Under Lock & Key

Chicano youth Andy Lopez, whose 13-year-old life was cut short by a Santa Rosa pig, has yet to obtain justice. This was a concrete example of what it means when people say that Aztlán is occupied under a settler state. Our colonization is expressed in many ways and our youth being shot dead in the street is one of the in-your-face OVERT examples, which even the bourgeois Chicanos cannot pretend not to notice.

When the white Deputy Sheriff Erick Gelhaus executed Andy on 22 October 2013, comrades here discussed what should be done in response to these attacks on the Chican@ Nation. Our conversation on the subject was pretty heated. One topic that kept coming up was the example that the Black Liberation Army provided back in the day when the Black Nation was under heightened attack from the lethal COINTELPRO. Everywhere in the world where a people are under attack and being murdered by the occupying state, at some point the people will fight fire with fire.

It’s been four months and still there has been no indictment of the pig in question. But then when do we ever see the state prosecute its own when the oppressed are murdered in our occupied streets? We cannot allow Andy’s death to be swept under the rug. So many within the Chican@ nation have begun a perverted romance with imperialism. The super profits that are extracted from the Third World seem to have intoxicated many in our nation to the point where when our youth are turned to swiss cheese by a pig, it’s conveniently ignored. Revolutionary Chican@s need to work to detoxify the people and put Aztlán back on a revolutionary path. Our work should start with mobilizing Aztlán around acquiring justice for Andy Lopez.

There are plans for a march on 2 June 2014 in Santa Rosa to build awareness of this tragedy and to commemorate what would have been Andy’s 14th birthday. Let us spread the word and gain momentum on the justice that we need to obtain. We support this march and will continue to develop ways to properly respond to the occupation of Aztlán. Andy’s death should be seen as not only a rallying point but a juncture where we usher in a new wave in the Chicano movement. Aztlán libre!

Book Review
The Crusade for Justice: Chicano Militancy and the Governments War on Dissent
By Ernesto B. Vigil
University of Wisconsin Press 1999
450 pages

This book is about the Chican@ organization the Crusade for Justice, which was founded by Rudolfo “Corky” Gonzalez, and the repression they endured. Corky was born on 18 June 1928 to parents who were farm workers. His father was a migrant from Mexico and fought in Pancho Villa’s army during the Mexican Revolution, while his mother was a Chicana from Colorado. From Boxer, to bourgeois Democrat, to Chican@ militant, Corky developed in the urban setting of Denver.

The Crusade for Justice was formally founded in 1966, in response to murders of Chican@s by pigs. It was an organization which sought self-determination for Chican@s and hoped to serve as a model for the Chican@ nation.

The federal government began surveilling Corky soon after he officially broke with the bourgeois politics of the Democratic party. He broke with them because he saw that they were not really working in the interests of the Raza, rather they served Empire. He really got on the FBI radar in 1966 when the FBI files note an anti-war speech he made in Denver, Colorado. In this speech Corky said:

“Who reaps the profits? If in essence we are sharing in this prosperity by our own personal good life, then we are prospering at the expense of the blood and bones of fellow human beings. If our own economic gain must be earned by such a grisly trade, then we are truly a very sick society … prolongment of the war means isolation of the most powerful military country in the world, frowned on and hated by millions of people on all the continents of this planet.”(p. 28)

Here he clearly understands that the imperialist war on Vietnam was wrong and also saw that those in the First World who benefited via better living standards and privileges were benefitting off of the “blood and bones” of people around the world. So early on we see that Corky was much different than say a Cesar Chavez because he not only sought better treatment for Chican@s but for folks around the world.

I found the portions of the book concerning FBI surveillance very educational. The author obtained FBI reports on Corky via Freedom of Information Act requests, and learned that at one point the Special Agent in Charge (SAC) sent a report to J. Edgar Hoover stating that protesters were released after protesting the death of a New Afrikan who was killed for using a segregated facility, and after walking out of the courtroom the SAC notes of Corky and others: “They all joined hands and sang, ‘we shall overcome’.”

For the SAC to feel the need to report to Hoover something like this highlights just what kind of beast that we are up against. The unity between oppressed nations is an extreme threat to the safety and security of white supremacy. Calls for unity or a united front between the internal semi-colonies will always threaten our oppressor because this unity challenges the Settler state even before a single rifle is raised. Together we make the occupiers tremble!

Perhaps one of the significant actions that “Crusade for Justice” did was, besides mobilizing the Chican@ nation, it held the 1969 Chicano Youth Liberation conference, which brought Chican@s together for the first time like no other. It was here that the concept of “Aztlán” and Chican@ independence was brought to the Raza like never before. And although this was guiding the Chican@ movement onto the anti-imperialist road and was a revolutionary event, the leaders - Corky and the Crusaders - were not communists and this was their shortcoming. As good as their efforts were and as much as the Chican@ nation needed them at the time, they did suffer some erroneous political line.

At the conference a preamble and three-point plan was adopted. The preamble, also known as “El Plan Espiritual de Aztlán” was steeped in patriarchal tone with talk about “brotherhood” of Chicanos and our “Forefathers” in Aztlán. What’s more, as Vigil notes, there is no talk of the First Nations who exist within many parts of the land base we call Aztlán. The preamble was written by the poet Alurista and thus the preamble was a little poetic.

The program was written by Corky and reflected some idealism. He speaks of nationalism, self-determination, independence and total liberation from the oppression and exploitation, but not of socialism or communism. From my studies I know that there were Chican@ communists involved in the Chican@ movement, but they were a minority. For most, the Chican@ struggle was simply about breaking from the “Gringo” i.e., national oppression, but liberation divorced from socialist relations of production leads back to capitalism and thus imperialism. We have learned from our foremothers and forefathers and understand that even within the Chican@ Nation there are class contradictions which will continue to be a problem post-liberation, and will not be resolved without dissecting capitalism completely. Without identifying this truth, one is left with the empty shell of bourgeois nationalism and continued oppression only under new management.

The fact that even organizations like Crusade, which did not even seek socialism, but simply to be free from oppression, faced state repression and intense FBI surveillance is shocking. Here was a group who we find out in this book was surveilled by FBI, military intelligence, police intelligence, CIA and others, and they were not even attempting to install socialism. This teaches us all the extent of the settler in protecting its Empire.

Vigil describes how in the late 1960s and early ’70s many middle class people of all nationalities were protesting for integration of schools, but the Chican@ movement did not care for integrating schools nor did they struggle for this.

“School busing to achieve integration was of little interest to Denver’s Chicano activists, who had other priorities; bilingual education, community empowerment, and curriculum reform. For them, integration was misguided ‘Liberalism,’ a mere cosmetic reform premised on the assumption that minorities could be well educated only when Whites were physically present.”(p. 117)

Here Vigil is on point that Chican@s should not focus on integration, not in schools and not with Amerikkka. Our goals are to liberate our people, not to sleep in the oppressor’s house. The only integration we want is Aztlán’s future economy being integrated with socialist relations of production.

