Under Lock & Key

A comrade attending rallies supporting Palestinian resistance to the I$raeli war distributed ULKs this winter and talked to attendees. Here are a couple of the interviews ey sent to ULK.

1.What brought you to this event?

Well, seeing as I am Black and a Christian, I find it important to come out and demonstrate solidarity with the people of Palestine as I believe our struggles are connected. Many people tend to see what is going on in Palestine as a sort of religious conflict, portraying it simplistically as a conflict between Jews and Muslims. Many Christians in this country support Israel because the Church tells them to, when in reality Christians are just as persecuted as Muslims in Palestine. I mean, they just bombed the Church of Saint Porphyrius – one of the oldest churches in the world – last night.

2. Do you see any parallels, either current or historical, between i$rael and the united $tates? if so, can you elaborate?

Yes, I see many parallels actually. The biggest one being that they are both settler-colonial projects. It is important to remember that in both cases, the land was not empty when the settlers arrived. Israel has been waging a war against the Palestinian people in order to clear and settle the land. When the Europeans came to America, the first thing they did was wage war against the Indigenous population to do the same thing. They are both guilty of ethnic cleansing. Think about the Nakba. Think about The Trail of Tears. In Ohio, they said the land was “too good for Indians” – similar justifications were made for the initial Nakba.

I would also say that Israel is almost as racist as the United States. They have different laws for different people. That’s apartheid. Zionists call us anti-semetic, yet they treat non-White Jews like second-class citizens. Look at how they treat Ethiopian and South-East Asian Jews within their borders. You know they sterilized them in the 1970s and 1980s. Zionism isn’t about Judaism, it’s about white supremacy. So I think there are very real parallels to draw between Israel and the United States as they both are rooted in war, ethnic cleansing, and white supremacy.

3. We promote the right to self-determination of all oppressed nations from oppressor nations and imperialism more generally. What do you think about the idea of the oppressed nations (i.e. Chican@/Latin@, First Nations, New Afrikans, and other Third World Peoples) within the so-called United $tates breaking from the United $tates in order to realize self-determination?

I’m not entirely sure if I think it is possible, but I support it. That said, I am very skeptical. The only feasible way I think that could happen is if the American Government allows it to happen by carrying it out themselves, but I really don’t see that happening anytime soon.

4. Finally, what do you think is the best way we could demonstrate our support and solidarity to the Palestinian people?

I think we could demonstrate our support and solidarity by boycotting Israeli products and participating in the BDS movement as a whole. By continuing to protest. By not allowing Israel to participate in soccer. And by not allowing Israeli academics to sanitize what has happened in the past 70 years. It is important that we utilize our legal means and push politicians to support an end to the genocide.

Second Interview

1.What brought you to this event?

I’m here to show support against the repression of Arabs in Palestine, to demonstrate mass support, and to lift the spirits of others who find these war crimes unacceptable.

2. Do you see any parallels, either current or historical, between i$rael and the united $tates? if so, can you elaborate?

Yeah, I see parallels in that they’re settlers, racists, and repress native populations. But I also see parallels between First Nations and the Palestinian people – especially in their emancipatory spirit.

**3. We promote the right to self-determination of all oppressed nations from oppressor nations and imperialism more generally. What do you think about the idea of the oppressed nations (i.e. Chican@/Latin@, First Nations, New Afrikans, and other Third World Peoples) within the so-called United $tates breaking from the United $tates in order to realize self-determination?

Yeah, of course! The first priority is emancipation of those groups, even if that means through violence.

4. Finally, what do you think is the best way we could demonstrate our support and solidarity to the Palestinian people?

I think we can demonstrate our support by continuing to go to these demonstrations and by showing our support for fringe groups such as Hamas, PFLP, etc…the militant fighters.

NOTE: PFLP is the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, an organization that arose during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in China, and was one of the Palestinian organizations greatly influenced by the Maoism of the time. In those early years they gained notoriety for hijacking airplanes and remain on the U.$. terrorist list to this day. They took a pan-Arab approach to the revolution, and co-ordinated with many organizations outside the Arab world, including providing training to communists from Azania (aka South Africa). This connection is relevant to why South Africa today has brought charges of genocide against I$rael to the International Criminal Court, as well as the fact that Palestinians today are facing the same apartheid conditions that Africans in South Africa once faced. PFLP took part in Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on October 7th along with Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine. The latter is also a Maoist-inspired group that came out of PFLP.

The No. 80, Winter 2023 edition of Under Lock & Key hosted an article titled “Sacrifice Behind Bars”, wherein a comrade expressed very heavy sentiments that I intend to magnify and address from a revolutionary perspective. The details of his mention were strikingly consistent with the circumstances and characters of the North Carolina prison system enabling an apparent conclusion that our obstacles as lumpen are, indeed, collective. To that extent I consider it necessary to re-evaluate our responsibilities as revolutionaries from within; as they are comparable to our revolutionary history as Marxist-Leninist-Maoists.

The central theme of the comrade’s message can be boiled down to one question he posed: “what are you willing to sacrifice?” The comrade illustrated his legacy of sacrifice to which he is honored and should know he’s not alone in that identical regard. However, for the new-coming comrade who may not understand his conviction yet and is attracted to his energy and posture; for the seasoned comrade who may be becoming burned out; for the growing comrade who may be struggling with understanding this political line; and for the critic, we must unify on the collective understanding of why sacrifice is necessary and how to measure the particular type of sacrifice to be offered for our revolutionary objective.

