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.
A USW comrade wrote: …the USW Coordinator said, “We
are struggling to maintain our programs FIRST because our former
comrades left, but second because the people we support for years are
not coming out here and putting in work into these programs.” i think
first this is a good example of what i was saying to the comrade in NY,
u acknowledged first your internal factors, while also acknowledging
external ones and these are FIRST and SECOND in that order of
importance.
As to what u said i feel WE comrades on the inside have to start
treating MIM(Prisons) and USW as if they’re OURS, which in reality they
are. The comrade in ULK 72 made a good point about comrades
making donations now that i’m sure a lot of Us have received the
imperialist pacification funds garnered from imperialist
super-exploitation, and oppression. So here in this forum for the
supposed advanced and more dedicated comrades i wanna challenge us all
to donate what We can even if its just stamps, and thereby help OUR
comrades, teachers, and supporters at MIM(Prisons) get some of the other
programs up and running again. That’s called resolving a contradiction
internally!
For years, MIM(Prisons) had tried to raise funds to publish
ULK more frequently, well, now WE comrades got $$$ and instead
of giving that shit back to the enemy state lets invest in OUR
independent institutions, and there-by invest in OUR growth and
development. i’m putting my $$ where my mouth is, i’ve already sent the
comrades 30 stamps and will be sending 30 more with this letter, for a
total of 60. WHO GONNA MATCH ME, COMRADES????
MIM(Prisons) adds: We’ve decided to print this
commentary addressed to other USW leaders for all of our readers. Turns
out the USW leaders have stepped up big time! In March and April of 2021
we received the most donations in 2 months that we’ve received in over 3
years. And back then we had a lot more subscribers.
For years we campaigned to get our readers in prison to fund 10% of
the costs of ULK, but never reached the goal. Well in the last
few months we’ve received donations from the inside totaling about 33%
of the cost of this issue! This is due to 3 things: 1) our mailing list
shrunk, decreasing our costs; 2) we made changes to how we do
ULK so that it is cheaper; 3) comrades stepped up with big
donations.
However, this was only about 10 comrades who contributed this money,
and over 90% of the money came from comrades who are USW leaders. We’d
hope and expect that USW leaders contribute more than others. But we
doubt these comrades will be able to keep up this pace alone. So the
next phase of our funding campaign is to bring in donations from the
rest of you.
We also must recognize that our donations would have been larger if
we could accept checks. A number of people attempted to send us checks
last month. However, as we indicate in every issue of ULK and
elsewhere, we cannot do anything with checks made out to MIM. Especially
if you are having your family send us $5, please don’t waste time and
money on money orders, just have them send us the $5.
With the success of Ehecatl’s call, we have decided to do what many
organizations do and have an annual fund drive. This will help you keep
track of when it’s time to renew your contributions. And we’ve chosen
the Fourth of You-Lie imperialist holiday as our day to raise money for
truth-telling, independent media.
At our current rate of distribution, if you send us 7 stamps by 4
July 2021 you will have covered the cost of your subscription for one
year. That’s it. Seven stamps every 4th of July for the voice of the
anti-imperialist movement Under Lock & Key to your door. Please help out!
Karl Marx was writing at a time when bourgeois democracy had
triumphed, and political parties ruled the day. These political parties
represented the various oppressive classes, primarily the bourgeoisie
itself. A radical idea at the time was to form a party that was for and
by the proletariat.
V.I. Lenin led the first successful project to build a proletarian
party, a Communist Party, and take power from the hands of the
oppressors and put it in the hands of the oppressed. Lenin left us with
many lessons on how to do this, how such a party should be organized and
how it should operate. The Party as the vehicle for the transfer of
power from the oppressor to the oppressed has been a foundation of
revolutionary science ever since.
The Maoist Internationalist Movement began in 1983. In 1990 the first
MIM party, MIP-Amerika, was formalized. In 2006, the Party dissolved and
put out a plan for a new cell structure for the MIM. In 2007,
MIM(Prisons) formed as a cell. There remains no functioning parties
within the MIM today.(see Continuity and Rupture: A Counter-Narrative to
JMP’s History of Maoism for more on MIM timeline)
A CA USW comrade: “[The journal] Kites hit it square
on the head though as MIM has said we really don’t have a vanguard. But
I thought Kites’ pointing out a squandered opportunity in 2020 on point.
This is our job, to seize opportunity out of the objective situations
and especially the crisis amongst the enemy itself. The only thing
missing regarding the external factors (we can’t control) is 3rd world
revolutionary revolts. But we have no mass support but 2020 should’ve
been a god-send for that. And it wasn’t.”
Actually, MIM has never said we don’t have a vanguard. MIM has always
said the vanguard is the most advanced political line, which could be
held by a tiny organization or even one individual when conditions are
very undeveloped. What this comrade gets right is our situation remains
very undeveloped.
We won’t get into a deep analysis of revolutionary forces here. We do
think 2020 was an opportunity to expand our influence that we could have
done more with if we were stronger. But the essential character of the
U.$. population did not, and has not changed from 2019 or from 2001. The
vast majority in this country benefit from the current imperialist
order.
MIM(Prisons) has argued that the cell structure makes sense at this
strategic stage, even within a Leninist model, because we are not vowing
for state power at this time, or tomorrow. Another USW comrade in
Federal prison contends that the lack of a party:
“complicates the task of implementing a totalizing strategy for
revolution and building the mass base to carry it forward.”
This comrade argues that we need a united leadership to guide us down
the correct road now. We touched on the inherent contradiction of the
cell structure in our Reassessing
Cell Structure 5 Years Out where we pointed out that it allows for
one cell to decide its time to form a party, while others disagree. If
only that were the main problem we were facing today.
The question is, do we need a party for a united strategy? And what
are the downsides of moving too quickly into a Party formation to try to
achieve that? We actually have a question about the weaknesses of the a
party structure in our introductory study course. Here are some recent
answers:
“B.D.S.: Bad leadership could cause death of the
movement
Ocelotl: Easier to target and infiltrate
Iashstiem: Security is more easily compromised
Adonis Salvo: More difficult to control and keep
organized and focused
The Sober Souljah: Slacking in security by accepting
strangers
F.L.A.V.A. 1: It will bring more of a spotlight on
the party depending on its action in the revolution
Anarchy in VA: Prioritizing actions to take
Jups: Snitches/spying break down organization”
The primary answer, and the primary reason given by MIM for adopting
the cell structure, was security. The second reason offered by comrades
here is a fear of putting all your eggs in one basket type of argument.
If we can allow for a diversity of approaches, we have more
possibilities for success. This could be especially important in the
early phases of our development as a movement. If five people come
together and form a “Party” all we have is five self-appointed leaders.
MIM(Prisons) often mentions the development of leadership that occurs
through the forced self-reliance within small cells. It is when we have
cells around the country who can elect leaders to represent them in a
Party that such a project becomes viable.
