MIM(Prisons) is a cell of revolutionaries serving the oppressed masses inside U.$. prisons, guided by the communist ideology of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism.
Under Lock & Key is a news service written by and for prisoners with a focus on what is going on behind bars throughout the United States. Under Lock & Key is available to U.S. prisoners for free through MIM(Prisons)'s Free Political Literature to Prisoners Program, by writing:
MIM(Prisons) PO Box 40799 San Francisco, CA 94140.
Transformation is what revolution brings, no face, no place, no name,
all is suitable for guerilla tactics, so we study and we study so that
we become self made autodidactics.
Nothing comes to a sleeper but a dream, so we must put
Theory into practice in order to manifest that thing.
It’s impossible for a persyn to be true to anyone else, without first
being true to thyself!
If you should fail, go forth and try again. Mind, body, spirit must
be imposed with discipline, with undaunting vigor we shall win.
Keep your mind focused, we shall not fold, nor shall we bend!
There is a duality in regards to the existence of the victimization
in the New Afrikan nation and generally among oppressed people. The
duality expresses itself when oppressed people avoid struggle, avoid
acknowledgment of their colonization and oppression, because of a
psychosocial tendency to align one’s self with strength, victory,
privilege, excess, and power. This tendency is deeply rooted in one of
the characteristics of the “colonial mentality,” which is a lack of
dignity, pride, and self-worth. In this case of identity crisis and
pathology, the oppressed chooses to derive its pride, dignity,
self-worth (and perceived social, political, and economic interests)
from the upper echelons of empire, from the imperialist power
structure.
There is another side of this duality which thrives, not on its own
victimhood per se, but more aptly on its ability to resist, thwart, and
overcome the complexities of the colonial-imperial oppression. These are
“the people,” so often refereed to in radical discourse, “the people’s”
collective will in movement fighting, struggling ceaselessly.
The basic truth is that in every contradiction there are winners and
losers. Losers, by default, die victims. Winners are victimizers. The
issue, from my humble point of view, only arises when We have a social
group, or a broad mass within a social group after long periods of
oppression, become content with their own status as victims. So content
in fact that they themselves have rendered all resistance and tactical
victories among themselves as illegitimate expressions of the oppressed
experience. This is indeed an issue because war has a sole purpose to
destroy the will and/or ability for the opposition to resist our
advancement.
“War is nothing but a duel on an extensive scale. If we would
conceive as a unit the countless number of duels which make up a war, we
shall do so best by supposing to ourselves two wrestlers. Each strives
by physical force to compel the other to submit to his will: his first
object is to throw his adversary, and thus to render him incapable of
further resistance… Violence arms itself with the inventions of Art and
Science [cognitive, neuro sciences, behavioral sciences] in order to
contend against violence.”(1)
The inherent danger and crippling effect of the pathology of New
Afrikan Victimization can be seen in many instances, but i will
highlight one in particular.
i am speaking here of the case of Brother Othal “Ozone” Wallace, a
New Afrikan man in Florida currently fighting against the State’s death
penalty. Ozone is a father and was an active participant in the efforts
of liberation for New Afrikan and other oppressed people. Prior to his
current captivity Ozone was active in search and rescue missions of
suspected human trafficking victims. As a craftsman by trade he helped
rebuild communities damaged by hurricane disasters. Ozone was also on
the front lines of armed demonstrations advocating armed self defense
and armed struggle against the oppression of New Afrikans.
In June 2021, Ozone was exiting his vehicle while in a residential
area, when he was approached by a Daytona Beach Police officer who asked
a question common to colonial and oppressed subjects globally, “Where
are you going? Do you live here?” Body cam footage shows the officer
repeat, “Do you live here? Yes or no?” While he grabbed Ozone by the
shoulders. At that point the footage becomes shaky and blurry, but it
should be understood that this entire incident, from the Police’s
observation as someone “unwelcome”, “suspect”, “threatening”, is a
textbook chain of events in the efforts of occupation and
counter-insurgent forces. This “regular” treatment of New Afrikans is
contrary to the U.$. constitution’s Fourth Amendment right to protection
from illegal search and seizure, but its regularity showcases that New
Afrikans are still a colonized population whose existence is situated
outside the general legalities of the empire.