I really enjoyed reading about the Escuela Tlatelolco which was a “Freedom school.” Chican@ youth learned “Spanish, history, music, folkloric dancing, geography, printing, sculpturing, and contemporary world and national affairs.”(p. 161) Vigil explained: “Three professors were recruited from Monterey, Nuevo Leon, Mexico, to teach advanced Spanish, Mexican history, economics, political science and mathematics.”(p.162)

Independent institutions such as liberation schools are important for us to decolonize the minds of our youth, but this decolonization must come wrapped in communist ideology – which the Escuela Tlatelolco wasn’t. Our contemporary liberation schools will clearly show our youth that only a socialist Aztlán will begin the process of real nation building and is the only way to truly liberate the Chican@ nation. We want schools today that are operating outside U.S. influence and which display what real people’s power means.

There was an interesting section on a Chican@ prisoners self-help group which formed in 1969 at Colorado State Penitentiary. This political group was called the Latin American Development Society (LADS). The LADS made it possible for Chican@ community organizations to go into prison and helped to create a bridge of cooperation where Chican@s being released from prison would be funneled into the outside Chican@ activist community where they would find post-prison services such as employment, counseling, etc. Corky Gonzalez was able to go into the prison and speak at the first LADS meeting, so the Chican@ movement was injected into this prison political group.(p. 180-181)

Like prison groups today LADS focused on combatting oppression and providing education for the imprisoned Chican@, and LADS also left us with some good examples to learn from. They created several serve the people programs in the pinta, for one they created a committee that worked with new prisoners, what we may call “first termers” here in pintas in Califas. This was important because a new prisoner or “fish” may be easy prey for some predator in prison. In this way youngsters were given revolutionary clecha once they entered the pinta by LADS “O.G.’s”. LADS was comprised of prison vets who were politicized. Within LADS were many sub-committees such as the Committee to Assist Young People (CAYP), as well as a security committee called the Zapatistas.(p. 182) The LADS were anti-dope and combatted drug use or sales in the pinta. They were not trying to poison the imprisoned Raza, rather they were trying to build the Raza.

Criminal acts and lumpen-on-lumpen crime declined once the LADS became active and they were able to establish a Concilio de Unidad (Unity Council) which contained LADS and outside activists who collaborated with one another. This I think is needed in today’s pintas where prison revolutionaries via United Struggle from Within (USW) can link up with MIM(Prisons) and ensure released prisoners can be funneled into the revolutionary movement out in society. But prisoners need to step up and prepare ourselves and other prisoners to continue their political work on the outside.

The shortcomings of LADS was it was an above ground (prison approved) organization, so although the prison officials allowed them to have meetings etc., Vigil states that prison officials abolished the LADS once they gained influenced. My question is since when do we allow our oppressor to abolish our efforts to organize or serve the people? At the same time state repression is real and very deadly, this probably explains why many of today’s imprisoned Chican@ revolutionary groups operate underground.

Something else I found interesting was something Corky Gonzalez came up with and that was the Congreso de Aztlán (Aztlán Congress). As Vigil explains, “The Congress de Aztlán was a conceptual congress of the ‘Chicano nation,’ of ‘Aztlán.’ It would be similar to a government-in-exile in as much as it claimed legitimacy in opposition to the colonizing power that claimed Mexicans as subjects. In this case, however, the congreso was not in exile but operating in occupied territory.”(p. 189)

The Congreso de Aztlán was never able to be activated because of inner contradictions within the Chican@ movement. The main political vehicle was the la Raza Unida Party (RUP). RUP made an attempt at establishing dual power, where Raza sought community control of community politics and community services, but this “dual power” was in reality an attempt to use the oppressors’ politics to liberate the people, which of course could never really be successful. This approach is a result of those Social Democrats who fall for ballot box “revolution.”

Vigil states about the RUP, “The party was a national party in name only and never had a clear central ideology other than the anti-establishment nationalism prevalent in the movement.”(p. 191) I would disagree, the RUP did have an ideology but for the most part it was bourgeois ideology. When the Congreso de Aztlán is finally activated in the future it will have a strong ideology. Chican@s have learned a lot since decades past, we know that like Mao said, without a revolutionary theory there is no revolutionary party. The ideology of our Congreso de Aztlán will be communist in nature.

RUP also failed to have a national platform, newspaper or command structure.(p. 192). Their strategy seemed to be to knock on doors and tell Raza to vote Brown. Had RUP enacted a clear revolutionary program and national officers, etc., I believe they would have been neutralized by the U.$. government’s COINTELPRO tactics a lot faster than they were, because they attempted to organize above ground in opposition to Amerikka.

Some of the leaders in the Chican@ movement were more revolutionary than others. Reis Tijerina who fought the land grant struggle in New Mexico, for example, got out of prison and made a statement which Vigil quotes: “I don’t dig the political philosophy of the Third World. We are here. We have what it takes. I don’t go for outside ideologies.”(p. 192) His First Worldism shines forth, and had the U.S. miraculously given back the land grants in New Mexico we may never had heard from Tijerina again. Tijerina went on to describe our youth of believing in “imported ideologies” that “serve the Anglo,” yet it was his clinging to capitalism which served the imperialists. Here Tijerina displays dogmatism, where facts don’t matter in relation to ones narrow-mindedness. Corky responded to Tijerina stating he wanted no “alignment with political prostitutes” in a letter that was published in the Crusade newspaper El Gallo. Corky saw that Tijerina’s efforts were opportunistic, relying on familial ownership of land. Corky saw the struggle being to liberate the land for all of the Chican@ nation, not simply for land-owning families, and thus Corky was more correct.

The Chican@ movement during these times also produced some underground revolutionary groups. Some of these groups were the Chicano Liberation Front in El Paso, the Frente de Liberación Chicano of Northern California, and the Continental Revolutionary Army in Colorado. These groups were reportedly involved in bombings within U.S. borders and other operations aimed at U.S. imperialism. Vigil notes how the Continental Revolutionary Army bombed the Texas home of James M. Somerville, who newspapers described as the CIA chief of the Denver field office. As Vigil points out, it was the first physical attack on the CIA on U.S. soil and it was done by Chican@s. It’s important to note that in the 1970s Denver was the bombing capital of the U.S.(p. 295)

Prisoners were also forming revolutionary groups at this time, such as Chicanos Organizados Rebeldes de Aztlán (Organized Rebel Chicanos of Aztlán - CORA). CORA put out a newspaper called AZTLAN from prison which was distributed out in society. Another organization was the Movimiento Organizado Socalistas Chicano de Aztlán (MOSCA). Both of these organizations were created in the Federal prison system and some of their miembros left the pinta to remain politically active on the outside. Every generation of prisoners needs their own revolutionary Chican@ organizations. Our oppression continues and so should our resistance. CORA’s example of creating a prisoner newspaper is something contemporary prisoners have not been able to pull off, but the example remains that the independent press can be created from within prisons. The imprisoned Chican@ struggle is nothing new, our people have been rising up in these colonial pintas for decades, and so we have a lot of history to learn from if we can access it.