A CA prisoner comments: “I was very impressed with
ULK’s answer to the Potash book on Tupac. Until now I did not
know that anyone other than myself was aware of the extent the
intelligence community is involved in eliminating dissidents of their
empire and the psychological warfare against civilians in the U.S. thru
COINTELPRO and other intel ops against civilians. I was astonished to
have my innermost suspicions confirmed by ULK. With the
elimination of our leaders, we can not succeed thru unity, We must adopt
independent cells as a model as you are obviously aware, every time a
potential leader arises that can restore basic human rights and dignity
and even freedom itself, the U.S. government is quick to eliminate our
leader.
“And so you are correct in educating the People… Thru mass education,
hopefully the People will awaken and do the work independent of any one
leader, as a duty to the idea of freedom, not as a part of a bid for
acceptance… True freedom can only come from socialism… We face a giant
and to truly succeed we must be very wise. We cannot win by force yet so
let us educate ourselves and know that against our common enemy we all
must fight our own battle.”
This comrade touches on security, our strategic stage and the
strategy of People’s War as opposed to great man theory. Education is
always important, but at this stage it is principal over the use of
force. This comrade’s approach to mass education as the best hedge
against losing the leaders we depend on is in line with the Maoist
strategy of People’s War. This strategy involves building a People’s
Army that is embedded in the people, engaging in productive work and
educational campaigns side-by-side with the people as we work towards
developing base areas. Ultimately, as this comrade points out, Mao’s
emphasis on how the people must learn to wage war through waging war
rings true.
In our culture, social media reinforces practices that put
individuals in the spotlight. We must develop ways to utilize the reach
of the internet, without promoting ideas of great man theory or
revealing persynal information of our leaders.
Security practices is one area where we must do more education. The
only people MIM(Prisons) has interacted with that have good security
practice seem to be individuals working alone. The state of basic
security practice among revolutionaries is horrible. There is no way to
succeed in a serious struggle with such practices. Yet, we must move
beyond isolated individuals posting anonymous content to actually do
real organizing.
A NY USW comrade asks: “Is the cell ideology
productive? As a single unit I have not been able to grow. I do not
believe it is me. Is there more I can do somehow else?”
The original MIM resolution on cell structure pointed out that a
one-persyn cell is the most secure. But is it effective? MIM(Prisons)
critiqued the idea of a one-persyn cell in general in its lack of
ability to develop knowledge dialecticaly with just one mind. Some may
be able to do it, but we don’t think it is a path that will move us
forward fastest.
So what of the single-persyn cell trying to grow that can’t seem to
recruit? In prison this problem is distinct in that you have no control
over who and how many people you have access to. That is a separate
problem. And we’d say you can reach others and recruit outside your
prison by writing and producing artwork for Under Lock &
Key, for example.
Whether in prison or not, the question becomes what can the party or
larger organization give you as an individual to increase your success?
We might think of things like a newspaper, mass campaigns, sharing
experiences around what works and what doesn’t, connecting people and
projects to make our work more efficient, imposing rules and discipline
on cadre. It is not clear to us that we need a party for any of these
things. We propose that technology today allows us to do all of these
things in an anonymous and efficient manner.
MIP-Amerika was known to have better security practices than most
self-declared communist parties in the United $tates, and yet they saw
security as a weakness that led to their demise. We should take this
lesson to heart. It will be premature to launch a party before cadre
have come to understand security practices and power struggle. Our
conditions include a level of surveillance and Liberalism that other
revolutionary movements did not face. We must have real strategies for
addressing these problems before we embark on the Party-building
project.
The problem with the cell structure as it exists in our movement is
that there is no centralized strategy for layering our security
practices. The problem faced by small organizations concerned about
security is how to separate out roles and tasks when your cadre is
limited. The cell structure can force this situation onto us. The
advantage of the Party is being able to do this bigger-scale and
longer-term strategic construction. But we argue that we are not at this
stage yet.
The cell structure is pointless without good security practices. That
would play to our weaknesses by needlessly dividing our limited forces.
It is only by developing security practices that would allow for a
successful bid for state power that the cell structure really becomes
operational. In the early stages of Party formation we should aim to
maintain some of the policies of cell structure as a fail-safe. As our
position becomes stronger, the security problems of a centralized party
become less of a concern.
As always, politics must stay in command. This type of strategic
thinking must come after an ideological consolidation. We seem to be in
the stage of “letting 100 flowers bloom” as different interpretations
and applications of Maoism in occupied Turtle Island are doing their
things, watching and criticizing each other. While we have criticized a
number of these trends as revisionists of Maoism, the diversity of
people we see studying Maoism is a step forward. We will need many more
cells organizing around the MIM cardinal principles, with demonstrated
practices, before the question of party building becomes concrete for
us.
As we move to the next step of ideological consolidation, we must
address this strategic question: when is it time to build a Party? This
is a question of utmost importance as we have no successful
revolutionary strategy in conditions like ours to learn from. We must
not rush to form a Party in a way that suddenly reveals all of our
fiercest leaders to the state. As the state will move to kill, imprison,
bad-jacket and pit these leaders against each other. Perhaps we can
achieve ideological unity and strategic unity prior to forming
a party. At this time we believe we should strive to preserve the
benefits of cell structure without promoting isolation.
Out here in California there’s a buzz going through the state that
76,000 prisoners are eligible for an early release as of 8 May 2021.
This is some great news that there’s going to be a mass expulsion of
prisoners from these koncentration kamps. There’s a high chance that
comrades of New Afrika and Aztlán who are most dedicated to the struggle
of the liberation from the grip of imperialism will be freed into
society to reach and teach those who inspire to make a positive step for
growth and development for the lumpen in Amerikkka through the
principles of the United Front for Peace in Prisons(UFPP).
While it is great to hear that so many prisoners are now eligible for
an early release in the state prisons in California, we can’t forget
about our political leaders and soldiers who are still locked away in
the FEDS, and those in exile. We can’t forget about Larry Hoover Sr,
Dr. Mutulu Shakur, Bomani Shakur, Assata Shakur, Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin
FKA H. Rap Brown, and many others who sacrificed their all for the
liberation of the lumpen of the United $tates of Amerikkka from
capitalism and imperialism. To be honest, we owe it to our political
leaders and soldiers to fight for their freedom twice as much as them
who fought for us back in the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s.
With the release of 76,000 prisoners, a lot of comrades will be
hitting the streets and it’s time to go into overdrive. We can’t afford
to get out there and fall by the wayside and end up becoming reformist
or joining the pop culture revolutionary popularity contest. We don’t do
this for popularity or none of that other self-glorifying bullshit. We
do this for the reason that liberation of our peoples and folks NEEDS TO
BE DONE! PERIOD! Teach the youth of our communities about the truth of
their past, what’s really going on around them in the present, and tell
them about our leaders who are not being publicly and world-widely
advocated for. Let it be known that prisoners are still HUMAN BEINGS;
human beings that are majority from our lumpen communities, and that our
lives, our political leaders and soldiers lives matter. Regardless of
what the individual was convicted for or alleged of doing, inhuman
treatment shouldn’t be the punishment.