Somehow during the physical struggle, initiated by the officer’s
arrogant choice to grab Ozone, the officer ended up shot in his face,
while Ozone escaped the scene. He was captured days later, in a wooded
area in Georgia, where state agents also allege to have found multiple
flash bangs, rifle plates, body armor, two rifles, two handguns, and
several boxes of ammunition.
In the ensuing “legal” drama, once the officer died in a hospital as
a result of his wounds in August of 2021, Prosecutors began seeking the
death penalty, the family of the officer filed a civil suit, suing Ozone
for $5 million, specifically the money accumulated by Ozone’s criminal
defense fundraiser page. Prosecutors have sought to have his GoFundMe
account shutdown. In short, Ozone was and remains under attack, and his
experience is synonymous with New Afrikan liberation in general.
My reason for highlighting Ozone’s experience is that i see it as an
example and a dividing line question among “the left” and New Afrikans
particularly and Black liberationists (of many stripes) generally. My
question to the movement(s), to Our People, why is Ozone not as known as
Michael Brown or George Floyd? Why is he not garnering support and
attention from the Black and radical press? Why is he virtually unknown
to the common persyn of the street? The simple answer is that New
Afrikans, generally speaking, even within so-called radical circles,
have become infected with that colonial pathology that i call New
Afrikan Victimization. Some of us are too content with Our imagery and
association with victimhood. Others delude themselves into behaving as
if this victimization doesn’t exist on an institutional and systemic
level. Instead opting for the “boot straps” mentality which is also a
socio-pathology.
Too many of us have failed to acknowledge that We are at war, that
we’re subjects, not free and liberated citizens of a free democratic
society. We’ve failed to realize the there are no “rights” only power
struggles, and those who dictate power subsequently dictate what
“rights” are respected or discarded. Most important, We’ve failed to
realize the implications of these failures. Thus We have Ozone, and
other Political Prisoners of War lost in captivity without support or
even acknowledgment from even elements of Movement(s) that are supposed
to be supporting Political Prisoners of War. Such groups, generally,
have forgotten the current epoch of struggle, that there are Political
Prisoners being captured almost daily. That yesteryears “Black
Nationalist hate group” designation that fueled COINTELPRO and PRISACTS
has been replaced by today’s “Black Identity Extremist” designation that
is fueling present day surveillance, sabotage, and imprisonment of
movement activists. While we should never forget or relinquish support
of BPP/BLA Political Prisoners or others from earlier eras of struggle,
We also should not exclude or ignore those currently active in the
streets (even if We do not agree with their political line).
Comrades, I know most of you are aware of the fact that we are a
study specimen for experimental purposes but let me give you some
details about one of these experiments that most of you are familiar
with.
“Behavior Control & Human Experimentation”
These are two names with the same meaning: Behavior Modification
& Special Holding Units.
SHU -> These are units that have been specifically designed to
control behavior. Here is where human experimentation is legal. The
purpose of these experiments is to control rebellious and revolutionary
attitudes in the prison system and in society at large. In several
instances the control units have been used to “Silence Prison Movement
Criticism”. In 1964 at a meeting in Washington between social scientists
and prison wardens addressing the topics of “man against man”,
brainwashing was said to produce marked changes of behavior in attitudes
necessary to weaken, undermine & remove the supports of the old
patterns of behavior and old ideologies attitudes. It’s often necessary
to break these emotional ties. This can be done by either removing the
individual physically, preventing communication with those whom the
prisoner cares about, or by proving to him that those whom he respects
aren’t worthy of it and should indeed be actively mistrusted.
