Under Lock & Key

I want to make a comment about the united front. I’ve been trapped inside this system for 15 years. And I’ve always been for my people and against our oppressors - the united snakes of lies. As you might know, us indigenous people have been subject to deception, murder, and assimilation. It’s been a problem for my people - Dakota-Santec Sioux - since our first encounter with these snakes. And to this day it’s still a problem for all indigenous people across this land we call turtle island. So until all the atrocities against my people have been righted, we will always be that thorn in the side of them snakes. Because we don’t forgive or forget, we’ll always remember the ones who have given up their lives for our struggle. For us, our wars have never ended, because as long as there’s a breath in a few we’ll always stand and fight for what is right.

I write that to let you know where we stand in the struggle. We will always be at war with the government of the united snakes.

Although we believe in the struggle, we also believe that the only ones who can fight our fight, is US (indigenous people), for history has shown that we can’t rely on anybody but our own. For we are the ones who can truly relate to how much it means to us. And how we are effected by all the wrongs that have been done to us. Because I believe our struggle is different - we struggle for survival! We fight not only for sovereignty, but for preservation of our ways of life (language, spirituality, and our culture).

MIM(Prisons) responds: We agree with this writer that the struggles of different oppressed nations are not all the same. The First Nations are in a struggle for survival as a small minority within a land dominated by an oppressor nation, while the struggle of oppressed nations in the Third World are battles of the majority against the minority. There are many differences, and these must be respected.

The goal of a United Front (for instance, the United Front for Peace in Prisons) is to bring together different groups against a common enemy without forcing those groups to subsume their struggles and beliefs into a larger organization. A United Front recognizes the importance of independence to its member organizations. Those groups need only unite around a common cause and principles but can take what actions they deem appropriate, and can continue to pursue their own organizing and other struggles.

We see the importance of separate nation vanguard organizations within the U.$., and so we agree with this comrade on the importance of indigenous people fighting their own fight. But we see the United Front as a crucial element of support for these organizations, bringing them together to fight their common enemy of imperialism.

I’ve just finished reading ULK 19 and the formal announcement of the United Front for Peace in Prisons initiative, of which my organization is a supporter of and contributor to. And what makes this initiative fundamentally different from others which preceded this is that it was planned, struggled over and totally put together by the different lumpen organizations and individuals without the interference and influence of the bourgeois media and leaders. So it is ours to push and develop.

Why do we want and need peace? Because we are the ones doing the dying, suffering and long term prisyn sentences. Because we will never be able to determine our own destines until we can truly know and understand who are our real friends and real enemies.

Being serious about ending oppression means being serious about studying the world around us and learning from history.(1) When we examine the past peace efforts, we find that the lumpen leaders involved in them, for the most part, while demonstrating the right words, still had not effectively destroyed their colonial criminal mentality. And thus, were easily manipulated and co-opted by our bourgeois capitalist enemies.

Using Wallace “Gator” Bradley as an example, he went from high-ranking Disciple, to playing politician with the reformist Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow Coalition, to having dinner in the White House with President Bill Clinton.

If we truly believe in what we say, then we all have to be accountable for the success and the failure of these efforts. We must be highly disciplined and forever vigilant and conscious of the fact that certain elements in our society or social environment do not want to see us succeed.

Understand this comrades: The war against us is real. And the only doubt about that is within your mind, and in the routine and nonchalant way you go about responding to the war effort.

If you have a critique of our efforts, want to help move them forward or feel your groove is not represented, then step up. Don’t talk shit!

The persyn who stands upon the corner of the path and points the way and does not go is just a pointer. And a block of word can do the same.

Notes: See ULK3, Fearlessness, Scientific Strategy and Security

The show centers on a seemingly friendly encounter with space aliens who visit planet Earth. The space aliens first arrive bearing gifts of advanced medicine, superior technology and their trademark logo of “we come in peace.” The show also focuses on a small, infant underground movement of humyns committed to unmasking the seemingly friendly space aliens for what they really are: hostile space invaders or intergalactic imperialists who have in all reality begun an undercover invasion of planet Earth, which most humyns either don’t realize is taking place or are too busy being bought off to admit.

