MIM(Prisons) is a cell of revolutionaries serving the oppressed masses inside U.$. prisons, guided by the communist ideology of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism.
Under Lock & Key is a news service written by and for prisoners with a focus on what is going on behind bars throughout the United States. Under Lock & Key is available to U.S. prisoners for free through MIM(Prisons)'s Free Political Literature to Prisoners Program, by writing:
MIM(Prisons) PO Box 40799 San Francisco, CA 94140.
Today at Polk Correction Institution the prep-team beat a young man
in full restraints named Mr. Fox as he screamed for help during a
shake-down: video surveillance was not provided.
15 March 2021, a few weeks before the killing of Andrew Brown by
Pasquotank Sheriff’s Department, I was maced, tased, beat, and nearly
killed by almost 20 Pasquotank C.O.s. The beating occurred in 6
different locations in the building including 3 elevators. I received
several life lasting injuries to the head, face, and mouth from being
punched and kicked over a hundred times while laying flat on the ground
on my stomach and/or side. A chunk of meat was ripped out of my shoulder
from being dragged over 50 ft. I was choked while beaten til they
thought and asked one another if I was dead.
Another official cut my thumb with a switch blade and I received
several other injuries that medical refused to treat or document. The
officers said, “they’ll be back to beat me every chance they get and
that I better not eat.”
I was emergency shipped, and 3 hours later pictures were taken of my
injuries when I arrived at Polk Correctional Institution
(High-Risk-Security).
Pasquotank Prison Officials deny to have ever touched me and claim
their innocence while not even bothering to explain how my injuries were
sustained. The disciplinary officer found that the video footage of the
incident had been tampered with and cut-short.
18 October 2021, all mail for North Carolina prisoners will be
received at TextBehind
in Phoenix, MD with long time promises of iPads in the future. Should
department of public safety provide proper video surveillance for safety
before iPads for profit and entertainment? Surveillance is critical to
maintain and monitor unwanted violence.
Relief in the claim I’ve filed against Pasquotank Correctional
Institution include that the courts enforce a policy with an injunction
ordering hand-held cameras be used when escorting offenders or using
force in blind spots.
Unfortunately, body-cams in prison make it harder for guards to
smuggle contraband or have relations which would decrease the rate of
violence from drug related issues allowing more prisoners to focus on
rehabilitation and money management.
With this we would ask for higher pay rates to support our families
and conjugal visits for married couples.
Prayers out for the family of Andrew Brown and the victims of police
brutality.
MIM(Prisons) adds: In the last issue of Under Lock
& Key one of our comrades addressed the use of tablets to
pacify and surveil the oppressed in A
Strategic Objective to Disrupt and Surveil the Communication Between
Prisoners and Our Loved Ones. The article above connects this to the
many campaigns prisoners have waged to get cameras in prisons so that
there is documentation of the regular abuse and illegal happenings that
go on inside.
In 2014, comrades in North Carolina won a lawsuit to [require staff
of NCPDS to record with video cameras any use of force
incidents]((https://www.prisoncensorship.info/article/north-carolina-prisoners-preliminary-victory-on-use-of-force-lawsuit/).
This suit however, left it up to the pigs to determine when cameras need
to be used. As AK47 asks, if the state is to invest more money in
technology, shouldn’t it be on this important task of preventing
physical abuse and drug trafficking, both of which leads to the loss of
humyn lives?
Modern surveillance and communication technology can be used for good
and for bad, for the interests of the oppressed or the interests of the
oppressor. The interests of the oppressed lie in holding the state
accountable for the rampant abuse and drug dealing its employees commit
every day, while being able to maintain connections to society, engaging
in rehabilitation programs where they can speak freely and openly. The
interests of the state lie in pacifying the population with pop culture
media and surveilling the communication of those who cannot be
pacified.
Shortly after receiving this issue of Under Lock & Key,
a number of USW leaders and other supporters of our work will be
receiving the first edition of our Revolutionary 12 Step
Program. This has been in the works for over a year now and we are
excited to get it into the hands of comrades who are ready to implement
the program and provide feedback.
The Revolutionary 12 Step Program is a significant advance
for our Serve the People “Re-Lease on Life” Program, which has been in
existence in some form from the early years of MIM(Prisons)’s
existence.
Who is it for?
When most of us think of the 12 steps, we think of Alcoholics
Anonymous or a more general Narcotics Anonymous program. However, our
program takes an approach similar to a program called Criminals &
Gangmembers Anonymous to address the anti-people behavior of the lumpen
class in a more general way.
Drugs and alcohol are a big part of the problems the people face. It
is estimated that at least 65% of people incarcerated have a “Substance
Use Disorder”, while the number goes up to 85% if you include all who
were under the influence during the crime they were convicted of.(1)
That’s a lot! As recent understandings of the brain tell us, the lack of
impulse control that can lead to destructive behaviors is caused by
unhealthy social conditions during childhood.(2) Drug abuse will often
overlap with violence towards others and other behavior that is deemed
criminal by the bourgeoisie and by the people as well. In the long-term,
communism can eliminate the causes of these tendencies, but in the
meantime we need to address all forms of anti-people behavior to
transform ourselves from a lumpen state of being to a revolutionary
proletarian one.
Some people in prison are innocent. Some broke a law in a conscious
decision – sometimes even for righteous political reasons. But the vast
majority of you reading this broke laws through actions you would have
preferred to not have taken. The vast majority of people in prison could
use this program to avoid regrettable actions in the future.
All of us have rehabilitation that we must go through because we were
raised in a sick society. Ultimately, everyone born in this oppressive
system could benefit from our Revolutionary 12 Step Program,
but many of you need it if you ever want to stay out of
prison.
Why do we need it?
The state, by definition, is run by the oppressors. In our
imperialist conditions today the oppressors are the bourgeoisie, the
imperialists, the oppressor nations – Euro-Amerika. The institutions of
the state will always serve those interests. In the current system you
have law enforcement, religious organizations, private prison companies
like Geo Group, and more small-time profiteers running reentry programs
for the state. None of these serve the interests of the oppressed.
Today, we don’t have the influence to abolish these imperialist
institutions, but we do have the influence to build independent
proletarian institutions. Not only that, this is part of our central
task today as a movement, “create public opinion and the independent
institutions of the oppressed to seize power.”(3) We discussed previous
independent institutions of the oppressed in ULK 59 on
drugs.(4) Since then we’ve been working on developing our own.
One of the lessons we can take from the practice of our Re-Lease on
Life Program to date is the need to address the drive to do drugs,
engage in dangerous sexual activities, and the temptation of the thrill
of the life of crime. We must put in its place the thrill of revolution;
of fighting the real enemy; of building something new.
Before MIM(Prisons) had a Re-Lease on Life Program, we had one
comrade who was one of our top theoreticians and USW leaders while in
the SHU. Ey was released from prison and quickly slipped into alcoholism
again. Ey stayed in touch for the first year, and then we stopped
hearing from em, and ey never did any political work on the outside. At
that time MIM(Prisons) had little to offer this comrade to help em adapt
to life on the outside, and we certainly had nothing like a 12 step
program to help em with eir alcoholism.
A story that has become too common is USW members who are released
and never write us for years. When we finally do hear back from them
it’s because they ended up back in prison. One such comrade
recently explained:
“something I felt lack of was community. When I left the gates I went
straight to a sober living…. During the time there I worked and attended
A.A. meetings. I pretty much gave all my attention to my sobriety and
recovery. Simultaneously my career was getting started. At this time I
am getting myself situated and also enjoying my freedom, it was a really
good feeling getting to move around, good food, and women…”
“I got emotionally attached to a girl that did not fulfill my needs
or expectations and I became emotionally unbalanced. All it took was one
instance of drugs to get high and begin my relapse. All this was in the
lapse of a year. The last three months was just a chase for
thrills.”
“I felt loneliness because for sobriety I left everything behind,
friends, places, everything I’ve ever done, made and been. Also I felt a
need for thrills, action; that was my itch for crime. I lost track of it
all and I couldn’t find like-minded people.”
From the above testimony we see how sex and romance plays into this
as well. We all know how common “crimes of passion” are in our society.