The content of Crusade that dealt with the developments of Chican@ independent institutions was powerful and subjectively pleasing, but the real meat of this book was in learning how state repression – primarily by the FBI – was aimed at the Crusade for Justice and the Chican@ movement of the ’60s and ’70s. There are many books on COINTELPRO and other political repression, but few focus on it aimed at the Chican@ movement like Crusade does. Not only were field reports generated for local police intelligence units on Crusade activity, but these reports were shared with many others like military intelligence, FBI, CIA, etc. For as little as making a speech critiquing capitalism or Amerikkka, an FBI file was started on a persyn. Attending an event protesting pig brutality was also grounds for investigation. I recommend this book because it helped me understand the extent of political repression by U.S. imperialism. Even journalists were having an FBI file created on them for making a critical statement or article on police or government.

I see the need now more than ever to rebuild the Chican@ nation and mobilize the people on the only path to justice and real equality. Our complete decolonization will manifest in an independent Socialist People’s Republic of Aztlán.

¡Aztlán Libre!

by Steig Larsson
Vintage books Zoro
Paperback $7.99
724 pages

More Gratuitous Sex and Historical Revisionism

This book is the second in a trilogy by Larsson which started with The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. In it the two main characters, Mikael Blomkvist the journalist and Lisbeth Salander the tech savvy researcher, continue once more in a deadly hunt for truth. This time Blomkvist uncovers a sex trafficking operation and decides to publish a piece exposing these crimes against the people, when folks start getting murdered and his colleague Salander is implicated in some murders. And so once more the pair dive into another job to uncover the truth.

Initially I became interested in this trilogy after learning that the author, Larsson, was an “expert in Nazi organizations” and as a novelist his work would either consciously or unconsciously reflect this “expertise.” Propaganda is a powerful medium whether in the literary field or in art and so I thought I would check out Larsson’s second book in this trilogy.

This trilogy is drenched in violence and sexual abuse, even torture. I suspect his being immersed in Nazi history and ideology while developing his “expertise” leads to this tendency.

This book starts with the character Salander being on vacation in Grenada and gives a watered down version of Grenada’s revolutionary history. Larsson writes: “Some two hundred years later, in 1979 a lawyer called Maurice Bishop started a new revolution, which the guidebook says was inspired by the communist dictatorships in Cuba and Nicaragua. But Salander was given a different picture of things when she met Phillip Cambell, teacher, librarian and Baptist teacher. She had taken a room in his guesthouse for the first few days. The gist of the story was that Bishop was a popular folk leader who had deposed an insane dictator, a UFO nutcase who had devoted part of the meagre national budget to chasing flying saucers. Bishop had lobbied for economic democracy and introduced the country’s first legislation for sexual equality. And then in 1983 he was assassinated.”(p. 15)

What Larsson doesn’t say is Maurice Bishop was assassinated after an Amerikan instigated coup – think Libya most recently. Bishop attempted to free the Grenadian nation from imperialist influence and Amerika began to work toward overthrowing this nation just as it’s currently doing to Syria. Larson, who no doubt was aware of this history, failed to be honest with the people about Grenada and the Amerikan invasion of marines once Bishop was assassinated. It would have been good to read the real story woven into this novel but instead Larsson states, in step with imperialism, “The United States invaded the country and set up a democracy.”(p. 16) What the united snakes sets up after invasion is neo-colonialism, not democracy. Amerika is a parasite, compelled to exploit Third World nations.

In The Girl who Played with Fire, the character Blomkvist is approached to expose sex trafficking and so the book attempts to examine gender oppression:

“Apart from a handful of women working on their own who profit from the sex trade, there is no other form of criminality in which the sex roles themselves are a precondition for the crime, nor is there any other form of criminality in which social acceptance is so great, for which society does so little to prevent.”(p. 113)

I don’t totally agree with this last point in Amerika, although I agree that gender oppression is great and society does little about it in Amerika. But there is another form of criminality which is socially acceptable, and that is national oppression. In the United $tates, Brown, Black and Red peoples are overwhelmingly imprisoned, given life sentences and placed on death row or murdered in the streets by the state, and social acceptance is great. Many don’t do shit about it, and others think the oppressed nations bring it upon ourselves. Chican@s are living under occupation. Aztlán, the geographical homeland of the Chicano nation (the southwest), was stolen by Amerika via murder and terror. Many Amerikans act as if this is normal. Even so-called “revolutionaries” like the revisionist RCP-U$A are against Aztlán regaining our land that is occupied by the imperialists. So gender oppression is not the “only” socially acceptable crime. Like national oppression, class oppression is also socially acceptable to many but this is something else Larsson leaves out.

The Girl who Played with Fire is filled with sex. At one point Salander, while vacationing in Grenanda, is having sex with a Black male teenager, who the author portrays as being eager but unsure of how to initiate sex with Salander, a white womyn. What the author doesn’t reveal is this uncertainty in real life on how to initiate sex may be from centuries of oppression and lynchings of Black males after having sex with white wimmin, even if the womyn initiated sex or was the one who pursued the Black male in the first place. The character Blomkvist is having sex with Harriet, who was in the first book of the series. She is now a board member to the magazine Millenium where Blomkvist works.

Salanders old guardian, B Jurman, who raped her and who as a result she tortured in Dragon Tattoo, is back and in this book he hires some nazi-connected motorcycle club to take out Salander. She finds out and then her guardian turns up dead, along with two more people who are killed by a gun with Salander’s fingerprints on the weapon. Salander becomes the prime suspect in these murders and so Blomkvist begins his own investigation to clear his ex-lover Salander’s name.

Larsson describes how the character Salander, while being pursued for three murders, is targeted by the bourgeois press, and how all her past is blasted all over the front pages of Swedish newspapers. In one article they describe her as being placed in a psychiatric institution where Salander was placed in a room the doctor described as being “free of stimuli” for being unruly. The author discusses this solitary confinement: “When she grew older she discovered that there was another term for the same thing. Sensory deprivation. According to the Geneva conventions, subjecting prisoners to sensory deprivation was classified as inhumane. It was a commonly used element in experiments with brainwashing conducted by various dictatorial regimes, and there was evidence that the political prisoners who confessed to all sorts of crimes during the Moscow trials in the 1930s had been subjected to such treatment.”(p. 450)

Larsson attempts to show how sensory deprivation is inhumane, a fact that those of us housed in SHUs across Amerika can agree with. But Larsson, as a true Amerikan apologist, points the finger at Russia in the 1930s for using such treatment. This is bullshit! Russia in the 1930s was building socialism while encircled by imperialism and fighting off attacks for being the world base for revolution. Russia in the 1930s was gearing up for the war with Nazi Germany, sending Soviet tanks to fight Mussolini’s fascists. This was a time when comrade Stalin also fought the Soviet-Japanese war of 1939. There were counter revolutionaries working with the imperialists to uproot socialism, and in Russia during the 1930s those imprisoned were given a trial to see if they would stay in prison or be released or face other penalties. This is in contrast to the thousands in solitary confinement here who do not even get a trial! We can not even face our accusers! We are not placed in solitary for crimes or violence, but for our ideas, our thoughts or supposed beliefs! And we are kept in solitary until those brainwashed confess and implicate others after being subjected to this treatment by the capitalist dictatorial regime of Amerikkka! This is something Larsson refuses to admit in his capitalist propaganda books. It is common knowledge that Amerika imprisons a higher percentage of its people than any other country. Larsson does not even mention Amerika in discussing the use of sensory deprivation. My first “baptism” to a sensory deprivation cell by Amerika was at the ripe age of 12 so I’m well aware of what life is really like in the Amerikan capitalist dictatorial regime.

