MIM(Prisons) would have worked with them at this event rather than promoting study and building of new cadre groups. That’s not to say there aren’t a number of small, semi-underground formations that are worth working with, but none of them wield the power or influence to have led the rebellion.

The Black Panther Party asserted the need for a vanguard to organize and lead the masses down the most effective path to power in The Correct Handling of a Revolution, following the uprisings in 1968 across the country. It states, “There are basically three ways one can learn: through study, through observation, and through actual experience.” They go on to say that the Black community generally learns through observation and participation. Unfortunately, the lessons put forth in this article were not observable at the demonstrations this year or last, indicating that study is needed. While the fires, graffiti and smashed windows grab our immediate attention, it is the serious organizing efforts that will allow the Oscar Grant movement to have a lasting effect. While it is hard to quantify these efforts now, the mood of the speakers indicate that despite the lack of a vanguard organization leading the rebellions, many are thinking and moving in this direction.

Over the next few hours the crowd gradually dwindled, smoke bombs and fire crackers were set off, windows broken, over a dozen dumpsters and trash cans lit up, graffiti was sprayed, garbage cans tossed into the transit stations, as the crowd was constantly pushed north, sectioned off, and divided by the pigs. At one point the street lights went out and three gun shots were fired from an unknown source, but apparently nobody was hit. Unlike the usual large demonstrations in the Bay Area, many protesters tonight were armed, but attacks on police were limited to rocks, bottles and, according to police, a few molotov cocktails. By 11 p.m., the protest had reduced to small groups launching hit-and-run tactics on stores. Their movement seemed guided by the police, who vastly outnumbered them. At the end of the day, there were 78 arrests.

Although our comrades were not on the front lines for the whole showdown, a tazer was only heard once, and while there were regular explosions heard, no reports are claiming that they were caused by the kkkops. Overall it seemed like the pigs were on their best behavior (for being stinking fucking pigs, anyway). This was clearly unexpected behavior by most protesters, who were constantly running at the slightest sign of action, only to return a few minutes later when they realized the tear gas and rubber bullets had yet to arrive. Activists were expecting the worst, including the use of the a $675,000 long-range acoustic device (a machine that produces sound waves that can cause permanent damage) that the Oakland Police Department recently purchased. Again, it never showed up.

The pigs outnumbered and outlasted the protesters. When the rebels had been reduced to a couple hundred, the pigs still had reinforcements coming in and surely more on standby. The fact that there was no need to resort to severe repression demonstrated their control over the situation. Evidently, they were willing to sacrifice a few downtown businesses as a pressure release. The next morning, the Oakland police chief was celebratory about their ability to control and contain the rebellions.

Mehserle’s sentence is due out in November, and could range from 14 years in prison to probation. We expect the day of sentencing to re-ignite these protests all over the state.

Notes: Prisoners write us for a copy of “Oscar Grant: organization, line and strategy” printed on the anniversary of the initial rebellions following Grant’s murder.

1: They got me duckin’ FBI agents and Federal cases/Infiltrated by informants with anonymous faces / One nation under invasion and mass surveillance / They probably got me on a list for assassination / Movin’ through the underground like Angela Davis / Vanish without a trace when them badges chasin’ / I’m like a communist in a fascist nation / When them Nazi’s spot me they gon’ blast with hatred / Snitches makin’ statements that they fabricated / collaborated with the state to see my ass get raided / Til the DA’s in my face with the affidavits / Wanted in all 50 states on some tax evasion / It’s the life of a rebel like a Panther aimin’ / To set it off: Revolutionary activation /

2: They got imperial plots of world domination / Populations decimated by the globalization / complete the brainwash to keep the people complacent / Propagate false information through mis-education / My generation is lost gettin’ intoxicated / I got homies gettin’ shot in police altercations / The rest of my peers are facin’ incarceration / cuz they’d rather slang ‘caine than be slavin’ for wages / corporations makin’ profits off our alienation / Puttin’ money in the pockets of Obama’s administration / illegitimate payments solidify the foundation / For the rise of this genocidal civilization / They talk equality and democratization / When we got people up in Harlem starvin’ like Haitians / And every ghetto’s under military occupation / The solution: revolutionary activation /