The united front portrayed in this show was started by an FBI agent assigned to the anti-terrorist unit; a liaison to the space alien delegation; a rogue priest; a space alien who’s committed species suicide by coming over to the side of the humyns; and a so called “terrorist” who’s wanted by the “international community” for supplying Third World liberation movements with weapons and guerrilla warfare training.

As a matter of fact, FBI agent Erica Evans was first tasked with capturing the wanted “terrorist.” However, once she finds out what the space aliens are really up to by spying on underground anti-space-alien organizations with methods straight out of COINTELPRO, combined with her own near-death experience with the intergalactic imperialists, she decides that it’s time to form an opposition to the invaders. So along with the alien species traitor Ryan Nichols and the rogue priest, they begin to seek out and court the wanted “terrorist.” Despite the FBI agent’s hate for this “terrorist” she knows that if this anti-space-imperialist movement is gonna be for real, then the humyn species is gonna need all the tactical assistance it can get, even if that means hooking up with her enemies.

This rag-tag band of individuals eventually unites to re-establish the then-defunct Fifth Column, an anti-space-imperialist movement originally founded by empathetic space aliens who committed species suicide in order to protect the prior oppressed species whom the parasitic space imperialists enslaved and wiped out.

In real life, the historical Fifth Column were Nazi infiltrators in several European states such as Poland, France and even the USSR, leading up to and during WWII. Their main objective was to sabotage and wreck government and military institutions for the purpose of softening the ground in preparation for Nazi attacks. The real Fifth Column was most notably brought to light by the Soviet Union’s purge trials of 1937-38 which Stalin ordered to smash the fascist traitors. The Fifth Column depicted in the TV series is an anti-space-imperialists movement instead of pro-Nazi.

In the most recent episode the insurgent rogue priest known as Father Jack has become conflicted by the humyn death and collateral damage, so much so that he begins to endanger the movement by refusing to adhere to the Fifth Column’s version of democratic centralism when it comes to the group’s mission. Instead of kicking him out of the movement, they subject him to a sorry excuse of party criticism and then keep him around based on his laurels.

In countless other episodes the importance of the individual and the individual’s needs are stressed to the point that it leaves the impression that if any one of the Fifth Column leaders doesn’t get his or her way then the movement will suffer irreparable damage to the point that its very existence will be put in peril. While leaders are certainly important to any movement this show takes the meaning and importance of a leader to a whole different level.

In recent episodes they’ve also shown how the Fifth Column’s small-scale focoist adventures have now inspired many other humyns across the globe to band together and form a larger mass organization of the same name to launch spectacular focoist attacks on the space-imperialists. Little by little however the Fifth Column has begun to land serious blows to the space invaders proving that a united front, though an uneasy and still developing one, does work. While we don’t encourage the focoist approach of armed struggle without consideration of the imperialists’ strength, the humyns on the show are at a tipping point where the space imperialists’ sinister plans would have severe dire consequences if not immediately stopped.

In the original “V” series of the 80s, “V” stood for victory and the mass of humynity eventually came together to launch a protracted guerrilla struggle against the oppressor space imperialists. When that series ended the viewer was left doubting whether the humyns prevailed.

Who knows how this updated version of the series will turn out. In a realistic approach the humyns need to first get their shit right, and instead of launching their spectacular focoist attacks, they need to begin the long arduous task of building public opinion against the invaders to bring the bulk of humynity together for when the real battles begin.

I am interested in filing suit against California Department of Corrections & Rehabilitation(CDCR) as well as those in contract with them. I am aiming at their pockets because money seems to be all they understand. I am currently one victim of close to a hundred classified “hispanics” who were targeted by an OCS (Office of Correctional Safety) operation that was launched here in North Folk Oklahoma.

In all, around 80 classified “hispanics” were validated and approximately 150 to 200 Latino prisoners were affected. Our legal property was seized (as well as bibles, etc.) while we were being interviewed handcuffed, in our underwear, totally oblivious to them seizing our legal and religious property.

Those who exercised their constitutional protections against self-incrimination, considering all the elements surrounding this suspect “interview,” were retaliated against by receiving a prison gang validation point for refusing to “interview.”