Salander soon learns that the persyn responsible for the murders she’s accused of is an ex-Russian military intelligence man named Zala who she and her co-workers at Millenium magazine find out is also Salander’s dad. Salander uncovers documents that track her life since childhood and reveal a coverup that has the Swedish government working with her father and providing him secret exile. The book ends with Salander attempting to take out her abusive father and ends with her father actually shooting and burying Salander, leaving her for dead, only to allow her to awaken in a shallow grave and unsuccessfully attempt to exact revenge on her wrongdoers. This book describes Salander as a lesbian man-hater but she only seems to exact justice on wimmin-abusers and stands up and takes on the most primitive patriarchal male chauvinists in her society.

For many of us Herman is much more than simply a prisoner who was held in the hole for decades. He co-founded the first prison chapter of the Panthers, and spent his time in prison serving the people. He dedicated his life behind the prison walls to educating people, ending the hostilities surrounding prisoner-on-prisoner crime and fighting guard brutality. For his determination to liberate his people he was framed for a crime in an attempt to neutralize him by sealing him in a cage for decades.

Herman refused to surrender and he was an example to other oppressed prisoners to resist even in the dungeon. This example was too much for the state and he was denied compassionate release by the oppressors. His liver cancer is also suspect, we know the state has many dirty tricks in its arsenal. But Herman, like others who rise up in prison, understood that he might in the end pay with his life for this resistance.

It has been reported in the press that Herman’s last words were to the effect of “I am free” before he died. But Herman was already free, he was free while still in prison because he had liberated his mind decades ago, and this was his real crime that the state was making him pay for. Had Herman been a drug addict prisoner who preyed on other prisoners for a cellphone from the pigs or for a sack of dope he would never have spent over four decades in solitary confinement. Freedom comes from one’s actions and this is something that the petty bourgeoisie does not grasp and so they will never be free.

Those of us here in the SHU understand that at any time we can be free from torture by simply making up information on someone or debriefing. But like Herman many cannot fathom doing this to another human being and instead choose to build our nation and RESIST! And for this we are also met with torture. But like Herman we are also free, more free than many people on the outside whose minds are in many ways more chained than SHU prisoners. May the example of resistance displayed by Herman live on in U.S. prisoners!

Aztlán Libre!

Amongst the four goals put forward in ULK issue 31 was the humyn needs such as healthy food and water along with fresh air and exercise. To some these things are assumed to be met, many especially out in society would be shocked to learn that in fact these things are not met for many in U.$. prisons. Indeed ULK is one of the few prisoners rights publications which not just highlights these oppressive conditions in U.$. prisons, but which also keeps perhaps the largest archive on prisoner’s rights violations, particularly on censorship of U.$. prisons. This dedication to prisoners, those cast off of U.$. imperialism, is what first brought me to work with ULK and USW. This is what stood out to me when I would open up a MIM Theory or MIM Notes and see Amerika called out in such bold fashion. This drew me to learn more, especially when a lot of the substance of their articles were prison-based, a section of society that even many so called “progressive” peoples have abandoned.

As prisoners, healthy food is out of our reach for the most part. The truth is if we were to eat everything on these trays we would still not consume the essential vitamins and nutrients needed to call our meals healthy. Most of this slop would make a raccoon’s stomach turn and could not be sold to the public, so it finds its way to the dungeons. A review of your past issues of ULK would show that prisons across the United $tates have slop. This is no surprise but what needs to be developed is how can we acquire the healthiest food under our circumstances. We got to do what we can with what we have as there is a connection between the body and mind. How can we be good revolutionaries if we are sick, have no energy or have diseases because of foul eating habits? This would hinder our ability to exist as people, much less as revolutionary people, which demands more energy, more focus, and more strength.

Those who are financially able to purchase food items from the canteen or from packages (once a year here in SHU) have a choice of mostly junk food i.e., food that is saturated in sodium, transfats and unnatural chemicals which work as artery cloggers. These junk foods are unhealthy, so how can we be revolutionaries but spend all our money on candy and chips? This is akin to considering yourself a revolutionary but being a dope fiend at the same time, or being a revolutionary but an alcoholic. This applies to comrades out in society as well. Indeed, studies have recently found that in the lab, mice have become addicted to fast food and that this addiction was stronger than being addicted to crack. In prison being addicted to junk food is destroying your body and this destruction is serving the imperialists not the people, because with a revolutionary out of commission, inflicted with high blood pressure, heart disease, etc., it is one less revolutionary on the front line.

Now if we look at this from an economic perspective, by us purchasing all the junk food we are basically lining the enemy’s pockets with the few dollars our families or comrades have been able to send us. We are basically providing financial support to the terrorists=U.$. capitalists. We are funding them and supporting their business. If we are to truly empathize with the oppressed of the world and analyze the world from a Third World perspective, how can we do so by being consumed with corporate products? By us living in a capitalist society we are already forced to utilize corporations for everything we do. Even in prison we are forced to use electricity owned by corporations, consume and use hygiene products from corporations, even the paper I use and envelopes I purchase are not exempt. But these are items we must purchase for our work, we do not however have to purchase chips and candy, just as the comrade out in society does not have to purchase that big mac or french fries all the time. Of course we are not robots and as humyn beings it is ok to celebrate and indulge in something you like once in a while, but this is different than always chasing these items and living an unhealthy lifestyle.

If we are attempting to set an example to others this should also include our eating habits. So how can we revolutionize our food while in prison? Some will incorrectly think we can do nothing because the ‘all powerful’ state we live under controls this, but we need to toss out this self-defeatist thinking and learn from Mao when he said the imperialists are paper tigers. As with all battles with the state we just need to find the contradiction and focus our efforts therein.

As far as our trays we really only have two paths, one is the appeal process, like finding a violation or lack of calories, and two is how we have included this in our demands in the strike here in Cali. But in the realm of canteen or package items there is much more potential as nothing hurts the capitalists more than the economic pinch. What happens when nobody buys that certain toothpaste or soap for months? It is usually replaced with a different brand. And why have some items such as Folgers coffee been on the canteen list for decades? Because this is bought by many, so there is a market for this. Why then can’t we replace or have them replace all the candy and chips with healthy foods? We can and I will tell you how with an example from a recent struggle.

