Under Lock & Key

Abril 1 - El plazo para inscribirse en el seguro de salud bajo el Acta de Cuidado Accesible (ACA) pasó anoche, y ahora hay 4.4 millones de personas en los Estados Unidos recientemente inscritos en planes de seguro de salud Medicaid patrocinado por el gobierno federal.(1) Aquellos quienes no se inscribieron en alguna aseguranza y no están protegidos por un plan a través de su familia, trabajo o escuela encararán multas. Para personas con ingresos menores al 400% de la “linea de pobreza” federal, los planes son subsidiados por el gobierno, y aquellos con 138% de este corte o menos recibirán cuidado de salud gratis por Medicaid. Al final, para al menos la clase mas baja la sanción les costará mas de lo que les costaría teniendo seguro de salud.

Este nuevo sistema de cuidado de la salud en los Estados Unidos, y frecuentemente llamado “Obamacare,” esta lejos de ser socialista, pero esto sirve como un buen recordatorio de los fracasos del capitalismo para cuidar de algunas de las necesidades básicas de ciudadanos del país imperialista. Los Estados Unidos había tenido cuidado de salud dirigido por el gobierno para personas en el servicio militar y sus familias desde los años 1800s, y para los relativamente pobres, discapacitados y ancianos desde los años 1960s con la creación de Medicare y Medicaid. Pero estos programas sirven a una minoría de Americanos, dejando a el resto buscar cuidado de salud a través de aseguradas proporcionadas por sus trabajos o a través de planes comprados privadamente o por pagar directamente por esos servicios. Esto significa que gente sin trabajo o en labores que no proporcionan cobertura de salud son frecuentemente dejados sin seguros de salud. El ACA intenta dirigir este problema proporcionando un programa dirigido por el gobierno para ayudar a asegurar ciudadanos sin cobertura medica.

No estamos asumiendo las criticas de los que dicen que la calidad del cuidado de la salud se iría abajo si es dirigida por el gobierno Americano. Esas mismas personas anularían la educación gratuita universal, privatizarían la distribución del agua, y eliminarían el departamento de Bomberos. Esto es un debate entre diferentes facciones de la burguesía y no merece el tiempo de los comunistas, solo señalar que tenemos fundamentalmente diferentes valores. No tenemos necesidad de defender la habilidad de un gobierno capitalista para dirigir estos programas bien porque no apoyamos gobiernos capitalistas. Y sabemos que el motivo del beneficio no hace más grande la “eficacia” como a los capitalistas les gusta afirmar. Vemos esto claramente en los Estados Unidos donde la comida es tirada en vez de distribuirla a personas hambrientas, y el tremendo desperdicio de dinero en publicidad en vez de satisfacer sus necesidades básicas.

Opinamos acerca del cuidado de salud de la misma manera que opinamos acerca de la educación, comida, agua limpia y otras necesidades básicas. Estas son cosas que comunistas buscan proporcionar para todas las personas sin distinción. Damos prioridad a necesidades básicas humanas por encima de artículos de lujo como botes, lujosos carros, grandes casas, televisiones, etc. Capitalismo, por otra parte, ha demostrado que artículos lujosos rentables son una prioridad por encima de las necesidades básicas humanas. Mientras en una cuestión de años de capitalismo han conseguido computadoras manuales en las manos de alguien con un poco de poder adquisitivo, las décadas de larga lucha contra las fácilmente evitables enfermedades en el tercer mundo continúa. Millones de niños de menos de cinco años de edad mueren cada año en el sur de Asia y Africa del Sur de el Sahara como un resultado. Creemos que el Acta de Cuidado Accesible ofrecería a estas personas servicios de cuidado de salud gratis. Mientras el ACA ha demostrado una y otra vez que pequeñas reformas en capitalismo pueden ser logradas cuando ellas sirvan los intereses de ciudadanos del país imperialista, capitalismo nunca permitirá reformas para mejorar todo el resto del mundo. De hecho, aún dentro de las fronteras de Estados Unidos los no ciudadanos son no elegibles para asegurarse bajo el ACA. Estos más en necesidad, trabajando las más duras y más peligrosas labores por menos dinero, les son todavía negados cuidados de salud básicos.