The author of that article asks the question of sacrifice to comrades on the streets and comrades within alike. Demonstrating his willingness to actualize guerrilla tactics amidst similarly situated individuals who have been compromised in exchange for goods supplied by the opposition makes it apparent that a revolutionary united front is diminished in that environment, to say the least. Essential to being compromised is the viewing that an individual – or a class – is not only without, but is desperate, moralless and to whatever degree, gullible. With respect to comrade’s mention of such individuals, we should not haste into judgment nor spring into belligerence without careful and scientific observation of our own perspective. It is not sound to conclude that it is an immaculate practice of social science for the opposition to infiltrate a mind that has never operated outside of its conditioning by that opposition. “Boy they got you good” etc. is not technically true if that person is underdeveloped morally, politically, and intellectually. Even if that person is from where you are from and have been through similar experiences. If you are a conscious revolutionary – conscious in the sense that you are aware of and intuit the frame of thinking employed by Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin and Mao Zedong – then you are unique: especially coming from capitalist-imperialist Amerikkka. That’s nothing to pride yourself on in arrogance nor egoism, its to empower your desire to fulfill your responsibilities to those unconscious. Therefore, to be ‘revolutionary’ in its most rudimentary expression is to redirect the impulses to be inhuman as you usher in humanism.

If one is morally sound, intellectually competent, and has a desire for general welfare of others, then from those perspectives that one is enriched, if he/she/they have not sequestered the abstract and subtle impetus of the capitalist-imperialist nature of his/her/their cultural (and political-economic) domicile then even with the above virtues, in those contexts, what will be is a repeat of what Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels called in The Communist Manifesto ‘reactionary socialism’; the remnants of feudal socialism. This is to the extent and in the regard of issuing counter-narratives in sole order to arouse sympathy in those who aren’t as ‘enriched’ as you to behave in a way that secures your sense of comfort. The motivations are not comparable in that example and the circumstances are as night and day by juxtapose. However, by principle and mentality its enough to say that one could be more creative from a revolutionary vantage point.

Sacrifice of any sort is rooted in the intention for a net-positive future occurrence. Therefore, the theoretical objectification of that sacrificial act bears no weight on the immediate circumstances one experiences. To add on to the comrade’s thoughts, what you are willing to sacrifice depends on your measure of awareness of what is to come of it. The knowledge of the accuracy of what is to come is based on your ability to identify with the material circumstances – emphasis on the conditions that define them – of that situation as it relates to your theory, essentially, of the world. From a revolutionary perspective ‘the world’ includes others, so when we speak of practice, i.e., sacrifice, it is necessarily unbalanced without theory.

If the masses, even in the prison setting, are viewed to be slumbering it is not for the revolutionary to wake them with a cacophony of political rhetoric, especially if their slumber is characterized by the fanaticals of capitalist production. So, we do place a high emphasis on practice. It is that practice must be guided by theory. Lenin stated:

“Without revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary movement.” (V.I. Lenin, What is to be done?)

In his Selected Works Mao Zedong stated:

“Theoretical knowledge is acquired through practice and must then return to practice.” (Mao, On Practice: The Relation Between Knowledge and Practice, 1937)

Mao did not differ with Lenin in this regard, he magnified the principle of Lenin’s point. In real time this means to structure revolutionary practice in a manner that conveys the core principles at work in an action bound language that is interpretable to and for the observer all while being disciplined enough not to exaggerate your behavior as to make the demonstration unrealistic. The standard by which one can scale his/her/their proposed action is in one’s ability to become one with the reality of the situation; being cautious of personal biases and having rational and isolated conclusions about each component of the embodying manifest circumstance. The sum of this process is the base from which to determine what means of action to deploy. To that extent, we in prison have to be realistic without compromising our theory (i.e. political line), some of us have immense anger issues and if that is true for the proposed actor in a revolutionary demonstration then if the action to be had does require a use of force we must consider if that one is sufficient or not for the action. Use of force does not always mean complete annihilation or insurrection. Whatever is decided upon, the objective is to be clear and decisive. The actualizer must be disciplined enough to actualize the task without going too far and thereby jeopardizing the precision of the demonstration. Lenin and Mao actually had a revolution, so this frame of thinking is sound, its relevance here and now depends on our willingness to truly get with the program, i.e., Marxism-Leninism-Maoism.

The answer to the comrade’s question to the world of sacrifice, should be proportional to the details of your circumstance and the individuals and lives it would effect; from a revolutionary perspective. Only a matter of intelligence compels the conclusion that revolution is sustained by an environment prepared for it. The blaze does not come before strenuous economic, political, financial, social, cultural, and theoretical preparation. Let us take the time we DO have and align ourselves with the correct theoretical knowledge.

North Carolina IS in the building. We have recently birthed a movement – S.W.A.P. (Serving With A Purpose) – which I am proud and honored to be a founding member of. S.W.A.P. is a N.C. prisoner-led organizational base empowered by the literary guidance of MLM and in unity with the United Front for Peace in Prisons; a United Struggle from Within initiative. Our halls of learning are open for all sisters, brothers, and non-binary comrades to partake in our programs and we are dedicated to organizing with comrades abroad on the basis of theory and practice – being MLM distinguished. We currently do provide a bi-monthly newsletter called Voice of the Lumpen, by which comrades may submit articles to be published, we host a penpal mentorship program with at risk youth both in facilities and those on the streets, we provide a jailhouse lawyer legal program called “Blue Skies Legal Initiative” where comrades can learn how to utilize legal provisions in a manner that furthers our political line, and are developing more programs as time progresses.

Organize, strategize, execute!

Death to capitalist imperialism!

