Under Lock & Key

Prison organizations today have the tendency to bang on other orgs more than they do on the pigs, Corrections Officers (COs) and the system. Raw fear is so deep in us and we’ve placed the oppressors on such a pedestal, thinking the pigs are “godly,” invincible and “in-the-right,” that we’ve become stuck. Shaking in our boots or peeking out the blinds shuddering. The pigs want us believing we are degenerates or mentally ill rejects and to trust boldly that the pigs are only trying to help us. One comrade voiced concern over seeing ruthlessness so deep between lumpen orgs in his gulag that captives cheer suicides and mental breakdowns in fellow captives but want to know how “snouty sir’s” vacation went. It’s a sad situation.

“Earning stripes” and “putting it down for the cause” is telling when it is fellow captives being lifeflighted and body-bagged as the man with the keys giggles. Putting it down for whom? MIM(Prisons) and USW don’t promote violence. But there are lesser and higher levels of incorrectness when the man pushes us in the corner in the use of self-defense. Viciousness and brutality against our own is unforgivable. Period.

Watered-down versions of the various struggles that came before are served up steaming before our hungry, bloodshot eyes. Organizing our people to realize our destiny takes theory and analysis of past and present conditions. Marxism-Leninism-Maoism is the meat we must partake of. Throw that watered down soup kitchen fare into snouty’s face. The actual methods on how to organize and take control of our destiny is what’s for dinner, comrades. Educating, agitating, theorizing, study groups, unity and books challenge bullshit and backward ideas. Knowledge of history and our present reality is what we lack. We must recoup from the losses we’ve experienced after all these years. Muscle has memory, believe that! We are only doomed to that failure if we remain asleep. Will we?

Independent nationhood isn’t in the forefront of most lumpen minds when Seinfield sitcoms and chick-o-sticks occupy our perception. Progressives of all stripes must rip the amerikkkan flags out of our faces and walk over the motherfucker. Parasites In Gangsters clothing, CIA. Sheep infiltrating LOs mainstream gangster rap or pig induced crap? Occupy wall street or spitting on Third World’s feet? Stand in our fork in the road. We are at the historical juncture where the hustling game [dope, pimpin etc.] as our only “come up” must be shot to shit as the game plan. The dope game’s insanity. There is a more practical revolutionary way to control our destinies and obtain independence. Getting ourselves out the imperialist crosshairs must be our goal. Not protecting street corners and crack, meth or herb market shares. Just look at the Mexican cartels doing it big time as their people in the base areas remain hungry, shoeless and without basic necessities. The sad aspect is we leave our families in the same boat. We must overcome this.

We must remember, though, that the oppressor will always let one or two big shots come up. Some cartels’ base areas in Mexico do gain better living conditions to pacify unrest and garner support from the people. Is drug dealing, guns and stickups too entrenched in the lumpen’s economic life that survival, even survival at such low levels, would be impossible without them? This is the ideological crossroads we stand at.

What is preventing oppressed nation people from coming together and bucking this system? If the drug trade doesn’t act as a sleeping gas, in that we benefit from it, but as a poison which hurts us, then why do we continue in it? Drug culture and popular culture seem to contribute to this deviation. The use and sale of drugs is addictive. But so is the culture that comes with it. The street/dope world envelops an individual in non-political thinking. Like a cancer, few survive. Some do manage to feed their children and make ends meet slanging but only so long. And at a high price (prison, death, addicted sons and daughters, brain damage, disease etc.).

The media mind washes us into believing the oppressor pigs are “all mighty” and McDonald’s workers are slow and slimy. This puts us in the trap of spending our whole lives trying to prove to each other we aren’t slow and slimy. But why don’t we prove this to the oppressor? Consumerism, amerikkkanism and patriotism stand toe to toe with mass revolutionary politics. And we ain’t getting nowhere until the referee drags out the bleeding corpse of “grams, hundreds and eight balls” lying at our feet. Drug culture down. Revolutionary culture up. Drug culture is used as a sort of net to catch rebels before they truly do turn revolutionary. And by the time the drugs spit us out on the cement floor of a solitary cell, collapsed vein and hollow brain, psychotropic culture steps in with a great big smile. Know your enemy.

Most people in the U.$. have an idealistic philosophical view of socioeconomic and political structure so that they support reformist political movements before they do revolutionary movements. Spending time voting for the richest man or writing your governor are almost laughable when one discerns 98% of amerikkka is enemy. Class consciousness in the labor aristocracy and bourgeoisie is high while in the lumpen it is low. Privileges, false-consciousness and “the amerikkkan dream” got us hook, line and sinker chasing the carrot. The pigs, the imperialists, keep us out of legal employment with the opportunity of upward mobility being impossible. So we chase the illusion of the amerikkkan dream in the drug game. To chase ideals taught in elementary and high school right into our caskets. It is this juvenile ass scenario preventing our peoples from unity and throwing off this system like a bad habit.