Mientras es fácil para Americanos el ignorar lo que pasa afuera de sus fronteras, esto sería una verguenza para el imperialismo Americano que el individualismo de estos ciudadanos es tan fuerte que hasta ahora ellos han rechazado cuidado de salud para aún sus propios relativamente acomodados ciudadanos. Aún ahora, muchos a través del país continúan peleando y resistiendo esta nueva ley. Previo al Acta de Cuidado Accesible (Affordable Care Act), Americanos quienes quieren comprar seguros de salud privados fueron frecuentemente rechazados por los planes de salud por “preexistentes condiciones.” Esto significa que planes de salud fueron seleccionando únicamente a los individuos más saludables para asegurarse, dejando a estos con aún menor historia de problemas de salud sin recursos porque la mayoría de planes de salud en los Estados Unidos son dirigidos privadamente para un beneficio. Ahora más aseguranzas en este país están todavía dirigidos para un beneficio, pero los gobiernos Federal y del Estado proporcionan estándares mínimos de cuidado que tienen que ser proveídos con cada póliza, y vender estos aprobados planes de aseguranza en un mercado, en espera que la competición de mercado inherente en capitalismo incrementará la calidad y transparencia mientras reduciendo el costo.

Aboliendo el cuidado de salud por beneficio será una prioridad para comunistas cuando tomemos el control de un gobierno. Queremos hacer tratamiento de cuidado preventivo disponible para toda la gente. La nueva ley ACA en los Estados Unidos no elimina aseguranzas privadas ni remueve el beneficio de cuidado de la salud, y esto es un paso fundamentalmente corto hacia cobertura universal para America. Pero esto permite a las personas conseguir seguros de salud a pesar de sus ingresos o condiciones de salud. Para ciudadanos Americanos esto es progreso. Y para la mayoría esto es parte del actual soborno de estos ciudadanos por los imperialistas, asegurando su lealtad al sistema imperialista. Sin embargo, un gran numero de los no asegurados en los Estados Unidos viene de la nación oprimida de la clase mas baja, y esto es un paso positivo para la supervivencia y la vida saludable de este grupo con un interés material en revolución.(3) Total vemos el ACA como un paso progresivo hacia cuidado de salud universal para todos en el mundo, ojalá porque esto demuestra el concepto de cuidado de salud como un derecho básico.

Continuaremos peleando por cuidado de salud para los explotados y oprimidos del mundo, quienes son principalmente encontrados en el tercer mundo, donde aún servicios médicos básicos son difíciles de obtener. 801,000 niños menores de cinco años mueren de diarrea cada año, la mayoría de los cuales son causadas por falta de acceso a agua limpia e higiene. Mas de 3 millones de personas mueren de enfermedades evitables por vacuna cada año. 86% de las muertes entre niños menores de 5 años son evitables y debido a contagios, enfermedades tratables, problemas de nacimiento y falta de nutrición. Estos abrumadores números costarían muy poco de rectificar. Cuidado Universal Verdadero de salud es una prioridad para comunistas, y las estadísticas arriba son justo unas pocas razones del porqué el derrocamiento del capitalísmo es literalmente un asunto de vida o muerte para la mayoría de la gente en el mundo.

Interestingly, it has been noted that Turning The Tide has taken on something of a Third Worldist veneer ever since some searing criticisms of Novick and his assessment of the Maoist Internationalist Movement by a USW comrade last year.(2) Despite TTT’s recent focus on the New Afrikan nation and their expressed support for the struggles of the oppressed worldwide, it is the underlying political line of Novick and company that we must really examine to see where we have unity. We understand that to the untrained eye, as well as to those new to revolutionary politics, the difference between the Maoist Internationalist Movement and the Amerikan left are less than apparent, so we will draw them out here for educational purposes as well as to defend against opportunists and social chauvinists of varying stripes; as without revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary movement.

Novick calls on fans of egalitarian politics to take up critical thinking when it comes to the topic of global political economy and the stratification of labor under capitalism. However, he attacks and undermines Marxist political-economic analysis, the most critical and on point analysis of capitalism itself, without proposing anything in its place. He does this in the first few paragraphs of his article when he states that Dr. Cope comes to his conclusion that the First World labor aristocracy is bought off via “underlying Marxist assumptions of the labor theory of value”(1) and “through sometimes hypothetical formulations of what the value and price of that value ‘should’ be…”(1) He then states that Cope says, “the only workers who are ‘exploited’ are those who directly produce ‘surplus value’ in agricultural and industrial production of commodities.”(1) These lines imply a critique of Cope’s (and Marx’s) methods, but he does not say so outright or offer an alternative framework for such an analysis.(2) This is nihilism, and leads to subjectivism. Without an objective analysis as our guide we just let the masses do what feels right. We agree with Novick that to lame apologists of First World workers “Cope’s book is a very difficult read…”(1), but not because of the so-called “long sections of abstract mathematical calculations”(1) as Mr. Novick puts it, rather because bitter pills are always hard to swallow.