I will share a few specific examples:
Physical removal of prisoners from those they respect to
positively break and seriously weaken close emotional ties
Segregation of natural leaders
Use of cooperative prisoners as “leaders”
Prohibition of group activities not in line with brainwashing
objectives
Spying on prisoners & reporting back private
material
Tricking prisoners to write statements which are then shown to
others
Exploitation of opportunists & informers
Convincing prisoners they can trust no one
Treating those who are willing to collaborate in more lenient
ways than those who are not
Punishing those who show an uncooperative attitudes
Systemic withholding of mail
Preventing contact with anyone unsympathetic to the method of
treatment & regimen of captive populace
Building a group conviction among the prisoners that they have
been abandoned by and totally isolated from their social order
Undermining all emotional supports
Preventing prisoners from writing regarding the conditions of
their confinement
Making available and permitting access to only those publications
which are neutral or supportive of the desired attitudes
Placing individuals into new and ambiguous situations from which
the standards are kept deliberately unclear and then pressuring them to
conform to what is desired to win favor and some respite from the
pressure
Placing individuals whose willpower has been severely weakened or
eroded into a living situation with several others who are more advanced
in their thought-reform, whose job it is to further undermine the
individual’s emotional support
Using techniques of character invalidation; i.e. humiliations,
revilement, and shouting to induce feelings of guilt, fear &
suggestibility coupled with sleeplessness, an exacting prison regimen
& periodic interrogation-interviews.
Meeting with renewed hostility all the insincere attempts to
comply with prisoners’ pressures
Repeatedly pointing out to the prisoner and their cellmates where
he has in the past not lived up to his own standards or values
Rewarding of submission and subservience by lifting of the
pressures
Providing social & emotional support that reinforces new
attitudes
Comrade, if any of these points were used on you then you have been
part of the experiment.
U.$. Imperialists have tried to manipulate our environment and
culture, in particular those who belong to oppressed minority groups.
Reader, you might question “What they mean by Revolutionary
attitudes??”
In this experiment it evidently refers to anyone who thinks and
behaves as an individual, who they feel must be made to become part of
their subservient system. The point is to make people less human and
“subject entirely to their will!”
Comrades, we should be truly aware and on guard that the above
techniques to condition people are now general practice in most if not
all prisons, state and federal throughout the United $tates as well as
in workplaces, schools, and other government organizations.
The author of this article has have been in the SHU-EM at a prison in
Florida State and I’m a true witness that all this has been in effect
for almost forty years, and what is worse is… its working!!
Don’t be part of the experiment, don’t let the system work on you –
be strong minded and of impeccable heart as well as relentless spirit.
Imperialism might be able to kill a Revolutionary but never the internal
Revolution of the soul!
In the United $tates, prisons mean war against the oppressed nations.
In occupied Palestine, war means prison for the Palestinians. Two sides
of the same blood-stained coin which built the richest empire in
hystory. Imperialism considers war to be a legal method of resolving
issues, in deeds if not in words.
The struggle for Palestine is a national liberation struggle. The
only consistently revolutionary class that may overthrow the bourgeoisie
is the proletariat, but imperial domination can unite a whole nation
against their occupiers for the establishment of independence. If
independence is a precondition for the dictatorship of the proletariat,
then Palestine’s struggle is revolutionary and progressive. If I$rael is
an arm of imperialism, then the Palestinian struggle against them is
revolutionary and progressive. Leadership of the proletariat in that
struggle would intensify its revolutionary character, but it is
revolutionary even without the proletariat in the vanguard. When
Palestinian communists align themselves with all revolutionary forces
against I$rael in a united front, that is a correct policy. We have a
clear hystory on this subject, and this practice is what led to the
victory of the Chinese people in creating the most advanced socialism
yet.
We in the United $tates face the strongest enemy in humyn hystory,
and I$rael is an arm of the United $tates in the Middle East. Everything
which weakens I$rael weakens the United $tates, which puts us in a
stronger position. Our comrades fighting in Gaza today are putting us in
a position of advantage for the final victory of the oppressed in
Occupied Turtle Island. To oppose the struggle in Palestine is to oppose
that which objectively weakens our enemy, to leave behind real friends
who are fighting real enemies.