All prisoners validated had their 1st amendment rights violated, for not one of us were given a meaningful opportunity to be heard at a “required” interview that we must be afforded before IGI can even send our validation pack to OCS for determination. Further, IGI committed fraud by writing/documenting that we did. In addition, the vast majority of our source item(s) used in our prison gang validation do not even meet departmental standards.

Nevertheless, these facts are not enough to overturn our validations through our appeals. Not to mention 95% of us were denied legal library access and legal materials to adequately defend ourselves, nor can this institution facilitate our legal library rights for it is constructed in a way that is physically impossible with regards to the security measures required with the number of ad-segs that resulted from the rogue operation.

I can seriously go on, and on but I think you get a relatively good idea of what we’re up against. So any assistance you may be able to provide in light of my/our situation would be highly appreciated as well.

MIM(Prisons) responds: This is yet another example of the illegal validation practices used to lock prisoners in higher security units based on supposed gang affiliation. Our ongoing fight against Control Units brings out many similar stories. Many of our Latino comrades behind bars are being targeted with mass validations, using evidence as flimsy as receipt of a birthday card, or being seen talking to someone in the yard. This validation leads to lockup in segregation (also known as control units). Filing lawsuits to fight these practices is one part of the struggle, although MIM(Prisons) does not have the legal resources to pursue these lawsuits ourselves.

Why are you deeply sorry for hurting/disappointing
In a country built on genocide/institutionalizing
In any way - your mother, sister or grandmother
Hurt in degrees - hurt like no other
The pain is here - present - in my chest
But I’ve learned it from you - who knows it best
Hypocrisy and hate and national oppression
Imperialism and capitalism and poor peoples’ depression
We can’t see past all the senseless suicides
Friends’ corpses beside us - swinging above us
inside us
Suicide wholesale - please forgive us
Sensory deprivations or bought off TV stations
What’s worse - alone talking to yourself
or commercials repeatedly preaching consumer masturbation?
Two for one on a half off sale
I for one prefer sensory deprivation hell
My pen, my thoughts - memories get me through
I am the one feeling sorry for you
Bitter cynicism on a Bob Barker mattress
Verses ignorant masses on PC Macintoshes
It’s not hate I feel for you - but awe
Goose stepping, concentration kamping, new generation
What’s that - what’s this - we never saw
Boxcars, traincars - jehovah witness triangles
Vans, buses - poor man and non-white shackles
Business as usual - neo-fascist neo-nazi
A “criminal” boogeyman preaching - how dare he

Hatred, power, envy and greed -
with not a thought of your fellow man
is the moral quota they try to breed.

Material existence at the cost of whole nations
and despite the desolation they cause overseas
they still find the need to oppress
and bring the war back to you and me.

With their foot on our necks what is the lumpen
to do but rise up and revolt against the tyranny
these capitalist pigs so mercilessly
rain down upon me and you.

Threatening us with terroristic tactics they try to discourage
us from educating ourselves and our fellow oppressed
they label us a threat and lock us away
just for what we read
labeling you a threat to the government for trying to liberate
and set our people free.

But they are the real terrorists, exploiting
weaker nations and killing over oil
their world revolves around chaos, and their evil
empires are built on blood-soaked soil.

[MIM(Prisons) has long defended a line that combats the divisions that the California Department of “Corrections” has tried to institutionalize by separating large numbers of people from the General Population (GP) into Sensitive Needs Yards (SNY). In a previous letter this comrade joined us in calling for SNY and GP alike to contribute to the struggle, while not hiding h lack of regard for SNY prisoners. Today h story serves to demonstrate why allowing the pigs to tell us who is our friend and who is our enemy is a backwards way of discovering the truth.]

I’m in the hole (Administrative Segregation Unit) once again, the material you sent found me when I needed it the most. This time around I’m found under an ISU/IGI investigation which will most likely result in me being sent to the other side (SNY). Surprising? Not really, I saw it coming since the day I committed myself to the United Struggle from Within (USW), in the form of either validation as a guerrilla revolutionary or the assassination of my character behind these walls through the SNY program that leaves a lot of brothers and sisters credibility out and in the cold away from the warmth of prisoner society’s acceptance.