In the words of Frederick Douglass: “It is easier to build strong
children than to repair broken men.” Even though it is crucial that we
do re-educate as many mis-educated imperialist/capitalist brainwashed
adults as possible, we’ll have a more productive output if we put more
focus on teaching the youth through building University of Maoist
Thought schools, classrooms or at the least study groups.
“When you determine what a man shall think you do not have to concern
yourself with what he will do. He with low self-esteem is more likely to
accept social conditions that society expects of him. He will seek
sympathy and handouts as he feels he cannot raise from his beggar’s
status.” - Carter G. Woodson, in The Racial Race p. 217
As long as the lumpen masses are stuck in this beggar mindset, then
situations like the murder of George Floyd, where multiple bystanders
who could have stopped the murder by pushing the pigs off of him instead
of begging, pleading and calling the pigs on their fellow co-workers for
the checking and correction of unjustified behavior and conduct of
so-called officials.
Our leaders will be in these koncentration kamps dying a slow,
miserable, tormenting death and many more in our communities will die on
the streets and in these kamps if we don’t change as many minds of the
new generation as we can.
Right now we’re in the middle of a war, a lot of individuals who are
in the class of the petty bourgeoisie and bourgeoisie, who benefit from
capitalism is going to deny, but we of the First World lumpen(FWL) all
know better than to fall for the lie. As of now we’re working on
building up our strength to overthrow the imperialist government and put
in our own which will be the Joint Dictatorship of the Proletariat of
the Oppressed Nations (JDPON). To accomplish this, those who are going
to be in the wave of releases from CDCR must reach those who are the
local leaders of the BLM and NAACP, get them in the studies of the
concepts and ideologies that’ll lead to Maoism. If they refuse to change
their reformist and revisionist ways, then we show the youth the
contradictions of the BLM and NAACP and show them the difference of us
who are not reformist or revisionist.
Let it be known that it’s more of a duty than a natural right to
defend oneself from any and all attacks by whomever, most importantly
and especially the pigs! How long are we going to stand by and let these
so-called officials murder us without even attempting to defend
ourselves? If we must die like the artwork on the 73 issue cover of
ULK states, then it’s best one dies on their feet defending
oneself, if they can’t get away. The reformist, revisionist and history
has proven that non-violent approach doesn’t get the job done, to obtain
freedom, justice and equality. A United Front of armed resistance is the
only way.
Through dialectical materialism, historical materialism and deep
studying of one’s true history and of Marxism, Leninism and Maoism,
we’ll get our moral correctness. And through learning hand-to-hand
combat (i.e. martial arts, boxing etc.), obtaining licenses to carry for
those who can, also make our own rifle clubs and be our own security
force for the protection of our neighborhoods, when we rally, etc. This
will be our way to achieve freedom from imperialism through armed
resistance as we build our strength to overthrow imperialism, once and
for all. Let’s get to work comrades!
What’s up comrades, friends, and supporters? i wanted to provide a
response both to USW Comrade N’s and MIM(Prisons)’s commentary that was
published in ULK 72: “Orientating
USW Organizing Strategy in Light of TX Victory.” Really, my comments
are more general rather than a direct disagreement with either Comrade N
or MIM(Prisons).
First, ‘N’ asserts that “from an organizers perspective, these are
not battles in which we can effectively push anti-imperialism forward,
much less MLM.” The comrade mentioned phone access as an example of a
battle ey was speaking of.
i’ll argue that the above assertion is incorrect and unscientific.
MLM, dialectical materialism, is universal, meaning it can be applied to
all phenomena. Further, dialectics shows us the true
interconnected nature of social phenomena and if we acknowledge that is
true, than how can we then deem that prison struggles aren’t aligned
with anti-imperialism? Like MIM(Prisons) added, “with the correct
leadership, and keeping our eyes on bigger goals like the UFPP, and
uniting others around a list of more impactful demands, reformist
campaigns like phone access could be productive.”
As organizers, we are focused on inspiring commitment within the
masses. Looking at the psychology of the masses under imperialism, we’ll
observe that the most effective way to capture the masses attention is
to organize around their immediate interests. The more mature and
in-depth communist outlook will develop in stages as study and struggle
continue. However, the first hurdle is to establish principled unity in
furtherance of an objective/program.
Our most pressing strategic goal as anti-imperialist/Maoist
organizers behind enemy lines, is developing cadres to re-enter society
with the ability to be impactful in the “free world” anti-imperialist
struggle. This is our link to a totalizing revolutionary strategy
outside the walls. The quality-of-life reforms are connected to the
strategy of cadre development because PE (political education) is made
up of 3 parts. Those 3 parts are 1) organizing, 2) educating and 3)
mobilizing. So in undergoing/providing proper PE we must study and
practice organizing, educating, mobilizing. We must observe the
knowledge-practice-knowledge method in all aspects of our development to
ensure we achieve our highest potential. So there’s an identity between
study and struggle, they go hand-in-hand and because we’re not in a
‘revolutionary situation’ our struggle, or practice, will undoubtedly
include (some) reforms.
However, it must be noted and articulated to the masses involved in
that struggle that whatever particular battle is being waged at the
moment isn’t the end-all be-all, but is only a tactical maneuver that
was set in motion with the strategy in mind of advancing the
organizational, educational and mobilizing capabilities for all
involved. The real crux of the issue is never the demands in the prison
setting. The real crux of the issue, as it pertains to linking a
totalizing revolutionary strategy, lies in the practical experience
gained by the masses in asserting their collective power. For, how will
we seize state power if the people lack the strategic confidence to
assert their power? We have to increase the collective practical
experience of contesting the state as a united body. From a lead
organizer’s perspective, putting campaigns into motion, communicating
internally, advancing understanding of self and the people, practicing
discipline, teaching discipline etc., all this does what? It prepares
you for your return to the semi-colonies and general public with
experience in organizing, educating, mobilizing people to assert their
collective power. The differences in context have little effect on the
objective advancement of a comrade’s development.
Additionally, we must also account for other aspects of the
fundamental contradiction within prisons, which is badge versus captive.