Most recently we had an issue here in SHU where we wanted access to purchase a combination TV/Radio since we are only allowed 1 appliance, we wanted to receive a TV with a radio combo. The prison said no. This was included in our demands during the strikes of 2011 as well, the prison finally broke it down saying we could get the TV/radio combo, but that the manufacturer has to make a clear model. Time passed and nothing. The manufacturer finally made one clear but with a speaker so the prison said they must make it without a speaker. We waited and nothing. The prison blamed the company and the company said nobody from the prison contacted them so we got creative and persistent. The short corridor collective issued a statement to prisoners in California calling for everyone to write the company demanding a TV/Radio combo should be made available to us or we will boycott their company. Friends and family on the outside were told to call and e-mail the company doing the same. With the thousands of prisoners in Cali who keep this business afloat the pressure was too much, and within 60 days the company provided the TV/radio which we can now order for the first time in the 20+ years this prison has been open. So this is a way to get vendors to sell us the products we want and has proved to be effective, but it must be done by all prisoners in a state as we did it here.

Some may wonder how can all prisoners in a state know about a project like this. This is the importance of prisoners to subscribe to prisoners’ rights publications which address issues. If prisoners in all prisons in a state subscribe to certain publications then when issues arise the people won’t be in the dark. ULK is one such publication, write to ULK for a subscription, communicate and let your voice be heard!

If we don’t buy junk food and we write companies to demand they start selling us more healthy goods that are more in line with our culture, once the companies know that they may be boycotted they will break it down as they did with our TV/radio combo.

Certain diets also provide healthier non-processed food like the halal kosher or veggie diets. Those rare times when I get a few bucks and go to canteen I buy the most healthy products. We will never have the ideal healthiest products in prisons under capitalism but the best we can do is with dry goods such as dehydrated rice and beans. I also will get the saltine crackers since this prison forbids us from having salt, which our bodies rely on, and the crackers at least give a small bit of salt. I try to get the dry oatmeal as well for fiber and iron. The beans give me protein which the mystery meat does not give. Some prison canteens allow people to purchase beef jerky which is good as well, all this allows us to supplement the shitty prison food with reasonably healthy food. Packages for those who are able provide items such as power bars, granola, nuts and beef jerky, wheat crackers, and for those on the mainline more opportunities exist like peanut butter, dried fish, mushrooms, spices, honey and salami, cheese etc. We must see that our eating habits are tools, they are weapons in our battle to be the best revolutionaries possible. While under lock and key, our health should be seen as our first line of defense! This is because with piss poor health how can we advance the revolution? How can we advance our nation if we are bed-ridden or all drugged up on meds for diseases? It slows us down in our work.

I used to listen to the rap group ‘Dead Prez’ talk about eating healthy and the need to be healthy. They had it right because there is a connection between our health and our mind, one affects the other and if one is off the other will follow suit.

But not everyone has the ability to buy canteen items or get packages, some folks are broke and have no outside support so what is to be done? One way to get around this is to cultivate a support system. Comrades here have developed a ‘peoples support system’ (PSS). This PSS ensures that anyone in the pod who goes to canteen or receives a package distributes these goods to everyone who has not received a package or canteen. In this way no one goes without. This process of building a PSS is easier when prisoners involved are conscious or at least have been doing time for a long time, and is more challenging when those involved are new to prison or suffer form extreme forms of parasitism. But even then it can be developed with time and the use of modeling behavior.

Modeling behavior occurs when someone sees a behavior and then mirrors this same action. For example, a child who sees their parent pick up the toys and throw them in the toy box, the child eventually picks up the toys herself and tosses them in the toy box without ever having been told to do so. In this same way when someone enters a pod or block and sees prisoners looking out for each other regardless of ones nationality or LO the new person will soon begin mirroring this behavior, so it is up to us conscious prisoners to set the tone on a tier, pod, block or yard. This is revolutionizing our environment, it is putting theory into practice.

Don’t get it twisted I’m not saying this is always easy. It may take months or years to get someone to take a class approach, and some will never grasp that prisoners as a whole are a class, but this does not mean we will stop what we do. The Brown Berets - Prison Chapter (BB-PC) have come to understand the PSS is needed in every prison in order to cultivate our united front efforts in our battles, and we know this also leads to raising the consciousness of prisoners when coupled with other forms of education and agitation. At times building a PSS will start with one or two people, but as time goes on more and more people will do so and then all the new people will adopt this “tradition” and these are the revolutionary traditions, the kind of revolutionary culture we want to create so that when we get moved or transferred we know we left a foot print that will continue onward.

Healthy water is also essential, I have had many cellies who really did not drink water, but as humyns we need water to exist. We are supposed to drink about 8 cups of water a day to stay healthy, not 8 cups of coffee or koolaid but water. Water helps us flush out our system and maintain healthy kidneys. Water is free to us, and people in the Third World wish they had access to clean water. Many die because of lack of clean water so let us drink this clean water in order to stay healthy so we can help the struggles of Third World peoples. If it was up to the imperialists they would rather deny us clean water, at times some prisoners are denied clean water. Those who have been to Tracy prison in Cali know about the brown water. Likewise in ULK issue 9 we read the article Contaminated Water OK by CDCR. There was arsenic in the water at Kern Valley State Prison and the prisoner reported that “lead levels that are over the EPA’s legal limit” were found in the water. So I’m sure comrades across Amerika can speak about foul ass water in dungeons all over.

Exercise is another aspect that needs to be taken seriously by all revolutionaries, exercise is so important that the state has targeted it and labels it STG activity. They will validate you and send you to solitary confinement for decades for doing push ups with a comrade. This is how much they see exercise as a threat, because it strengthens us as humyn beings and it is a weapon we use to combat the effects of prison life. The state seeks to strip us of any forms of resistance, anything we draw strength from hinders there project of instilling a sense of helplessness in all prisoners so that we go along with their oppression and never dare to resist the oppressor.

As revolutionary prisoners we need to develop methods of exercise to keep our bodies in top shape. This helps us not only physically, but science tells us that there is a connection between our physical health and our mental health. Exercise prevents not only disease but also depression, stress, anxiety and anger. Our world in these dungeons is filled with all this negativity which harms us just like the bullets and batons even though we often cannot see this damage in its physical form but we react to it in negative ways, so exercise helps us keep this stuff in check. These emotions will not go away but exercise helps us better deal with them without them overpowering our lives.

A good exercise regime is from forty five minutes to an hour, this is usually done from four to six days a week. I have found burpies and calisthenics to be the most fulfilling. Our bodies need to sweat in order to flush out the toxins and many times push ups just won’t do it. California prisons no longer have weights so in the holes and SHUs people mostly do burpies. This tradition, which many Cali prisoners are not aware of, came from George Jackson and his comrades who developed exercise regimes utilizing burpies and calisthenics. At the time, in the 60s and 70s, prisoners were not exercising in this way as these were military style exercise regimes. Comrade George was a step ahead in identifying the inter-connection between a strong body and mind. The early 80s saw Chicano prisoners from Northern Cali develop this same exercise regime, and the late 90s saw Chicano prisoners from Southern Cali along with white prisoners soon follow this tradition that started with Black prisoners. This is good that prisoners exercise, it is a positive thing, but now the state is using it against us so we must find ways to combat this.