When the drug trade ceases, and excuses for policing and imprisonment have no grounds to stand on, the government would have to backpedal the drug war into their garage. Most of us don’t realize that the more violence we contribute to, in and out of prison, the more excuses for SHUs and SWAT team type scenarios pop up. Can you imagine the power in directing the crack fiend’s intelligence, cunning and commitment into politics?! Imperialism fears such scenarios. This is why they keep the drug trade on and popping. Prison guards, street cops, prison administrators, food-telephone-parole-commisary, etc., services would be jobless if we put down the pipe, the drug war’s an illusion and smokescreen hiding the wizard of oz behind its fancy tapestry.

Mexican cartels make billions off the drug trade. This money they funnel into amerikkkan banks. The $20 dope fiend gets one to fifteen yeas as the 2 billion dollar dealers get free checking. The sad part in all this is the money in these banks, made from Latino cartels, goes to oppose revolutions in Nicaragua, Paraguay, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. The more Third World countries Amerikkka has under its thumb the more goods oppressor nation labor aristocrats can siphon. Third World countries like Mexico act as prime markets for amerikkkan products and prime hot spots for factories that employ oppressed wimmin and children on 60 times less money than amerikkkans make.

These Mexican cartels are not the principal enemy. But even though they are fighting against the oppressed nations’ interest worldwide, they are still oppressed nation national bourgeois and minority compradors. We take Mao’s example in China when he united with Chaing Kai Shek, an oppressor, to defeat Japanese imperialism, the bigger oppressor. Mao’s tactic worked. We must employ such means, when necessary, if we want to succeed in bringing imperialism to its knees. One divides into two and some of these cartels will side with revolution and some with imperialism. To label all as enemy would in effect shoot ourselves in the feet. Some of the money cartels make goes to the revolution, here and abroad, that’s almost assured. So the drug trade is internationalist in some of its practice. We must avoid the trap of big nation chauvinism and see that 80% of the world is Third World.

Most lumpen orgs will not transform into revolutionary orgs as long as they can benefit materially from working in cahoots with the imperialists, i.e. pushing dope and other hustles. Most youth these days haven’t even heard of their set’s infancy. Lumpen orgs were originally created to fight oppression in the hood. But the pigs infiltrated these orgs and turned them into oppressive groups. Like a vampire. What better way for a vampire oppressor to sleep easy than making sure everyone from sea to shining sea are themselves vampire oppressors!? Just lock up behind razor wire those whose necks they can get at and it’s sweet dreams for dracula.

Today’s youth’s mission is realizing protracted struggle is necessary in smashing oppression. We must understand that a concerted effort, that may take many years, is ahead of us. But it’s also winnable. China and Russia succeeded in defeating backwards systems. We can too. Most comrades get discouraged after so many years of struggling. To struggle isn’t easy but it’s capable of giving extreme satisfaction when one looks back at the progression one accomplishes over the years. WE have been misled and under-educated by design. All in an effort at halting our progression and the resolution of the imperialist contradiction. Our Humanity has been stolen. We have no empathy for war or starvation. How sick is that?

Back in the day Jim Crow laws made people rise up against oppression. Then it fizzled out until the Vietnam War made people revolt. Nowadays mass incarceration, the new Jim Crow, and Afghanistan are our hot spots of agitation. But the sad part is most lumpen embrace prison and war. Most of us believe we belong in chains and the Middle East is full of “terrorists.” It’s a mind wash. It is amerikkka who is terrorist. And the Middle East are our people. We know deep down that shit’s not right. One comrade in the study group spoke about the suicide rate, and even his very own suicidal tendencies before politics, as being exponential. USW wants to begin to show how change is possible. We will attempt to provide the roadmap but it is on you to start your cars. Let’s discover our humanity and start questioning things around us. War and starvation are a preventable. Let us challenge each other to grow and create a better way for ourselves and the future.

Mainstream hip hop and drugs are killing us. Oppressed nation lumpen eat that shit up like rat poison. “The amerikan dream” a.k.a. “rat poison.” If the amerikkkan dream is to starve and create war so I can have an x-box and cheap gasoline it’s not worth it. Not to USW. You? Dirtying the names of groups like the Black Panther Party, MIM(Prisons) and USW is a tactic used to revise history and throw a wrench in the revolution. People seem to either embrace us or spit on us, and from what we’ve experienced there’s seldom middle ground. But it says more about the spitter than anything else. We must learn to uphold the standards we promote and avoid straddling the fence or deviating from issues. Practice is principal. Is our work focused on anti-community or pro-community work? The people will recognize which pole we are on, that’s assured. We must rest easy in the knowledge that the pigs’ truth ain’t ours. There is no truth in common between the oppressor and the oppressed. Because the aims, efforts and goals we push are seen as a threat to their wealth and leisure time privileges. USW looks up to the Panther legacy for these reasons above, and many others. We invite thorough study of the rich revolutionary heritage of our forebearers with the black berets. Power to all oppressed people.