For those who are unaware, Novick claims to use dialectical materialism as a tool to analyze social phenomenon, yet this has not led him to the conclusion that the principal contradiction in the United $tates, or the world for that matter, is imperialism vs. the oppressed nations. Instead, Novick believes that capitalism never developed past its competitive phase, therefore it is his assessment that the principal contradiction on a world scale is still that of the bourgeoisie vs. the proletariat, or rather one between the so-called 1% and supposed 99% – itself a non-sensical and anti-scientific assessment. As such, Novick doesn’t believe that there are any oppressing or oppressed nations, only oppressed and oppressing classes; yet he denounces our “petrified defense of the principal contradiction.”(3)

Michael Novick also complains that “Cope essentially liquidates or obliterates class contradictions within both core and peripheral states”(1), but what Cope really obliterates is the First World’s romanticization of the labor aristocracy as anything but revolutionary with his scathing class analysis of First World workers. Novick also makes an empiricist error when he asserts that Dr. Cope’s analysis is no good to us in the United $tates because “his orientation and experience is primarily European”(1) hence his “understanding of settler colonialism and the existence of oppressed and colonized peoples within so-called ‘core’ countries as the US, Canada, etc. is limited.”(1) It is quite odd that Novick complains that Cope does not give us a complete class analysis of who are our friends and who are our enemies within the United $tates. Despite the fact that this book is about global imperialism, and written by a non-Amerikan, it spends a good amount of time explaining class and nation and the development of racism within the context of U.$. society, as it is today the heart of imperialism. Novick does not address the points made by Cope, only complains that it is too general. In addressing the discrimination and oppression faced by the disadvantaged in First World countries, Cope states that “economic betterment for people in the rich countries is today intrinsically dependent on imperialism.”(4) And that’s the rub right there. Whatever contradictions exist within imperialist society, apologists for the labor aristocracy like Novick must come to terms with that reality, or risk fanning the flames of militarism and even fascism.

A little further down Novick states that “classes and class relationships are based on material reality…”(1). This much is true, however, Novick takes us deeper into the jungle of idealism when he writes, “… but these are social phenomenon based on the element of consciousness and practice as well,”(1) emphasis on the element of consciousness. However, Marxist philosophy teaches us that in general it is social being that determines social consciousness, and not the other way around as Novick implies. He has a hard time reconciling the existence of revolutionaries in the United $tates and an analysis that labels the U.$. an exploiter country. For a dialectical materialist, this is no mystery. A more succinct explanation to the phenomenon and structure of class is given by Cope below:

“The term ‘class’ does not only refer to a social group’s relation to the means of production - that is, to property ownership or it’s absence and nor does it simply refer to any category relating purely to the technical division of labor at the societal or workplace level. Rather, class denotes a dynamic social relationship corresponding to the system of ownership, the organization of labour and the distribution of material wealth as mediated by ideological, cultural and political institutions and practices. Above all, class is the product of political practices, with the relationship between the state and class struggle revolving around the issue of class domination.”(4)

Not surprisingly it is always the ideological that is principal in matters of revolution when it comes to Amerikan “left” circles. And with that Novick ends his weak attempt to disprove the scientifically proven correctness of Zak Cope’s book. What then proceeds in his review is more existentialist questioning of both nation and class contradictions in the United $tates and the world when the answers are already readily apparent. Novick offers his persynal musings as proof positive to his readers that the class contradiction in the world is more important than the one of nation. But in order to deliver the people’s consciousness you can’t just answer the tough questions with more questions. Rather, you must deliver the people’s consciousness with revolutionary practice summed up in rational knowledge; as without revolutionary practice theory is meaningless. As such, Novick inadvertently proves the principal contradiction correct with his confused explanation of class contradictions in Amerika.