3: They got me feelin’ like Mao when Japan invaded / Mobilize the masses like Fidel and Che did / In the belly of the beast where police are racist / And people kill for cash cuz the greed’s contagious / Turn on the television see my Queens degraded / manipulated by the 10% descendants of Satan / From Nixon to Reagan to the Bush administration / Prophecies fulfilled in the days of revelation / illuminati through my body I got shotty’s with gauges / And my soldiers are strapped down for whatever they’re faced with / Lurkin’ beneath the surface take it back to the bassment / Guerilla rappers highjackin’ all your radio stations / All my comrades stay gang affiliated / With their finger on the trigger and their trigger fingers anxious / To pull it back and set it off like a bomb detonation / Now the revolution’s activated /

You muthafuckaz is stupid, we makin’ music for the movement / You can find me in the streets organizin’ revolution / Pigs come for D.P., best believe that we shootin’ / And if the people can’t eat, best believe that we lootin’ / Til I’m dead I rep for Fred, George, and Huey P. / Turned in my red, white and blues for the Red, Black and Greens / So make room, we comin’ through the People’s Army’s with me / And you can tell that we some soldiers by the army fatigues / And all these haters call me “race traitor,” I’m a creator / How the fuck is you a tiger when you made outta paper? / Imitators and fakers is perpetratin’ as gangsters / But get exposed now they froze in the face of liberators / Organized and fortified with discipline as the basis / COINTELPRO couldn’t send agents to infiltrate us / Cuz we bossed up, empowered, and self-determinated / How the fuck is you a slave in the age of information? / Sharp as a razor blade when I move through the matrix / I’m just a link in the chain so we move in formation / Guerilla style, underground we comin’ straight from the bassment / Activate the revolution for the future generations / Makaveli branded, automatics is blazin’ / Send the city into panic like a Maoist invasion / Made my peace with death cuz that’s the fate that I’m facin’ / When you die for the people that’s the meaning of greatness.

What is Mental Health?

Starting with the basics: what is often referred to as the “mind” is a complex collection of biochemical reactions that occur in the humyn brain, a physical object. To take a materialist approach to mental health, we must not talk about the “mind” as a separate entity from the physical body. The belief that there is a mind or spirit separate from the physical being is a concept called dualism and is at the basis of most idealist philosophies in the world today.

Applying a basic concept of probability to genetics and biology we can accept that there are going to be humyns that are born with brains that have physical characteristics that lead them to function different than normal, and in some cases that will mean these individuals are less capable of basic humyn functions. That said, the complex biochemistry of the brain is susceptible to all sorts of outside influences from even before an animal is born. These include chemicals in the form of food, medicine and environmental pollutants, as well as physical conditions that induce biochemical responses within the body, such as stress, isolation, and irregular daylight cycles. Therefore, most discussions of inborn psychological disorders lack a scientific basis, as scientists cannot control the myriad of outside factors that influence the brain throughout an animal’s lifespan.

A sociological approach shows that mental health has strong connections to gender oppression. In, Getting Clarity on what Gender Oppression is, MC5 defined gender as being found in leisure-time, related to pleasure. Therefore depression, an extreme lack of pleasure, and the alienation that leads to it is largely shaped in the realm of gender. In MIM Theory 9, there is a focus on the disproportionate mental health struggles of wimmin and youth. As we laid out in more detail in Gender Oppression in U.$. Prisons (ULK 1), lumpen youth are gender oppressed by Amerikan biowimmin, and are some of the most gender oppressed within U.$. borders. We suspect prisoners suffer more from mental health problems than wimmin and youth in the United $tates.