Recently an exposé of the private prison Winn Correctional Center in Winnfield, Lousiana, run by Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), was published in Mother Jones.(1) The article explains conditions which are completely inhumane, and many of the atrocities are linked to the CCA’s drive for profit.

In the section about the mailroom, the author Shane Bauer mentions Under Lock & Key:

“Around the mail room, there are bulletins posted of things to look out for: an anti-imperialist newsletter called Under Lock and Key, an issue of Forbes that comes with a miniature wireless internet router, a CD from a Chicano gangster rapper with a track titled ‘Death on a CO.’”

Curiously, Winn mailroom staff consider political education just as dangerous to the prison environment as electronics and death threats. This blatant censorship is not unique to this facility, and is not unique to private prisons. There are many state-run facilities all across the country where we know our mail is censored in a similar manner. Unfortunately we don’t have an investigative reporter inside, and, only being able to communicate with our comrades through the mail, we are not able to combat this censorship or expose it. We post known censorship incidents on our website, but the reality is that we will never know what happens to approximately two-thirds of the mail we send in.

In reading the exposé, one might start to believe this private prison is different from public prisons. That’s one of the major downsides of this piece: it leaves the reader wondering, assuming that state-run facilities are inherently better. Yet we post many articles from our correspondents inside showing that state-run facilities can be just as bad as Winn Correctional Center: lack of appropriate medical care leading to long-term health problems, lack of programming, arbitrary lockdowns, excessive use of force, lack of discretion in hiring personnel, and the list goes on.

To campaign against private prisons is to assert that state-run prisons are acceptable. It legitimizes the United $tates government as an impartial arbiter. It says that it isn’t the prison that’s bad, but instead just the aspect of private ownership. Yet MIM(Prisons) sees the prison struggle in the United $tates as one against social control generally – whether private or state-run.

We thank Shane Bauer for writing this horrific piece for the benefit of our fight against inhumane prison conditions. And we must look at the bigger picture, how state-run facilities fit in, and how the prison reform movement interacts with the struggle for self-determination of the internal semi-colonies and the liberation of the Third World from imperialism’s death grip. Certainly imprisonment for profit must be abolished. But this phenomena could only develop inside a capitalist economy. If not this atrocity of capitalism, then there will be another one, and there certainly are. If our struggle is limited to simply abolishing private ownership of prisons, we will have wasted much time and energy that could have been spent on a broader struggle.(2)

I’ve been in solitary confinement here at Louisiana’s Prison for 2 years now. David Wade Correctional Institution is a DOC facility. A disciplinary, concentration camp. Louisiana’s most repressive prison. Everywhere you move you have to be shackled and handcuffed. Even to the shower if it’s a few feet from your cell. You use the phone once a month, for 10 minutes. Our yard time is only 5 days out the week for 1 hour, inside of a chicken wired cage almost the same size as your cell. The prison is designed to break the mind, body and soul.

Incarcerated individuals here are living in inhumanity in its purest form. I met some guys who have been here on extended lockdown (solitary confinement) for six, seven, eight years straight. Our superiors are antagonists that despise the strong. Their job is to introduce us to the elements of repression. Their goal is to break you… by any means necessary.

It’s the heart of the summer and it gets really hot on these cell blocks. We’re the only prison in the state of Louisiana that only has one fan on each tier. Its nearly 100 degrees! On top of that, there’s no water and we’re not allowed ice on the tier. The only water that we’re allowed to drink is out of our sink. And sometimes our pipes are backed up, or there’s a boil-water warning on the news. If we want water, our only option is to drink contaminated water out our sinks, which is cruel and unusual punishment. Inhumanity. Not to mention that we’re only allowed books and newspapers. We have no access to any television or radio. The papers is how we find out about the boil water warnings, and sometimes the newspapers come too late because of slow mail.

They want you to put your jump suit all the way on, while you’re in your cell all during the day while it’s nearly 100 degrees. This is only a tactic to make you as uncomfortable as possible. You see, every day in these cells is war. They take you to war every single day. Psychological warfare.