SWAP 1625 S. Alston Ave. Durham, NC 27707

“Do the difficult things while they are easy and do the great things while they are small. A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.” -Lao Tzu

The practice of criticism and self-criticism is an essential component of a revolutionary organization. It is more intensely so inside a party based upon democratic centralism and the application of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. Indeed, the very life of the party depends upon it. Life is a struggle and the ideological-political life of the party depends upon active, integral, ideological-political struggle. It won’t do to let things slide for the sake of friendship or to “keep the peace”. This is how little differences grow into big ones and disagreements turn into splits.

As Mao cautioned:

“I hope that you will practice Marxism and not revisionism; that you will unite and not split; that you will be sincere and open and not resort to plotting and conspiracy. The correctness or otherwise of the ideological and political line decides everything. When the Party’s line is correct, then everything will come its way. If it has no followers, then it can have followers; if it has no guns, then it can have guns; if it has no political power, then it can have political power. If its line is not correct, even what it has it may lose. The line is a net rope. When it is pulled, the whole net opens out.” -Talks With Responsible Comrades At Various Places During Provincial Tour, 1971

We must bear in mind that there are:

“Two types of social contradictions - those between ourselves and the enemy and those among the people themselves [that] confront us. The two are totally different in their nature.” (On The Correct Handling of Contradictions Among The People, February 27, 1957)

It won’t do to confuse one for the other.

“To criticize the people’s short-comings is necessary . . . but in doing so we must truly take the stand of the people and speak out of whole-hearted eagerness to protect and educate them. To treat komrades like enemies is to go over to the stand of the enemy.” (Talks at the Yenan Forum on Literature and Art, May 1942)

Criticism and self-criticism can be “toxic” if it is not done properly. Our aim must be constructive and not to shame any komrades or ourselves. Some people chronically “beat themselves up” over their shortcomings, thinking that will correct their unwanted behavior. often times, they grew up in an abusive parenting situation and thus think this is normal, but it is not. This type of self-criticism only undermines self-esteem. Criticism can be a form of bullying, of mental and psychological abuse. What we want to nurture is constructive criticism that is an expression of Panther Love and true komradeship. We all have issues of bourgeois ideology and it could not be otherwise. We grew up in the sewer of capitalist-imperialism, how could we not need scrubbing?

We not only grew up in it but we still live in it. How could we be sparkling clean? We need to help each other to scrub the parts we cannot reach, to see the filth we cannot see. Sometimes it is hard to see where we are in error or we’ve become “nose blind” to our own smell. Our egos can get in the way. If we have an exaggerated estimation of ourselves, where is the incentive to grow and to become better revolutionaries? Likewise, if we underestimate ourselves, we may need positive feedback from our komrades to build our self-confidence and appreciate our worth to the struggle.

Every komrade should be part of a revolutionary collective, a basic unit of the party. This is imperative to have the benefits of collective wisdom. Our collective is our family, our closest komrades. You don’t want your closest komrades to “look up to you” but to see you as an equal. You want them to understand your strengths and weaknesses and to be there to check you when you need checking, and give you a push when you need pushing, and to catch you when you fall. Every komrade is a work in progress and we must be constantly building each other up and struggling to make each other the best we can be.

We are not “carbon copies” of one another, our struggles are complimentary. Collectively we are stronger than our individual strength. Teamwork makes us each more powerful and competent. It minimizes our individual shortcomings and makes us wiser and more capable. A team of horses or oxen can pull more weight for longer than each can individually. The party is stronger than many times its number of individuals acting on their own judgment and initiative. The base of this strength is the basic unit of the Party and its democratic centralism. At each level there are committees up to the central committees and at each level we must practice criticism and self-criticism and work together to achieve collective wisdom and cheeks and balances.

MIM(Prisons) adds: While we do not have a party at this time, these same principles should still be applied at the local cell level. This is why we have said a cell should have at least 3 members to function in a healthy way.

The Stop Cop City struggle is ongoing.

We explored some of the developments of the Cop City struggle in our article The Struggle Against Cop City in Atlanta in ULK 81. Cop City, or the “Atlanta Public Safety Training Center” as the state calls it, has recently begun construction in Weelaunee Forest in Southwest Atlanta. This effort is funded primarily by the City of Atlanta and is to be owned and operated by the Atlanta Police Foundation. This is a pig training center with a supposed construction cost of $90 million, which will include a fake cityscape for police to learn tactics for suppressing urban resistance. This pig training center is part of a larger assault by the Amerikan state on New Afrikan communities and neighborhoods, along with the rise in gentrification, mass surveillance, police brutality and imprisonment rates. Some readers may remember the establishment of the community-run Rayshard Brooks Peace Center in 2020 and the subsequent state repression. No one can doubt that New Afrikan oppression is intensifying as the police and prison apparatus of the state continues to wreck havoc for the interests of the Euro-Amerikan nation.

In response to these developments, many diverse groups have organized against Cop City. For a while construction in Cop City was stalled because of forest defender activists occupying the intended site of deforestation, resisting raids by police to move them off the site. In this struggle an indigenous anarchist who went by the name Tortuguita was viciously murdered by police agents in a final raid of the forest.

Ongoing Developments in the Struggle

As the Stop Cop City movement continues, dozens of forest defenders and other protesters have been arrested on various felonies, from “domestic terrorism” to “intimidation of an officer.” For example, on 5 March 2023, Atlanta police arrested 23 protesters on “domestic terrorism” charges due to alleged property damage and trespassing, and that number has since risen to more than 40 over the last few months.(1, 2) These felonies are at least 20-year sentences in Georgia.

The state’s repeated arrests were an obvious cause for concern. A non-profit, the Atlanta Solidarity Fund, organized funding to bail out these protesters who were the target of state repression. On 31 May 2023, the 3 organizers of that fund have also been arrested, charged with “money laundering” and “charity fraud.”(3) This is yet another example of the state suppressing even the most legal forms of resistance.