The Scientific Method

The bourgeois approach to conflict and problem solving is individualistic. When problems are dealt with on the individual level, only a few problems are solved and then held up as examples that “anyone” can achieve, but most problems are either not solved in the first place, or recur soon after they are solved. Communists, on the other hand, work in the interests of the vast majority in the world today who are oppressed by the powerful. Our strategy is to solve problems at the group level, and mental health is no exception.

While dialectical materialists often refer to themselves as scientists, this does not mean that all scientific work is for the benefit of the people. A more pointed attack would be asking questions like, “what type of science spends millions of dollars studying the effects of long-term isolation on brain waves?” Maoists abolished isolation as a form of psychological treatment in the 1950s. Prior to that time, psychological work in socialist China was criticized by the people because it consisted largely of scientists in labs doing studies isolated from the real world. For a discipline that is supposedly about the mental state of people, which is very dependent on society, this is a very backwards approach. As a result of criticisms, the Chinese practice evolved to focus on improving people’s understanding and engagement with the real world. But today, under imperialism, we are still stuck in these archaic forms of mental health research.(1)

As the 1st Crown of BORO describes in h article on psychology, scientific theories are often wrong and often guided by the interests of the group to which the scientist belongs. The theories that subspecies of humyns existed were developed by nations that were in the process of expanding their domination over other peoples. Prior to the development of genetic testing it was harder to argue that theories about different races or subspecies of humyns were incorrect as we can today. Criminology today is similarly tainted by the interests of the oppressors.

Who is Mentally Ill?

In MIM Theory 9, MCB52’s review of psychological practice in revolutionary China gives an excellent overview of the subject.(1) S/he prefaces h article by pointing out that those who are diagnosed with mental health problems are mostly “pissed off people rationally resisting the hegemonic culture one way or another. This especially affects youth and women, and rather than trying to ‘cure’ it – we celebrate it!” However, many people struggle to function as a result. And therefore, there is a great overlap of people struggling with mental health and interested in communist politics, both inside and outside prisons.

In imperialist prisons, the ambiguity of diagnosing people as mentally ill becomes very pronounced. Part of the problem is that imprisonment causes mental health problems, so people who may not have had symptoms that would lead to a diagnosis often develop them. Yet it is not in the oppressor’s interests to recognize this problem, so staff feel that they must draw a line between the truly ill and the “fakers.” Rather than seeing the prisons as causing mental illness, they see people acting out for attention in contrast to those who were born with “real” mental illness. Such silly exercises allow them to keep some prisoners sedated while pushing others to suicide.(2)

Short-term Solutions

As with most problems we face, we can find answers to mental health problems through dialectical materialism and in having the correct political line. In the 1950s the Chinese eliminated the more backwards psychological practices in their society and replaced them with ones focused on getting individuals to connect with and help shape the material world through applying dialectical materialism. Mental health care, like much of Chinese society under Mao, emphasized the importance of both self-reliance and collective help, with the understanding that patients can fight their diseases and lead productive lives in the new society. This required the participation of the patient’s family, doctors, and revolutionary committee at their place of employment.(3) Unfortunately, today we don’t have that kind of support in our society, and prisoners as a group are even worse off. So keeping your political line right to stay sane requires even more effort.

One article in this issue of ULK gives an example of sleep deprivation being used as a means of social control. While some have claimed to have trained themselves over time to require very little sleep, such as George Jackson, medical research has demonstrated the importance of regular sleep. Ultra-leftism leads one to take the weight of the world on one’s shoulders, and push the purist and extreme line without recognition of one’s conditions of struggle. While we encourage comrades to strive to improve their efficiency, we should also take an approach that promotes our health and longevity, as we have a long struggle ahead of us.