A lot of the guys here can’t endure the delinquency of the officers, nor could they endure these extreme circumstances of dehumanization. I watch guys break right before my eyes all the time. The mind is very elusive… Hold it tight. One minute you’ll be talking to a guy and the next minute they just snap, right before your very eyes, as if their mind was an egg that slipped out of their hand, and splattered across the hard rough pavement.

These situations are so frequent that a lot of the individuals here have gotten used to it. They have so adjusted to where they believe that these abnormal situations are normal. Just a couple of weeks ago a guy hung himself in his cell. His body dangled for a couple of hours before anyone even noticed. He was then rolled off the tier, and it was as if nothing had happen.

Guys use to be killed here by guards all the time. That was until word started to leak outside of these walls and into the free world. But that still wasn’t enough to mentally liberate us. We need outside help… recognition… the voice of society… we need revolution!

I’m fortunate enough to be one of the few to be spiritually emancipated. Subsequently I have become a revolutionist. The change has already begun. And unity is a very fundamental principle.

We’re dying to live….but we’re living to die.

There’s about 11 of us total who have been on hunger strike. Today makes my 4 1/2 day without food [11 July 2016]. About 8 or 9 other guys have reached their 7 day mark. But this is only the beginning. We would probably have to go a couple of weeks on hunger strike for them to even take us seriously, which is hard work without the outside help, or support. Also the oppressor refuses to stand down without opposition. Their tactics are vital. You could be on hunger strike for 4 or 5 days and they wouldn’t even document it. That way they won’t have to report so many to D.O.C headquarters. But also subsequently you wouldn’t receive mandatory medical treatment, which is protocol after a prisoner misses 9 meals.

You’re declared to be suicidal. By refusing to follow their protocol they violate our constitutional rights. But we’re willing to go however long it takes. We also have multiple comrades who have made it to the courts system to push even further after they have successfully exhausted the grievance process. Our fundamental goal is for change… Better circumstances. We want the same thing that the “Pledge of Allegiance” taught us. We want Liberty and Justice for all.

MIM(Prisons) responds: We stand with this writer and the comrades in Louisiana fighting back against the dangerous and inhumane conditions at David Wade Correctional Center. This comrade is right that actions behind bars need outside support. It is also important to have some clear demands when we undertake big protests like a hunger strike. This will help focus the response, and ensure that we know when we have won. Fighting for general liberty and justice is definitely our goal as communists, but we know we will never achieve that under capitalism, and so our actions should be focused on winnable battles today while we build for liberation for all through revolution.

This week U.$. military officials announced that transgender people are welcome to serve openly as warriors for imperialism and Amerikkkan world domination. They made a plan that will roll out over the next year, including financial support for medical treatment such as surgeries, therapy, and hormones.

Some trans activists, who recognize why this announcement is “problematic” for people in the oppressed nations, will assert that “they’ll co-opt anything.” Which is true, to an extent. The U.$. government in all its forms will try to control any aspect of our society that can be controlled. Which underlines the point that identity politics is not threatening to U.$. militarism and world domination, because it can be controlled just by mere acceptance. Does the struggle for transgender acceptance (or any gender struggle), distinct from revolutionary organizing, undermine capitalism itself? No. And this announcement proves it.

The U.$. government can’t co-opt genuine anti-imperialist organizing, try as it might with front organizations and rewriting of history. It can’t actually integrate the self-determination of nations into colonialism, because they are opposite aspects of a worldwide contradiction. They can’t resolve the oppression and desperation of people in the Third World, because they depend on that oppression for its base function of exploitation, to keep people in the United $tates wealthy and happy.

If your struggle can be integrated into the U.$. military, then it shows which side your struggle is truly on. Are you a revolutionary internationalist? Or just hoping for a better life here in Amerikkka? Everyone who opposes gender oppression, militarism, and genocide, should do everything in their power to organize against the U.$. military, and against capitalism, as that’s the only way we’re going to get to a world without gender oppression for everyone.

Yo soy un joven que ha dedicado su vida a la revolución. A lo primero yo no entendía porque la necesidad de la revolución. Ahora me encuentro preso y los Latinos y Boricuas me enseñaron a educarme en quien soy yo. Para ser revolucionario tienes que entender de la opresión sobre tu gente - y con el mundo. Cómo Amerikkka está oprimiendo a nuestra gente con el capitalismo, la injusticia, y con el imperialismo, que es el enemigo numero uno. Estando preso yo he visto como muchos de estos guardias racistas nos tratan por el color de nuestra piel, nuestro lenguaje, y más por nuestra unidad. Para ver y hacer un cambio tiene que haber unidad! Como nosotros como Latinos podemos ayudar a otros, si a veces ni nosotros mismos nos ayudamos? Tenemos que unirnos y educarnos, porque educación, sabiduría, disciplina, e inteligencia es poder! Educación es el poder a la revolución.