Many of us have done time for them. This comrade wanted community and
felt lonely, and seemingly tried to find that in a womyn who maybe was
not in a good state herself, or maybe just couldn’t fill the large gap
in this comrade’s life. The original AA puts god in that gap, a higher
power. Our program puts the proletariat, the people. We will all have
important individuals in our lives who help us out and other individuals
who set us back. But we cannot rely on any one individual to save us,
nor to meet all our needs. One of our needs is a spiritual need to be a
part of something that gives us meaning. The bourgeois institutions
offer you job training and maybe the prospect of a marriage. But as we
see with this comrade’s story, you can attain those things and still be
lonely, still not be on the path to rehabilitation. That is why we need
an independent institution of the oppressed.
Another lesson we can take from this comrade, and from others, is
that success will usually mean leaving behind a lot, especially at
first. The easiest way to go back to prison is to go back to the same
people and places you were around before you got locked up. Ultimately,
our aim is not to cut you off from where you came from like a bourgeois
program might do. We must stay connected to the people, and your past
may offer some such connections. But those connections can only be good
ones if you approach them from a new way of thinking and being. There
must be a new community that you can rely on that supports your
transformation into a new socialist humyn.
Even in the best case scenarios, the bourgeoisie cannot provide the
support comrades need to rehabilitate. However, more often you do not
end up in the best case scenario in this system as one comrade
describes:
“I spent 6 years in the Drug Court program in York, PA, where a
predatory judiciary, local bar, probation department (teamsters union)
and suck ass ex-junkies prey on the weak and pile them 3 and 4 men to a
room in some old crack house and charge them $500 per month rent plus a
$500 deposit, which they would lose when they relapsed (95%) and went
back to jail.
“Bless his wife-murdering heart. Bob Allen’s (Life’s Beacon House)
means well and has the nicest of these houses but we can do better.
The”group homes” or “recovery houses” have 3-4 month waiting lists and
so do the rehabs, which county dollars are 95% of their $1000/day
business. These houses are 501(c)(3) non-profits and if you start a
business to employ the guys that live in these houses, it can operate
non-profit too.”
Next Steps
As we said, the Revolutionary 12 Step Program should address
something that our Re-Lease on Life Program has been lacking for so
long. But to do so, the program must be actualized. Here are some 3-year
goals we have related to actualizing this program:
build a broader network of local contacts across the country so
comrades can get more hands-on training and support from other
communists
establish a revolutionary 12-step program, run by released
comrades, where others can stay and immerse themselves in the
program
establish satellite programs in prisons across the country that
report to the program on the street, learning from each others’
experience and feeding releasees into the street program
Clearly this will require the participation of many of you to
succeed. We need comrades on the outside to volunteer to be support
people or sponsors for our comrades who are released. Even if you can’t
administer the 12 steps, giving them someone to talk to and organize
with on a daily basis will be important.
We need comrades on the inside to begin implementing this program
locally. Ideal candidates will have successfully gone through the 12
step program themselves and MIM(Prisons) political study courses. And
finally, we need similar people on the outside to run our program for
post-release. If you think you can play any of these roles, get in touch
so we can start building.
While Governor Abbot has enacted a full on assault on women’s rights
here in Texas, I heard him defend his decision to not even allow young
rape victims to have an abortion. His reasoning was that he has plans to
end rape in the great state of Texas (and I have plans to win the
powerball lottery). This is almost as good news as was President Nixon
announcing that he was, “Not a Crook”, or George H.W. Bush promising,
“No new taxes.” But what would you expect from a guy who cannot manage
to keep the electric on in a state that makes its fortunes in the energy
business?
So it should surprise no one to know that Gov. Abbot’s Texas
Department of Criminal Justice(TDCJ) has enacted extremely stringent
mail room policies (BP-3.91), which has prisoners and their family
members up in arms! (see: Texas
Censorship Rule (BP-3.91) Being Revised, Under Lock & Key
No. 75) These restrictive policies were put in place because family
members of sex offenders complained that their loved ones were not able
to get the rehabilitation that they need while in prison because of all
the drugs and photos of women in their underwear that all of the other
prisoners possess. What does TDCJ do? They pass a rule that not only
prevents sexually explicit photos from entering this prison it also does
not allow any crayon, marker, colored paper, or greeting cards and many
books and magazines are denied.
I myself had my Men’s Health and National
Geographic magazines denied for “sexually explicit content,” and
just today I was denied the opportunity to even read a letter from my
aging, almost 80-year-old mother because it was written on colored
paper. I was also recently denied a drawing, from a church member’s son
for the same exact reason and he is only 7.
TDCJ thinks they can stop drugs and sexually explicit content from
entering into prisons by trampling all over the First Amendment, but the
sad fact of the matter is that outlawing and strict policing laws cannot
and will not ever stop people from doing what they want to do. It hasn’t
worked with the drug nor anti-sodomy laws and it darn sure won’t work
inside of TDCJ while they have low-paid, over-worked, understaffed
employees looking to make a buck.
Well, Governor, if you’re not too busy stalking abortion clinics or
sifting through citizen’s personal mail, you might want to check out
what all of those locked up sex offenders and gang bangers are doing
here. Since you don’t feel it profitable to sufficiently staff your
prisons so that prisoners have healthy activities like outside rec and
mental health support groups to engage their minds, you leave them to
lounge around in their rubber sandals all day, soaking up the wonderful
air conditioning, selling their psych meds, smoking K2, tobacco and meth
and snorting and overdosing on oxycontin, suboxone, percocet and alcohol
while they eat cheese puffs and have guards scroll through the seemingly
endless selection of partial and full nudity labeled shows on the
On-demand cable TVs.
The really tough thing for Gov. Abbot and the unit Wardens is that it
is against the rules for prisoners to operate or even touch the remote
controls. So either their officers are not following the rules or they
themselves are choosing to force this kind of programming on a captive
audience. This is exactly why they don’t allow prayers to be read over
school intercoms any more, because you cannot avoid hearing it even if
you want to and believe me, there are some things you just cannot un-see
or un-hear.
Here there is no escaping second-hand smoke, nor the scorn of porn,
no matter how many mothers’ letters the mail room denies.
Wiawimawo of MIM(Prisons) adds: We’ve been pointing out
the false logic in recent waves of censorship and digitizing of mail
across this country, with evidence that drugs
in prisons have not been reduced, which was the stated aim of these
policies.(1) Now with BP-3.91 aiming to eliminate material that might
prevent sex offenders from recovering we find out that the policy is
used to censor educational material, holiday cards and letters from
children while prisoners are watching porn on TV all day whether they
want to be or not.
We like the connection this comrade makes to Abbot’s great plan to
ban abortion and eliminate rapists. Below we print another story about
gender and rape in prisons from a comrade who has been studying MIM’s
writings on gender. This adds to the critique of Abbot by pointing out
how all sex is rape under patriarchy, as well as pointing to the
intimate relation between porn and profits that prevent rape from being
eliminated under capitalism. The tying of pleasure and power to motivate
the consumer class to keep capital circulating in the economy is so
important to the bourgeoisie that rape has become an unavoidable feature
of capitalism.
A California prisoner writes: After reading the MC5
paper Clarity
on what gender is, I was a bit confused about MacKinnon’s line
that all sex is rape. It took me a few days to comprehend what she was
trying to say. First if something does not make sense, check your
premise.
Her statement didn’t add up because my premise was that she was
making a statement, when in reality her line is a metaphor of patriarchy
(oppressive culture where men dominate). I recall feminists using a
similar line in South America, “You are the rapist.” And I believe this
is what MacKinnon was trying to say. This is a metaphor of the dominance
of men in gender oppression.
It really became clear for me at “pill call.” I was waiting in line
for my pills and on the other side of the fence some other prisoners
were waiting in line for pills. One group was nuts to butts and a second
the same. Both groups were standing 6 feet away from a sex offender as
if he had some sort of contagious leprosy.
It is at this point a nurse walks by and the first group starts
murmuring obscene comments amongst each other about her body. The second
group started panting like a bunch of wild dogs and talking among
themselves about the girl’s body. Meanwhile the isolated sex offender
said nothing.
Everyone in line had something disgusting to say about the nurse
except for the one man that everyone else is pretending to be better
than. There is no doubt in my mind that every single one of those
disgusting animals would be a rapist if it was just them and her in a
room alone, thus giving merit to the feminist line “you are the rapist”
and clarifying MacKinnon’s line “all sex is rape.”