In our efforts to organize, educate and mobilize, the badge is not gonna
remain still or unmoved. The badge, like the bourgeoisie on the outs, is
gonna utilize both coercive and brutal methods to maintain complacency
with the social order among the social classes, or in this case the
captives. Also, we must acknowledge that the lumpen is a vacillating
class anyway and in prison the masses of lumpen will vacillate between
escapism, complacency, underground capitalism, etc. anyways. Therefore,
acknowledging that these currents will continue with or without our
efforts of revolutionary organizing because we still operate under
imperialist, bourgeois dictatorship, it is imperative that we exercise
every opportunity to advance our aspect of the fundamental contradiction
in prison. In doing so, we work towards manufacturing conditions within
prison that will be more conducive to our anti-imperialist goals.
While organizing around more impactful demands, the badge is still
gonna utilize its double-pronged strategy of coercing or abusing. When
the latter won’t work, the former will come in the form of cosmetic
reforms. Those cosmetic reforms, even when they’re not demanded by
organizers, still hold the possibility of pacifying individuals, making
them complacent sleep walkers again. My point is that, at present, we
can’t escape these tendencies from either side or the results they may
or may not render, but we can’t allow these tendencies to keep us on the
sideline, all “study” no struggle.
Lastly, i wanna clarify that none of the above is to assert that we
should chase after any old reform or ‘change.’ As MIM(Prisons) states,
leaders must make that determination, and furthermore, should educate
the masses on why we will or will not seek certain reforms or
campaigns.
In this process, i’ve learned the necessity of adequate communication
with the masses and unity-struggle-unity internally among cadres, as a
tool in struggling against a tendency towards tailism. What has come of
this is a re-organizing of the TX Team One under a clearer program and a
better understanding (a collective understanding) of what our strategic
and tactical goals are, uniting the most committed partisans around
those goals, and developing these partisan’s PE. We’ve downsized, what
one may call ‘purging,’ but i like to call ‘cutting the fat’ and we are
working on our next courses of action.
I examined the articles in ULK 72 concerning the Capitol
Seizure on 6 January 2021. The racist and fascist Trump, his lap dog
Guliani and other white capitalist goons from the political, corporate
and intelligence world attempted to use the brainwashed QAnon zombies
and mind-controlled Trump supporter in a pre-planned and very well
orchestrated Nazi-style coup d’état (though they failed or appeared to
have failed). These poor men and women from the Anglo middle class
‘Labor Aristocracy’ were used as pawns and cannon fodder in a mass
psychological operation that will be used as a pretext for the social
elite to implement more mechanisms of control and ‘security’ in exchange
for more of the public’s privacy and so-called ‘freedoms’!
This event was labeled by the members of Congress and the
intelligence community as an inside job. The major indication of this
U.S. Capitol nonsense being an inside job orchestrated by the elite is
the fact that the National Guard, Homeland Security and local law
enforcement procrastinated in intercepting the very irrational and
violent Trump supporters and also the fact that many of these vanguard
reactionaries were discovered to be off-duty officers, military and
Homeland Security themselves; another sign of a psychological operation.
Also it was discovered that the security inside the U.S. Capitol were
aware of what the protesters were planning to do and some of them even
let the protesters inside, simply opening the door for them.
I also found the article by Allah Saturn very interesting in which
this comrade described the atrocities committed by the European
colonialist on Blacks for four hundred years. As comrade Walter Rodney
pointed out, as well as Karl Marx, slavery and racism is the very
foundation of western capitalism and racism is used to reinforce
capitalism on targeted ethnic groups that usually occupy the lower and
proletarian classes worldwide. Those who dismiss the Capitol seizure as
fringe white nationalists attempt to hide the white/Amerikan nationalism
at the heart of this country, that is oppressing people around the
world.
“Karl Marx also commented on the way that European capitalists tied
Africa, the West Indies and Latin America into the capitalist system;
and (being the most bitter critic of capitalism) Marx went on to point
out that what was good for Europeans was obtained at the expense of
untold suffering by Africans and American Indians. Marx noted that ‘the
discovery of gold and silver in America, the extirpation, enslavement
and entombment in mines of the aboriginal population, the turning of
Africa into a commercial warren for the hunting of black skins
signalized the rosy dawn of the era of capitalist production.’” - Walter
Rodney in How Europe Underdeveloped Africa.
I am starting to understand MIM’s Theory on the Labor Aristocracy
even more thanks to the study material the comrades of USW provided by
comrades Marx and Engels (On Colonies, Industrial Monopoly and The
Working Class Movement). Also MIM Theory 6: The Stalin
Issue in which Maoists addressed misinformation on comrade Joseph
Stalin and Vladimir Lenin as well as MIM Theory 4 Issue: A Spiral
Trajectory. These materials were combined with my knowledge of
Marxism and revolutionary principles to further develop a greater
understanding of MIM’s concepts on the origin of the underdevelopment of
the Third World by the First World and this is further explained on pg.
11 in the Marx and Engels material that was edited by the Communist
Working Circle in 1972,
“Marx believed that the export of capital would result in capitalism
spreading all over the world. However, he did not imagine that it would
institute a rigid division of the world between a highly developed
imperialist center and an exploited and underdeveloped periphery.”
And this is the case we find ourselves in presently. Except now, we
find ourselves up against a different kind of beast, a more covert or
clandestine form of imperialism that instead of using nationalism of
sovereign nations as its power base or nucleus; now, because of new laws
on international trade and commerce, individual nations cannot check or
limit its tyranny that operates through multinational corporations; thus
we encounter neo-colonialism that has its foundation in globalist
corporations that have billions of dollars to pay off whole countries in
the First and Third Worlds. A new and very advanced techno-Anglo
Establishment that changed its methods 50-60 years ago when they
realized as Comrade el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz (Malcolm X) (PBUH), said in
a speech he made in 1963:
“…the thing that is bringing an end to their world is the awakening
of the dark world! As the dark world awakens, the dark world is rising.
And as the dark world rises and increases, the power of the white world
decreases…”
By the dark world, comrade el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz meant that the
Afro, Asian, Latin American and Arab lower, working and proletarian
classes that were and still are oppressed by the white world or western
corporate capitalist parasites.
Now, 58 years later, this beast has mutated and evolved into a new
species similar to the COVID-19 virus, multiplying and reproducing
itself rapidly on a global scale, disguising itself as so-called
‘Free-Market Capitalism’.
The overt racism as we see, experience and that is televised daily,
is used to reinforce this so-called free market capitalism at the
expense of the lower and working classes, especially the Third World
proletariat.
We must come to recognize repeated human behavior as not coincidences
or isolated phenomena or events but as being systematic methods of
control and agitation by the reactionary forces to accelerate social
tensions between different ethnic, political and religious groups. The
elite create the problem, (like the bio-engineered COVID-19 virus or
police brutality), they wait for it to do its damage then they come with
the solution to the problem that they created as is the case with the
COVID-19 virus. Medical practitioners said it usually take up to ten
years to develop a vaccine but somehow the big pharmaceutical companies
like Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson and Moderna all managed to
simultaneously develop a vaccine within months. As Marxists, Maoists,
Leninists, or dialectical materialists we must examine history in
comparison to current events and we will come to the conclusion that
this current situation is the result of Malthusian Anglo philosophy.