We often get letters from comrades in isolation, who are clearly well-read and want to change the system, but their articles are mostly confused and hard to decipher. These comrades have been lost to the system, and at this point there’s not much we can do to bring them back. So we must work together with those who aren’t lost, to keep them sane and on point. Ultra-leftism can feed into one’s isolation, which can be a very bad combo for someone who is already in a prison cell. Develop routines, set goals, and track your progress. All of these things can help you stay sharp mentally when you are physically isolated. But do not let the lack of control you have over your conditions lead you to take up extreme behaviors that threaten your physical or mental health.

The topic that triggered the call for an issue focused on mental health was suicide, which can be associated with a political line of defeatism. We’ve been getting a number of responses and stories on the topic after a mention in Ra’d’s obituary a few months back. One prison censored Under Lock & Key for talking about suicide. While the motivation was not clear, the numerous stories we receive show that these institutions encourage people who are locked up to commit suicide. Censoring open discussions on preventing suicide is just one more way to do this. Yet, at another prison the psychological services staff are giving out our address as a resource for people with suicidal tendencies. This is good news, but probably not common across the country where prisoners are twice as likely to commit suicide as the general population.(4) Overall, suicide rates are higher in the United $tates than many other countries, and comparisons to socialist China in the 1970s showed suicide and schizophrenia to be hundreds of times more common in the United $tates.(5)

If you or someone you know is dealing with suicidal thoughts, write to MIM(Prisons) to get a copy of our struggle with a comrade printed in ULK 13, as well as the self-criticism by a suicidal comrade printed in MIM Theory 9. These are good starting points for re-evaluating your own life in relation to the struggle.(6) In general, we prescribe study and political work. Come up with ways to contribute more to the struggle, while doing any little things you can to improve your immediate situation such as exercise, eating better, meditating, writing people on the outside, forming local discussion groups and staying away from negative influences.

And remember, the purpose of these prisons is to control certain populations. Getting you to end your own life is the ultimate form of control. Therefore, suicide and mental health are closely linked to other forms of control including beating people into submission, drugging them, denying them due process and sexually assaulting them. Exposing and struggling against these abuses is part of the struggle against suicide in U.$. prisons.

Notes:
(1) MCB52. “Psychological Practice in the Chinese Revolution,” MIM Theory 9: Psychology and Imperialism, MIM Distributors: 1995. p.34.
(2) U.S. Prisons Prove Maddening: review of Terry Kuper’s book Prison Madness by MIM
(3) Sidel, Victor & Ruth. Serve the People: Observations on Medicine in the People’s Republic of China, Beacon Press: 1973. p. 156.
(4) Kupers, Terry. Prison Madness: the Mental Health Crisis Behind Bars and What We Must Do About it, Jossey-Bass Publishers: 1999. p.175.
(5) HC116. The Imperialist-Patriarchy’s phony Anti-Stigma, 22 April 2005.
(6) For more testimonies and strategies from control unit survivors see: Survivors Manual compiled by Bonnie Kerness Coordinator AFSC Prison Watch Program 89 Market Street, 6th Floor Newark, NJ 07102

When revolutionaries begin discussing and conducting a concrete analysis of the particularities of national oppression and how imprisonment is used as a tool of imperialist social control, we invariably must engage in discussing and analyzing how the so-called sciences of psychiatry and psychology are used to further legitimize and give moral reasoning to the national oppression and racist extermination of oppressed nations by imperialist nations.

The Maoist Internationalist Movement wrote about and critiqued in great detail psychiatry and psychology as pseudo-sciences. For those who wish to do an exhaustive study on the subject, I highly recommend that material.(1)

Forced Psychotropic Medications

The Missouri Department of Corrections has a policy entitled, “Forced and Involuntary Psychotropic Medications,” that is reminiscent of Nazi Germany. This policy gives administrators the authority to force psychotropic medications on a prisoner who is a danger to her/himself and/or others, or is gravely disabled, among other things. This same policy further states that a prisoner can refuse this medication and psychotropic medication should never be used strictly for behavioral control in the absence of a mental disorder. Yet, all of this is done without the prisoner having legal counsel or representation at a medical-psychiatric hearing with staff.