Those men that so quickly became something less at the mere sight of
a female are taught by an endless barrage of television commercials
exploiting a woman’s beauty, that women are objects. Every time anyone
wants to sell something in this capitalist culture the object is next to
a beautiful woman, thus the object for sale is automatically associated
with a woman as an object, similar to hypnotism.
Some of the men were probably only acting like wild animals just to
fit in because they think that objectifying the woman is what is
expected of them. However, that is somehow worse than the one who really
is only seeing an object, because a mindless animal who can’t think for
himself is always worse than a self-thinking man of reason.
From a woman’s perspective she truly must feel oppressed living in a
world where all men act like disgusting animals. Truly she must feel
like “all sex is rape” because all men act like rapists. As a reaction,
women are past the point of tolerance and a lot of men are now doing
serious time in prison for nothing more than what the capitalist system
teaches them to do. For the liberation of women it becomes necessary for
men to become oppressed, especially so here in Amerika where the answer
to every conflict is a life sentence in prison.
Revolution from my perspective is never accomplished by half measures
of compromise (small talk, legislation, reform, etc). Rights are never
granted, they are won.
We all, female and male, must unite to win our right to be treated as
a human being. We all must fight for our liberation. The monster that is
the U.S. government cannot be reasoned with, cannot be reformed, every
time we win 1 step, we lose 2. It is now all or nothing. For all of us
that are oppressed the time is now. We must rise not for ourselves, but
for a better future.
final comments by Wiawimawo: This comrade’s assumption
that any of these men would have raped the womyn if given a chance
contradicts eir assumption that some are just following along in the
act. But this reinforces the point that rape is a systematic thing, that
even if each of those men would not have raped that womyn if they found
her alone, they participated in the culture of rape.
We’d also point out that many females do not “feel like all sex is
rape”, and we argue that this is the case in the oppressor nations
because of the gender privilege females have here they are gender
oppressors, or men.
If Gov. Abbot’s big plan for ending rape is to lock up rapists, this
will fail on two accounts. One is that Amerikan prisons do not reform or
rehabilitate, which is why we are building our own independent
institutions of the oppressed. But more importantly, rape is not about
individual choices and behaviors, just like all crimes that are epidemic
in imperialist society. Our culture creates rapists every day. It is
only by transforming the relations between humyn beings that we can
eliminate rape. And as mentioned above, capitalism is so dependent on
selling sex, it is only through overthrowing capitalism that we can
begin to make real strides in this transformation.
In 2017, MIM(Prisons) published Under Lock &
Key #59 (ULK) which focused on the impact drugs have on the prison
movement. ULK #59 was particularly significant to our
cause, given the fact that drugs play a central role in preventing the
lumpen from developing into a revolutionary force inside U.$. prisons.
As various comrades attested to in that issue, drugs are poisons that
eat away any potential unity of the oppressed, by fostering violence
amongst the imprisoned lumpen, and the bourgeoisification of those
involved in the trade. Also, discussed in ULK #59 was the
scourge of the synthetic cannibinoid K2 and the rise of opioid use in
prisons at the time. Since then, another opioid has gained popularity
behind prison walls, mostly because of its availability; Suboxone.
In 2020, the California Department of Corrections and
Rehabilitation(CDCR) introduced Suboxone to its 33 prisons as part of
its Integrated Substance Use Disorder Treatment(ISUDT). Suboxone is a
medication used to treat opioid addiction, specifically in the detox and
withdrawal stages of care. According to the San Quentin News,
“ISUDT is touted as the largest in-prison medically assisted treatment
program in the nation.”(1) CDCR credits Suboxone with a sharp decline in
overdose deaths in its prisons since its introduction. But is there more
than meets the eye to this apparent miracle drug?
What is Suboxone?
Suboxone is a combination medication containing buprenorphine and
naloxone.(2) Suboxone is derived from opium, and was supposedly intended
to be a less addictive alternative to methodone, morphine, and
oxycodone.(3) Though viewed as a safe alternative to other drugs,
Suboxone can still be deadly when taken intravenously or in combination
with other drugs and alcohol. Other side effects are:
* cardiac arrhythmia
* irregular blood pressure
* respiratory issues
* liver and kidney problems
* constipation
* urinary retention
* sweating
* short term memory issues
* difficulty thinking clearly and focusing
* impaired coordination
* headache
* nausea and vomiting
* sedation (4)
Where Did Suboxone Come From?
Suboxone was developed in the 1970s by Reckitt Benckiser, a Briti$h
company at the behest of the Amerikan government. At the time, the
United $tates was searching for a “less addictive” alternative for
patients with opioid use disorder. After Suboxone was created, Reckitt
Benckiser shipped the drug to the United $tates narcotic farm in
Lexington, Kentucky to be tested on detoxified addicts. The farm was
also a prison and treatment facility as well as the site of the U.$.
government’s Addiction Research Center.
It was at the Addiction Research Center that the government
discovered just how addictive Suboxone could be, yet it was still
marketed as a useful tool to combat addiction. Originally the doctors
prescribing the drug had to hold special licenses and undergo special
training. However, the government loosened its restrictions in response
to the number of opioid associated deaths. Since then, Suboxone has
raked in billions of dollars for pharmaceutical companies and millions
more for the addiction treatment sector that sprang up in its wake.(5)
Yet, there have been 100,000 overdose deaths attributed to opioids in
the last 12 months.(6) Those same doctors trained by the government have
also been found to be some of the most unscrupulous predators around.(7)
As such, it was perplexing to many that the CDCR would provide such a
highly addictive drug with such potential for abuse at a time when most
prison addicts had already detoxed and gone through withdrawals, thanks
to the statewide prison lockdown in response to the COVID-19
pandemic.
Drugs are Chemical Weapons
The use of drugs as part of a larger strategy of unconventional
warfare dates back to the 16th century when Europeans created the drug
trade to finance the expansion of their empires and the rise of
industrial capitalism.(8) One of the most infamous examples of this was
the Briti$h East India Company’s use of opium to subdue China and bring
it into its sphere of influence by creating a nation of addicts. While
the Portuguese and Dutch were the first to popularize opium smoking in
China, it was the Briti$h who took full advantage of this. When the
Chinese realized what was happening, they attempted to ban all foreign
ships from entry and close their ports. The Briti$h claimed the Chinese
were blocking their access to Chinese markets, and used this as a
pretext to launch the first of two opium wars. By 1900, 27% of all adult
males in China were addicted to smoking opium and China was forced to
cede Hong Kong to the Briti$h.(9) This chapter in Chinese history marked
the beginning of what Mao Zedong called China’s dark night of slavery to
the west.
It was around this same time that alcohol was used by Amerikkkans to
facilitate the genocide of First Nations people and the theft of their
land. This period also marks the first recorded use of biological
weapons, when the U.$. Army used smallpox infected blankets to decimate
natives and clear the land for white settlers. Together, these acts of
savagery resulted in the extermination of 98% of people indigenous to
what is today the United $tates and the worst genocide in humyn
hystory.(10) Events similar to these played out in Africa, Asia, and the
Americas.(11)
During the 20th century, the Briti$h and Amerikkkan imperialists
developed more sophisticated means with which to subdue the oppressed
nations. Project MK-Ultra is one such example. Project MK-Ultra was
initiated by the CIA in the 1950s along with the Briti$h MI6, their
sometimes collaborators. This top secret project involved using drugs
and the media to attack and discredit Amerika’s political enemies.
Lysergic Acid Diethylamide (LSD), or just simply “acid” for short,
became the drug of choice for the CIA at this time. LSD was created by
Albert Hoffman, a Nazi collaborator working for the Swiss IG Farben.