Something else that was disappointing in his review of Divided World was the complete omission of Cope’s thesis on how the First World petty-bourgeoisie, the labor aristocracy in particular, is a huge reservoir and potential breeding ground for fascism drawing from within the dispossessed petty-bourgeois class an army to smash the national liberation and socialist movements. This is odd since the majority of Anti-Racist Action’s work has previously been fighting the various neo-Nazi organizations currently attempting to re-organize on a massive scale. Perhaps we can surmise that Novick saw something else in Cope’s book that is damning and detrimental to First World “revolutionary and socialist” movements? Perhaps another bitter pill to swallow?

We highly recommend Divided World, Divided Class to up and coming revolutionaries and communist youth looking to get a firm grasp of First World labor and it’s dialectical relation to the real proletariat centered in the periphery.(5) Divided World, Divided Class does an excellent job of explaining the parasitic nature, as well as the fascist tendencies of the First World labor aristocracy.

While statements from president Vladimir Putin on 7 May 2014 indicated a cooling off of Russian rhetoric in the conflict, talk of Ukraine joining NATO is a major threat to Russian security. Amerikan foreign policy experts, including Henry Kissinger, have condemned the idea of pulling Ukraine into NATO. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization was formed at the end of WWII as a military pact between countries opposed to the then communist Soviet Union. Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, NATO has been creeping into Eastern Europe, towards Russia.

The calming words from Putin indicate that the very limited Western sanctions succeeded in not fanning the flames of inter-imperialist rivalry too high. By targetting individuals, the United $tates and Germany avoided the types of trade barriers that led to open wars between the imperialist countries in the early 20th century. And while Russian financial markets have declined in the face of this threat, the hit remains moderate.

Another reason to worry is that the U.$.-backed regime has significant participation from far right fascist parties. It is ironic that fascism finds some of its broadest support today in the very peoples who destroyed fascism in the Soviet Union’s great patriotic war against Germany in the 1940s. But our understanding of fascism explains why this is so. Fascism is led by an imperialist class that feels its existence is threatened and/or aspires to surge ahead of other imperialist powers, and its mass support is among the labor aristocracy who wants their nation to rise and reap more superprofits at the expense of other countries (see our fascism study pack). Russia remains an imperialist power at odds with the West that cannot provide the same benefits to its people as countries like the United $tates and those in Western Europe. While Ukraine is not an imperialist country, there is a small class of finance capitalists backing the fascist upsurge within the current regime. The fascists are mobilizing within the national guard and are behind the recent murders of local police and civilians in the east where opposition to the new regime is strong.

With all the aid and loans being offered to Ukraine from the West, we know that large chunks of money given in the past has gone to various political parties, “election reform,” and media outlets(2); something worth keeping in mind when trying to parse out what is going on during political turmoil in client states. USAID, often marketed by the government as a humanitarian agency, is behind much of this political funding and campaigning. The United $tates and Germany are adament that the planned presidential election must go ahead on May 25 as they work behind the scenes to ensure its results.

U.$. militarism, which is defined by the Amerikan economy being dependent on war and military production, must be put to an end to stop the unneccessary killings such as those in Ukraine recently and in so many other parts of the world. USAID must be exposed and opposed as a tool opposing the self-determination of other peoples around the world. The anti-Russian sentiments rising among Amerikans and the support that Putin is getting in Russia do not bode well for preventing further conflict if the imperialists decide to step it up a notch. This is a warning for us to strengthen the movement against U.$. militarism.

On Monday, 19 May 2014, 7 prisoners at Polk Correctional on the H-Con Unit began a hunger strike due to inhumane conditions, and finally some getting fed up with the mistreatment. It is day 4 and 8 comrades refused their breakfast this morning. Some of the demands are:

1. need brooms to sweep cells
   
2. need nail clippers to exercise proper hygiene
   
3. need outside recreation
   
4. need new trays, ones now are cracked, split, peeling causing us to find plastic in our food
   
5. staff need to wear hair nets/change gloves for food preparation and serving
   
6. need headphones sold separately in canteen so we don’t have to buy a whole new radio
   
7. stop taking mattress and religious property as punishment for up to 3 days
   
8. special housing cells need to be cleaned daily - currently have blood, bodily fluids in them and comrades are placed in them naked on suicide watch, only given 4 sheets of toilet paper, no hygiene, forced to eat with dirty hands
   