Malthusian meaning, relating to the theory that population, unless
checked (by war or bioengineered pandemics, sterilization) tends to
increase faster than the so-called means of subsistence. This is the
philosophy of the fascist world Anglo establishment, the predatory elite
and all of their brainwashed pawns (politicians or corporate
lackeys).
They tend to focus on the myth of overpopulation because they know
that they, statistically speaking are a minority and we are a majority,
thus we pose more of a threat to the elite because we outnumber them. So
all of this madness we see everyday on the mainstream media are not
isolated events, the majority of it is done by design. Ignorant behavior
is promoted 24 hrs a day, seven days a week on the mainstream media
outlets purposely because social engineers understand that the masses
tend to repeat the same behavior, especially when they are being
bombarded by the same images everyday.
Now, in Minneapolis – the world is awaiting the George Floyd trials
and the results of the charges of second degree murder and manslaughter
brought against officer Chauvin, the pig that murdered comrade Floyd
(PBUH)(sallallahu alayhi wa sallam) in cold blood in front of the whole
world.
But, unlike the U.S. Capitol situation on January 6th of this year,
regardless of the intelligence communities foreknowledge that the Trump
militia and QAnon zombie terrorist goons were going to storm the
Capitol; the National Guard, Homeland Security and the local police in
Minneapolis are already on post and the jurors for the trial on Chauvin
hasn’t even been picked yet. This strong military and law enforcement
presence is obviously due to the fact that the Afro, Asiatic, or New
Afrikan element that the authorities know will be highly dissatisfied if
that pig Chauvin is let off, as was the case with Elijah McClain in
Denver, Breonna Taylor in Kentucky, Daniel Prude in Rochester, New York
and Jacob Blake in Wisconsin. This further proves that institutional
racism is still deeply interwoven within the fabric of the AmeriKKKan
criminal justice system.
The mainstream media attempts to captivate the minds of the masses
with tales of romance and intrigue concerning the Megan and Harry
scandal in Buckingham Palace and the reason why the same bloodlines and
Anglo-Saxon-Coberg Gotha-Scandinavian, Frankish and Celtic families have
been in control of the British Empire; the birthplace of modern
imperialism and capitalism that had its origins in the exploitation of
African slaves and the pillaging of resources throughout India, Asia,
the Caribbean as well as the British colonies in North America. The
Queen’s England or United Kingdom was never about racial tolerance or
equality but it was always about the domination of the Anglo
establishment over the rest of the world’s people and resources.
“Between the 16th and 19th centuries, the major international motors
for European capital accumulation was the trade in African slaves
carried in British and French ships; silver and gold exports from South
America to Spain and Portugal; profits from the use of slave labor in
the British West Indies; profits from the Dutch Spice Trade; profits
from the Opium trade, and the colonial land revenue…” - Marx and Engels,
On Colonies, Industrial Monopoly, and The Working Class
Movement, pg. 25
This present dissatisfied generation must be educated by a genuine
revolutionary vanguard to those historic realities that create the
current situation we find ourselves in now, which is the main principle
of Marxism; accurate analysis of history. Only then will we transcend or
rise above all the prejudices and social stigmas placed on us by the
imperialist elite.
“The greatest danger facing young people right now is the coming of a
fascist state, like the one described by George Orwell in 1984 where Big
Brother is always watching you. In a few years, that book might be
history. We must look into history and see it as being concretely
related to the problems of today. In turn, we will find a lamp of truth
by which we can guide our feet to oppose the fascist 1984-type state
that’s rapidly coming into power in this country. That is why the
racists and the narrow-minded chauvinists do not want black people,
Chicano people, Puerto Rican, Asian, and poor white people to study and
know their own true history - because their history will tell the truth
about America today.” – Bobby Seale in ‘Seize the Time’ 1968-69
MIM(Prisons) responds: We say about 80% of the world’s
people are clearly on the side of communism and opposed to imperialism
based on their material interests. That 80% also happens to be darker
due to the invention of race by the Anglos as a means of dividing the
world as this comrade documents. Meanwhile, those “poor men and women”
who stormed the Capitol building waving racist flags and emblems were
solidly in the top 10% globally based on income. And they happened to be
almost all white, and of course Amerikan.
The quick development of multiple COVID vaccines was a surprise.
However, this was technology that had been in the works for years prior.
This was a unique opportunity to test mRNA technology in a critical
real-world scenario. Researchers were working on this before most of us
had even really begun thinking about COVID-19. Based on previous
experience the quick development of vaccines was unexpected, but humyn
knowledge advances and now there is a new standard.
Epidemiologists immediately began tracing the source of COVID-19 when
it appeared in Wuhan, China. They determined its source was very likely
a live animal market. Since then, researchers have studied the nature of
the virus and agreed that that is the likely source. Warnings of a virus
just like this have been around for decades. This pandemic was not
unexpected. Movies like Contagion(2011) tell a very similar
story based on the knowledge that such a virus was expected.
Regardless of the source of the virus itself, it is clear that the
imperialists are taking advantage of the situation to further control
the oppressed. First, they are using intellectual property laws enforced
by international bodies like the World Trade Organization to prevent
labs in Third World countries from producing the vaccine while millions
around the world have died. Instead of stomping out COVID-19 it looks
like we will not be able to reach heard immunity and the virus will keep
evolving. Second, they are hording vaccines and will be deciding how to
dole them out to the Third World that is desperate for relief from the
pandemic. Third, as always the economic fallout of the pandemic will be
pushed onto the Third World, as Amerikans benefit from all kinds of
stimulus packages paid for by dollars that are backed by a transfer of
value from the exploited countries.
Even in the United $tates we continue to be in bad shape despite
having some of the greatest access to the vaccine in the world. We have
reached the point where people are not getting vaccinated. Misleadership
by President Trump, and profiteering by quacks on the internet have
persuaded large segments of the population to not get the vaccine. This
could lead to more instability in the system due to a lack of scientific
thinking on the part of the oppressor nation. Science is on the side of
the oppressed and must be leveraged by the oppressed to resolve the
major contradictions in the world today that threaten us with death and
destruction.
There is zero question that Kansas is using prisoners for cheap labor
and profiting tremendously from multi-year sentencing of first-time drug
offenders like myself.
I “earn” sixty cents per day to perform a skilled labor sewing
position full time. If I refuse to work I will receive a disciplinary
work report resulting in my custody security level to rise.
There is a 30-person crew that works at the Kansas State Fairgrounds
year round. These prisoners also receive 60 cents per day. The
fairground complex could not operate without prison labor.
These jobs are not maintaining KDOC prisons. They are part of the
state prison economy, for the profit of the state.