While the DeKalb district attorney has declined to prosecute the arrests related to Cop City due to the unpopularity of Cop City, the Georgia attorney general has taken the cases and will still prosecute them.(4)

A “Stop Cop City” referendum petition has been filed (and approved on 21 June 2023) that will put Cop City on the Atlanta ballot if 75,000 signatures are produced in less than 60 days after the approval.(5) Many of the groups against Cop City have focused on this effort, which may have the unfortunate effect of completely legalizing the struggle (which is not a strategy for long-term political development).

Bigger than Cop City

As Maoists we always seek to develop a dialectical materialist perspective that correctly denotes the relations of nation, class, and gender at play. Cop City is no exception. One of the most critical weaknesses of the Stop Cop City movement is that an advanced politics (one that is revolutionary nationalist and aimed at the long-term struggle) is not yet a leading line. If this problem is not properly resolved, the movement will give way to movementism and the Stop Cop City struggle will fizzle out like the 2020 BLM struggle, becoming co-opted into liberal electioneering politics.

We must also look at the global nature of Cop City. The Atlanta Police Foundation is funded by Amerikan finance kapital, from the likes of Wells Fargo, JP Morgan, Amazon, Delta Airlines, and Waffle House.(6) Prisons and policing are not a struggle unique to the United $tates. The development of these bourgeois state organs are being rapidly replicated around the world. Cop City can and will be a test run for building pig facilities among the Third World nations as capitalism-imperialism decays. The struggle against Cop City will thus also play a part in the larger anti-imperialist struggle, and this is why developing a revolutionary nationalist line on Cop City is a must in this struggle.

Towards a preliminary analysis, we can say that Cop City is an intensification of New Afrikan oppression in Atlanta. The Euro-Amerikan nation – both Euro-Amerikan kapital and Euro-Amerikan communities – is united towards the policy of increased policing, gentrification, and imprisonment of New Afrikan and other oppressed nation communities. The Stop Cop City movement requires a united front, one that includes all those groups opposed to these methods of oppression, whether these groups be New Afrikan, Indigenous, Chicano, Euro-Amerikan, etc, but maintains some form of dialectical-materialist, revolutionary nationalist leadership in order to expand scientifically.

We have readers often tell us they want to start non-profits, but the Cop City arrests show that there are limitations to this type of organization: the state can and does retaliate against non-profits who pose a threat to the Amerikan state’s interest. The Atlanta Solidarity Fund is one example, where the Amerikan state has no problem arresting protesters or even legal organizers under charges of money laundering if they pose enough of a threat to its expansionary interests.

Cop City reminds us of the need for independent institutions of the oppressed which are flexible and secure, and involve the masses at every step of operation. Campaigns like “Stop Cop City,” or “Abolish Control Units,” attack the war apparatus that is aimed at the population within U.$. borders, especially the internal semi-colonies. As the above recent events demonstrate, we must build organizations that are prepared for the repressive response of the state.

<sup>NOTES:
1. Sarah Taitz and Shaiba Rather, 24 March 2023, “How Officials in Georgia are Suppressing Political Protest as ‘Domestic Terrorism’”, ACLU News and Commentary.
2. Natasha Lennard and Akela Lacy, 2 May 2023, “Activists Face Felonies for Distributing Flyers on ‘Cop City’ Protester Killing”, The Intercept.
3. Jeff Amy and Kate Brumback, 31 May 2023, “3 activists arrested after their fund bailed out protestors of Atlanta’s ‘Cop City’”, ABC News.
4. Pamela Kirkland, 23 June 2023, “DeKalb County district attorney withdraws from prosecution related to proposed ‘Cop City’ training center near Atlanta”, CNN.
5. Joi Dukes, 24 June 2023, “‘Stop Cop City’ organizers in race against time for petition signatures”, FOX 5 Atlanta.
6. Margaret Kimberley, 25 Jan 2023, “Cop City Kills Before It Opens”, Black Agenda Report.</sup>

On Sunday, 28 May 2023, Santa Clara County Main Jail went on full facility lockdown shortly after pill call when evening program (out of cell time) began.

This is not all that unusual by itself, as Main Jail goes on lockdown on average 10 times a month, often more, as it is facility policy to lockdown the entire complex for ANY disturbance, almost as if they fear a replay of the Attica uprising in September 1971 or the Lucasville uprising at Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in April 1993 (which I could see being a distinct possibility).

Yet what was different about this lockdown was the guard taking off at a sprint out of our unit after screaming “lockdown!”, before making sure we all were in our cells locked down (which is against operations protocol). We could see out our unit door to the 7th floor control booth where the guards rushed by into the elevator to get to wherever the incident occurred (our Main Jail is a tower complex).

After getting back to my cell, the guards who came by to do their hourly checks were extremely close-lipped and stone-faced which they usually aren’t after their usual “reindeer games” of hosing down with O.C. spray and prying apart lumpen-on-lumpen conflicts (they’re usually giddy after getting their adrenaline fix).

The next day we knew something “big” (at least in the pig administration’s eyes) had occurred when all GTL tablets were confiscated from prisoners without a word as to why or when they would return.

Persynally, this was only a minor inconvienance, as the only thing I really use my tablet for is to use the phone app in the privacy and quiet of my cell, as the “edutainment” platform “Edovo” on them is full of bullshit and bourgeois drivel aside from several collected works of Marx and Engels though even those are contained within a course with video lectures from the bourgeois perspective of a Yale professor.

It wasn’t until after reading an article in Wednesday, 31 May 2023’s San Jose Mercury News(1) and hearing whispers gleaned from the looser lipped pigs that the full picture started to come together.