9. need a law library
   
10. stop use of nutraloaf as punishment
    
11. stop keeping us on H-Con 18-24 months before letting us off even without getting write ups
    
12. stop using restraints as punishment
    

These are just some of the most important of 33 demands. I am asking other comrades to join in support and fast or to write to:

Frank L. Perry, Secretary
Division of Prisons
4201 Mail Service Center
Raleigh, NC 27699-4201

and,

U.S. Dept. of Justice, Civil Rights Division
Special Litigation Section
950 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington DC 20530

or other forms of protest that do not cause you to receive an infraction. Also, pump them fists as we got a victory in the Central Prison Unit 1 case. They have to use a hand-held camera during all use of force, specifically after the use of force or during/until you are put back in your cell and no longer in contact with corrections staff. So hear it, can I get a hell yeah from all my comrades!

On June 3 of last year a young Black man named Maynard Brumsey was killed at the Dalhart Unit in Texas due to excessive use of force. As a result of constant urging by comrades and their families calling for justice, several of the top officials were removed. It’s more likely than not that they were just placed at other units in similar fashion to what the Catholics did in recent years with pedophiles within their ranks. Nor was their removal likely officially directly related to Brumsey’s death. So, we are a far cry from exacting anything like justice upon the offender officers whose actions caused that man to die. Officers Hay, Verlardi, Marquez, Jackson, Crawford, and Gambriel killed this man through excessive force and in failing to take him to medical after they brutalized him, even as he complained of having trouble breathing. They need to answer for that. Those officials who failed to investigate this matter correctly and according to procedure and/or who covered this thing up need to face criminal sanctions. We don’t let the Brumsey matter die until that happens.

This is the nature of our revolutionary struggle in the United States at present. What happens in prisons is just one aspect of it. We need to be vigilant in making the connections clear between prisons and hoods, especially the projects to prisons pipeline that uses public schools as a conduit. We need to understand the relationship between these phenomena and political disengagement and economic disempowerment. In clearly defining the nature of our social predicament, we are more competent in our struggles’ strategic development.

Consistent and sustained vehicles of information and resource exchange are paramount. I recently received literature from MIM(Prisons) under the banner of our United Struggle from Within which outlined several procedural codes of compliance that can be used effectively against officers and administration. In our past three years of development we have reached nearly 5,000 men with our advocating for our “Triple C Core Concepts.” Each of those men should have such material to fight with. So I praise MIM(Prisons) and the collective efforts of our USW comrades for that.

[While MIM(Prisons) expressed cautious optimism following the election of Chokwe Lumumba, we questioned his electoral strategy and stressed a clearer definition of dual power (see ULK 33). Unfortunately, failure seems to have struck more suddenly than we could have expected. In the piece below, PTT of MIM(Prisons) has woven updates on the campaign in Jackson into excerpts from commentary by Loco1.]

On 22 April 2014, Chokwe Antar Lumumba lost the mayoral election in Jackson, Mississippi to Councilman Tony Yarber in a run-off. Chokwe Antar’s father, Chokwe Lumumba, was inaugurated as the mayor of Jackson on 1 July 2013, and died 25 February 2014 from “heart failure.” Since our last report, those close to Lumumba had indicated that an independent autopsy was going forward, but results, or information on whether an independent autopsy was conducted, are not readily available. In Under Lock & Key 37, we raised suspicion over the cause of the Mayor’s death in a country where New Afrikan leaders are regularly murdered by the state with impunity.

As the electoral strategy of the former New Afrikan revolutionary ended prematurely, some comrades are raising the question of whether the nation would have really sown the seeds of progress for New Afrikan self-determination into the heart of Mississippi, had Mayor Lumumba or Chokwe Antar served the full term. We assert that when New Afrikans fail to realistically distinguish themselves from Afrikan-Amerikans, it is impossible to break from Black capitalism to form a new society centered around humyn need.