It’s crazy how it happened all so fast. I blinked and at the drop of a dime my whole life turned upside down. It started October 16, officially with an unjustified unclothed cavity/cell search that I refused to submit to because the officer first claimed that they were hitting my cell randomly, then later said because me and my cellmate were exhibiting suspicious behavior when I was on the toilet taking a shit and my cellmate was on the assigned bunk asleep. I understood the nature of the situation that the corruption officers were creating. Someone dropped a dime on me, so I looked to get a paper trail.

By searching my cell they were committing a constitutional violation against search-and-seizure safeguards granted to prisoners such as notification of cell searching party (corruption officers involved), confiscation of personal property, and the right to appeal without retaliatory actions being taken against one. I made the choice to get the incident documented to bring to the attention of the administration here at Killer Kern, and I paid for it in the worst way possible. But still I stand revolutionary minded putting USW theory into practice outside of the study group’s environment. Refusing to let the dragon win, I fight them with my pen and continue to force them to show their brutality on paper and physically.

After refusing to submit to their commands I was placed in wrist restraints and escorted to the facility program office cage where I spent the next few hours resisting the Sergeant and Lieutenant’s request for me to submit to an unclothed body search. At this time the corruptions officers searching party (the Kern Valley A yard jump out boys) were back at the cell, searching, confiscating, and disposing of my property and attempting to pay me back for my resistance. They came across a kite [prison letter] that I had hidden inside a medicine bottle waiting to be delivered to it’s destination. I will say that I slipped up! Cause I did.

The kite was in regards to a business arrangement that I had going on and gave details about involved individuals who were to participate. The kite was supposed to be delivered that same morning, but due to the unexpected visitors it wasn’t and I thus forgot about it in the commotion of three COs at my door with their cans out ready to spray me while on the toilet for nothing.

I knew what was up, but didn’t act quick enough and therefore allowed intel into the hands of law enforcement. And they had a ball with it immediately reading the kite loud enough for my neighbors, who were members of my LO, hoping to create the confusion that they did.

I spent three days in a small holding cell, cold, cuffed and shackled, taped in a dirty jumpsuit, with no linen, and a mattress that I was allowed only to lay on from 10 p.m. - 6 a.m. with no covering on it. Sleep-deprived with lights on all night attempting to sleep with restraints, I was deprived medical care, and denied high blood pressure medication. I was smelling like shit without a shower, and forced to eat cold meals without any eating utensils or a cup to drink from. I felt the firsthand experience of torture at the hands of the department of correction (corruption) until I had three bowel movements to prove that I didn’t have anything concealed in my ass.

Once my bowel movements showed negative results for contraband (not an explosive device or a gun, or a knife, but simple contraband) they released me back to the yard, and to the cell I went.

Not even three hours after my arrival I received a kite about the matter of the disclosure of intel in the confiscated kite. It wasn’t “Cuz how you holding up? Can we assist you any way?” or none of that. But with everything falling the way it did, I understand. Because a week prior to the incident, individuals of various groups were getting popped with phones. And all were cats who were making the dead presidents, but removed from the front lines. There was a leak and Investigative Services Unit (ISU) was getting more fat than a fat guy in an all you could eat buffet.

I was brought up on charges of being that leak. And if the shoe was on another person’s foot, I would’ve really pushed for an old school lynching. Treason is a no no, but here it is in the accused, getting kites now from OGs on the bricks, and weeks later I find myself up against the wall with those who I’ve actually shed blood for, explaining that I ain’t no fucking rat and did not intentionally drop intel into the hands of law enforcement. Time drew on with me and those that be, doing just as the pigs planned us to, as we were on lockdown due to a war with the Blacks and the “southern Mexicans,” over a drug debt, a phone, and miscommunication that caused an eight-on-twelve melee between Blacks and Browns, and one Black to be stabbed eleven times.

The option came around to me after the verdict came in that I was guilty of loose lips. I could either clean up some green (guards), get cleaned up, or handle the individual who would clean me up. For those who can’t read between the lines clean up in this situation means to stab something up good enough that the message (whatever it may be) be sent clearly.