A prisoner in one of the protective custody units on the 6th floor had taken his tablet, busted it down, and out of the smashed wreckage was able to make a “crudely made knife” as the article called it, and with said knife assault two pigs with it.

Of course the bourgeois media reported the usual drivel from the sheriff’s office, that it was a “shocking and unprovoked attack”. Knowing the hystory of Main Jail in recent years, from the 3 pigs who beat mentally ill prisoner Michael Tyree to death in his cell, to the recent report of the mistreatment of another mentally ill prisoner Juan Martin Nunez at the hands of pigs and medical staff in the psychiatric unit on the 8th floor of the jail which in the aftermath left the prisoner paralyzed, this seems highly unlikely.(2) Oh and don’t forget their usual closing line, “Our correction deputies (sic) play a critical role in maintaining law and order within the correctional facilities and this attack serves as a stark reminder of the risks our deputies (sic) face daily.” The lumpen can see these for the fearmongering lies they are.

In the aftermath many crafted grievances to attempt to get eir tablets back, which I decided finally against as the assaulting of 2 pig guards along with the problems comrades across the California gulag archipelago (as well as across occupied Turtle Island) are having with their facilities’ worthless grievance systems made a win highly unlikely.

Instead, I spent the time trying (actually with some success!) to get my collection of revolutionary literature (by comrades George, Mumia, Maroon, etc and all my MIM literature) out to the masses of New Afrikan, Chican@, white, and Asian/Pacific Islander comrades who suddenly had nothing to occupy their in cell time. Many finished books/zines from my collection, some only read an article or two from ULK, but it was all-in-all a positive outcome.

On 21 June 2023, the tablets were returned, with the pigs now lording over them and having to fill out a checklist every morning and night to make sure all tablets given out are returned to the charger carts at night. Yes, it took them almost a month to come to this “brilliant” idea.

While many have gone back to eir program of zoning out on their tablets all day, I am happy that at least a few have had eir interests piqued and luckily just before another organizing opportunity, Black August.

^{Notes:
1) Austin Turner, 31 May 2023, “Sheriff says inmate attacked 2 deputies”, San Jose Mercury News.
2) Robert Salonga, 12 May 2023, “Jail report angers county leaders”, San Jose Mercury News.}

I appreciate all the comrades who assisted us with our struggle for change here at Eastern Correctional Institution (E.C.I.) We have begun to gain traction. Delegate Charles Otto has responded with a response from Maryland Department of Public Safety. Once I make copies I will send them to you all so that you can see the crap they’re saying. None the less the prison is beginning to change. Our visiting time has increased and so has our outside rec. They are even talking about allowing us to take pictures. We are not stupid though we understand that this is all to pacify us. But there has been something major that we have recognized. The system has now exposed their hand and now they are open for the guerrillas to attack – in one of the buildings here they are renovating due to the pressure from the people and as such they have to move people out of the building. So they must find space for these men. They are scrambling for spaces to put them. Now understanding this I have come up with an idea which is now under way. The plan goes as follows:

Mission #1 Fire Starter

Primary Objective: Exposure. We must expose the prison’s conditions to the outside world. We must present these conditions to our local politicians. We must network through our channels and use our families and friends to agitate those in position.

Weapon of Choice: Media

Mission #2 Fire Spreader

Primary Objective: Spread what you have done in your prison to the other prisons in your state. This must be done simultaneously.

Weapon of Choice: Letters, Phones, Social Media

After these missions are complete it will unleash a fire storm that will burn these prison systems from the inside out. Once comrades are released they are then to assist the cells from the outside.

It must be understood that every prison in Amerikkka has its issues and for them to be exposed in the manner we are seeking will force the people in position to react. They will then have to renovate these prisons and to do so they will have to decarcerate, releasing our brothers and sisters on to the streets because they will have no where to put them once they are forced to clean up the prisons. This is the beginning of a prison abolition movement I believe that will deliver a major blow to the system. The comrades here at E.C.I. have completed Mission #1 Fire Starter and we are now underway with Mission #2. It must be understood that it may not work every where but I do encourage all to try it.

It is time for the dragon to be released. Long live George Jackson.

Life is about growth and change. A constant change is needed, or even the small pleasures that we enjoy begin to lose their excitement. Even though I don’t agree with a lot of changes, well the ones that aren’t progressive or geared to help us go forward, I still understand that their presence is needed. You see, revolution as a necessity only begins to make sense to those who have the keen insight into atrocities that make revolution a necessity. The problem we encounter is communicating this to the overwhelming majority, and those people are willing and even oftentimes unwilling participants in the progression of the things that make revolution truly a necessity.

The problem is also in how revolution is perceived. Most people equate civil disorder, small riotous acts such as killing police, kidnapping government officials etc. as the revolution itself and this is not the case. Revolution is all about complete change of society as a whole – a violent overthrow of a class dictatorship by another. In some ways, many small revolutions take place each day, but they are not what we need to move forward in good shape. Revolutionary change, to mean anything, must start with the individuals changing themselves. Without that sort of progressive conduct we cannot begin to show others the benefits of our ideals.

Another problem is that the revolution has been hijacked by non-progressive puppets who act under the guise of a revolutionary progressive apparatus. This is much like what deteriorated the power of our progressive leaders of the yesteryears. The new left of the 1960s mislead the Black Panther Party. They encouraged the Panthers to miscalculate revolutionary steps and also by convincing the Panthers that they alone were the vanguard party placed too heavy a burden on its members causing them to make mistakes and also going against the central tenant of communism – from each according to ability and to each according to its needs. Another issue was that their support was only monetary and as Malcolm advised us before

“money brings advice. Since it’s their money that will eventually carry our movement, it’s their advice we will be listening to. Eventually a Black group will end up having a white brain controlling it.”