Starting in the 1950s, the CIA began producing their own acid in
“tonnage quantities” after asking pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly to
synthesize Hoffman’s formula. This was part of the CIA’s larger plan to
dose the water supply of the Soviet Union. The CIA knew for themselves
the effects of LSD as they tested the drugs on prisoners at the same
facility in Lexington, Kentucky that Suboxone was tested at twenty years
later! Here, prisoners were kept tripping for 77 days straight as part
of Project Artichoke which was one of many programs under the umbrella
of Project MK-Ultra.(12)
The connection between the development of Suboxone, the CIA and
Acid’s early days are alarming given the fact that Suboxone was
introduced to California prisons at a time of heightened political
consciousness amongst prisoners, an economic recession, a rise in white
nationalism, Black Lives Matter protests, a statewide no visiting
lockdown, and the ten-year anniversary of prison hunger strikes that
rocked CDCR and produced ripple effects across Amerikkka’s gulags. Thus,
it was certainly in the interests of the imperialists to suppress the
germs of any potential organizing amongst the oppressed lumpen.
And although the CIA’s plans with respect to the Soviet Union never
came to fruition, they did use LSD to attack the political enemies of
the Amerikan bourgeoisie. Outspoken college professors critical of the
U.$., political activists, communists, government whistle-blowers and
their families all fell victim to LSD and were publicly
discredited.(13)
As the anti-imperialist movement gained traction both outside and
inside of U.$. borders, the use of LSD and other chemical weapons was
expanded. Throughout the 1970s heroin became part and parcel to the
fight against New Afrikan, Chican@, and First Nations national
liberation movements. Asian-produced opium also became critical to U.$.
imperialism’s war against Vietnam. Drug money was used to help
facilitate the creation of Taiwan as a U.$. ally against Maoist China
prior to these events.(14) Methadone too was linked to the opioid
problem in New York City in the 1970s. Methadone as “maintenance
treatment” for heroin addicts was funded by the Rockefeller Program.(15)
The Rockefellers have also been implicated in Nazi atrocities, the red
scare media campaigns, and CIA operations.
The 1980s brought us the Iran-Contra scandal responsible for the
introduction of crack-cocaine into the ghettos and barrios of the United
$tates. Again, the CIA was found to be at the heart of these dirty wars
which involved the use of Iranian money to buy Amerikan guns. Money from
the Iranians was then use to buy cocaine from Colombia for sale in the
United $tates. Amerikan drug money was then re-circulated to fund
counter-revolutionaries in Nicaragua fighting the leftist
Sandinistas.(17)
More recently, Operation Fast and Furious made international
headlines when the CIA was exposed for selling firearms to Mexican
cartels as a means of keeping the Mexican government destabilized and
the Mexican people from fighting their oppressors. The last thing the
U.$. wants is for a neo-colonial country on their doorstep to turn
independent and determine their own destinies.
The Problem as We Understand
It
If the imperialists really wanted to they could shut down the drug
trade, but that runs counter to their interests. Addiction defines
capitalist society. Addiction lies at the center of supply and demand
economics and is what drives the anarchy of production. From cell
phones, to soap operas, to opioids and methamphetamines, everyone living
in a capitalist society is addicted to something. Addiction in
capitalist society is encouraged as a means to realizing profit; but
also as a way to keep people in general, and the masses in particular,
distracted and unable to rise up against oppression. Nowhere is this
seen better than in the recent hystory of the oppressed nations.
In a critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, Karl Marx
explained how religion had hystorically been urged to drug people much
in the same ways the bourgeois uses actual drugs today:
“Religious suffering is at one and the same time the expression of
real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the
sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the
soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.”(18)
Marx was writing at a time of the industrial revolution when the
“miracle” of capitalism was creating advancements in humyn hystory never
before seen. However, it was also creating grinding oppression and
poverty previously unknown. Capitalism also promoted ideas of
individualism, self-centeredness, greed, and exceptionalism, some of the
worst qualities in humyn behavior, and expanding them to include entire
populations, most pointedly in the labor aristocracy. All this combined
led to lives full of misery and desperation for the masses. Lives in
which the only solace was that of an afterlife. And while religion
continues to act as a smokescreen in the oppression of the masses, the
use of drugs has proved indispensable.
Today the root causes of oppression can be better traced to nation,
class, and gender contradictions which have completely warped the way
people interact on both a macro and micro level. The root causes of
addiction are much the same.
In regards to religious suffering, Marx knew better than to simply
call for the abolition of religion. Instead, he realized that it was the
conditions that led to religious suffering themselves that needed to be
abolished. Otherwise, some other new feel good belief would come to fill
the void left by religion, and the oppressive system itself would remain
in its place:
“The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is
the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their
illusions about their conditions is to call on them to give up a
condition that requires illusion. The criticism of religion is therefore
in embryo the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the
halo.”(19)
In other words, religion sanctified capitalism and helped make it
tolerable for the oppressed. Drugs play a similar role in today’s
culture. If one is high all the time than ey does not think about the
many years ey have to spend in prison. One does not have to deal with
the fact that ey made a decision that impacted countless lives because
of eir parasitic behavior. The use of drugs allows one to cope with the
impact nation, class, and gender contradictions have had on em through
intergenerational trauma, all the while keeping them unable to
understand how the three strands of oppression manifest through that
trauma.
We encourage people to get drug free and stay that way, but this
requires more than the status quo in addiction treatment, which only
teaches how to better cope with the trauma of imperialism. We encourage
comrades to go further and destroy the conditions that require
illusions. We encourage comrades to take up revolution.
MIM(Prisons) adds: We will be doing a follow-up on this
article with the results of our second survey on drugs in prisons found
in ULK 75. We are still collecting and aggregating your
responses. It’s not too late if you have not responded yet.
We know the state is opposed to our efforts to expose and combat the
plague of drug addiction among imprisoned lumpen. Branchville
Correctional Facility in Indiana censored ULK 75 citing:
“denied based on the article about Suboxone, and the common drug
slang terms and sale information used in one of the articles. The items
in the article violate IDOC/BCF policies.”
Notes: [1] San Quentin News, September 2021, Pg. 8. [2]
5 Myths About Using Suboxone, Peter Greenspan MD, October 7, 2021
[3] Extended Suboxone Treatment Substantially Improves Outcomes for
Opioid Addicted Youth, November 4, 2008 [4] Suboxone vs Methodone:
Positives and Negatives, Avatar, May 21, 2021 [5] Addiction
Treatment with a Dark Side, New York Times, 2013 [6] Amanpour &
Co, PBS, December 7, 2021 [7] Addiction Treatment with a Dark Side,
New York Times, 2013 [8] Drugs As Weapons Against Us: The CIA’s
Murderous Targeting of SDS, Panthers, Hendrix, Lennon, Cobain, Tupac,
and Other Activists, John L. Potash, Trine Day LLC, 2015, Pg 7-9 [9]
Ibid, pg 10 [10] J. Sakai, 1989, Settlers: Mythology of the White
Proletariat, 3rd Edition, Morningstar Press, p. 7. Sakai cites
200-300,000 native people remaining by 1900, of an estimated 10 million
people before colonization. [11] Drugs as Weapons Against Us, Pg
10 [12] Ibid, Pg 29-30 [13] Ibid, Pg 31-36 [14] Ibid, Pg
45-51 [15] Under Lock & Key, Issue 59, Pg 5, 2017 [16] Drugs
as Weapons Against Us, Pg 13-14 [17] Ibid, Pg 279-285 [18] Karl
Marx, 1843, Introduction to “A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s
Philosophy of Right.” [19] A Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of
Right, Karl Marx
I have done it again. I have earned myself a mental health referral
from a C.O. for the 2nd time in 1 year. Both times for simply speaking
the truth. Apparently, C.O.s are so blinded by lies that they interpret
the truth as some sort of mental illness.
So last week I was being escorted to medical by a C.O. and do not
remember the topic of conversation but I remember the statement I made
that earned me a mental health referral. I said to the C.O., “Out of all
the 1000s of inmates at this prison, not one of them has ever kidnapped
a person and held them in a cage for a whole lifetime. That is real evil
and only the government is guilty of that kind of evil.”
Of course, he had no reply. One week passes and I get a ducket
yesterday for mental health(M.H.). My first thought is, “what is this, I
have not submitted any request?” But then I look at the date of referral
on the ducket (last Wednesday) and I remember the only thing that
happened last Wednesday is my statement of blame to said C.O. and now it
is clear why I have this mental health referral.