Ultimately, the question is, who is it that determines what a mental disorder is? How do they determine who, how or when someone is a danger to themselves or another? I answer, all of them are determined by the imperialists!

Racist Pseudo-Science

From our study of history, we can see that the oppressors have always used pseudo-science to justify the oppression and genocide of oppressed nations. Whether the “savage” First Nations, “heathen” Africans or “feeble-minded” Jews, psychiatry/psychology were the social sciences that the oppressor nations used to legitimize the oppression and exploitation of others who were considered a different “race.”

While much of the language has changed, the essence remains the same – white supremacy uses psychiatry/psychology to further their aims of imposing their will upon others. Those who oppose them are often labeled “extremists,” “terrorists,” “radicals,” “criminals,” “crazy,” etc.

Take, for example, the theory of eugenics. Eugenics was a term coined by Charles Darwin’s cousin Francis Galton in 1883, which referred to the attempt to “improve the human species by affording the more suitable races or strains of blood a better chance of prevailing speedily over the less suitable.”(2)

This false scientific theory postulated that there were genes within oppressed nations that were leading to the deterioration of the humyn race and that oppressed nations were predisposed to committing crimes. The resolution to this contradiction was to isolate these people in institutions (i.e. mental hospitals, prisons, reservations, ghettos, barrios, slums, etc.) or sterilize them. The state of California was one of twenty-nine Amerikan states to pass laws allowing sterilization, and conducted more forced sterilizations than anywhere in the United $tates. These sterilizations were justified as efforts to prevent the passing on of mental illness and criminality. Today, criminality is still treated as an inborn psychological trait even though links to race are usually only implied, not explicitly stated.

Eugenics research was funded by the Carnegie Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation. The Rockefeller Foundation helped to finance German researchers at an extremely high level all the way up to 1939 before the onset of World War II, and was aware that German scientists were gassing people in mental institutions. The Rockefellers and Prescott Sheldon Bush, George W. Bush’s grandfather, were partners with I.G. Farben, the German chemical giant that built the death camp at Auschwitz. (see resources at end of article)

Eugenics was approved by the National Academy of Sciences, Amerikan Medical Association and National Research Council, and of course many Amerikan political and business leaders of the time. But after Hitler killed millions of Jews, nobody wanted to be associated with that horror, so they changed the words. In the 1990s, eugenics became the Bell Curve Theory.(2)

Pseudo-Scientific Credence

Pseudo-scientific credence means providing credibility to an issue based on flawed science. White supremacy is based on a false contention derived from a pseudo-scientific application of biology. Race-based theories were also given credence by flawed science in the form of psychology. For example, Samuel A. Cartwright, a prominent Louisiana Physician claimed that he discovered two mental “diseases” (his word) in 1851 that were peculiar to the “negro” race: 1) drapetomania and 2) dysaethesia aethiopica. In brief, drapetomania was a disease that caused Blacks to have an uncontrolled urge to run away from their masters - the treatment for this “illness” was “whipping the devil out of them.” We all know that a captured fugitive slave was often beaten with a whip by his/her slave master, a clear example of how this pseudo-science gave credence to the slave master’s brutality. Dysaethesia aethiopica supposedly affected both mind and body, the diagnosable signs included disobedience, answering disrespectfully and refusing to work. The “cure” was to put the persyn to some kind of hard labor. In 1797, the “father” of Amerikkkan psychiatry, Dr. Benjamin Rush, whose face still adorns the seal of the Amerikkkan Psychiatric Association, declared that the color of Blacks was caused by a rare congenital disease caused “negritude,” which derived from leprosy. The “cure” was when the skin turned white.(4,5)

Independence from Oppressive “Science”

The essence of this lesson is that until oppressed nations achieve self-determination, control of their own institutions that speak to their needs, and the requisite power to guide the destiny of their nation, the imperialists will continue to use pseudo-sciences such as psychiatry and psychology to further their aims to dominate, imprison and exploit poor and oppressed nations – and if push comes to shove, destroy them!