Now it may seem like nothing, but I’m not new to this shit, I’m true to it. I ain’t no crash dummy, I’ve got a close release date, and a lot of life to live. I ain’t stabbin’ no pig without no chance of getting away, and I damn sho’ ain’t about to be a pin cushion. So I got the hell out of dodge, and didn’t blink doing it. I’m an SNY, I recognize that some will understand, but most won’t and I am no longer who they seen me as. But my time was limited as any real active revolutionary is on the line abroad the people who are and love the same exact thing that they claim to hate. Straight up!

Politicizing amongst the LOs is a difficult task when the same ones you advocate for are advocating against your existence for individualist purposes. I bump heads with the big dawgz about policy even when certain radz advised against it because of my youth and their popularity, and I got exactly what they said it would get me. An early death in the prison game.

I sit in ASU now on my third month for investigation into my security concerns that I raised truthfully on a 602 appeal form. The ISU/IGI agents attempt to sell protection like they are some type of “Green Wall” protection agency. I’m told the more you cooperate and inform us into the details of drugs, cellphones, crooked cops, and criminal activity, the more we can help you. Since when does the lion help the lamb?

I attempted radio silence with MIM(Prisons) until I could get my §1983 lawsuit put in, because my mail is being highly monitored, censored, withheld and returned.

But it seems that faith will have us together married until death do us part. So I’m back like Jesus from the dead, not really back at all, reborn into the characteristic of a USW on the other side of the fence.

MIM(Prisons) responds: This letter is one more example of our point that not everyone on SNY yards is a snitch or rat as the pigs would like us to think. A bourgeois approach to security allows the bourgeoisie to win out. By bourgeois, we mean an individualist, rather than a group approach. We oppose studying “persynalities” instead of politics. And we oppose thinking that violence against individuals builds a strong movement.

There are plenty of enemies on mainline and there are friends to be found in SNY. How we associate and how we build allows us to determine which are which, not rumors or labels given out by the enemy.

I am in the death trap called Special Management Unit (SMU). They have held me within the SMU program since 2008 with little or no communications with the outside world. The enemy understands the effectiveness of outside resources and communications so they strive to limit and/or control it using tactics that go against their own policy and program statements. We know these policies are for public consumption to create the illusion that the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) protects public interest and is operating on an egalitarian level. These people fear collective progressive thinking. They want us programmed - living as the walking dead, and spreading the chaos of disorganization and the poison of anti-progressive action as we go. To effectively do this they have built the SMU program across the country. It is a death trap and an anti-progressive machine that is building and creating reactionary mind sets. The psychology behind 23 hours a day lockdown for a few years is to bend and twist a soulja to their will.

Most of the SMU population is gang- or organization-based. Most say once they hit population again they are laying it down, and following the rules. No one I’ve run into talks about building an anti-program machine to combat the SMU or the BOP. None of the gangs or organizations have created a progressive way to reach out and show unified efforts to survive this death trap. It’s a death trap because without unified progressive action on our part the enemy gains an edge and uses our disunity and disorganization as a tool to continue to control us.

We become brainwashed agents of the oppressors and turn a homemade sharpened revolutionary anti-oppressor weapon against another oppressed captive man/woman. I’ve seen GD and the Bloodz war, Crip against Crip sets war, Mexican gangs against other Mexican gangs war, but none commits to warring with the key holder. All say “fuck the pig,” but none has used action aimed at fucking up the pig. When I say action, I am talking about hard-core, guerilla, strategic revolutionary action. Action with purpose and filled with resolve.

Let’s unite in more than our sufferings!
Power to those who don’t fear freedom!

MIM(Prisons) responds: If this writer’s call for “hard-core, guerilla, strategic revolutionary action” is a call to take up weapons against the pigs, then we would disagree with h analysis of history and current conditions. At this time in the imperialist countries the conditions are not ripe for armed struggle. Engaging too soon will undoubtedly bring defeat.

Yet we agree with this writer’s analysis of the SMU program as a tool to suppress revolutionary activism. The whole prison system is set up to encourage sets to fight each other instead of the system. This is why we have put out a call for groups to join the United Front for Peace in Prisons.