This is the 2nd time I have earned a M.H. referral under this
circumstance. Earlier this year there was a campaign to remove me from 5
Block. Some of the C.O.s there were bringing drugs in for 1 of the
inmates. This inmate did not trust me because he knew I do not agree
with that lifestyle, and so he was asking the C.O.s to kick me out of
the Block. I did not snitch; really I couldn’t care less about what
corrupt C.O.s and gangbangers do, but they were afraid of my honest
lifestyle choice, and so they tried their hardest to remove me, and they
failed in that.
Well, one day as I was entering the Block the tower cop stopped me
and asked me why some of the C.O.s had such a problem with me. I simply
told him the truth. I said, “No, I am not doing anything wrong but if
some C.O.s are collaborating with gangsters then that is something that
should be looked at, so stop looking at me as though I am the problem.”
The following week I received a ducket for mental health. The truth was
interpreted as a mental illness, so I have discovered that when C.O.s
are confronted with truth, they tend to attack it. I think this
phenomenon is because they feel the guilt of their own actions. They are
taught from a young age to have blind faith in someone else’s
interpretation of what is right and wrong; so completely blinded by lies
that when I remove the blindfold, and reveal the simple truth, it is
interpreted as mental illness.
There was a 3rd time I hit a C.O. with the truth, but I did not get a
M.H. referral that time. Again, as I was entering 5 Block, a tower cop
stopped me and asked me why I was having such conflict with the C.O.
that is bringing the drugs in. I replied that “I don’t like (greensuits)
because I am doing a life sentence for a crime I did not do.” She was
taken aback momentarily by this, but she recovered quickly and shot back
that, “It is not my fault, it is the court that did that to you.” A
classic little Eichmann.
I did not continue to argue with that C.O. because I have a lil
respect for her straight forward approach as evidenced by the fact she
did not give me a M.H. referral. Rather, I gave her all the time she
needs for the truth to sink in that she is the one that pushes the
button to either open or close the door on my cage.
Her own greensuit makes her directly responsible for my imprisonment.
It is irrelevant that she has good looks or that she has qualities that
I admire such as an honest straight forward approach, or that she is
blinded by lies of what is right or wrong. All that matters is that
tower cop is directly responsible for depriving an innocent man of his
freedom. She is directly responsible for holding guilty men in a cage
far longer than anyone should be detained.
MLK said that “when confronted with truth, we have an obligation to
stand up for what is right.” The only thing greensuits stand up for is a
dirty paycheck. We all must remove the blindfold of faith and see
ourselves, truth!!
I been wanting to write this letter for about a year now. Society
needs to be aware of what’s really going on behind the walls of prison.
On March of 2020 I wrote an article that was printed on the pages of
your newsletter. It was called ‘TDCJ:
Your staff are bringing in the drugs, and it must stop’(see ULK
73). Since the print of the article, I’ve become a target of
harassment and retaliation. Administration and C/O’s here at Coffield
Unit are a part of a Good Ol’ boy system that use these types of
methods, to make the prisoner pay when the truth is being exposed.
A shakedown team was put together by Warden Garcia. When the team
comes across a prisoner, who refuses to be extorted for information
(something that can place the prisoner’s life in danger), they will
harass/retaliate, even falsify government records, in order to place the
prisoner in the worst part of the prison as a form of punishment for not
cooperating. It happened to me, and I will go into detail later in the
letter.
There wouldn’t be drugs or cellphones in prison, if corrupt C/O’s
didn’t bring them. Can prisoners just walk out of prison, score drugs,
take a detour by Wal-Mart, pick up a couple of cellphones, then return
to prison? How is it that this type of contraband finds itself inside
prisons? Governor Greg Abbott needs to answer these questions. Since the
last article, nothing has changed. A constant flow of K2 (a drug laced
with roach spray), Meth, Cocaine, Heroin, pills and cellphones, flow
through the prison. In 29 years of my confinement, I’ve seen my share of
things but nothing like whats going on today, in the prison system.
Eighty percent (80%) of young people in prison are terribly addicted
to drugs, that C/O’s bring in. The only difference between correctional
officers and prisoners is the uniform. They themselves are criminals.
This type of thing needs to be brought up next time some politician out
there screams “We need more prisons”. ‘Go to Texas prison with a bad
drug habit, leave worse when you get out’. That should be the
politicians slogan.
TDCJ proudly states “We are an agency of rehabilitation and positive
change”, the best lie being sold to the public. The only thing TDCJ
higher-ups care about, is that government funding. At the moment
Coffield has a sky high suicide rate due to all the drugs. This place is
completely out of compliance and under-staffed. Prisoners are left in
dayrooms (that have no toilets) for hours and have to use the restroom
on shifts because there’s no one to let them in the cell to use the
restroom.
Hours pass with no security checks, a clear breach of security. A few
days ago there was an audit on the unit, C/Os from other units were
called in, so they could pass the inspection. As soon as the inspectors
left, the C/Os from other units left behind them. There’s no outside
recreation, the water is getting prisoners sick, but plenty of K2 to
keep the prisoners “Dumbed down”, so there won’t be complaints.
Society needs to realize that prisoners will return to neighborhoods
out there. How can prisoners, whom are sent to prison to rehabilitate
themselves, accomplish that goal, when the good law-abiding correctional
officers, bring poison, to make them worse? These same prisoners will be
released, will reoffend, commit worse crimes, due to a drug problem that
got worse in prison. How many crooked C/Os have been indicted, for the
victims of suicide and drug overdoses, that have died in Coffield, due
to the drugs these C/Os bring in? This system and its C/Os are the
problem, something people in high places, refuse to admit to the
public.
For years our families got blamed for the drug flow coming into
prison. When COVID-19 arrived, visitations got shut down and the truth
was exposed, as to who really brought the dope in. Over a year,
no visitations yet the dope was delivered on time. The truth is K2 is
sprayed on just about anything, or brought in liquid forms. Meth,
heroin, cocaine and pills can easily be hidden on C/Os that bring it for
a nice hefty price. A $20 cellphone now goes for $2000 OR $2500
each.
So let’s put this together: the proposed solution is a pig team that
goes after prisoners who PURCHASE contraband from C/Os. This helps the
Warden shift the blame and cover who the real crooks are, and
everything’s blamed on the prisoners. This way the truth is not exposed
and questions never need to be answered.
For my writing about this type of corruption, I am now under fire by
the warden and administration. Enclosed are copies of complaints filed
with the Ombudsman’s office due to harassment/retaliation against me.
The Ombudsman’s office claims to be an independent entity, that
investigates family complaints against TDCJ officials - (NOT TRUE). In
reality, they work hand-in-hand with TDCJ officials.
“Due to a lack of evidence, your allegations could not be
substantiated.” (Lack of evidence? There are cameras all over the unit,
that record video) If Ms. Melodee Blalock would have performed a proper
investigation of the date and time the incidents occurred, she could
have retrieved video that would have placed C/O Brewer at my
cubicle/cell destroying my property. She just wouldn’t go against the
Good Ol’ boy system.
Violations of misconduct by staff, when confirmed (Notice the words
“When confirmed”) are addressed in accordance with established
administrative procedures. Such decisions are considered confidential
(Notice the word ‘Confidential’) and not released to the general public.
TDCJ and Ombudsman both work as the outside cops. When a C/O has
violated policy or harassed a prisoner, a wall of silence instantly goes
up and things are quietly swept under the rug.
The reply my sister received means: Even if C/O Brewer is guilty, it
will be covered up by the good ol’ boy system that’s designed to never
admit wrong. I was housed at the dorm area from 2017 till 2021 with no
altercations of this sort. After I wrote the first article, full
retaliation was enforced. When it got really bad, my sister filed the
complaint. 46 days after filing, the same C/O Brewer, who the complaint
was filed against, showed up at my cubicle with his supervisor SGT Hom,
to place me in handcuffs.
I was escorted to a segregation cage, which had no restroom or
running water. I was stripped searched and left in those conditions,
under extreme heat without relief (water, fan, restroom break), on a hot
July day. I was there from 9 am till 4:30 pm. I was denied water and was
forced to urinate in bottles that an SSI had to sneak to me.
Just one example of the injustice prisoners have to endure at the
hands of the oppressors. Which politician, with a nice desk, watches
over the oppressors, who enjoy violating prisoners rights and get off on
abusing their power? I will continue to expose a corrupt system that’s
in real need of prison reform. And to accomplish that goal, the prison
reform needs to start with its own C/Os.