So the Panthers became the puppet group of the new left, while those who truly waged the battle sat back and got a lot of beautiful brothers and sisters killed and in the end they withdrew their support. A similar thing is occurring now, only this time, since revolution has taken on a new character tone, message, and the leaders appear more dressed up and cute rather than the rugged edge that was characteristic of the yesteryears’ soldiers, the picture has become even more foggy and harder to slice through the deception of Oligarchs.

Another problem is that we don’t own the media outlets, newspaper firms, or even the schools that teach us the absurd and outrageous lies that pacify the brain and hinder revolution. Affirmative action helped us to send more and more blacks to college and to create HBCUs (historically black colleges/universities). But the more educated we become the more dangerous we become, and so even more efforts to conceal the truth have been created.

Basically what I’m leading up to is the fact that as revolutionaries – whether cultural, economic or spiritualist – there is so much work to do. If we let those whose political economic interests do not match ours at the bottom of the rung continue to tell us how best to revolt or change the world then we will continue to lose. What they are really doing is letting the powers that be know how we are coming that way all efforts to forestall our movement will happen before we get to make our moves. The people who have advised us before sometimes become our enemies as well. Why do you think Elijah Muhammad was so adamant about “his” ministers not saying anything about JFK? It was because those same people he called the devil is who financed his program. So he allowed Malcolm to say what he said with no warning (even though he advised all other ministers), that way Malcolm’s fall from grace was ensured.

Even this newspaper Under Lock & Key doesn’t escape scrutiny. There is no published material that is anti-government that escapes censorship. So how big is your commitment to change? Because a lot of what is published as it relates to issues pertaining to Blacks and “our place” in revolution, or how we are “supposed” to move forward seems like the same advice by the new left to the Panthers. Am I making an indictment? No, however, being as aware as I am and considering how aware you are supposed to be, I must wonder if your commitment is sincere. Especially since we are in the belly of the beast and could suffer the same fate as our fallen comrade George Jackson under the same pretextual designs by each state to prevent the disciplined practice of revolution.

As a show of your commitment, since I’m questioning it, I would like this to be printed, not to offend you but to ask brothers and sisters to question their own sincerity as well. If our commitment is not cemented by the events that we must actually change, then we are letting people co-opt our direction and that cannot happen unless they can prove with facts that their direction is more beneficial and helpful. But if that were the case wouldn’t we be a lot more further on that issue and all issues in general?

Galaxy Ruler Universal Sole Controller Allah

MIM(Prisons) responds: We agree with this comrade about the central role played by funding sources in the path (and splitting) of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense (BPP). And it is fair to say we have not offered a concrete solution to this. The Panthers raised funds from the masses by selling their newspaper and doing other fundraisers, as do we. The Panthers also got funds and resources from local businesses as they asserted political power in areas like Oakland. It was largely the legal repression of the state that pushed the Panthers to start branching out into their fundraising efforts among wealthy Amerikan celebrities and such.

In practice the BPP was the vanguard of its day, with other oppressed nation formations trying to follow suit and white student/youth groups offering support. The BPP correctly encouraged similar formations and leadership to develop for other nations in the United $tates. Yet there did develop a line that the Black revolution here on occupied Turtle Island is the vanguard of the revolution globally, a line some promote to this day. While the oppressed of the world understandably put great hope in this internal force for revolution in the belly of the beast, we understand today that revolution comes from the periphery and works its way to the core. A successful revolution from within the United $tates is conceivable, but not before many successful revolutions elsewhere bring the socialist camp to a point of strength in the world again. The BPP itself reached its peak in part due to international alliances that cooled as struggle against the United $tates cooled internationally.

We also agree with this comrade that it is healthy to question the sincerity of MIM(Prisons) and whoever you choose to work with. Not to the point of paralysis, that it prevents you from working with others. But the only way we will succeed in offering effective leadership is if we receive thoughtful critique from an educated populace. That is why we are always attempting to teach how to think along with what to think. The bigger problem we have today is that there is no revolutionary leadership recruiting mass followings. People aren’t being misdirected by the funding of revolutionary organizations, they’re being misdirected by the funding of non-profits and social media platforms. At its peak, the BPP had an operating budget over $9 million in 2023 dollars(1), but even that would be nothing for the imperialists to double. Not to mention the measly MIM(Prisons) budget. Therefore, the need to address the risk described by this comrade is real and important in the longer term.

Are we sincere? committed? Hell yeah! But intentions are only a starting point. The only real measure is effectiveness. And effectiveness is no easy measure either. In our underdeveloped conditions it’d be easy to say that nothing is effective, which is why we must study other times and places to learn what effectiveness looks like and how to achieve it. The BPP of 1968 was looking pretty effective, but they did ultimately fail. “How much of that was avoidable?” and “how could it have been avoided?” are the key questions for us to attempt to answer. These are questions this comrade’s letter brings to the fore.

In another letter this comrade says we must ensure people are not committed merely to advance their own careers. We agree, and we do have an answer to that, which is anonymity. We intentionally discourage the promotion of cults of persynality, we even try to prevent people from publicly taking credit for the things they’ve done as individuals. We are one body, that takes credit for what we do as a body, and we struggle to prevent splits and offshoots.

<sup>Notes:
1. Joshua Bloom and Waldo Martin, 2013, Black Against Empire: The History and Politics of the Black Panther Party, University of California Press: Berkeley, p. 392. and https://www.in2013dollars.com/us/inflation/1970?amount=1200000
2. get our study pack “Defend the Legacy of the Black Panther Party 50th Anniversary Edition” for $6 stamps or cash or work trade for more analysis of the BPP</sup>

When I first got to the Michael Unit about 8 months ago I was placed on safe keeping for my protection, but I’m still considered General Population (G.P.) because we still get all the regular privileges of G.P. prisoners - we are just housed separately.