“Leftist” support for I$rael in this war is often concealed by a
position against Hamas. This anti-Hamas, but allegedly pro-Palestine,
sentiment is often based on the supposedly inhuman crimes that have been
committed. On top of this being a complete deflection from the primary
question of imperialism, the claims surrounding such crimes as the
decapitation of infants have zero evidence behind them. Even bourgeois
press has shown that the claims are based on videos which show no
beheadings, only IDF soldiers claiming that the events occurred.(1)
Media campaigns in support of imperialist interventions can go much
further and be many times more difficult to uncover than what we are
dealing with here. This is a particularly obvious example of an
imperialist lie, and the propaganda will not always be so easy to see
through. Therefore, in addition to exposing blatant falsehoods, we also
need to be able to separate what makes a movement an ally or enemy and
what doesn’t, and be able to understand what line the media is
attempting to push when they tell a particular story.
The media will tell us that Hamas is committing heinous crimes,
killing babies and civilians. We need to ask why they are deflecting
from the principal contradiction in the world today. We need to ask who
weakens empire, and critically support those who do. We need to ask who
strengthens empire, and make ourselves their enemy. That is what it
means to understand what is principal and what is secondary. Contrary to
popular belief, the moral position of communists is not to do with
concepts like eternal justice and true liberty. Communists have one
moral position: we are for those actions which strengthen the
international proletariat. We understand that the work of Hamas as a
whole strengthens the international proletariat. Therefore we understand
that they are the allies of the oppressed and we align ourselves
alongside them.
[The following statement was circulated by email from
spiritofmandela.org]
Sekou Odinga is celebrated & admired by freedom & justice
movements worldwide for his persistence, courage, & principled
adherence to freedom struggle.
Baba Sekou Transitioned on January 12, 2024.
Sekou Odinga was a globally recognized Black liberation activist,
member of Malcolm X’s Organization of Afro-American Unity, founding
member of both the New York City chapter and the International Section
of the Black Panther Party, and former US political prisoner who
survived 33 years of state captivity before his release in 2014.
Prosecuted as one of the “Panther 21” in New York City, Odinga was a
prominent historical figure, having been featured on Democracy Now! and
in numerous documentaries, concerts, mass public events, and major news
outlets.
In addition to being featured in the widely circulated social
movement texts Can’t Jail the Spirit (2002) and Hauling Up
the Morning: Writings & Art by Political Prisoners & Prisoners
of War in the U.S. (1990), Odinga published his writing in Look
for Me in the Whirlwind: From the Panther 21 to 21st-Century
Revolutions (PM Press, 2017) and Black Power Afterlives: The
Enduring Significance of the Black Panther Party (Haymarket Books,
2020).
A survivor of state torture and the FBI’s notorious
Counterintelligence Program (COINTELPRO), Sekou Odinga is both
celebrated and admired by freedom and justice movements worldwide,
exemplifying persistence, courage, and principled adherence to freedom
struggle under the most repressive circumstances imaginable.
The Taliban retook power in Afghanistan after the
U.$. retreat in August 2021.(1) In April 2022, the Taliban once
again instituted a ban on poppy cultivation, and by December 2023 they
had reduced production by 95%. Most global poppy cultivation now takes
place in unstable regions of Myanmar.(2) The Taliban banned opium
production with similar results in 2000, but when the United $tates
invaded Afghanistan in 2001, they saw to it that opium production was
restored and there were continued increases up until last year. As a
very poor country, poppy production is a significant cash crop for
Afghan farmers. Still the Taliban has been able to enforce the ban,
while working with farmers to grow alternative crops. The United $tates
says they spent $8 billion trying to eradicate poppy during their rule
over the country from 2001 to 2018.(2)
Afghanistan has been negotiating agricultural deals with China since
the Taliban regained power in 2021, and are scheduled to begin shipping
large exports of produce to China this month [December 2023].