One way to fight the STG labeling of exercise is for all prisoners to work out together. If all prisoners work out at once it can no longer be seen as STG activity. I believe this is a positive step forward for a united front, however I don’t think the state will thus be prevented from labeling group exercise STG activity, just as all prisoners of all nationalities participate in hunger strikes yet it is still seen as STG activity. But prisoners working out together would also be an unprecedented step forward. Since most group exercise are done in the hole and most holes consist of cages side by side, I can see a future exercise regime consisting of each cage calling out an exercise, regardless of what nation or sub-group one belongs to, and everyone exercising together. In the SHU we can’t see no one, as everyone is in an individual cell. Some people work out and some don’t so this is a little more difficult. If you find yourself in a hole and people are in individual cages, one is free to jump in and participate with those exercising but the ideal is to have everyone participate. This is something to work on and begin discussing, by working out together it does not mean we are one car, it does not mean you’re joining another nation or LO, it’s simply exercise. If we can starve together why not sweat together?

Today’s prisons are no longer like the prisons of our grandfathers, conditions have changed and we must find ways to change with these times. If we are to ever regain things like trailer visits for lifers, weights, parole dates for lifers, and all the rest, we must be more in sync. If we want the ‘end to hostilities’ to really last than we need to do more, we need to implement methods which reinforce such policies as an ‘End to Hostilities’ and group exercise involving all nationalities and subgroups reinforce this.

The transformation of prisons should begin in every dungeon, and those who find themselves in prisons which are not conscious should learn from prisons who have already taken steps toward this transformation. Those prisons which have already taken such steps should constantly find new ways to push our momentum even further.

The Avengers
2012

This movie is a revival of the Marvel comic characters that have been part of the media propaganda for generations. It was another case of white superheros saving the world from villains. What’s a little different in this movie is the pseryn calling the shots for the unit of superheroes, the Director, is Black.

The Director is the commander of The Avengers which is a group of six superheroes. The Director is advised by a shadowy group called “The Counsel.” The Counsel is a group whose faces are always in the shadows but they are men and wimmin who are dressed in business suits and so they obviously represent the ruling class from the boardroom.

The Superheroes include the Hulk, Captain Amerika, Thor, Stark, Black Widow and Hawkeye. These six Avengers are dispersed all over the world living their lives when these assassins are activated by the Amerikan government.

The premise is that aliens invade Amerika so the Avengers are called to save the country. Amerika is harnessing energy from space at a top secret laboratory called “joint dark energy” where a portal is created that opens into the other side of space. It is through this portal that Amerikans seek to exploit resources from space, but instead a white man known as Loki comes through the portal. (Loki by the way is a word from a First Nation language). Loki in this movie is the villain.

This film is set in New York City and has a lot of shooting and blowing up buildings in it. The one female superhero, Black Widow, is a spy of Russian descent now working for Amerika. She is of course highly sexualized and starts off in a skirt beating up a few men.

At one point Loki shape shifts into a viking-like persyn and has a crowd of people kneel in front of him while he declares rather arrogantly that humanity was “made to be ruled, in the end you will always kneel!” Loki is portrayed as an alien with a British accent who wants to rule Earth, but it turns out Loki and Thor are brothers, in a classic case of inter-imperialist rivalry fighting over resources that are not theirs.

The aliens invade Earth for a war that takes place in New York City that has the six Avengers fighting a whole army of space aliens with captain Amerika at the forefront. It’s interesting to see Captain Amerika brought back to the movies, originally Captain Amerika was a comic character used during World War II as a propaganda tool that showed Amerika saving the world. Created in 1940 the Captain America comic book initially had him fighting Hitler. More recently, starting in 2005, Marvel Comics has turned Captain Amerika and its other superheros to participating in Amerika’s modern wars. During this time Marvel Comics even created a series of comic books specially for U.$. soldiers in the Middle East, so the use of comic book characters for the advancement of imperialist interests is nothing new as this has been going on for decades.

At one point in the movie The Counsel asks the Director to nuke New York City, arguing that this is the only way to save earth, but the Director refuses and the battle continues. The battle has many “foreign” aircrafts flying into skyscrapers, an obvious allusion to the twin towers getting destroyed. The movie ends with a nuke being shot into New York City but it is intercepted by one of the superheroes named Stark who is also a millionaire who changes into a robotic superhero at will. Stark grabs the nuke and flies it into space, saving New York City. So it was finally delivered - a millionaire capitalist superhero saved the world, and so The Avengers plays out as a classic Amerikan propaganda film. One thing this movie did get right is there will be a final battle and Amerika will be one of the participants but the fighting army won’t come from outer space, rather the fighting army will be the oppressed on the ground and the result will be much different for the oppressor.

Recently the state of California has created what they call the step down program which those of us at Pelican Bay SHU have rejected. The strikes that swept Amerikan prisons in 2011 were initially kicked off with the intention of obtaining five demands, and the State has so far failed to grant the five demands. This July it will be two years since the prisoner population first mobilized around the five demands and yet the State has been making excuse after excuse to go in circles and drag things out while making more promises.

We have reached way deep for what little patience may be left in us as people who have suffered years and in some cases decades under the brutal torture of the State. And yet this patience was taken as weakness as all oppressors take patience or good gestures coming from the oppressed. We have attempted to resolve this issue with the brutal state through dialogue, and through agreements, to no avail. We now understand that like all efforts for dignity and humyn rights it will take struggle!

Everywhere in the world where the people fought oppression it was done through struggle, with selfless acts of sacrifice in some way. The law of dialectics proves that struggle, sacrifice and suffering produces justice, freedom and peace. One relies on the other in a unity of opposites and a perpetual contradiction and it is this contradiction that prisoners today find ourselves in and which created the conditions in which the 2011 strikes were brought to surface.

California, like all imperialist prisons and jails, has relied on brutal treatment in order to control its prisoners. It is living within a capitalist society that creates these prison camps, these concentration camps that capture our people, capture our youth and have us living under an occupied force, colonized not only physically but mentally as well. The fate of our nations within prisons relies on what we do today.

For the past few decades the movement for prisoner rights has been in a semi coma, many have been bought off with petit bourgeois ideology where everyone is looking out to come up and get money, too many seeking escapism in dope or alcohol, too many times do I hear prisoners talking about ‘get rich or die trying,’ but like dead prez said we need to ‘get free or die trying.’

The question is, do we continue to be locked in oppressive conditions or do we finally stand up and demand our dignity? More and more of our youth enter these concentration camps lining up right behind us and walk in sync to the slaughter house known as SHU or hole. So many of our “privileges” have been taken by the state. Many times our loved ones out in society suffer from traveling to see us, paying outrageously for phone calls or goods and yet we sit and accept it. This has gone on far too long. Our patience has run out, we have grown old, our health is beginning to fail us, our sanity under such cruel and decrepit conditions is at stake and there is no end in sight, no light at the end of the tunnel. So we must make a spark that creates our own light at the end of the tunnel!

We have given the prison until July 8, 2013 to meet all five demands we listed in 2011 and if they are not granted by July 8 then our hunger strike will continue on that day. We will demand to be treated as humyn beings, we will not be tortured any longer.