I see parole March of 2022, after 2 three year set-offs. If something
happens to me, comrades the answer as to why, is in your hands. Thanks
to each of you. May God walk with each of you.
There is zero question that Kansas is using prisoners for cheap labor
and profiting tremendously from multi-year sentencing of first-time drug
offenders like myself.
I “earn” sixty cents per day to perform a skilled labor sewing
position full time. If I refuse to work I will receive a disciplinary
work report resulting in my custody security level to rise.
There is a 30-person crew that works at the Kansas State Fairgrounds
year round. These prisoners also receive 60 cents per day. The
fairground complex could not operate without prison labor.
These jobs are not maintaining KDOC prisons. They are part of the
state prison economy, for the profit of the state.
Also, this prison takes 50% of the earnings of all private industry
job income prisoners earn. At the private industry jobs, prisoners make
minimum wage ($7.25/hour). Incarcerating probation-eligible offenders to
minimum-custody facilities to work is proof that in Kansas, exploiting
prison labor is a motivating force for mass incarceration.
In almost every other state I would not have been sentenced to prison
for possession of medical cannabis.
I understand the point of the article was to look at medium and
long-term goals. As a non-violent, non-victim, first time drug offender
I believe cannabis decriminalization is a goal worth pursuing. Thousands
of people in Kansas have been incarcerated by a corrupt, prison labor
motivated criminal justice system.
Is the author agreeing that non-violent, non-victim, first-time
cannabis offenders should be working for 60 cents a day to assist the
state economy and provide cheap labor for giant factory farms in Kansas?
When I see corrupt judges play in to this state economy, there are no
myths in my first-hand facts. If I am misinterpreting Wiawimawo’s
writing, please clarify what the author intended.
Wiawimawo of MIM(Prisons) responds: First, thanks
for the details on how prison labor works where you are in Kansas. We
regularly publish such reports on our website and use them to keep tabs
on the realities of prison labor over time. You are our on the ground
reporters for everything going on in U.$. koncentration kamps.
One thing you don’t specify is who you are making clothing for at
your job. That is an important factor. Usually people are working on
clothing and sheets and now face masks for other prisoners to use. That
would be work for the prison system, not for profit. Similarly, running
the fairgrounds is for the state. These are parallel to the examples of
fire fighters given in my original article.
None of these jobs are making profits for anyone, which you seem to
have confused. Multiple times you refer to Kansas as profiting from
prisoners. States do not make profits. They have revenue and expenses,
and they can run over budget if they want with expenses being greater
than revenue by issuing bonds. Now the bourgeois definition of profit is
netting more money coming in then you put out in expenditures. But even
bourgeois economists do not use this terminology in regards to states.
As Marxists, we define exploitation as paying workers less than the
value that they produce and then selling the product (or service) to
realize the full value. This is the source of wealth accumulation in
capitalism.
Now to the prisoner sewing clothes for 60 cents a day, it matters
little whether those clothes are to be used for state-issued use or sold
in a store. So i can understand where you’re coming from. But if we want
to explain how the prison system works in this country this becomes an
important distinction. It is not profits for big businesses to
accumulate capital that drives the system. It is a combination of
financial self-interest of the people who work in these institutions,
people who some would have us see as the oppressed proletariat
themselves, and the broader interests of the oppressor nation to control
the oppressed nations in this country. Through this control of the
oppressed nations by Amerikans through criminalization and imprisonment,
they can further gentrify the places oppressed nations reside and create
further economic control for themselves. This is the heart of our
analysis. And it is why we have a very different orientation than the
petty bourgeoisie who is opposed to private prisons for profit and favor
drug decriminalization as discussed in my original article.
“Is the author agreeing that non-violent, non-victim, first-time
cannabis offenders should be working for 60 cents a day to assist the
state economy and provide cheap labor for giant factory farms in
Kansas?”
No, i do not argue that. We argue for more change, not
less. We are not reformists, and we don’t think drug
decriminalization in the United $tates will eliminate national
oppression nor drug addiction. If done well, it could reduce these
problems, and the specific expression of drug problems such as marijuana
consumption. Therefore the reform is progressive, but it does not solve
the problem of national oppression and the criminal drug economy. We
have much better solutions for national oppression and drug addiction,
and they certainly don’t include imprisoning people for victimless
behavior. They do include eliminating profit motives in all aspects of
our lives. In the meantime, we support an international minimum wage
that would apply to prisoners.
A California Prisoner: The Covid
and imperialism article in ULK 72 sparked my interest
because I am already vaccinated and I had to ask myself why I, a
prisoner, was vaccinated before tax payers? The answer was pretty simple
logic. Prison is huge profit for California and the cash cow has been
closed for Covid crisis, the sooner California can reopen the prisons,
they can continue to rake in the profits they make from our
suffering.
Wiawimawo responds: There was a significant effort
in California by lawyers and activists to get prisoners to the top of
the vaccination list. And this is at least part of the explanation as to
why you got vaccinated early. It made sense from a public health
standpoint, but this did not happen across the country because many
Amerikans don’t care about prisoners’ lives.
It is not clear why you argue that profits dried up in prisons during
the shelter-in-place, so i would need more information on that to
respond. But as i explain above, states don’t profit from prisons.
Prisons are a huge financial expense and do not create any economic
value. Prison labor is one way to slightly reduce some of the expenses
in running these prisons.(1)
All that said, i want to address this comrade’s talk about the “tax
payers.” The vaccination campaign across the United $tates is being paid
by the Federal government. The government has now passed a series of
bills in the trillions of dollars to address the fallout from the
pandemic. This is not “tax payer money.” They are just printing money,
or creating money out of thin air to fund these programs. Since the
dollar is the global currency, they can do this with some confidence
that other countries and investors will buy up the bonds to cover the
expense. It’s all funny money that we benefit from here in the United
$tates, even those in prison benefit at times, thanks to our position as
the premier imperialist power.
This is in stark contrast to countries like India and Brazil that are
now being hit hard by the pandemic and the people are being offered
little relief. One reason is that these countries can’t just print $1
trillion worth of their currency without causing massive inflation and
damaging the conditions of the people more.
To the extent that it is “tax payers” who are helping to balance the
budget deficit in the United $tates, we must also be clear where that
money is coming from – the Third World proletariat. The above is just
one demonstration of how value can flow from the periphery to the
imperialist countries. This is reflected in the incomes of all U.$.
citizens, who must give some of those super-profits to the state to keep
the imperialist system running.
So let us not shed a tear for the poor “tax payer” in this country
because California actually made some efforts to vaccinate people in a
way that made sense in terms of promoting public health. There is no
shortage of vaccines in the United $tates. In fact, we have far more
than we need, while other countries have not even begun vaccinating
their populations yet. If we were really working in the interests of
public health, we would have a more equitable distribution of vaccines
across the globe. We’d be prioritizing hotspots, which the United $tates
is. And we’d be sharing the technology needed to make vaccines freely,
releasing the intellectual property that is holding back progress in the
fight against COVID-19. Failure to do so means that the virus will
continue to evolve and likely continue to be a problem.
A New York prisoner: In response to ULK 72
(2021) article “Help
Fund MIM(Prisons), Donate Now!”, I would like to offer a suggestion
outside of charity from donations which seems to be a necessary form of
income for the production, maintenance & shipment of ULK’s.
What if MIM took some of its donations and invested them in the stock
market? I know that seems pro-capitalist, but as the old adage goes you
gotta fight “fire with fire.” Making a few short-term trades could
possibly boost revenue for expenses (solely), and make donations a
welcomed part of production but not so necessary. This would keep MIM’s
line of no foreseeable future in capitalism by not becoming long-term
investors in the stock market, but instead looking for quick returns in
order to fund revolutionary work (i.e. short selling, which is basically
betting against the U.S. market, which is still in some ways inherently
communist behavior). I am enclosing an articled dated 11 January 2021,
“Jay-Z Fund to Help Minority-owned Cannabis Businesses.” What do you
think about this venture? I don’t really believe lumpen have the luxury
of investing in non-essential production/consumption as cannabis right
now, when they don’t even have land to cultivate on. But financial
freedom is nonetheless a form of independence… so keep on keeping on
Jay-Z!