One limitation Mayor Lumumba’s death raises in the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement’s strategy of entering electoral politics is the vulnerability of elected candidates. Lumumba wanted to build a movement based in the people, but electoral politics necessitates focus on individuals as leaders and representatives of the masses. In the context of joining the Amerikan political machine, winning electoral campaigns amounts to putting a Black face on Amerikan capitalism. Before his death, Mayor Lumumba was planning to put $1.7 billion onto the streets of Jackson. “The intent is to improve the city’s infrastructure, support businesses and, in a first, rehab some Black neighborhoods.”(1) A keen eye can see that building revolutionary education centers is not on the top of this list, if it’s on there at all. We agree with Mr. Lumumba that the people are smart. But if they are fed a false idealism of an end to oppression under capitalism, then their opposition to the Amerikan imperialist global machine will be limited. In fact, it is more likely that their ties to Amerika will even be increased, as the benefits from the spoils of imperialism are redistributed in their favor. Without real people’s control of wealth, that $1.7 billion raised by Mayor Lumumba is easily redirected by a suspicious death and a defeat in a run-off election.

The people of Jackson hope to continue building this movement for Black capitalism in their city, and Chokwe Anton invited all small business owners, enterpreneurs, prospective business owners, and people seeking new and innovative employment/ownership opportunities to attend the Jackson Rising conference that was held on May 2-4.(2) As communists, we are definitely seeking new and innovative employment/ownership opportunities! But as internationalists, we seek these opportunities for all the world’s people. We don’t want worker-owned cooperatives for ourselves built from wealth scraped off the backs of the Third World. We know truly innovative employment/ownership opportunities can’t come without civil war and an overthrow of capitalism. Success in electoral politics can stifle progress in a revolutionary direction if politics aren’t in command.

The late Mayor Lumumba is reported in an interview with the Nation of Islam in The Final Call newspaper as saying, “our predominately Black administrations can actually do better – to provide security to everybody, prosperity to everybody on a fair basis, and, of course, we’re going to be vigilant against the cheaters – but we think we can do a better job. We’re talking about the new society, the new way, and that’s a lot of what New Afrika was about.” To claim that New Afrikans will do a better job at playing the Amerikan economic game amounts to Black chauvinism and racism. We are products of our society. What is it that New Afrikans can do better than whites: hate, steal, cheat, kill, lie, destroy and oppress? The U.$. President is Black and we still witness New Afrikan and Xican@ youth targeted by police for death in the United $tates. Working within electoral politics will do nothing to change Amerika’s impact on the majority of the world’s people. Mayor Lumumba stated “We are impressed with the need to protecting everyone’s human rights.” But this can’t be done when the nationalist leaders are so misdirected that they can’t see that there is nothing in U.$. politicians’ offices but documents with the names of the billions of humyn beings murdered as a result of foreign policy, or low-intensity warfare operations jumping off in the U.$. semi-colonies. The electoral struggle in Jackson highlights the differences between bourgeois nationalism and nationalism with proletarian ideology.

The U.$. internal semi-colonies’ greatest connection to the reality of the global contradiction in relation to their own material condition is the lumpen, incarcerated and criminalized across the state. The lumpen are most capable for the vehicular mechanism for transforming the shift of imperialist control to proletarian control with real state power, by leading national liberation struggles to free us from Amerika. Lumpen hold no stake or stock in capitalism and have way more interest in abolishing its control over the people than the bourgeois nationalists. The Jackson Plan would like to turn all these lumpen into labor aristocrats rather than vehicles for overthrowing capitalism.

The lumpen, particularly prisoners, will have to understand that there is no future in placing higher values on profits than the welfare of humyn life/needs. The Amerikan pie has to be completely disposed of and the land redistributed fairly. Period. You get what you need. Nothing more, nothing less.

If we gonna move, let’s move the world. Revolutionary nationalism, with a proletarian ideology, is the key to any oppressed nation’s self-determination and self-governance, or simply put national independence. If New Afrikans are to have any chance at such, they will first have to separate themselves from Black Amerika and move to the tune of the proletariat. Chokwe Lumumba had a gift and will be missed dearly by all who value his mind, but he appeared better in his dashiki and afro. “Rather than going to church and yelling and screaming about it, rather than bad mouth the youth, my plan is to engage the youth,” quoting the former Mayor. This begs the question, how does this transpire from behind a desk that is responsible for the city’s youth being carted away to prison and jail facilities?

Three former California governors recently backed a petition for a ballot initiative which would dramatically accelerate the execution of death row prisoners. At the same time we have experienced a more extreme than usual delay in the processing of death row SHUII and III mail. As I will explain, there is an important connection between these events.