Also, this prison takes 50% of the earnings of all private industry
job income prisoners earn. At the private industry jobs, prisoners make
minimum wage ($7.25/hour). Incarcerating probation-eligible offenders to
minimum-custody facilities to work is proof that in Kansas, exploiting
prison labor is a motivating force for mass incarceration.
In almost every other state I would not have been sentenced to prison
for possession of medical cannabis.
I understand the point of the article was to look at medium and
long-term goals. As a non-violent, non-victim, first time drug offender
I believe cannabis decriminalization is a goal worth pursuing. Thousands
of people in Kansas have been incarcerated by a corrupt, prison labor
motivated criminal justice system.
Is the author agreeing that non-violent, non-victim, first-time
cannabis offenders should be working for 60 cents a day to assist the
state economy and provide cheap labor for giant factory farms in Kansas?
When I see corrupt judges play in to this state economy, there are no
myths in my first-hand facts. If I am misinterpreting Wiawimawo’s
writing, please clarify what the author intended.
Wiawimawo of MIM(Prisons) responds: First, thanks
for the details on how prison labor works where you are in Kansas. We
regularly publish such reports on our website and use them to keep tabs
on the realities of prison labor over time. You are our on the ground
reporters for everything going on in U.$. koncentration kamps.
One thing you don’t specify is who you are making clothing for at
your job. That is an important factor. Usually people are working on
clothing and sheets and now face masks for other prisoners to use. That
would be work for the prison system, not for profit. Similarly, running
the fairgrounds is for the state. These are parallel to the examples of
fire fighters given in my original article.
None of these jobs are making profits for anyone, which you seem to
have confused. Multiple times you refer to Kansas as profiting from
prisoners. States do not make profits. They have revenue and expenses,
and they can run over budget if they want with expenses being greater
than revenue by issuing bonds. Now the bourgeois definition of profit is
netting more money coming in then you put out in expenditures. But even
bourgeois economists do not use this terminology in regards to states.
As Marxists, we define exploitation as paying workers less than the
value that they produce and then selling the product (or service) to
realize the full value. This is the source of wealth accumulation in
capitalism.
Now to the prisoner sewing clothes for 60 cents a day, it matters
little whether those clothes are to be used for state-issued use or sold
in a store. So i can understand where you’re coming from. But if we want
to explain how the prison system works in this country this becomes an
important distinction. It is not profits for big businesses to
accumulate capital that drives the system. It is a combination of
financial self-interest of the people who work in these institutions,
people who some would have us see as the oppressed proletariat
themselves, and the broader interests of the oppressor nation to control
the oppressed nations in this country. Through this control of the
oppressed nations by Amerikans through criminalization and imprisonment,
they can further gentrify the places oppressed nations reside and create
further economic control for themselves. This is the heart of our
analysis. And it is why we have a very different orientation than the
petty bourgeoisie who is opposed to private prisons for profit and favor
drug decriminalization as discussed in my original article.
“Is the author agreeing that non-violent, non-victim, first-time
cannabis offenders should be working for 60 cents a day to assist the
state economy and provide cheap labor for giant factory farms in
Kansas?”
No, i do not argue that. We argue for more change, not
less. We are not reformists, and we don’t think drug
decriminalization in the United $tates will eliminate national
oppression nor drug addiction. If done well, it could reduce these
problems, and the specific expression of drug problems such as marijuana
consumption. Therefore the reform is progressive, but it does not solve
the problem of national oppression and the criminal drug economy. We
have much better solutions for national oppression and drug addiction,
and they certainly don’t include imprisoning people for victimless
behavior. They do include eliminating profit motives in all aspects of
our lives. In the meantime, we support an international minimum wage
that would apply to prisoners.
A California Prisoner: The Covid
and imperialism article in ULK 72 sparked my interest
because I am already vaccinated and I had to ask myself why I, a
prisoner, was vaccinated before tax payers? The answer was pretty simple
logic. Prison is huge profit for California and the cash cow has been
closed for Covid crisis, the sooner California can reopen the prisons,
they can continue to rake in the profits they make from our
suffering.
Wiawimawo responds: There was a significant effort
in California by lawyers and activists to get prisoners to the top of
the vaccination list. And this is at least part of the explanation as to
why you got vaccinated early. It made sense from a public health
standpoint, but this did not happen across the country because many
Amerikans don’t care about prisoners’ lives.
It is not clear why you argue that profits dried up in prisons during
the shelter-in-place, so i would need more information on that to
respond. But as i explain above, states don’t profit from prisons.
Prisons are a huge financial expense and do not create any economic
value. Prison labor is one way to slightly reduce some of the expenses
in running these prisons.(1)
All that said, i want to address this comrade’s talk about the “tax
payers.” The vaccination campaign across the United $tates is being paid
by the Federal government. The government has now passed a series of
bills in the trillions of dollars to address the fallout from the
pandemic. This is not “tax payer money.” They are just printing money,
or creating money out of thin air to fund these programs. Since the
dollar is the global currency, they can do this with some confidence
that other countries and investors will buy up the bonds to cover the
expense. It’s all funny money that we benefit from here in the United
$tates, even those in prison benefit at times, thanks to our position as
the premier imperialist power.
This is in stark contrast to countries like India and Brazil that are
now being hit hard by the pandemic and the people are being offered
little relief. One reason is that these countries can’t just print $1
trillion worth of their currency without causing massive inflation and
damaging the conditions of the people more.
To the extent that it is “tax payers” who are helping to balance the
budget deficit in the United $tates, we must also be clear where that
money is coming from – the Third World proletariat. The above is just
one demonstration of how value can flow from the periphery to the
imperialist countries. This is reflected in the incomes of all U.$.
citizens, who must give some of those super-profits to the state to keep
the imperialist system running.
So let us not shed a tear for the poor “tax payer” in this country
because California actually made some efforts to vaccinate people in a
way that made sense in terms of promoting public health. There is no
shortage of vaccines in the United $tates. In fact, we have far more
than we need, while other countries have not even begun vaccinating
their populations yet. If we were really working in the interests of
public health, we would have a more equitable distribution of vaccines
across the globe. We’d be prioritizing hotspots, which the United $tates
is. And we’d be sharing the technology needed to make vaccines freely,
releasing the intellectual property that is holding back progress in the
fight against COVID-19. Failure to do so means that the virus will
continue to evolve and likely continue to be a problem.
A New York prisoner: In response to ULK 72
(2021) article “Help
Fund MIM(Prisons), Donate Now!”, I would like to offer a suggestion
outside of charity from donations which seems to be a necessary form of
income for the production, maintenance & shipment of ULK’s.
