Federal Prisons

I look to Africa when
I’ve lost my determination
across the oceans depths my
history
within the bloody waves my
ancestry

Reflections raindrops of
emancipation ripple through
to the currents of life
the spirit of my people struggle
break chains
Alive in my eyes I find strength to fight

Here in Utah the lower your classification number the higher risk you are. For example, level 5 prisoners have gate passes and can work in the community or get home visits. Level 4 and 3 prisoners are housed in general population, level 2s are housed in one of two different control units here at the Utah State Prison, depending on if they are considered STG or not, and level ones are housed in a single man cell, with no commissary privileges other than hygiene or writing materials. If you are a level one and in the hole, then you come out three times a week for a fifteen minute shower. You’re walked on a dog leash, cuffed and shackled with a spit mask placed over your face by two pigs.

I’ve been a level one prisoner before and I am grateful for the learning experience. I can tell you first hand that this injustice system is designed to break your mind, body and soul. The best way to combat this system is to first educate ourselves and one another. Unity is essential to our survival and our rise out from under the oppression!

I would like to give thanks to MIM for all the work y’all do to educate the masses. I can go on for days about the conditions of control units and how some of us rise above and how others fall for the okeydoke. Please send me more literature whenever possible.

MIM(Prisons) responds: Locking down the fighters against injustice as so-called “high risk” prisoners is one strategy used by prisons across the country to fight prisoners’ attempts to organize. It is true that prisoners are given privileges for closing their eyes and ignoring the injustice and brutality of prison. And those who rise above and take up the anti-imperialist fight are given control unit housing.

This week I’ve been fortunate to be passed on information about the MIM organization and learn of your commitment to the oppressed of all colors. I’m a New Afrikan and the light bulb just came on for me, as I’m steadily evolving mentally and being enlightened with our past struggles, our current struggles and it’s a fight one must put up to the very end.

As I sit in prison for the first time I vividly see the conspiracy on Black and Latino men. Miseducation and poverty, we’re set up to fail and become a profit for white supremacists. This ordeal is beyond huge. As a reformed drug dealer from South Central, I see how I added to the problem, and I’m forever done with poisoning my folks.

What I like about this organization is, it’s not about the individual but about the collective.

Over a decade ago Tupac said we weren’t ready to see a Black president. Yesterday, amerikans elected one. As we wrote about previously in an article on Obama’s candidacy, neo-colonialism is nothing new. Africa has already had half a century of Black presidents. As a minority diaspora in the belly of the beast it is no surprise that it took much longer to see one in the united $tates. And it should be no surprise that given such a situation he has less independence from the imperialists than a president in a small African nation with little economic development.

The biggest lesson we can take from the Obama election is that we are surrounded by amerikans (surprise). And we say that in the context of amerikans being nationalists and members of an oppressor nation (think nazi Germany or apartheid Azania).

When George W. Bush ran against Kerry we said, “another day, another imperialist candidate for president.” But we tended to agree with those saying that a Bush presidency would help to polarize the world and turn people more strongly against u$ imperialism. You might argue that we were right.

But the shortcoming of that history is the significant rise of anti-Bush sentiments among amerikans. This gave them a way out. Islamic groups like al-Qaeda held amerikans responsible for the actions of a president who a large plurality of them voted for, while too many so-called “communists” have played the role of neo-colonial peacemakers between the oppressors and the oppressed.

The anti-Bush united front blurred the lines between radicals in the u.$. and the Democratic Party. This process was helped along by those calling themselves Maoist accepting leadership roles in this movement. (We’ll watch as this movement dissolves proving that they do support a different kind of imperialism, in this case one with a black face.)

But yesterday marked the moving of the poles. Suddenly, the millions who mushed themselves into the “radical left” because they disagreed with Bush are back in the white house with amerikan flags waving. It’s not that they ever put their amerikan flags down or were ever radical at all. But they allowed and even promoted radical sounding rhetoric to rope some of the more radical and energetic activists into the Democratic Party, including oppressed nation youth.