Notes:
(1) Psychology & Imperialism. MIM Theory 9, 1995. MIM Distributors.
(2) MC12. “Bell Curve Lessons: IQ Against the Oppressed,” MIM Theory 9.
(3) Lothrop Stoddard. “The Rising Tide of Color Against White World Supremacy”
(4) Abdul D. Shakur, Abasi Ganda, Kamau M. Askari. “The Bell Curve Conspiracy: A Recipe for New Afrikan Genocide” Black Panther Press, 2003.
(5) “Creating Racism: Psychiatry’s Betrayal in the Guise of Help.” The Citizenship Commission on Human Rights, 1995.

Other Resources:

Edwin Black. War Against the Weak: Eugenics and America’s Campaign to Create a Master Race. Four Walls: New York, 2003.
Wendy Kline. Building a Better Race: Gender, Sexuality and Eugenics from the turn of the Century to the Baby Boom. University of California Press: Berkeley, 2001.
Stevan Kuhl. The Nazi Connection: Eugenics, American Racism and German National Socialism. Oxford University Press: New York, 1994.
James Scott. Seeing Like a State: How certain schemes to improve the human condition have failed. Houghton Mifflin: New York, 2006.
Cory Panshin. The Secret History of the 20th Century. 2006.
Tom Big Warrior. They Only Call it Fascism When it’s Being Done to White People. Rising Sun Press: 2006.

Hands across Amerika, what a wonderful, heart-warming concept. From Santa Monica, California to the beaches of Alabama, Amerikans united in an attempt to show their disappointment and anger at the British Petroleum oil company (BP) as well as their love for the environment, specifically the Gulf Coast.

It’s been over two months since BP caused the disastrous oil spill in the Gulf Coast region of the United Snakes, and still the imperialists and big capitalists are at a loss for how to stop one of the most destructive environmental disasters in humyn history. Amerikans are mad! One of the things Amerikans hate to see most is when the evils of imperialism touch “their” shores. What a huge financial hit for all those people living on and near the Gulf Coast, not to mention all that poor defenseless marine life - how dare that BP come here and impose their careless, maniacal ways on Amerikkka - have they no shame? Amerikans didn’t want that oil anyway, right?

Actually, Amerikans do want BP drilling for oil. Being the parasites on humynity and the globe that they are, they definitely wanted BP drilling for oil in the Gulf Coast no matter what they say. They’re thirsty for oil like ticks for blood. It’s partly why they installed the Shah of Iran back in the day. It’s why they invaded Kuwait and attacked Iraq during the Gulf War, which led to record-breaking marine oil spills at that time polluting wetlands in Iraq (BP has far surpassed those records now).(1) It’s why Amerika invaded Iraq a second time and hung Saddam. And it’s partly why they now have their sights set on Iran for regime change. So please, to all you oil thirsty piggish Amerikans, spare us your sentiments. You wanted that oil just as much, if not more than your big capitalists and energy corporations did.

It’s not as if BP is some foreign entity completely alien to Amerika which somehow just muscled or manipulated the western hemisphere’s only superpower and began drilling at will. You wanted that oil when you decided to get rid of that tired old Chevy and upgrade to a decadently sprawled out 2010 all terrain SUV. You wanted that oil when you decided to keep your home at a comfy 73 degrees year round even though you live in California. You want that oil every time you purchase all of the other pointless, unnecessary crap that you don’t need which requires oil for manufacturing, packaging, shipping, etc. And finally, you prove that you want that oil every time one of your boys and girls comes back from overseas in a body bag, or subject the Third World to your yoke of oppression, death and destruction.