What if MIM took some of its donations and invested them in the stock
market? I know that seems pro-capitalist, but as the old adage goes you
gotta fight “fire with fire.” Making a few short-term trades could
possibly boost revenue for expenses (solely), and make donations a
welcomed part of production but not so necessary. This would keep MIM’s
line of no foreseeable future in capitalism by not becoming long-term
investors in the stock market, but instead looking for quick returns in
order to fund revolutionary work (i.e. short selling, which is basically
betting against the U.S. market, which is still in some ways inherently
communist behavior). I am enclosing an articled dated 11 January 2021,
“Jay-Z Fund to Help Minority-owned Cannabis Businesses.” What do you
think about this venture? I don’t really believe lumpen have the luxury
of investing in non-essential production/consumption as cannabis right
now, when they don’t even have land to cultivate on. But financial
freedom is nonetheless a form of independence… so keep on keeping on
Jay-Z!
Wiawimawo responds: First, we agree with using the
oppressors’ tools against them, and have no moral qualms about the stock
market. Proletarian morality means we do what will most benefit the
liberation of the exploited and oppressed. Whether it is a wise
investment is another question. Conventional wisdom is that it is a good
long-term bet, but unpredictable in the short-term. As for shorting,
well hedge fund Melvin Capital Management lost 53% in January in its
infamous shorting of Gamestop.(2) They lost about $6 billion on that
bet. That’s what the stock market is, gambling.
Now cannabis businesses, that might be a more sound investment. As
the article points out, and as i discussed in my article on Tulsi
Gabbard mentioned above, the legalization of weed has been a bonanza for
white petty bourgeois interests trying to get small businesses up and
running before the large corporations dominate the market. New Afrikans
are under-represented in business ownership overall at just 10%, but in
the states listed that number was 3-6% for cannabis businesses.(3)
Jay-Z, and New York State are correctly recognizing this gap and trying
to do something to not let it happen in New York.
What do we think about this? More equal opportunity for the petty
bourgeoisie just reinforces imperialism. When it was illegal, oppressed
people selling weed were targeted by the state and potential allies to
the anti-imperialist movement. People running successful weed businesses
aren’t likely to be our allies, regardless of their skin color.
The weed game is in a major transition. It is still in a semi-legal
state, where the Feds could crack down on you (and they have). Getting
access to loans and bank accounts can be difficult as a result. One
group that is proving successful as early pioneers in the trade are
former law enforcement. They are less likely to be targeted by the state
than a former felon, and they have clout to deal with the pressures from
extortion rackets and the lumpen organizations they are competing with.
Therefore as revolutionaries, the weed business might be risky.
You suggest that we need to invest in stocks to free us from our
reliance on donations. On the contrary, we are trying to become more
reliant on donations so that our cadre don’t have to worry so much about
funding everything ourselves, which we do by working or investing or
whatever. Maybe some of us are investing in the stock market to fund
this work, but that is not a reliable source of income. We want to be
going strong when the market collapses again. And that is why we want to
be reliant on the financial support of the masses. Only by relying on
the people is our future secure.
As i said above, legalization of weed will not eliminate national
oppression in the forms of cop killings and disproportionate
imprisonment rates. It will make pacifying substances more readily
available to the masses. And for better or for worse it will undercut
the underground economy in favor of public tax revenue. And that is what
this is about of course, it is providing tax revenue to maintain
government funding at the local and state levels.
Until the import of weed is legalized by the feds, this shift of
production to the United $tates will be undercutting a source of profits
in the drug trade – the Third World farmer. Historically the farmers who
grow and process weed are the ones being exploited in Third World
countries. As production shifts to the First World, wages will have to
increase to exploiter-level wages, with the possible exception of using
migrant labor from the Third World. This means the profits must come
from other sectors in the Third World instead, to pay the farmers,
marketers, sales people and accountants in the First World running the
new weed economy, as well as the state taxes. If the exploited weed
farmers are eliminated, then the profits must now be squeezed from the
banana farmers or copper miners, and all the other exploited workers of
the Third World. This puts more pressure on the already dangerously low
international rate of profit.
Finally, we agree with your point about land. Without land there is
no power. National liberation means liberating the territory of the
oppressed. Owning land as individuals is not it. Oppressed nations must
control land as independent nations, and be able to defend that land.
This is a central task of the New Democratic movement.
Upon reading and re-reading the most recent ULK (72) as i usually do,
i ran across a segment of an
article that i believe to be homo/transphobic and therefore deserves
criticism in the spirit of unity-struggle-unity.
The segment in question is on pg. 7, #5 of the demands reads as
follows:
Every prison in the state of Pennsylvania allow gay prisoners inside
each prison block to hold hands/hold each other, have make-out sessions
and have intercourse. The department of corrections of Pennsylvania even
sell bras/panties, makeup, provide hormone injections and sex
changes.
Now, I said “i believe” this was homo/trans phobic, because I
acknowledge that some may not feel that way. Additionally, i’ll say that
for the sake of organizing, it should be removed, as regardless of
possible ill intent it serves to alienate people who’re not your enemy
and can be allies.
Now i hold my belief that the comment was a homo/transphobic slight
because the previous four demands the authors’ wrote down in question
form, while #5 was listed as a statement and was entirely unnecessary if
we look to the sub-points (a) and (b), which clearly articulate the
point the authors wished to make, without the slight.
Comrades, i’m a heterosexual, cis-gendered male, who’s struggled here
at my place of captivity against the gendered oppression of LGBT people,
by inmate and pig oppressors alike. In the midst of this struggle what
i’ve attempted to get cats to understand is, for one there are three
strands of oppression: nation, class and gender. In the context of
gender, i’ve had to humble myself to learn, or re-learn sometimes from a
trans womyn comrade, things i thought i knew. One key piece of
information i learned from her was also articulated by MIM(Prisons) in
ULK47, pg. 4, attacking the myth of binary biology:
“Humyn biology has never been entirely binary, with relation to sex
characteristics. There are a range of interactions between chromosomes,
hormone expressions and sexual organ development. The resulting
variation in anatomical and reproductive characteristics includes a lot
of people who do not fit the standard binary expectation… as many as 1
in 100 births deviate from the standard physical expectations of sex
biology.”
i’ve included this quote to suggest that cats look in depth into the
material reality and internal development of things in order to get a
clearer understanding instead of demonizing people and behavior.
The second point i’ve stressed here at this prison and now extend to
the Pennsylvania prisoners, is that being that there are 3 strands of
oppression, and we are in the business of eradicating oppression, then
we are in error whenever we condemn national and class oppression while
upholding gender oppression.
While the authors of the demands did not advocate gender oppression,
eir language suggests that ey would rather the behavior listed in Point
#5 be eradicated, which in turn would be oppressive to those who engage
in said behaviors.
Additionally, i think you cats in PA could benefit from gaining some
form of insight from those LGBT prisoners as to how to solve y’alls
problems. i’ll have you realize that your Points 1-4 apply to LGBT
prisoners as well along with points a and b. and 6 … or do they? My
point is that the behavior which you seem to dislike was not always a
reality. Around the empire, state-by-state, for decades, LGBT prisoners
have struggled in court and through other avenues to gain the ability to
express themselves freely.