Afghanistan has attended China’s recent Belt and Road Forum, with China
becoming Afghanistan’s second biggest trade partner after neighboring
Pakistan.(3) This growing export of raw materials has come with far
greater imports of products from social-imperialist China, that will
feed a relationship of unequal exchange leading to wealth transfer out
of Afghanistan. But in the short-term it is helping provide economic
options other than exporting opium to Europe, where Afghanistan had
provided 95% of the black market supply.(4)
While the United $tates invaded Afghanistan shortly after the 9/11
attacks, by 2003 they had begun a full-scale invasion of Iraq using 9/11
as a cover once again. Iraq had also had a culture and tradition that
made drug use relatively uncommon. This began to change since the
overthrow of the Ba’ath Party in 2003, with sharp increases in crystal
meth and the stimulant Captagon documented since 2017.(5) It’s also
interesting to note that besides U.$. oil interests, Amerikans were
concerned with the ruling Ba’ath Party’s support of certain militant
groups in Palestine.
Of course a better example of eliminating opium is China, where the
masses were the victims of British Opium War. The Taliban isn’t fighting
addiction so much as they are trying to shift agricultural production in
a way that is challenging the incomes of poor farmers. The Chinese
Communist Party (CPC) gives us a better model than the Taliban of how to
fight addiction by empowering the masses through socialism from
1949-1976. We wrote about this in Issue 59 on drugs:
“Richard Fortmann did a direct comparison of the United $tates in
1952 (which had 60,000 opioid addicts) and revolutionary China (which
started with millions in 1949).(9) Despite being the richest country in
the world, unscathed by the war, with an unparalleled health-care
system, addicts in the United $tates increased over the following two
decades. Whereas China, a horribly poor country coming out of decades of
civil war, with 100s of years of opium abuse plaguing its people, had
eliminated the problem by 1953.(9) Fortmann pointed to the politics
behind the Chinese success:
“If the average drug addiction expert in the United States were shown
a description of the treatment modalities used by the Chinese after 1949
in their anti-opium campaign, his/her probable response would be to say
that we are already doing these things in the United States, plus much
more. And s/he would be right.”(9)
“About one third of addicts went cold turkey after the revolution,
with the more standard detox treatment taking 12 days to complete. How
could they be so successful so fast? What the above comparison is
missing is what happened in China in the greater social context. The
Chinese were a people in the process of liberating themselves, and
becoming a new, socialist people. The struggle to give up opium was just
one aspect of a nationwide movement to destroy remnants of the
oppressive past. Meanwhile the people were being called on and
challenged in all sorts of new ways to engage in building the new
society.”(6)
Here we see the United $tates failing where socialist China
succeeded, using the exact same tools! These historical examples
demonstrate that the principal contradiction behind the drug epidemic is
found within the structure of society and not with specific treatment
techniques. China was also a divided, drug-ravaged population coming
into the war of liberation, proving how a new culture can be built and a
people can rise above addiction.
But wait, the Taliban and the CPC both had state power when they
eliminated drugs. True. And the people in state power in the United
$tates are not interested in empowering the people. Instead, they
continue to allow the free flow of drugs into even the most controlled
environments. On the road to state power, the CPC built dual power, by
developing liberated zones in China where they could begin to experiment
with the policies and practices of building socialism, including the
elimination of drug use.
U.$. prisons are very different conditions than the Chinese
countryside. And communists are far from state power in this country.
But comrades must use the materialist method to develop strategies for
building forms of dual power and transforming the culture of the
oppressed to fight drug addiction. The Revolutionary 12 Steps
that we published last year is one tool for that, but the real challenge
is putting programs into practice. We must build independent
institutions of the oppressed that combat addiction by empowering people
in a greater liberation struggle. It is the plague of hopelessness that
is truly killing us.
As I embark upon this mission to impose my spirit within your world,
I ask that you be patient with me. I do not wish to cause you any
discomfort but, I do mean to cause you to become “ANGRY” at the
injustices that have been committed against every man, woman, and child,
living within this capitalistic KKKountry called Amerikkka! Only when WE
become “ANGRY” about a situation, a circumstance, a problem, do WE wish
to do something about it. Therefore, as you read word by word, line by
line, I hope that you become ANGRY!