Anyways I get here and there are no showers, no rec, no day room, no TV, and no phones on this section. We had to sit down multiple times in large groups in order to get administration to force the C.O.s to just give us showers. Oh and mind you that they are housing medium and high security prisoners on the same section as P4 and P5 prisoners. We are not supposed to be housed amongst each other at all.

Well, the staff aren’t doing anything about getting what we are supposed to have. After about 60 days I started initiating I.C.S.s, or “use of force”, causing ranking C.O.s to come down and force regular C.O.s to do their job. We kept getting Johnies for food with basically nothing in them. Then they started to feed half of us and the rest we had to force them to feed us.

So because I orchestrated all this sitting down and standing up for all our right (yes, I initiated this behavior to buck the C.O.s), I was assaulted. We set fires, flooded, and basically forced the wardens to fix our problem, but it only lasted so long before we would have to do it again.

We finally got them to start leaving all the doors open 24/7 so we could run our own showers and day room rec and forced them to put in phones. Then they brought the tablets T.D.C.S. system wide. So I believe that the administration on this unit has orchestrated the assault on me that occurred on January 31, 2023.

So let me explain exactly what happened leading up to this assault seven days prior.

A prisoner set a fire in his cell and attempted to kill himself through smoke inhalation. I got the picketts attention after the prisoner passed out. I ran in and dragged him out of the cell and put out the fire. About six days later they moved me into the cell the prisoner tried to kill himself in. So the next day they moved some prisoner into the cell with me. I only weigh 110lbs. This offender weighs 190lbs, 30lbs over the 50lbs weight difference limit per housing policy. That’s two violations already. Next I was talking to my family via tablet two days later. Then, bam, I get blind-sided and the prisoner assaults me. I wind up with 5 stitches above my right eyebrow, 3 staples in a gash on my head, and 2 in another gash on my head. They rushed me to the hospital.

When I got back, a Lieutenant asked me to write a witness statement for an Offender Protection Investigation (O.P.I.). My statement was: “My life is not in danger. I do not want to file an O.P.I.” They filed it on my behalf anyway and placed me in another building with no light and brought my property the next day. The next day, they moved me back to the same cell with a new cellie, another major violation because I was still under O.P.I. status, supposed to be in a Restrictive Housing Area by myself until I saw the Unit Classification Committee. On 8 February 2023, I was moved again. I had basically nothing of what was in my cell and they did not even inventory any of it. I lost stuff that meant a lot to me that is irreplaceable because of sentimental value. They also “lost” my state ID somehow.

So I am filing a §1983 Civil Claims Suit again TDCJ Michael Unit Administration as a whole because I believe this was all set up… for me to get hurt because the U.C.C. major said, “We have to ship you to cover our ass because we fucked up.”

I filed my step 1 on and got it back. Today I’m filing my step 2.

This is my first civil suit. I am asking for any material to help me in winning this suit. As of right now prisoners are helping me with what they can and said that I need to get a copy of the Jailhouse Lawyers Handbook but I don’t have the resources nor funds to purchase one. I am not the first offender this has happened to on this unit but I do want to be the last. I am going to do everything in my power to ensure it does not happen again.

I have been fighting for prisoner rights for seven years now and they finally broke the last straw with me. I’m going to war with this pen. To the courts.

Here on 12 Building we are still setting fire and flooding everyday. Please help us.

MIM(Prisons) responds: Much respect comrade for what you are doing on behalf of Texas prisoners in the face of state violence and repression. Much respect to the comrade for taking care of fellow prisoner and saving eir life as well. We have placed an order for you for the Jailhouse Lawyer’s Handbook. We do not offer legal assistance ourselves, but encourage you to continue to report on your organizing efforts here in Under Lock & Key.

Thank you for Under Lock and Key No. 79 (could just as well be called Under Division and Unity). I could not help but draw a parallel between 2 articles. “Some Discussion on Bad Ideas Pt. 1” and “Show Proof to Build Unity”.

First, in “Show Proof to Build Unity” MIM reminds us that the reintegration policy is a strategy to “displace the big four lumpen orgs”. The divide and conquer tactic is a correct analysis although somehow avoids the subject implied which was/is: Unity with the biggest ‘lumpen group’ (sex offenders) as means to fight the real enemy (CDCR).

Perhaps it is fear that prevents any one sex offender from organizing. Fear of hate, after all hate is scary and dangerous especially when it is NOT justified. What does MIM propose? Does the sex offender boldly call for Unity with the prisoners that hate; or in reality need someone beneath themselves as a means to tolerate their own reflection in the mirror?

Does MIM propose the sex offender organize with other sex offenders? He prefers to keep his commitment ‘offense’ secret because the moment he attempts to unite he lets everyone know that he is the designated scapegoat thus opening himself up for attack, essentially a dangerous invitation.

Much safer to stay quiet, isolated although silence is complicit. Silence concedes that it is somehow ok to hate sex offenders when the reality is; hate for sex offenders is hate of self. Hate for sex offenders is simply a need to place someone beneath self as a means to tolerate ones own reflection in the mirror. It is a self conscious advertisement that the haters’ bad acts are much, much worse than any perceived ‘crime’ of having sex. Mostly because everyone is guilty of having sex. This hypocritical aspect is further proof that hate of sex offenders is really hate of self. The delusion that sex is somehow a crime of the worst nature is paper thin, held together only by silence, fear, and hate.