The main selling point for the proposed bill is saving loads of money by arranging faster executions of the 747 prisoners currently warehoused on San Quentin’s four death row SHUs and the women all but forgotten in Cowchilla. In addition, death row prisoners would no longer be confined exclusively in the San Quentin and Chowchilla torture units. They would be placed among the general population.

It is noteworthy that the Calincarceration Corrupted Peace Officers Association (California Correctional Peace Officers Association - CCPOA) didn’t give financial support for this bill. Many assume the lackeys, bullies and cowards who comprise that security threat group probably thought it wasn’t in their best interest to all of a sudden meet face to face with the un-cuffed death row prisoners they’ve been torturing their whole career. But the fact of the matter is the higher ups in the CCPOA actually had enough sense to realize no amount of their support could buy enough votes to pass such political double talk into law in this state.

Acting proactively in case the bill passes, the CCPOA at San Quentin decided to mobilize in preparation. By citing wild interpretations of prisoner correspondence to give the public an illusion that the bowels of hell were opened upon them, the prison tried to transfer a large number of formerly grade A and B SHUII and III prisoners to other SHU programs across the state.

They almost had a window of opportunity to “justify” building more control units within existing prisons. But as of today the death row SHU expansion project in San Quentin’s Carson section is stalled.

“Persons other than inmates should address any appeal relating to department policy and regulations to the Director of the Division of Adult Institutions. Appeals relating to a specific facility [like San Quentin or Chowchilla] procedure or practice [like excessive delays in the processing of mail to and from loved ones and prisoners’ rights organizations] should be addressed in writing to the warden…” - California Code of Regulations, Title 15, 3137. Appeals Relating to Mail.

For more info go to: www.cdcr.ca.gov/regulations/adult_operations
See also page 12 of ULK for info on the grievance campaign.

MIM(Prisons) responds: This comrade is correct that the CCPOA has been entirely silent on this new ballot initiative to accelerate death row executions. But we don’t agree with h interpretation that the CCPOA is just standing down because they don’t think it has a chance of passing. Rather we see this position as lining up consistently with the CCPOA’s primary goal: protect the jobs of the many prison workers. Faster executions would reduce the San Quentin prison population, and that would threaten jobs there, so it should not be surprising that the CCPOA is silent on this new ballot initiative. This is a rare case where their interests align with ours, and we can take advantage of the situation to stop passage of this reactionary bill.

Enclosed is a notice that the Level 1 study group material you mailed to me has been forwarded to Publication Review Committee for disapproval. One of the reasons for disapproval is “material whose content could be detrimental to the offender rehabilitative efforts…” I must ask, What rehabilitative efforts? I’m serving a sentence of double-life plus 46 years. I’ve been incarcerated since June 1988. I’m not eligible for any school programs. I’m not enrolled in any treatment programs. Nor do I have a job inside the prison.

Further, the Virginia Department of Corruptions, um, Corrections (VADOC) is truly ignorant and incompetent in the realm of rehabilitative programs. In the 1990s the recidivism rate in the Commonwealth of Virginia ranked among the highest in the nation. VADOC’s bungling efforts at rehabilitative programming proved so abysmal that the state legislature abolished both parole and early release good-time credits in July 1995. With the governor’s blessing the prisoner population and VADOC’s fiscal budget exploded. According to ABC news, prisoners in Virginia serve more time in prison now than any other jurisdiction except Florida.

This “Commonwealth of Virginia” is in truth a “colony” - a bastard child of the united snakes of amerikkka. Like father, like son this colony operates as a slave plantation of the kkkapitalist kkkrackers, with a major exception: no one is directly profiting from the labor of prisoners. But the labor aristocracy is profiting from our incarceration while giving us materials enough to simply keep us alive.

My friends, notice that these prison autocrats also say that the materials from MIM(Prisons) “…emphasize depictions or promotions of violence, disorder, insurrection, terrorist, or criminal activity in violation of state or federal laws…” Yet these same prison autocrats suck their livelihood from the tits of the United $tates whose founding fabricators once wrote that when people face a destructive government “…it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government…” What was Common Sense? Why were Crispus Attucks and four other men martyred? What was the volatile resolution of the First Kkkontinental Kkkongress?