Now all that has changed. Obama can’t pretend he opposes the occupation of Iraq or be wishy washy on the fence anymore. He has to end it or stay the course. In that way the Bush - Obama 1-2 punch might be the perfect lesson in bourgeois politics. For all those years people said Bush was an evil, horrible man. Then dream prez Barack Obama comes in, and nothing changes. Lesson learned?

New Afrikan or Afrikan Amerikan

Comrades have already pointed out that Obama wasn’t winning the white vote, putting into question our statement above that amerikans elected a Black president. (1) Not only did the Democratic Party benefit from the armed struggle against u$ imperialism while the Republicans were in the white house, but they also bet correctly on a growing oppressed nation electorate in the u$. In both cases, any progress should be attributed to the oppressed and not white amerika.

With the u$ hot war in Pakistan under way and the new president elect fully in support, we already have concrete evidence that this presidency is gonna be a lot like the last 43. Yet many Black people agree with Tupac that the new president is heaven sent. Blacks overwhelmingly opposed the war on Iraq, when white amerikans supported it. (2) Will they back Obama’s war on Pakistan?

Oppressed nations should treat the Obama presidency as an opportunity to make demands from a president who claims to understand where they’re from. The most astute New Afrikan leaders are rotting away in isolation cells in the united $tates. Some elders are facing trial for alleged crimes over a quarter century old. If Obama claims to care about people who aren’t white he better stop the extreme repression being dealt out to any Black, Brown or Red leader that stands up for their people.

Obama united amerikans, reminding revolutionaries what we’re up against in this country. He also united amerikans with oppressed nations within u$ borders (not to mention in Africa and elsewhere). It is yet to be seen whether Blacks and other internal semi-colonies are aligning themselves more completely with the oppressor nation from which they benefit financially or will step up to the opportunity to expand the voice of the oppressed. As the economic crisis advances, the oppressed would be smart to bet on self-reliance and self-determination. When the most oppressed and exploited come to tell amerika that they can’t steal their wealth anymore, we’d like to be on the right side of history.

The oppressed youth in the united $tates need vanguards that unflinchingly uphold self-determination and anti-imperialism. White politics and non-profits have done too much to dilute the revolutionary energy of oppressed youth into dead-ends that do not serve oppressed people globally or promote any real change.

notes:
(1) Fox News exit poll summary. http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/11/05/fox-news-exit-poll-summary-599974112/
(2) A year and a half after the invasion 42% of whites thought it was a mistake, while 76% of Blacks did. see Gallup Poll. Iraq Support Split Along Racial Lines. Sept. 14, 2004. http://www.gallup.com/poll/13012/Iraq-Support-Split-Along-Racial-Lines.aspx

big money deals
involving big wheels
backed by the law
leave you in awe

But you didn’t know
that by chasing the gold
they trampled the rights
for which America fights

State prisons abound
and still breaking ground
across this great land
to feed the demand

The feds are right there
getting their share
partners in crime
without doing time

Then there are prison for profit
who would have thought it
not me and you
it’s sad but it’s true

Justice for sale
will only fail
to deal with crime
but hey…it’s your dime

My transfer was the inevitable response of Kinross Correctional Facility’s (KCF) administration to my aggressive pro-prisoner stance as an elected prisoner representative. Apparently, the KCF administration felt threatened by the performance of my duty, as a member of the Prisoner Benefit Fund (PBF) Committee, by addressing the removal and destruction of PBF purchased books from the KCF library by Librarian Debra Herbig and the theft of several large spools of cable and numerous cable junction boxes, intended for the upgrade of our cable TV system, by the head of maintenance.

I was not alone in this as my fellow prisoner rep and PBF Committee member was similarly transferred. Said transfers were retaliatory and punitive, as the prisons we were transferred to are notoriously rotten prisons. Moreover, the KCF administration did not want to deal with the other issues we raised, such as the flagrant exploitation of our labor power (we paraphrased the similar demand of the Attica State Prison rebellion), the horrifying conditions in KCFs segregation unit, which clearly constitute torture, and the purposed scheduling of our PBF fundraiser during the Ramadan fast.