Nosotros con la mente maestra de la revolución estando presos, tenemos que coger el tiempo y educar a la juventud que esta entrando a las prisiones. Enseñarles que ser gangero o tenerle odio a otra persona por el color de su piel no es el camino correcto de caminar. Que coger un puñal o una navaja para guerrear por una calle o ciudad no hay ganancia. Sino que, cogiendo un libro revolucionario, de educación, y educándote y ayudando a otros, ahí hay ganancia y beneficio. Yo como revolucionario estoy dispuesto a pelear con el sistema corrupto, la injusticia, y por la independencia de mi raza, con el poder de la educación. La violencia no resuelve nuestros problemas. Si nos unimos de corazón, con una unidad verdadera, y usamos nuestra inteligencia para desenmascarar al sistema y sus pocas vergüenzas, seremos vencedores.

Por eso cojo tiempo. Pero siempre ten en mente que nuestro trabajo para la revolución viene con ganancia. Ser guerreros para la revolución, hoy, mañana, y siempre.

Una camarada de USW responde: Siempre es un gusto escuchar que hay camaradas dispuestos a dedicarse a la lucha revolucionaria. Queda mencionar que la educación revolucionaria correcta es el Marxismo-Leninismo-Maoismo, que es el análisis y la acción materialista más avanzada que se ha desarrollado. Animamos a este camarada y a todos los lectores a que formen grupos de estudio, ya que como dice este camarada, la educación es poder, poder para derrumbar al imperialismo y capitalismo que son los creadores de la opresión. MIM(Prisiones) puede brindar material educativo a aquellos que lo pidan. Si no tiene dinero puede hacer trabajo para pagar.

I write you to yall to thank you for your letters of support on our” ”hunger strike” to protest long term “solidarity confinement”. Thank you!

I’m still on strike but now I’m being force fed. This is (ex)tremely humiliating, painful, and unnecessary… But it is what it is. I’ll continue to refuse food and water until they place a one year cap on the use of Administrative Confinement….under this status the D.O.C. can currently keep you in solitary confinement indefinitely.

MIM(Prisons) responds: MIM(Prisons) responds: Read this article for a more detailed update on the Wisconsin prisoners’ hunger strike to fight long term isolation and other abuse.

As this missive leaves me in Revolutionary Spirits and with strong desires for emancipation I hope it reaches you in the same manner. I continue to battle the anti-literacy tactics used by these jackbooted fascist Pigs that use the word censorship as a tool to keep us deaf, dumb, & blind. The administration of these Razor Wire plantations, better known as the overseers, have the dictatorship to keep us from reading certain books and material that will liberate us from the continuing cycle of returning to these slave pens of oppression.

Nothing has changed from the tactics used in the 1900s til now, it’s only hidden better. After the Nat Turner Revolt in 1831 legislation prohibiting the education of slaves was strengthened throughout the South. “In the words of one Slave Code… teaching slaves to read and write tends to cause dissatisfaction in their minds, and to produce insurrection and rebellion!” Any publication on the topic of conscious-raising is disapproved under the violation of Division of Prison Policy Section D.0109 (f) which consists of violence, disorder, insurrection or terrorist/gang activities against individuals, group organizations, the government or any of its institutions! We are given the option to appeal the disapproval, it’s then sent to the Publication Review Committee, and 80% of the time they agree with the first disapproval. The recent publications disapproved of mine are the new issue of Under Lock & Key, The Wretched of the Earth, and Huey P. Newton’s To Die for the People! The Wretched of the Earth was approved [on appeal]. I’m still waiting on the approval of the other two publications.

The Commune here at this Razor Wire Plantation came together to form a hunger strike due to conditions we are burdened with, such as the high percentage of disapproved publications. We were promised that we would be allowed to receive publications if we agreed to end the hunger strike! I must say that lately books have been coming in that would not have made it past the mail room. Before the hunger strike I brought to the attention of the overseer that decides to allow us to have the books or material sent in, that there were books in the library of this Razor Wire Plantation that encourage racism, the hanging of Blacks, but those books are OK because they are in favor of the “overseer’s” ideology. When brought to the attention of this certain overseer I was laughed at when I showed him the pictures out of a library book titled The Red Summer of 1919, where a Black man was being burnt alive while a mob of whites looked on with smiles on their face. I was asked by this overseer why would those pictures bother me so much when I’m not a man of color? What I should do was mind my business and order books other than the ones I been ordering was what I was told!