On 1 May 2014, the united snakes of amerikkka warned that “global terrorism is on the rise.” Since the kkkapitalist pigs refer to any threat to their hegemony as terrorism, then the revolutionary has reason to strengthen h resolve. The evidence reveals the pigs are in perpetual distress, and this is most fitting. If the U.$. truly is the “greatest nation on earth with the best form of government,” then why does more than half of the world’s population seek to destroy amerikkka and amerikkkans? Indeed, an ever growing number of so-called amerikkkan citizens wish only for the abolition of the current go-vermine-ment.

MIM(Prisons) adds: This censorship is a blatant example of the criminal injustice system’s real goals in the United $tates. There is no rehabilitation in this system. It is merely a tool of social control. The MIM(Prisons) prisoner study group is one of the only educational opportunities for prisoners in Virginia, and education has been demonstrated to have significant positive effects on reducing recidivism of prisoners. So in denying prisoners this material VADOC proves its focus on maximizing incarceration and sentencing. The “detrimental” effects on rehabilitation can only refer to our positive impact on prisoners and their ability to get by on the streets without returning to prison.

In solidarity, I offer this suggestion: reduce your contribution to your imprisonment; instead contribute to your child’s development. Advantages: the prison system has less funding; the companies that lobby for prisons lose money; you remain healthy to fight!

J. Paul Getty said, “If you owe the bank $100, that’s your problem. If you own the bank $100 million, that’s the bank’s problem!”

The prison gets roughly $30,000/year for each general population prisoner, but receives an average of $70,000 for us in solitary confinement. Where does the money come from? Too much of it comes from us! Federal prisoners spend $300 million a year in commissary. It is estimated that prisoners contribute $3 billion annually toward their own incarceration. We are allowing our money to be used as a weapon of war against us. “Playing by your enemy’s rules is suicide.” Growth and Development symbolizes growth of knowledge and development of new skills and tactics to be successful!

If you want to bring the CDCR director to the negotiation, make Keefe force him to the table. It is always about the money with capitalists. You have to give them something to lose!

We never shop during September out of respect for the sacrifice of my Attica brothers. Ask your family and friends to participate by not purchasing products from Keefe, Bob Barker, Golden Valley and any other company that profits from prisons. Eliminate the funding, and the problem is solved. Stop contributing to your own suffering!

Request the public records, budget and audit for the California prison system. It will show you how you are giving your money to your suffering.

Grow your knowledge
Develop new skills and tactics
Revolutionary strategy
Intelligent sacrifice
Stand United
Economic pressure to obtain your goal

MIM(Prisons) adds:Every September 9 the United Front for Peace in Prisons (UFPP) promotes a solidarity demonstration in honor of the Attica uprising. This peaceful protest could easily expand to a month-long boycott of the parasitic industries from which prisoners are forced to make purchases. We welcome input from UFPP members and supporters leading up to this September’s demonstration.

Lately, due to the continuing of the repressive injustice system, the New Afrikan Maoist Brotherhood (NAMB) has restructured our organizing and networking tactics. We continue our current study group raising New Afrikan and internationalist consciousness. We are working on a peace treaty/alliance between the Vice Lords, Latin Kings, MS-13, Bloods and Black P. Stones. The Euro-Amerikan street organizations of the Cincinnatti Caucasian Cartel and the Cincinnati White Boys have allied against the Aryan Brothers and so, we are working to bring the Triple Cs and the CWBs into the Ohio-wide treaty with the Vice Lords and Latin Kings/MS-13 and Bloods. Our next focus will be to reach out to the “heartless felons” of Northern Ohio (Cleveland based) to radicalize them into revolutionary consciousness. These are uphill battles due to lack of quality leadership, coupled with the terrain of lockdown blocks, controlled movements, and confidential informants. But, the movement must be pushed, no matter how fast/slow, hard/easy it may seem. History is on our side! The NAMB is slowly but surely making headway in spreading unity and revolutionary theory. We look forward to creating an Ohio-wide, Ohio-produced treaty between all LOs inside of prison and outside.

MIM(Prisons) adds: These comrades in Ohio are doing the essential work of education and building peace and unity. Bringing lumpen organizations together into a United Front (UF) is critical, but we must always be clear what we are uniting around. The UF is a vehicle for the oppressed to unite groups against a common and principal enemy. We learn from history that this includes alliances between the proletariat and the national bourgeoisie when the fight is against the imperialist invading army. In Amerikan prisons today, this unity is among lumpen organizations against the criminal injustice system which is used by imperialist Amerika as a tool of social control.