Ahora que Barack Obama ha asegurado la nominación del partido Democratico de los Estados Unidos, es importante que nosotros informemos nuestra nación oprimida de jovenes que esta siendo controlado por las mismas fuerzas que controlan George Bush, lo cual son corporaciones multinacionales, grupos de presión politica y capital patriarca internacional.

Es aparente que Barack Obama será el siguiente presidente de los Estados Unidos considerando la emoción del pais sobre el y la indispocisión de la nación de separar John McCain de George Bush.

Este es el más grande momento decisivo en la historia de los Estados Unidos, porque Barack Obama tiene el potencial de transformar la nación oprimida en este pais en una aristocracia laboral al costo del Tercer Mundo. Esto fortalecerá el imperialismo Estadounidense y debilitará la revolución en un sentido porque entre más y más Negros y Latinos ganan beneficios de la nación opresora, esas naciones oprimidas estarán menos servicial para pelear por el proletariado internacional. Esto a la larga transforma los inmigrantes en el grupo revolucionario numero uno en este pais y el grupo más servicial para pelear por el proletariado internacional.

Aunque Negros y Latinos representan la mayoría de esos encarcelados en carceles y prisiones hoy, verdaderamente creo que el sistema criminal de injusticia como también la policia drasticamente incrementarán sus campañas para encerrar más inmigrantes, y eventualmente los inmigrantes serán la mayoria de esos encarcelados en el bordo de los Estados.

Por cierto, estamos mirando esta tendencia desplegarse a como hablamos. Inmigrantes son el segmento más rapido de crecimiento de los estados y el sistema federal penitenciario. [Casi todas las estadisticas sobre encarcelamiento no separan enmigrantes de “Hispano” en general, haciendo esto difícil de confirmar pero esta creciendo la evidencia que esto es verdad. Existe un aumento significante en construción detenciones federales a lo largo del bordo tras cada ves más leyes draconicas de inmigración y reglas en años recientes. Mientras tanto, la población general de prisioneros ha continuado aumentando, pero algunos sistemas estatales han empesado a recortar. Nosotros recibimos más contribución y investigación en este tema.]

Los prisioneros Estado Unidences son actualmente el segundo más grande grupo revolucionario en este pais. Un muy importante, y algunos incluyendo yo argumentará que este es el más grande punto de vuelta en la historia de Estados Unidos y historia del mundo, y nosotros debemos poner una perspectiva apropiada en este momento crucial de historia. Es aparente que estamos dirigidos hacia ocho años de Barack Obama como presidente de los Estados Unidos y tengo un presentimiento que los siguientes ocho años (2008-2016) será el tiempo más importante en la historia de los Estados Unidos y el mundo.

MIM(Prisiónes) responde: Pensamos que este prisionero ofrece algunos comentarios valiosos sobre la nación oprimida dentro de los bordo Estado Unidence juntandose con la aristocracia laboral. MIM ha estado diciendo por años que las naciónes oprimidas son una parte de la aristocracia laboral, entonces no estamos de acuerdo que tomará Obama ser presidente para causar esta transformación. La realidad de vida en Amerika es que todos los ciudadanos se benefician de la economía de este pais imperialista y eso incluye las naciones oprimidas dentro. Por lo tanto, el interes de clase de naciones oprimidas dentro ya esta con el imperialismo. [Mira MIM Teoria 1 y MIM Teoria 10 para más detallada economia y analicis politico de clase dentro de los bordos Estadounidenses.]

Miramos naciones oprimidas dentro como potencial revolucionario por sus intereses nacionales. Pero estamos de acuerdo con este prisionero y su punto en general que el gobierno Estadounidense podría empujar hacia adelante la condición nacional de naciones oprimidas internas para elevar sus intereces nacionales para alinearlos con el imperialismo. La historia de Estados Unidos tiene bastantes ejemplos de naciones oprimidas juntandose con la nación opresora, pero esos grupos eran blancos de diversos paises, como los irlandeses [mira Colonos: La mitologia del proletariado blanco escrito por Sakai.]