So I asked myself this question: is it possible for a white man to detest racism, oppression, repression, classism and capitalism as much as I do? Yes Racism is alive and well, but when you are a victim of classism it causes you to detest Racism! In today’s time you don’t have certain communities among the proletarian class that’s for one race only!(*) No, the poor live with the poor and the bourgeoisies live among the capitalists. The proletarian class and the lumpen are victims of poor education, which as we know is a pipeline to these Razor Wire Plantations. The educational system for the poor is a joke! (Angela Davis said: there is a distinct and qualitative difference between one breaking a law for one’s own individual self-interest and violating it in the interest of a class or a people whose oppression is expressed directly or indirectly, though in many cases he/she is a victim). Poor education is another tactic used by the capitalist to be able to exploit the proletarian class! While selling their labor just to keep the lights on and food on the table there is no extra income for higher educational opportunity! So the proletarian class education system is the framework of the capitalist! The bourgeoisie gains their strength and stability from framework of poor education for the proletarian class. With proper education and educational opportunities the proletarian class could liberate themselves from the need to sell their labor to provide their loved ones with life’s necessities! The capitalist know if this was to happen then the stronghold they have over the poor would be no longer!

Most of us allow ourselves to be controlled because of fear of losing something. This fear is what the bourgeoisie uses against us to control us. These chains must be broken for emancipation to take place! It starts with the necessities of solidarity.

Being in solidarity among the proletarian class means building strong relationships and strong communities of resistance. We must get back to the foundation of movement building, which is about building relationships and sustainable communities while breaking out of the confines of single issue organizing. Our accountability lies in what we do within our own communities. Focusing on our communities compels us to understand First World privilege (i.e. if you reside here you’ve got privilege). On the contrary privilege is layered by histories of slavery, colonization, patriarchal control, etc. Our solidarity struggles must therefore find ways to address these inequalities within. This involves listening and learning from the struggles of the proletarian masses. This would take the kind of inter-communal solidarity that Huey P. Newton had in mind.

Comrades, it starts with us held captive within the gulags of these Razor Wire Plantations. How, you ask? Turning these Slave pens of oppression into Schools of Liberation! The Science of Revolution must be spread to the masses of the communities! The help of Revolutionary intellectuals is a must because the key to the people’s unity is Revolutionary Consciousness! Instead of wasting time on who is right and who is wrong, instead of not being in solidarity with the next person because of their skin color, we must come together and spread the Science of Revolution to the unconscious. Theory is made to be advanced; nothing can stay the same because the capitalists strategize ideas to continue to control change every day. When one advances the theory of Marx, Lenin, or Mao it is not in disrespect or disregard of these great Revolutionists. Lenin said: “without Revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary movement.” We must focus on our communities. If our own communities are not strong enough to stand up to neoconservatives, then the work of those who promulgate war without end, the dictatorship of the free market, and the stealing of indigenous land will be made all the easier! With no unity among us then we are weak and not a factor! There are many organizations, groups, and cadres with different ideologies but have the same goal in mind! As long as we fight amongst ourselves then we are allowing capitalism to live!

The future of our emancipation lies in our hands people. So as I bring this to an end, I ask that you really think about our own Liberation and the well being of our communities as well as the future of education for the youth. Frantz Fanon said: “Each generation must, out of relative obscurity, discover its mission and fulfill it or betray it.” What’s your mission?

MIM(Prisons) adds: It is timely that comrades are organizing actions to protest censorship of educational materials by the North Carolina Department of Public Safety (NCDPS), as we just learned that a lawsuit will be going to trial on the same issue. Comrades on the inside and outside are making moves that culminate five years of consistent paperwork battles between MIM Distributors volunteers and NC prisoners on one side and NCDPS prisoncrats on the other.

Those locked up in North Carolina recognized those efforts as our subscribership expanded during periods of time when Under Lock & Key was completely banned in the state. But prisoners did receive the protest letters sent by our volunteers and those letters circulated, sparking even more interest in ULK. As efforts build on both sides of the fence, MIM(Prisons) will continue to support and promote this campaign against illegal censorship and political repression. As this comrade argues, this is an important battle because it contributes to our efforts to make revolutionary science accessible to the oppressed masses.

* While we agree with this comrade’s points about education and censorship, we do not seem to agree on our analysis of class and nation in the United $tates. In recent analysis, published in part in Under Lock & Key 51 we show that the class make up of different nationalities in the United $tates are different and that segregation of communities is on the increase. We stand in solidarity with the comrades’ actions in North Carolina across national lines for their common interests as prisoners. And while this is an example of class preceding nation, we believe that nation overall is the principal contradiction in this country. This is partially because class contradictions are so weak in the richest country in the world. And recent events around police brutality and prison abuse have shown us uprisings that are very homogeneous in their national makeup. And this is where we see the most radical fractures in our society.