If you would seek an ally in those near you, y’all may gain some
insight on your own concerns, but viewing the LGBT populace as ‘other’
than yourselves only serves the interests of the badge, and stunts your
own development as a revolutionary freedom fighter.
The key is to look at your situation in a dialectical materialist
perspective. First, identify the fundamental contradiction, which in any
and every prison is badge versus captives. The lumpen class must become
united. Now within the lumpen class there are internal contradictions,
only one of which is the contradiction between non-LGBT versus LGBT
prisoners. This is a secondary contradiction, and it must be resolved
because like all contradictions, it will develop into an antagonistic
stage and an internal antagonistic/contradictory struggle is not
beneficial in this context if y’all are to accomplish your goals, and
moreso, advance the captive’s aspect of the fundamental contradiction
against the badge/state.
In conclusion, i wanna articulate the fact that we can not eliminate
oppression if we are ourselves oppressors. We have no right to condemn
our own oppression yet turn a blind eye to the oppression of others.
Practice PEACE and UNITY sisters and brothers, as articulated in the
UFPP principles … unite, don’t split!
The imperialist capitalist
World super-power; Amerikkka must fall
This bourgeois country don’t deserve
2 stand tall
Not when it was established on slavery
And built on the dressed up lie of equality
Somethan’ it can not live up 2 today
In the face of mass modern-day inequality
And mass incarceration
Which is nothan’ more than modern-day slavery
Come on my people wake-up
Wake up my people
And I’m not just talkin’ about Black people
No
I’m talkin’ about the common man and woman
All of humanity
Don’t you see that We are destroyin’ the planet
On top of that
We are bein’ exploited by the global elite
Got-damn-it
The proletariat of this imperialist
Capitalist world superpower-Amerikkka
Are you and me
The poverty-stricken common man and woman
On our backs stand this unjust country
Just as all things that goes up
It 2 must
Shall fall
Just watch and see
The empire is fallin’
The empire is fallin’
No
The empire has fallen
I’m a fan of literal and biblical hell
But I’m not a fan of people getting tortured to tell
Is it because I’m a Moslem that they feed me the wrong foods
Or can I say in Jesus’ name to make Jehovah say I do
She speaks better English than me yet she’s not an Amerikkkan
Maybe because the only citizens are the Ku Klux Klan
How can a European call home this land on the Northern shores
When the first inhabitants were the Natives and the Moors
Columbus didn’t really find this land empty
And George Washington didn’t really chop down a cherry tree
Columbo found this land full of “savages” he say
And that cherry tree was the flag of the Moors of today
I wonder will this be said amongst the People
And when will the New Afrikan be considered equal
I sit here contemplating hour by hour
And when I “Rage” against the system I yell Black Power
In the United Snakes of Amerikkka there is an eerie silence
surrounding the most grotesque reality of today within the borders of
this imperialist settler colonial nation. A silence similar to the one
on that cold night in Germany on the 9th of November, 1938, known as
Kristallnacht. This silence is different however because unlike that
night otherwise known as the “night of broken glass,” this silence
encompasses both day and night seamlessly and seemingly endlessly. This
silence protects the interests of a select few in power. It protects
them from having to answer for the chaos they created outside these
arbitrary borders against the survivors of Amerikkkan imperialism by
separating the families in custody of the criminal Amerikkkan state. I’m
talking about the children in cages.
We’re talking about traumatizing the youth of colonized nations in
modern day concentration camps. Like in the concentration camps for
“amerikkkan citizens” there is no shred of dignity provided. No
recognition of humanity. The magnitude of crimes actually perpetrated by
these agents of fascism is unknown. Occasionally a whistleblower will
receive a small slot on the evening news to highlight a particular
abuse. Hollow promises of change from the settler government followed by
silence from the settler masses are soon to come with a distraction here
or there to qualm concerns of the still inquisitive.
The European settler seeks to soothe the colonized revolutionary
demands in order to settle for reform. So it’s no surprise then when
fundamentally nothing changes in the system which perpetuates these
horrors. Many who are conscious of said horrors and who claim to be
serving the “best interests” of the people are quick to co-opt anything
that sounds remotely revolutionary. Democrats or Republicans, Coke or
Pepsi, both are toxic formulas made by the colonizers to extract profit
from the oppressed colonized people while simultaneously killing them
slowly.
Even amongst those who call themselves “the radical left” there’s
barely a shred of concern sustained outside of a shareable post on
social media. When hysteria breaks out over a single incident millions
are quick to interject with an opinion. When over 2.3 million people are
incarcerated and enslaved it’s just business as usual. When over 70,000
children are jailed it’s justified to “protect the borders” from Raza
fleeing chaos started by those in power within these same borders.
We are all prisoners of war, some of us are politicized prisoners but
we all remain at war whether we wish to be or not. Whether we are
surrounded by concrete towers, riflemen overhead, or kept in line by
terrorists with badges in the barrio. Make no mistake the poor and
colonized are at war. They will justify incarnating the “Gangster” or
the “Cholo.” They will say that we had “opportunities” but simply made
the wrong choices. They will have us believing that we are the problem.
Just like they told our ancestors as they burnt our sacred texts and
destroyed our highly developed societies. They will teach us of
salvation in white Jesus. They will teach us that we may face peril here
on earth as slaves to the colonizer but in reality we should be grateful
because those same colonizers brought us european religion that will
give us everlasting life and a kingdom of riches in the afterlife!
I have a cousin named Jesus but he is brown and I can tell you I have
never met a white Jesus. I’m even less concerned with riches in an
afterlife when we all are subjected to poverty here in this one. The
fact is that we are not the problem. We only had opportunities to betray
our nation and class. We were taken from the womb to the tomb. Our
sentence was handed out before we even opened our eyes to see the
devastation that Amerikkka has brought to the world.
They can fabricate lies about us, but when it comes obtaining a
respiratory infection in ICE custody, this is the greatness United
Snakes of Amerikkka aims to return to. The “great” genocide of all the
poor Brown and Black people unfortunate enough to be “discovered.”
Thousands of recorded cases of little girls being sexually assaulted in
ICE facilities with untold more numbers growing daily are being told
it’s going to be okay because Amerikkka is a Pepsi nation now and Coca
Cola is in retreat. Joe is in office and the orange man is out! If we
are being honest with ourselves and true to the plight of those
traumatized children though. We all know that the shackles which bind us
all together on this sinking ship won’t be unlocked by the same person
who put us in them. As for the impotent left that is silent to our
suffering and the suffering of our children in cages. Break the silence
with the sound of marching feet or be tread upon by the roar of
history’s feet stomping over the indigent rulers of yet another decaying
social order.