Everything’s fine and dandy when the oil spill happens somewhere else, in some country you’re too lazy to even try to pronounce right. Nigerians have been living among oil spills for over 50 years, amounting to over 550 million gallons spilled, thanks to foreign oil companies supplying Amerikans and other rich nations.(2) Fifty years, and still nothing has been done about the destroyed ecosystems or humyn livelihoods. And for those who are campaigning to end off shore oil drilling in the United $tates without seriously restricting First World consumption: that will only translate into more pollution and destruction in Nigeria, the Sudan and all over the Middle East where humyn lives and ecosystems are deemed less worthy by the chauvinists screaming “not in my backyard!”

The oil spill wasn’t BP’s fault alone and it wasn’t Obama’s fault alone, either. It’s capitalism stupid, and the sooner you begin to understand that and start to do something to ensure that oil spills like in the Gulf Coast don’t happen again, like say helping to bring imperialism down, the better off we’ll all be.

This type of disaster would have had a very small to nil chance of happening in the former Soviet Union (1917-1953) or the socialist People’s Republic of China (1949-1976), because those communist countries wouldn’t have had to do the extensive drilling that the First World seems so caught up with. Why? It is exactly because the communist countries implement something called “planned economics,” to meet humyn needs. With today’s knowledge of capitalism’s effects on Earth’s ecology, a socialist form of production would only approve the production of necessary amounts of what’s needed for their people, such as food, clothing, shelter, medical supplies and other necessities for trade and sale. These planned economies would be updated quarterly, yearly or as needed. But today, Amerikans demand more and they want it cheap. And the imperialists must produce more than is needed in order to continue to profit.

In a Maoist economic system, since production is for need and not profit, safety suddenly becomes “affordable.” Under capitalism, cutting corners increases profits, while threatening humyn lives. While many Amerikans are legitimately angry, they feel helpless to do anything. The BP officials seem untouchable, yet in a Maoist planned socialist economy, those in charge of potentially life-threatening operations are held to the greatest accountability, including the death penalty. While BP officials are millionaires, communist officials in socialist China made much less than intellectuals, while bearing much more responsibility. Allowing the few to profit off of the destruction of the planet that all life depends on will be the most lasting legacy of capitalism that future generations will scratch their heads at.

We can expect many more environmental disasters to hit Amerika (as they’ve already been hitting the Third World for decades) in the years to come as the imperialists get more desperate to exploit the earth for its material resources and leave all qualms aside when it comes to tapping more and more into the U.$. minerals and fossil fuel reserves. The insatiable appetites of consumption of the First World must be stopped in order to maintain a planet worth building socialism on.

Notes:
(1)Threats to the environment posed by war in Iraq. Science in Africa, March 2003.
(2)Jon Gambrell. Gulf spill a familiar story in oil-soaked Nigeria. Associated Press, July 5, 2010.

Before I could get this letter out, land of the weak, home of the slave day came up, “4th of July” the celebration of the day the Europeans that came to amerikkka who took this land from the Indigenous people had to in turn fight the British to keep it. I wonder where was good ole karma then? Anywow. I’m sitting here troubled because like the comrade who wrote about the hot dogs, they served us half-cooked BBQ chicken. My point in this they were also supposed to put cherry pie on the tray but since I’m in loss of privilege, for not wanting to work for free, and numerous other reasons, myself and others on the “lazy offender program” as the pigs call it, did not receive cherry pie. These grown ass men were crying about no pie, and I was saying you’ll be lucky to eat the chicken with no stomach problems. These morons stress for all the wrong reasons. There is no unity here in the Texas Don’t Care Jailocracy. These inmates have been led to believe that if you work and stay disciplinary free parole’ll let you go. The truth is I stayed case free for 7 years on a non-aggressive 10 year sentence and they tried to give me parole after I pulled 9 years and 3 months, with all kinds of stipulations. So I told the parole board to give it to someone else. The moral of the story is, instead of riding for a cherry pie, why not ride for parole or furloughs to be reinstated in TDCJ asylums?