What we learned from 2011 was the repression that will come from such a non-violent protest and many ideas have since come to the fore. Many lessons were learned since the last strike, lessons that will make us stronger next round. But we call on all those oppressed to use July 8 as your rally cry and to use this historic day to bring attention to your suffering, to your torture and to your oppression. And so we ask all to join us on July 8 as once more we hunger strike in unity for all prisoners, not just in the United $tates but around the world.

United we can accomplish anything, so long as we act as one. We need to remember that our oppressors act as one when they create harsh laws and throw away the key. They act as one when their sticks are breaking our heads and when we are placed in torture conditions. It doesn’t matter their background or nationality, their sticks and boots feel the same on our bodies. So let all prisoners also use this unity in a united front where every dungeon forms their own demands on July 8 to better conditions wherever you’re at.

There are still a few months until this date comes, and it is better to have time to get your mind right and be prepared. California has begun to develop peace zones in all prisons and jails where no longer are prisoners at each other, oppressing each other. Instead we are promoting peace and creating peace zones in all facilities. Now, instead of warring on each other, prisoners in California are beginning to find ways to better their living conditions. They are looking to the true oppressor and developing a more revolutionary culture in all prisons, jails and youth facilities. It is only by creating a more revolutionary environment that real change can come from not only our prison conditions but also in our relations with one another behind these prison walls. Let us create these safe zones and look to those who are also held captive as struggling against the same oppressor.

Dorner was fired by the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) in 2009 in retaliation for reporting police brutality including incidents of unwarranted abuse on innocent Latino and Black people in Los Angeles. This speaking up against pig brutality was crossing the line, and threatened the pig culture that permeates the states institutions. Poor people are looked at as the enemy by the state. It’s not only one’s skin color, although skin and thus nation continues to be a driving force for oppression. But state terrorism does not happen in Bel Air or other wealthy or “middle class” communities. These terrorist acts are carried out in poor communities.

When the manhunt was launched for Dorner, people were told that if they had a truck they should “stay home.”(1) This is sending the message that the state is seeking to attack any truck on the road, and this is not a big exaggeration. One only need ask Emma Hernadez, the 71-year-old Chicana who was shot with her daughter while they were driving a truck delivering newspapers.(2) I didn’t know what was more surprising: the fact that the pigs turned a truck into swiss cheese with wimmin in it with no provocation, or the fact that the corporate news media was slow to mention it. The Spanish language outlet Univision mentioned it while other English stations took days to cover it. When they did they grudgingly mentioned “a shooting” and a day later “two wimmin were shot.” The media once more failed to criticize the state terror that we experience. This shooting was treated as critically as a fender bender.

What transpired with Dorner points to a contradiction within the United $tates where some of the oppressed are allowed to eat from master’s table and given crumbs like jobs, rank in its military, and positions in the political body that ultimately serve the oppressor nation. These crumbs come at the expense of oppressing other oppressed people. This dilemma hits people with different results. Some in the military come to this realization while in the Third World and react by either committing suicide, attacking the state like Dorner did, or simply continuing to oppress other people. The media, which is the state’s mouthpiece, says how “dangerous” Dorner is, but who is he a danger to? With his training he could have easily attacked people on the street but he stated he is bringing a war on the LAPD in an online manifesto, so the only danger he would pose is to the state. Putting the state on the defensive benefits those oppressed by Amerikkka.

The death of police officers who have been killed in the line of duty, like the U.$. military, has been on the rise in recent years. In 2009 there were 122 pigs killed in the line of duty, in 2010 there were 154, and 163 for 2011.(3) Like the enlisted military, Amerikan police are compelled to oppress Third World peoples, often people who look just like them. This has resulted in not only resistance from those being oppressed but also in mental trauma for the oppressor in what has been referred to as “post traumatic stress disorder.” This trauma, regardless of what it’s called, is brought on by one coming to the realization that killing innocents for Amerikan empire is a horrible thing; so horrible that it often results in violence either unleashed on the state, on oneself or one’s family, or on the public.

Pig violence inflicts terror on the barrios and ghettos in the United $tates in its most crude forms, which then works to traumatize the people, particularly our youth. We are so immune to violence that we often consume the oppression inflicted on us and mirror this oppression on others just as many of those abused as children go on to abuse others. It is a process that mimics behavior one was taught.

We are beginning to understand that violence affects us more than we know. More than merely teaching us violent behavior, we are now learning that violence affects us biologically as well. A study recently found that children exposed to violence are prone to disease about 7 to 10 years earlier. According to this study “that early childhood adversity imprints itself in our chromosomes.”(4)

Growing up in neighborhoods where an activity like walking the dog in the evening is met with being thrown against the wall by a pig, or a child riding her/his bike after school is met with being questioned, photographed and having a field card filled out which locks you into a gang database, affects our youth in ways we are only now learning about. National oppression is not simply occupying our land or killing us on the streets. There are many more diabolical ways in which this genocide is inflicted besides bullets.

The stress that our youth are now facing by the pig terror comes in many forms. One journalist for example said he interviewed a 22-year-old from Queens, NY who has already been “stopped and frisked” 70 times.(5) Think of how this must affect our youth when living one’s childhood revolves around being approached, harassed and hunted by gun-toting pigs who you know have a license to kill you at any time. But the streets are not the only place where our youth are hunted by the pigs. In “operation crew cut” the NYPD doubled officers in an attempt to combat “gangs” via social media. This can be seen as an attempt to bait our youth online to discuss illegal acts or to pry info out of youth which may implicate others, trolling the internet in search of more brown and Black skins that they cannot get from the streets.

But wanton murder by the pigs is still alive and well; the lead raincloud continues to hang over our heads in streets across the United $tates. In 2011 54 people were killed by the LAPD.(6) This is the same police department that Dorner rose up on. This national oppression is supported by the highest levels of the Amerikkkan government. When the NYPD officer who killed Sean Bell back in 2008 was acquitted, Obama, who was a candidate for president at the time, issued a statement to the public to “respect the verdict.” This is not a matter of a couple of pigs acting up here and there; it’s national oppression.

The social reality of the oppressed is much different than what is perceived from those who are not oppressed in the United $tates. Our interaction with the pigs is violent and traumatic. It is common for homes to be raided by “mistake” and often these raids result in an occupant being murdered or injured physically, but almost always occupants are injured psychologically. The author Michelle Alexander gets at this a little when she writes: “In countless situations in which police could easily have arrested someone or conducted a search without a military-style raid, police blast into people’s homes, typically in the middle of the night, throwing grenades, shouting, and pointing guns and rifles at anyone inside, often including young children.”(8)

I would add to this that pig raids are much more than this for children. Anyone who has ever experienced a pig raid, especially through the eyes of a child, can understand what I mean. Personally I remember as a child when the pigs raided my home. Seeing our home stormed guns a-blazing, and having a gun pointed at me, watching my family be cuffed and beaten by these predators. It’s not a matter of the pigs going in a house doing their “job.” It is a much more brutal reality for most people facing national oppression.