In the midst of Amerika’s soaring prison and jail population, quite possibly the country’s only real growth industry, what is often overlooked is the destruction it is wreaking on family and community. For all their polemics about “family values,” no Republican or Democratic presidential candidate bothered to address, or even “spin” the subject on any level. This alone should be enough to alert any person of good conscience to the fact that something is afoot and to the distinct probability that these acts of omissions add up to a purposed agenda of the state and the powers it represents.

As of June 30, 2006, there were 2,245,189 persons incarcerated in the united $tates. That is 1 out of every 133 Amerikans and the highest per capita incarceration rates in history. This is a 2.8% increase over the previous year, and this rising incarceration rate has been rapidly accelerating since the 1960s. This trend is accompanied by an increasing racial disparity, with 4.8% of all Black men, 1.8% of all Hispanic men, and .7% of all white men in the united $tates incarcerated. Most alarming, however, is the 4.8% increase in the incarceration rate of women, as compared to 2.7% for men, for a total of 111,403 in prison as of June 30, 2006, with Black women incarcerated at nearly 4 times the rate of white women and more than twice the rate of Hispanic women. (See Bureau of Justice Statistics, [ul]Prison and Jail Inmates at Midyear 2006[/ul], NCJ217675 (June 2007)).

Moreover, the Washington DC-based Public Safety Performance Project (PSPP) statistically analyzed prison population trends in all 50 states and the Federal Bureau of Prisons and projected the total prison population, not including jail, will increase by 192,023 to 1.7 million between 2007 and 2011. That’s three times the growth of the u$ population and an overall increase of 13%, comprised of 12% for men and 16% for women. (See PSPP, [ul]Public Safety, Public Spending, Forecasting Amerika’s Prison Population 2007-2011[/ul]).

As shown by these statistics and projections, ’07 through ’11 are going to be lucky years for the prison industry but not for the persons included in and affected by them, particularly, women and their families. To argue that these numbers point to some accidental anomaly would strain the bonds of credulity past the breaking point, as they represent nothing less than the achieved goal of state repression of so-called minority communities in Amerika, with said goal encompassing the destruction of family as well. “Minorities” first, then everyone else.

These statistics serve to reveal and confirm the long-term pattern of intentional destruction of community and family in the ghettos and barrios of Amerika that already struggle for existence under a virtual police siege and occupation. The state has come to recognize that, with most of the men incarcerated, the women, our mothers and daughters, are still carrying on - the glue holding family and community together - so it has set about to eliminate them via incarceration. The final stage in the planned destruction of women’s continued ability to resist the state’s destruction of their families and communities.

This plan includes redlining by insurance companies and a direct attack on home ownership by refusing to offer reasonable mortgages in “minority” communities and, instead, offering subprime and adjustable rate mortgages, with women much more likely to be saddled with a bad mortgage than men, a good credit rating not withstanding. Further, with only starvation-wage employment available to them, many of these women are forced to subsist on welfare. The December 1, 2007, New York Times reported that almost half the states refuse to pass on the money collected for child support to the families on welfare, with most of the remaining states only passing along $50 per month, in spite of studies done of a Wisconsin experiment that showed “when support payments were fully passed along to mothers, more fathers came forward and paid…and were more likely to establish lasting patterns of payment and connection with their children.” Of course, incarcerated parents are usually unable to pay any child support.

Families have little chance to survive intact with the men locked-up and the women financially hamstrung. However, chance has been removed from the equation by the state-administered death blow of locking up women wholesale for minor drug and property crimes. Imagine, if you can, that you are an oppressed nation woman trying to survive and hold a family together in the face of this flagrant state repression. Pretty scary, yes? And even scarier if you are one of the 12 million immigrants trying to do so. Patriarchy and white privilege uber alles! The state keeps its foot on our necks by using the age-old tactic of divide and conquer. Divide the community, then divide the family and all that is left are isolated individuals whose existence is completely state-mediated.