Prisoners in Wisconsin have been on hunger strike since 10 June 2016 to protest long-term confinement in control units in that state. As we reported in April, the Wisconsin DOC has been playing games with their policies that determine the length of solitary confinement sentences, but no real change has been enacted and prisoners in Wisconsin continue to be locked away for months and even years in isolation conditions that amount to torture.(1) The protesters are demanding changes to the segregation policies of the WI DOC.

Reports suggest that the administration came down hard on suspected participants in the hunger strike, prior to June 10. In spite of this repression a number of protesters remained strong and undertook the strike. After seven days the prison began force feeding the activists, a clear attempt to torture them out of their resolve, because a seven day fast is not enough to seriously endanger most humyns. Further, force feeding comes with some serious health risks and we know the DOC medical services are already not working in the interests of the prisoners. As of June 29 six people were still refusing food.

A USW comrade reported June 27:

“As of now they started force feeding us and using it as an instrument of torture and punishment. However, because I refuse to let them abuse me and torture me like that without fighting back, I’ve suspended mine until I can get a restraining order to prevent such. I let them do it one time and they forced it up my nose so hard that when the membrane of the nasal seal popped it sent a bubble through my head and my head still hurts. I can’t let the pigs beat me for free like that, but the comrades in Waupun are enduring it and a few plan to join next month.”

We continue to stand with the protesters risking their lives to force the WI DOC to end their long-term solitary confinement system. These courageous activists are fighting against a system that has nothing to do with security and is only used for social control. People who peacefully protest, such as these hunger strikers, are the most likely to end up spending years in isolation, conditions that are known to cause serious physical and mental health problems. The use of control units in so many Amerikkkan prisons across the country is just further demonstration that the criminal injustice system is not designed for rehabilitation; its purpose is to control society.

The strikers have asked people on the outside for help:

1. Call Governor Scott Walker’s office and tell em to reform the long-term solitary confinement units in the Wisconsin DOC and to stop the secret Asklepieion program at once. The number to call is 608-266-1212.
2. Call the WI DOC central office and demand that all 6 humanitarian demands for this hunger strike be met and demand an explanation as to why they are operating a torture program. The number to call is 608-240-5000.
3. Call any media outlets and demand that they do an independent investigation on the secret Asklepieion program operating at Columbia Correctional Institution (CCI), and report on the hunger strike.
4. Call the FBI building in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and demand that they investigate the secret Asklepieion torture program being run at CCI. The phone number to call is 414-276-4684.
5. Call Columbia Correctional Institution and tell them you are aware of their secret torture program. Harass them! 608-742-9100.
6. Join in on the hunger strike and post it on the net. Convince others to join as well.

Today I read ULK 50 and I must say you’ve piqued my interest. I am part of an organization that has come to be viewed as a gang by society in its own right. Meaning the majority of us conduct ourselves as such. We are said to be forged out of concepts of the Black Panther Party, Black Liberation Army, and Black Vanguards (a movement within the prison system headed by George Jackson). Many of us, including myself, were turned on to this way of life under the impression that we will liberate our communities from drugs, end black-on-black violence, stop the prison cycle, create economic stability, promote a political consciousness, establish a strong unity, etc. But on a daily basis we do the opposite. The attempt to change our criminal mindset to a revolutionary mindset has failed expeditiously here in Maryland. I’m from Baltimore City where there is little or no unity at all amongst any of the organizations or gangs that will be the forefront of the fight!

I often find it hard to change one’s comfort zone. Here, if a man is comfortable in his everyday life, my trying to change his/her way of living will be looked at as a threat. No matter if I’m right or not.

I’m currently being housed at Roxbury Correctional Institution in Hagerstown, Maryland. Since I’ve been locked up I’ve been in senseless fights, and involved in meaningless disruptions. Our biggest problem here is drug use! I’m not a drug user but I often assist those who do. Many of us use the profits to take care of our loved ones on the street, or ourselves in here. The police know these things because, how do you think it gets here. I don’t knock anybody’s hustle. But I recognize how it gets us off our true purpose, which is freedom.

In population there are only 4 phones on the tier. These 4 phones are dictated by those with influence in general population. We subject ourselves to more oppression than does the oppressor himself. I’m looking for ways to begin to change my environment. I’m on lockup right now and reading ULK has given me a wake up call on who I should truly be. As of right now I have about 4 more years until I’m released. With that said I would ask that MIM(Prisions) begin to educate me on what it truly means to be a revolutionary by first sending me basic Maoist, Marxist, and Leninist literature.