Wiawimawo responds: First, we agree with using the
oppressors’ tools against them, and have no moral qualms about the stock
market. Proletarian morality means we do what will most benefit the
liberation of the exploited and oppressed. Whether it is a wise
investment is another question. Conventional wisdom is that it is a good
long-term bet, but unpredictable in the short-term. As for shorting,
well hedge fund Melvin Capital Management lost 53% in January in its
infamous shorting of Gamestop.(2) They lost about $6 billion on that
bet. That’s what the stock market is, gambling.
Now cannabis businesses, that might be a more sound investment. As
the article points out, and as i discussed in my article on Tulsi
Gabbard mentioned above, the legalization of weed has been a bonanza for
white petty bourgeois interests trying to get small businesses up and
running before the large corporations dominate the market. New Afrikans
are under-represented in business ownership overall at just 10%, but in
the states listed that number was 3-6% for cannabis businesses.(3)
Jay-Z, and New York State are correctly recognizing this gap and trying
to do something to not let it happen in New York.
What do we think about this? More equal opportunity for the petty
bourgeoisie just reinforces imperialism. When it was illegal, oppressed
people selling weed were targeted by the state and potential allies to
the anti-imperialist movement. People running successful weed businesses
aren’t likely to be our allies, regardless of their skin color.
The weed game is in a major transition. It is still in a semi-legal
state, where the Feds could crack down on you (and they have). Getting
access to loans and bank accounts can be difficult as a result. One
group that is proving successful as early pioneers in the trade are
former law enforcement. They are less likely to be targeted by the state
than a former felon, and they have clout to deal with the pressures from
extortion rackets and the lumpen organizations they are competing with.
Therefore as revolutionaries, the weed business might be risky.
You suggest that we need to invest in stocks to free us from our
reliance on donations. On the contrary, we are trying to become more
reliant on donations so that our cadre don’t have to worry so much about
funding everything ourselves, which we do by working or investing or
whatever. Maybe some of us are investing in the stock market to fund
this work, but that is not a reliable source of income. We want to be
going strong when the market collapses again. And that is why we want to
be reliant on the financial support of the masses. Only by relying on
the people is our future secure.
As i said above, legalization of weed will not eliminate national
oppression in the forms of cop killings and disproportionate
imprisonment rates. It will make pacifying substances more readily
available to the masses. And for better or for worse it will undercut
the underground economy in favor of public tax revenue. And that is what
this is about of course, it is providing tax revenue to maintain
government funding at the local and state levels.
Until the import of weed is legalized by the feds, this shift of
production to the United $tates will be undercutting a source of profits
in the drug trade – the Third World farmer. Historically the farmers who
grow and process weed are the ones being exploited in Third World
countries. As production shifts to the First World, wages will have to
increase to exploiter-level wages, with the possible exception of using
migrant labor from the Third World. This means the profits must come
from other sectors in the Third World instead, to pay the farmers,
marketers, sales people and accountants in the First World running the
new weed economy, as well as the state taxes. If the exploited weed
farmers are eliminated, then the profits must now be squeezed from the
banana farmers or copper miners, and all the other exploited workers of
the Third World. This puts more pressure on the already dangerously low
international rate of profit.
Finally, we agree with your point about land. Without land there is
no power. National liberation means liberating the territory of the
oppressed. Owning land as individuals is not it. Oppressed nations must
control land as independent nations, and be able to defend that land.
This is a central task of the New Democratic movement.
I’ll never speak ill of the dead. However, if by telling their
stories, we can prevent needless suffering, then those stories must be
told. There is both beauty and power within our words. If we are to
progress from erudite to enlightened, then we are obligated to speak
effectively and responsibly. Sometimes, the greatest damage is done by
not speaking up or not speaking out.
When I first saw Ms. Woods, I couldn’t help but ask my neighbor “Wow!
Who is that?” Oh sure, I’ve seen some very attractive guards down here.
But this girl seemed almost too pretty to be working at a prison. My
cellie spoke up and said “Do yourself a favor bro, leave that one alone.
She’s poison candy. Nice shiny wrapper on the outside… but completely
toxic inside.”
I take everything with a grain of salt down here. Surely, this was an
exaggeration. I thought these two were just being cynical. Time in here
has a way of making people jaded. You’re either going to get better or
bitter. Unfortunately, their warnings proved to be both timely and
accurate. From the first moment she opened her mouth, the most venomous
hatred imaginable spewed out.
For the most part, I wouldn’t have to be around her very much. I’d
managed to land a good job at our unit print shop. Four days a week, I’d
be gone for 12 hours a day. Guards here work 4 on 4 off. So that even
further reduced my chances of seeing her. I figured I could handle just
about anything for 3 days. Guess I was wrong.
My very first run-in with her happened on a Saturday. I knew to be at
my cell when they called count time. They came through and did their
thing. Then the lights turned out. I went into the restroom to finish
getting ready for visit. I heard a door pop open moments later, only to
be followed by her screaming “10 bunk!” then a string of profanities.
Talk about getting caught with your pants down. She walks by while I’m
still on the toilet, screaming, “You’re getting a case!”
My neighbor walks over and says “She took your I.D. bro! And your
house is thrashed!” Sure enough, I get back to my cubicle and it’s a
mess. Everything is on the floor. She wasn’t even doing a search. She
simply did it out of spite. By the time I get things almost back in
order, it’s about to be lunch. She’s still got my I.D. card, but now
she’s nowhere to be found. Great. Hopefully, I can track her down before
I get called in for visit.
Sure enough, lunch rolls around and I gotta tell them to punch in my
number. “Ms. Woods took my I.D.” The guard at chow hall looks up and
smiles, “Sucks to be you!” By the time I get back to the wing, they call
me for visit. I leave to find the sergeant to explain that I can’t get
into visitation without it. He tells me, “She probably went on break to
write you up. Don’t worry about the case. I got you. From now on, you’d
better steer clear of that one! Got it?”
The weeks fly by, and I’m fortunate enough to only see her in
passing. Oh sure, she’s definitely pretty to look at, but now I avoid
her like the plague. All I’m trying to do is stay out of their way.
One day my boss at print shop says “Okay, shut it down. They’re
racking up the farm.” We get out to the back gate and they make me sit
down. All these guards go running past us headed for one building.
Two guards are talking between themselves, but we can hear over the
radio chatter that there has been another assault on staff. Now these
guards start to argue, “Look, I don’t care where you put them! But they
gotta be out here so that ambulance can come in!”
By the time we get back to our own building, all hell has broken
loose. We can hear the warden’s voice on another radio screaming, “LOCK
IT DOWN!!” They got one of the halls blocked off. As we walk by to go
back in our wing, we can see all these burgundy pools of coagulated
blood. This is bad.
Soon as we walk in, they ask me, “Did you hear about Officer Woods?
DUDE … he beat the brakes off of her!” I look down at him and ask,
“Who?” his eyes get real big when he says “Smitty! I thought y’all knew.
Man … he just flipped out! Followed her right out the door into deep
space, knocked her out, and then went to WORK on her! After that they
say he just walked up to the desk and turned around so they could put
the cuffs on him.”
After three weeks of lockdown, we were finally able to go back to
work. Then I learned the rest of the story. Seems that while Smitty was
off work on his bereavement, Woods went in and tossed his cell. The
straw that broke the camel’s back was when she took his pictures off his
wall. You see … this poor man had just lost his mother, sister and baby
daughter, all in quick succession within about six weeks of each
other.
Now, of course, I wasn’t there to see it, but everybody says he got
down on his hands and knees to BEG that woman not to take those precious
photos. I’m told that even after he explained their sudden deaths, she
callously laughed in his face and said “Forget your dead family.” Only
she chose to use a different “F” word.
That beating wasn’t what killed her. It was the lifestyle. Reports
say that they saved her life multiple times, both on the way to the
hospital and in the operating room once she got there. There was
extensive reconstructive surgery. Nobody will even know the full extent
of the traumatic brain injury. It’s often those scars on the inside,
that just won’t heal.
After a few months off, she returned to work. Doctors had done an
amazing job, considering the extent of her injuries. Her entire face was
pulverized. Oh, she was still somewhat pretty. But those drop dead
gorgeous, model-quality features, were long gone. Her nose, eyes and
cheekbones weren’t the same. People couldn’t tell if they were dentures
or implants, but that smile would never be the same either.