With family and community in the advanced stages of disintegration, all that remains are the children - alienated and utterly deprived of meaningful family and community upbringing. Children with fathers, and now mothers, in jail or prison. Children driven into foster “homes,” juvenile detention facilities and even adult jails and prisons. Children rendered functionally illiterate by an educational system that is steadily being pried from the hands of our communities and handed over to state control. Children born and bred in a world where the driving premise is everyone for themselves and devil take the hindmost. Children artfully molded to “be all they can be,” which sadly amounts to the brainwashed cannon-fodder of the Amerikan imperialist dream-death machine.

MIM(Prisons) adds: This comrade is right that imprisonment of men is a direct blow to families, particularly oppressed nation families, and that the incarceration of increasing numbers of wimmin means increasing devastation to families. It is true that the imprisonment rate of wimmin is rising faster than that for men, but in absolute numbers there are still far more men locked up every year and prisons are still primarily used to target oppressed nation men within U.$. borders. Also of note, for the first time since the penitentiary replaced the poor houses over a century ago, we are seeing whole families locked up in detention centers along the border with Mexico. Migrant men, wimmin and even children are probably the fastest growing group in u$ prisons.

There are issues specifically relevant to wimmin prisoners, most obvious is placement of children in foster systems because wimmin are typically the primary caregivers for children. While men may be able to rely on their wives to care for their children when they are locked up, and single men are unlikely to have custody of children, the reverse is not true for wimmin. But the loss of connection to their families and particular children has devastating effects on men and their children as well.

Groups and individuals who claim to value family and community should be working with us to stop the growth of prisons in Amerika and set up programs for family contact where they do exist. These attacks on families are some of the reasons we can still talk about oppressed nations existing within u$ borders. As long as these conditions exist there will be groups of people whose existence demands the end to imperialism and white power in this country.

I have come across two cases that fit the criteria of our problems with censorship in California.

Powell v. Ellis, 2006 US Dist. Lexis 83758 (D. Aliz. Nov 15, 2006) is concerning authorized vendor status for books among other things.

The other case, Ross v. Alameida 2006 US Dist. Lexis 6079 ED Cal. Feb 15, 2006, really interests me because Scott Kernan is named as a defendant in this 2nd Amendment complaint. He was acting warden at the time of the incident. The incident was related to freedom of religious exercise and due process violations in the past authorized by Scott Kernan as acting warden at Mule Creek State Prison. Sound familiar?

The violation had to do with requiring the inmates to receive some kind of prior approval in order to receive religious reading materials thru the mail. Also, the same as now, inmates were not being notified of their disapproved mail.

I hope that you are able to check this out and refer it to anyone also pushing forward with a §1983 on the ban.

Mr. Kernan, it seems from his experience in Ross v. Alameida, knew full well that by issuing a statewide ban in our current care he was willfully and deliberately breaking the law, and for that there is no excuse!

I’m writing to let you know what this prison here in Montana is up to concerning my many fallen brothers. For instance, a close brother of mine is having this huge run around with the so-called medical department. He’s got all sorts of heart problems and takes multiple medications for his conditions. They took his meds away once and he was made to file all sorts of paperwork on them to get them back. Tell me that wasn’t some kind of life threatening game played by the prison officials.

I have another brother who has serious knee problems. It took forever fighting with them and listening to them say “There’s nothing wrong with you, it’s all in your head,” before they agreed to bring in a rehab specialists. This specialists told my brother that his left knee was permanently screwed, which he already knew, but anyhow, he told my brother that he’d recommend a brace for knee support and that he’d be back in a couple of weeks to start working with him. The prison put a kebash on those plans because this was done a month and a half ago and still no brace or a second visit from the specialist.

The way I see it is the prison officials, medical and semi-high ranking staff will do anything to put an extra taxpayers buck in their pocket.

There’s also another issue that just makes me split a gut. This place does a lot of racketeering. Take for instance the fact that they took our 13” TVs away and started selling 7” TVs. The 7 inchers were only $100 for a while, then out of the blue they switched vendors and the 7 inchers went up to $200 a piece. Seems to me that somebody’s making a killer profit.