One of the more hotly anticipated sequels to a classic (or, approaching classic) science fiction film has been the new Independence Day film: “Resurgence”. The film is set in 2016, exactly 20 years after the last film, and is quite vague in discussing the geo-political developments since the events of the first film. What we are given is obscure exposition by the new president of the united $tates on the “great advancements of humynity” since the defeat of the alien invaders. Of course, the united $tates in this arrangement is depicted as the noble defender of humynity and of earth in light of a humyn victory over the aliens 2 decades ago. What is also made clear is that an entirely new and more comprehensive military alliance has been drafted between all of the major imperialist powers and with China playing an increasingly prominent role in this new military coalition labeled the Earth Space Defense (ESD), this will be important later.

What is more immediately puzzling is the talk of the great period ushered in by the humyn victory which has allegedly seen no military conflict and has achieved great leaps in prosperity with the use of alien technology to benefit “all humynity.” These are some pretty big achievements, if they were to hold water. However it seems that like most boasts of amerika, even in this film, are just as hollow as they are in real life. Little is ever shown of the rest of the world outside of amerika (other than bits of Europe later in the film) although we do get to see several glimpses of an obscure destination in Afrika that is visited by the protagonists to meet with a local “warlord” whose people live underneath a large alien ship which had landed there during the first invasion.

What is interesting about their depiction of Afrikan people during this time is not only the direct contradiction with the president’s speech previously celebrating the great peace and prosperity, as well as the fact that this film does little to avoid the western stereotypes of Afrikan people in the media generally. The Afrikan people depicted in the film seem to have gained virtually nothing from the alien technology other than weaponry (consistent with a western worldview of what Afrikan people would find important) as well as the fact that they explicitly state the people in this region have been at near-constant warfare with the remnants of the alien army, and have been ruled by a “cruel warlord” whose aesthetic is meant to closely mirror that of a strong Communist leader, with the red flags and red stars. So much for “peace and prosperity” for all humynity.

This is very revealing about not only the mentalities of those who created the movie, but also of the characters within the film itself. The Afrikan people are summed up by this one vague and unspecified people they encounter who are meant to be the archetypical hyper-violent, probably Communist, and backward peoples. Furthermore, it becomes clear that when the president of amerika says “all humynity” what they mean is “all First World humynity” with an expressed focus on amerikans. These are the humyns they find to be particularly important, and worth talking about when making the generalized statements of peace and prosperity. So while for Communists it would seem contradictory to hear these statement and see the reality of Afrikan peoples at the same time, it is entirely consistent with the worldview of most amerikans and would be therefore uncontroversial to most of them.

Later in the film we are presented with the new alien threat, which is supposed to appear much more challenging than the previous one. Again, amerika champions itself as being the principal world leader as all of the seemingly most important battles are fought in North Amerika and a majority of all scenes address amerikan characters in the aftermath of the second invasion. There is a focus on two euro-amerikan characters who constantly paint themselves as born-of-hardship soldiers who are entirely misunderstood by their non-white superiors, including the Chinese commanding officer. This falls entirely in line with the amerikan perception of being the “unwanted hero” that always must intervene to save the world. They are underappreciated, overdeveloped, and the model for humynity in this film’s depiction.

Though aside from the centrality of amerikan characters in this film, another interesting aspect alluded to previously has is the prominence of China in this. China is not only a major power depicted in the film, but several of the most prominent characters, such as the commander of the lunar military installation, featured in the film and one of the more central protagonists, are Chinese. The film makes several overt attempts to appeal to the potential Chinese audiences. This has less to do with the film’s overall message so much as it has to do with an increasingly popular trend in films overall in the West with regards to China. Despite being anticipated in the united $tates and Europe, Resurgence has not done well so far in the amerikan box office, however its revenue was nearly matched by the Chinese opening.[1] One could easily connect this to the overt attempts to make the film viable in the Chinese box office.

This is not unique to this film, however, with many other recent films now pinning their hopes on a success in both the amerikan and Chinese box offices. Two good examples of this in recent years have been the new Warcraft film which did extremely poorly in the united $tates and yet was a huge success in China, as well as the Red Dawn remake, which had actually undergone enormous changes during production to change the antagonists from Chinese to northern Koreans in order to ensure it could be shown in China.[2] This is a rather strange example of how China is being transformed in its current place in the global markets as a major contender for marketing in the West as the Chinese government primes exclusive parts of the population for integration into the imperialist world economy as a large power.

Overall this film’s release exposes quite a lot about not only the amerikan consciousness, but as well the state of the global markets as they must now recognize China as being a large and viable marketplace for their goods. Films such as this one appeal directly to the ultra-racist and eurocentric worldviews of the audiences in an attempt to portray them as the saviors of the world, who take upon themselves the full burden and prestige for rescuing the planet in its hour of need. It goes to great lengths to demonstrate amerika and the imperialist countries as the rightful leaders of the planet, and to obscure all real social relations behind their prosperity and the misery of Third World peoples.