The oppressed nations people here in the United $tates have come to see our social conditions as normal, but this is only because we have been oppressed since birth. We grew up with our land occupied, and we have never seen anything else but living under an imperialist society. Mao once said: “In class society everyone lives as a member of a particular class, and every kind of thinking, without exception, is stamped with the brand of a class.”(9)

This cuts right to the bone of the matter and dispels the revisionist outlook of picking and choosing oppression to suit their agenda. What Mao is saying is everything is stamped with a class brand. Some will say art does not or should not be political but art will, like all other phenomena, have a class character to it and thus will serve one class or the other. This concept also applies to national oppression: if a nation is oppressed in any given society, all ideas – and thus actions – are stamped with the brand of national oppression. Pig terror is a form of national oppression we face in the United $tates and actions taken by Dorner are a result of the contradictions that occur when those from the oppressed nations grapple internally with what the state is having them do to other oppressed people.

On February 13, Dorner’s last stand took place, where he was surrounded in a mountain cabin in Big Bear, California. He shot it out, taking down another pig before he was finally killed. This was an unprecedented event of an ex-cop declaring war on the state. But matter is in constant motion and contradictions arise constantly. The fact that people are products of matter tells us that there will continue to be contradictory struggles like this in the future. Historical materialism tells us that the oppressed will continue to resist in many ways. Even those who are lured or bought off by imperialism will many times break with the oppressor and instead serve the ruling class a taste of its own medicine.

Like in a shroud of nopal she exists within the confines of the people,
To and from, history to the future lies her footprint for a better day.
A distant star propels her will and intrepid appeal soothes the oppressed in her path to freedom.
Dialectics remains her lantern which cuts deep canyons into the jungle of despair illuminating the mysterious and unseen.
I see her hand through the concrete pillars of occupation bathed in a glow of fluorescent light, leaking from the cuts it has endured from the miles of razor wire.
Her voice traveling from history defies the relations of production in its tone, it is a roar that discards any trace of bribery and which the chains of patriarchy have no chance.
Her demands have always been for justicia throughout history and continue to ignite this call into the future, a future where infant Brown fists rise out of the fields strapped on the backs of young mothers, of the youth pried out of the claws of criminalization.
Without her marching side by side the path becomes obscured and cold, and so we continue in sync with the boundaries of existence merely being a physical aspect of today’s social reality, a manifestation of occupation that the girl from history has seen rise and fall in her perpetual march through history.

by Steig Larsson
Vintage Books 2005

I have been hearing the hoopla about The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo for a while now; it recently was made into a movie and so I thought I would try to find out a little about it. I learned that the author, Steig Larsson, was a leading expert on right-wing white extremist and Nazi organizations, and so I thought it would be interesting to see how much of his “expertise” spilled over into this “thriller.” Larsson died in 2004 but not before completing a trilogy of which The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is the first book.

The story starts off with the character Mikael Blomkvist, a journalist who was convicted of libel after he wrote a story accusing a wealthy Swedish finance capitalist of corruption. Within the story one character is explaining the role of a certain investment group to Blomkvist called AIA which, after the Berlin Wall came down, was active in European capitalism and the character says: “Believe me, it was a capitalist’s wet dream. Russia and Eastern Europe may be the world’s biggest untapped markets after China. Industry had no problem joining hands with the government especially when the companies were required to put up only a token investment.”(p26)

Nations that were formerly socialist switched back to a profit-based system and opened up their markets to foreign investment. In the later stages of imperialism, where markets are saturated and there is too much capital to move around, this is in fact a “capitalist’s wet dream” and corporate power often merges with the state in a carpool lane down the road of exploitation. This wet dream is one the author seems to understand quite clearly.

The other main character in the book is a bisexual women named Lisbeth Salander who is a 20-something white punk rock type who is a hacker and gifted investigator.

Blomkvist is hired by one of the heads of a Swedish wealthy industrialist family, Vanger, who wants to know who murdered his niece, Harriet, who disappeared decades before. The catch is Blomkvist must live one year on the island from which Harriet disappeared and investigate. In return Blomkvist would not only receive millions of dollars for attempting to solve this mystery but the industrialist would also give Blomkvist information on the finance capitalist which had Blomkvist convicted of libel, thus getting his personal revenge and having the biggest story of the year.

Blomkvist soon learns Vanger’s brothers were both active in Swedish politics, one being a Swedish Nazi Party member and the other being a nationalist party member, while Vanger claims to have “no interest in politics.” Vanger went on to study economics ironically.

Sprinkled throughout the book is the underlying subjectivism I was looking for in Larsson’s writing, any “expert in Nazi extremist” groups would be expected to expose h ideas in a novel one way or another and Larsson does not leave us hanging.

He describes an angry email that Blomkvist received, stating: “I hope you suck cock in the slammer you fucking commie pig” (p190) and which Blomkvist saves in the “intelligent criticism” folder. A character named Lobach is described in Nazi Germany: “And Lobach knew how to land a contract, he was entertaining and good natured. The perfect Nazi.” (p197) It is obvious where the author’s line lies, for an “expert” on Nazism to describe a Nazi character as good natured in this book attempts to repackage these fascist scumbags as palatable to the reader, it’s classic propaganda in the form of a novel.

At one point the young punk rock woman is raped and forced to perform oral sex on her “guardian” who is court appointed to handle her finances. This trustee named Bjurman who rapes her is described as a member of Greenpeace, Amnesty International, and an advocate for political prisoners in the Third World. It’s interesting that throughout the book those who advocated progressive social causes are rapists and villains while Nazi’s are described as “entertaining and good natured.” It was this interweaving of the author’s line within a novel in classic propaganda spirit which I knew I would encounter in this book.

The main character Blomkvist serving two months in jail for the libel case but does not describe prison conditions nor relations in prison. His stint in prison was reduced to two pages and was described as mostly playing poker and lifting weights.

[spoiler alert] It turns out that the brother of the old man who initiated this investigation in the first place is a serial killer who has been killing wimmin for decades. And his father was a serial killer before him and taught him how to kill and dispose of bodies. Blomkvist discovers this and confronts the culprit, Martin, who places Blomkvist in a torture chamber in his basement. This reminded me of a Security Housing Unit cell: it had no window, it was cold and spartan and made of stone. It is Salander, The girl with the Dragon Tattoo, who saves Blomkvist from certain death in the torture chamber.

The book is drenched in sexual perversion with a womyn being brutally raped and sodomized by a man, a man brutally raped and sodomized by a womyn, a father raping his son and daughter, and this same father forcing his son to rape his sister. Such a book is common in capitalist society where everyone is sexualized and the consumer culture is fueled by porn and capitalist immorality.

In the end Blomkvist and Salander expose a finance capitalist who had his hand in everything from fraudulent loans to child porn. This billionaire, after being exposed, fled Sweden and was tracked down and murdered in Spain. After this story broke Blomkvist regained his journalist career. And to wrap things up nicely with a fictional bow, the old man Vanger found his niece Harriet living in Australia after running away decades before, fleeing rape.