You see … all along, she’d been manipulated and exploited by the
gangs. For almost her entire tenure, she’d been smuggling in dope and
cell phones. The perverts had simply preyed on her own insecurity. How
could somebody so stunning on the outside be completely devoid of the
true beauty that only comes from within? The only way prison officials
ever found out about her activities was when they busted somebody with
one of those phones.
The photos and videos were as numerous as they were explicit. So was
all that contact information. It was a treasure trove of evidence. She’d
also been prostituting herself. The predators had simply used her, then
discarded her like some piece of garbage. Administration walked her off
the unit in disgrace.
In the end, the prosecution’s job would be easy. She was facing a
long list of criminal charges. I suppose the stress of an impending
court trial, along with everything else, simply proved to be too much
for her. I was SOOOO HOPING that all those rumors weren’t true.
Unfortunately, she really did it. Ms. Woods died of a single gunshot
wound to the head. She put the pistol in her mouth – just to stop the
pain.
We found out about officer Woods’ suicide in 2019. A few months ago,
we found out that Ms. Davis had met a similar fate. We are still unclear
as to whether her death was a suicide or accidental overdose. The
specifics of each of these tragedies is not nearly as important as the
root causes of the problem, which remains the Texas Department of
Criminal Justice. TDCJ does not care about stopping the rampant
corruption and injustice here in Texas. Everyone from the newest
correctional officers to the top administrative officials are complicit
and therefore profits from this malfeasance!
MIM(Prisons) adds: We have seen some interesting things
in the last year or so. Some prison systems have instituted egregious
restrictions on mail claiming it was used to smuggle drugs, and all
prisons locked down completely with no visitors for months due to the
global pandemic. Yet, reports from prison after prison, from state to
state to the feds, have unanimously reported no
change in the availability of contraband during these periods.
The imperialists portray ending crime as a great mystery that can’t
be solved, a timeless problem that we can only respond to with force and
punishment. This is metaphysics, it fails to look at the past, at humyn
societies before classes and poverty, at countries who built socialism
and virtually eliminated drug abuse, prostitution, theft, hunger,
homelessness, etc. These things go hand-in-hand. Our crime-ridden
society is not eternal, it stems from our economic system and is
reinforced by the cultural ideas that come with such a system. Changing
the economic system is hard, it will take determination and sacrifice by
many. But once we do, ending so much needless suffering and conflict
between humyns is not so hard.
In the 27 years of being confined within these walls, the Texas
Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) has always blamed families,
claiming that the families are the ones who smuggle dangerous contraband
(cellphones, meth, K2, heroin) into the prisons. As of today, we’ve been
without visits over a year, due to COVID-19, yet this place is still
full of contraband.
Last month several prisoners died from suicide, overdoses, and others
hurt fellow prisoners while high on drugs. In order to cover up what’s
really going on, the unit was placed on lock down, and a team was
brought to shake down and tear up our property. While all this was going
on, the only form of communication with our families, the phones, was
turned off. We were punished because guards brought the drugs and the
prisoners used them.
TDCJ officials and higher-ups refuse to admit there’s a serious
problem within the system, and it’s not the prisoners. Prisoners can’t
go out the gate, purchase contraband, then return to prison. It’s just
not possible. How can prisoners rehabilitate themselves when there’s
more drugs in here than out there? Society should take a closer look at
the real problem and remember that a lot of prisoners will return to
communities out there worse than before, due to the drugs the guards
bring into this place.
Someone with a voice of authority and who’s willing to dedicate
themselves to bringing new change, needs to step up to this problem.
Millions of taxpayers’ dollars are being given to prisons, supposedly to
rehabilitate prisoners – it’s the biggest lie prison officials tell the
public. Only a handful of prisoners are being rehabilitated. The rest
are walking around like zombies high on meth or K2.
I humbly request that my comrades at MIM please help bring this
situation to the proper officials, maybe then change will come, that
will truly help to rehabilitate my brothers in this place, who are dying
from the poison the true criminals (guards) bring to these
prisons.
Under Lock &
Key No. 59 dealt in depth with the problem of drugs in prisons, how
widespread they were, and the very strong material interest of the
prisoners and staff involved in the drug trade to keep that going. The
above experiments of closing down visitation and mail demonstrate
scientifically that it is primarily staff bringing in the drugs. This is
not unique to Texas.
This evidence is damning. And we stand with all comrades locked up
who oppose the scourge of drugs being brought into prisons by the
state’s very own staff. The censorship and harassment of family members
and prisoners themselves also must stop. For our whole lifetimes, drugs
have been brought into our communities by the state and then used as an
excuse to oppress, harass and control. The drugs themselves serving to
control and subdue the people.
We are expanding the work of our Serve the People Re-Lease on Life
program with a new revolutionary 12 Step Program to help those with all
kinds of addictions to re-create themselves as new, revolutionary
humyns. We must build a culture of true rehabilitation that the state is
not providing, as this comrade points out. Only programs of the people,
can really serve the peoples’ interests.
Meanwhile, we want to work with prisoners and their families to
pressure the state to recognize these facts that are being exposed
thanks to the pandemic. If we can get them to reduce the amount of drugs
their staff sneak into prisons, we can reduce the harm they are having
on our people behind bars.
[Abolitionists From Within (AFW) submitted a series of essays leading
up to Black August and hosted their annual poker tournament that is part
of their effort to build the United Front for Peace in Prisons(UFPP).
Below are some of the thoughts they sent us, followed by their report on
September 9.]
Wake up comrades. Evelyn Williams reminds us that all African
American prisoners are political prisoners, whether or not they label
themselves as such. Because of the circumstances that got them into
prison as well as the harshness of sentencing applied to them. Political
prisoners who became politicized inside prison walls and who oriented
their lives around the struggle for social justice and national
liberation include Malcolm X, George Jackson and the Attica warriors.
Many other comrades of yesterday and today’s struggle would be and are
encompassed in the term as political prisoners.
So to all comrades behind enemy lines, we are at war and have been
and we must understand the enemy tactics. Prisons have become the battle
ground in a war of attrition designed to reduce prisoners to a state of
submission, psychological incompetence sufficient to neutralize us as
self-directing antagonists by making us desperate enough to destroy
ourselves for material gains.
So let us not be fooled any longer through our own self-destructive
behaviors. You are the target Black man. Tactics of counterinsurgency
and low-intensity warfare against us. Assassinated, tortured, frame-ups,
imprisonment, control and alter the behavior of people resisting
oppression. And as you know, prison officials will use drugs as a method
of control. …
Damn comrades, ya’ll giving up. These conditions we living in is
temporary. Don’t make it permanent. I see your violent outbursts,
passing out, seizures, suicide attempts and serious mental breakdowns.
Comrade, them symptoms of that synthetic shit. Homies lose touch with
reality and lash out at the one’s who really trying to help them.
One of the comrades pass out standing up. This shit is real bro, that
shit hurt me deep. Because you can tell a lot about a person from the
company he keep. Comrade, you can’t say you with the business and your
actions don’t match. These young warriors not going to respect those
acts on the yard.
I hear the C.O.s making jokes like this shit is a game. Perpetuating
the fight that the prison administration encourages. However, this Black
August and Bloody September we going to continue to organize and apply
the UFPP five principles. So AFW will be putting on a poker tournament
here with all “ethnic” groups with one goal: Peace and awareness of the
prison struggles on these yards and who is the real enemy.
Da struggle continue.
9 September 2020: Black August passed, still
pushing. AFW is still building to continue the good fight on September 9
Day of Peace and Solidarity with all our freedom fighters and conscious
comrades and to commemorate the all the faceless comrades and to never
forget about the Attica uprising and our beloved brother GJ.
I been working out with our comrades, reading, sharing books, etc.
Just building doing this COVID-19 the best we can in solidarity with all
comrades here struggling behind enemy lines. Today, September 9th, I
fast and hit the night yard work out again and count my blessings.
I stress with our comrades to understand who the real enemy is and to
learn the enemy tactics of oppression that keep us oppressed. We have to
continue to push, pull and stride for unity, and the comaraderie among
the brothers and all ethnic groups and continue to put an end to all
hostilities among our brothers with peace on our tongue this September
9th day.