As WE all know, the month before us is the month in which WE
celebrate “Black History.” The “History” that so many wish, hope to, and
try to keep away from US, Our children, and the people, will be told
within the schools that so many Black, Brown and Red children attend.
However, the teachings will be “whitewashed”, “diluted”, and “carefully
told”, by those that do not want Afrikan History to be taught here in
Amerikkka! Our history is their history! So, WE must tell Our stories to
the people. Impose Our own history upon Our children. Let the people
know that “Without Us” this so called “New World” would be nothing. WE
must tell Our children the true history of Queen Harriet Tubman. WE must
tell them about Nat Turner, Geronimo Pratt, George Jackson, Yogi Bear,
Assata Shukar, Angela Davis, and those that played a part in the Afrikan
Liberation movement. All those that lost their lives fighting for the
freedom of “THIS” generation of men, women, and children. Souljahs,
well, organized for revolutionary determination! Revolutionary Organized
Sistas of the Earth!
We must tell them how those within power crushed our babies’ heads
and attempted to raid our homes with guns blazing only to suffer their
own casualties. We must tell them about the Black Liberation Army, the
Black Ridahs Liberation Party, the Black Panther Party, and all those
that do not get mentioned within those schools of hindrance.
With that being said, I end this with,
Vita Wa Watu
MIM(Prisons) adds: Black History Month is an attempt to
appease the oppressed and control the narrative of revolutionary history
as this comrade points out. It is only by sharing, learning from, and
applying the lessons of our true revolutionary history that we can meet
the needs of the oppressed. That is why we must build our own study
programs, study groups, and organizing networks.
What is the revolutionary response to addiction? I am an alcoholic
who has been in recovery for two years. I sobered up in an anti-suicide
cell after committing the crime that would send me to federal prison on
a five-year bid. I have a complicated relationship with my crime. If my
bomb had successfully blown up that natural gas pipeline, I would be
dead. It was as much a suicide attempt as a strike against capitalism,
both desperate and hopeful.
I consider the fact that I am still alive to be a responsibility to
make reparations and amends to who I have harmed, to make a positive
impact on the world, and to forgive myself for my mistakes.
Honesty is paramount to an alcoholic and addict. I tentatively
practiced honesty, at first with a few, and then with wider and wider
groups of people. I began to take a position of self-criticism and
humility, yet also self-love and self-care. I was controlled by my shame
and failures and giving into defeatism. No longer. I lied to my family
and closest friends. No longer. I neglected myself and wished to kill
myself. No longer.
My sobriety date is 26 January 2022. Shame has left me. I am free
inside my head. I am an honest, motivated persyn who is trusted by my
community on the basis of my vulnerability and actions. I have not yet
had the opportunity to learn about the revolutionary 12 step program,
but I know that my work is never finished and I would love to work those
steps. I write this in the hope that it inspires a comrade in addiction
to have the courage to stay sober for 24 hours. Just for today.
It will please your readers to know that approximately two weeks ago
four Virginia prisons were ordered shut down for good!
Augusta, Sussex 2, Haynesville, and Stafford Correctional Center.
Augusta continues its industry and small cadre to support it. Nottoway
and a sixth prison, so far unnamed, are also on the chopping block as
the VA DOC is now, quietly, downsizing due to its lack of sustainability
($1.1 billion/year, approximately 26% of the entire state budget).
As is always the case, we’ll see how things develop.
MIM(Prisons) adds: The closures are scheduled to
complete by 30 June 2024 according to the VADOC. It is notable that
Augusta Correctional Facility is one of the prisons
comrades were campaigning to shut down for lack of air conditioning.
At this time we have no reason to believe the decision was connected to
that campaign. However Nottoway was also targeted by the campaign, along
with a third prison Buckingham.