Silence, fear and hate are powerful weapons that CDCR uses for control. Does anyone wonder how 3 pigs keep control of 200 prisoners? The haters need loom no further than his own reflection in the mirror for that answer.

The delusion that sex is a crime is only a manifestation of one’s ego. An ego that requires someone; anyone to be worse than self. The haters must truly look at themselves and ask if CDCR oppression is great enough to drop their own ego. CDCR knows that haters will not drop their ego and this is how CDCR keeps everyone captive in chains and cages. Cages built out of ego, silence, fear and hate.

The haters must ask themselves if they can unite with the largest group of prisoners in prison because sex offenders are much, much deeper than any one hater knows. It is the silence; the secret, the dirty little secret that has allowed hate to grow into a uncontrollable big monster. The silence that has allowed the pigs to brand even greater numbers of regular, normal people with the brand of sex ‘offender’. The fear of hate that forces silence is the cause of division. Division that gives CDCR so much power and control.

In the article “Show Proof to Build Unity” MIM suggests unity with sex ‘offenders’. Perhaps by inherent necessity, it is the sex offender that must call for unity with his haters. The oppressed that must call for unity with the oppressor. Here I see the parallel in the other article “Some Discussions on Bad ideas Pt. 1.” The call for unity with the ‘White Worker’ seems to be a suggestion that oppressed nations call for unity with the oppressor nation by inherent necessity. Because certainly the haters have no desire to escape oppression thru unity.

Forgive me if I interpreted notes of doubt on fear of hate or outright hate for the haters in your article “Bad Ideas.” For instance, the hypothetical paragraph about a white person referring to the masses as “white worker” seemed to label that white person as a “former neo-nazi” isn’t that a little harsh considering the demographics here in 1st world USA?

[Wiawimawo notes: This is a misreading of the article, the article assumed a comrade was a former neo-nazi as an example of when someone’s past or identity might be relevant to a political criticism. But this was just an extreme example, as any Amerikan can show favor to the white workers without being a neo-Nazi, so in that sense we agree.]

The paragraph that “communists have failed the masses for 400 years by supporting the ‘white workers’ and putting the nation contradiction beneath”white worker interests” seems to refer to 3rd world nations rather than the demographics of national 1st world USA. Global perspective would provide clarity because this article was written and provided to and for 1st world USA. Prisoners who only know 1st world demographics, most of whom have never been outside the country.

I found the theme of ‘identity politics’ otherwise correct and intriguing for instance the paragraph about how it is wrong to be enemies with the MASSES for their bourgeois ideas when under oppression, such as patriarchy, homophobia, racism etc… I liked this whole analysis regarding friends being those who have the correct line on xyz and enemies being those who hold reactionary views as an incorrect communist stance.

I like the correct stance specified being “Mao’s method of finding out who our friends and enemies [are] by looking at a group of people’s relations to the means of production, relation to consumption, and relations to other classes.” That word class seems to me to be a definition of economics therefore the only color of class is green. Thus for revolutionary purposes 1st world USA is obviously enemies and 3rd world is friend. But Revolution from within 1st world begs a different question of who are friends and enemies? Who are the MASSES of 1st world USA?

Which brings on the question of “cause of racism” I get it (I think). I can certainly identify with extreme frustration even outright hatred of the haters although I think racism is caused by individual thinking as evidenced by my statement above “Hate for others is really hate for self”. It only seeks justification by blaming others therefore racism is caused by individual thinking and not necessarily by “Feudal European aristocrats (a class of people)” on “the white worker”.

In the same way hate for sex offenders is not perpetrated by any one (class of people) rather it is hate of self and sometimes that hate manifests itself as hate for others. The unavoidable truth however in that cause is individual thinking. Sometimes it only feels like hate when it is nothing more than an individual desire to fit in with all the other haters. Conformity like the Holocaust.

I think it gets a little confusing when we are discussing who the masses are in relation to revolution from within the 1st world USA or from a global revolutionary perspective. Does the author regard emself as american? or a global citizen? Its relevant to eir view of who the masses are. MIM seems to subconsciously realize that hate is in fact caused by individual thinking in the last paragraph “The sub-culture problem” Here ey writes “Line struggle turns into flame wars with no purpose of uniting with others, but exist only to express ones individual self for the cathartic feeling of having the correct line.” Here the people are seeking unity through the correct line even if that line is in reality incorrect, whether that line be a reactionary bourgeois idea on unity with the white worker.

MIM dismisses the unity of “300 college students with a Stalin portrait in their dorm room who thinks the white worker is a friend” however, at least that unity is not grounded in hate and fear, or doubt but conformity in the least and revolutionary at most.

Unity is key to revolution although revolutionaries must decide who are friends and enemies. Revolutionaries must distinguish where to wage revolution from. From the 3rd world against the 1st? or revolution from within the 1st world? MIM conceded conditions within the 1st world are unique, the follow up then is that revolution from 1st world the masses are in fact the white worker. Revolution from 3rd world only against 1st world may see the white worker as enemies. That is historically of course, considering the demographics of the 1st world today which only reinforces mass method of determining enemies and friend on class, class defines the only enemy color as green.

I want to thank MIM for calling on the haters to “Show proof and Build Unity” in ULK No. 79. I echo that sentiment to all that claim to dislike CDCR oppression. Show proof of opposition to imperialism (CDCR). Unite with the largest group of political prisoners, unite with sex offenders, we have a common enemy. Unless anyone really believes that any one ‘crime’ is somehow better than another.

I will give some thought to stepping outside of my self-imposed isolation, my shadow of safety. I think of a way to unite with those that hate me after all someone has to lead and haters obviously have no desire to escape their oppression through unity.

Wiawimawo of MIM(Prisons) responds: We appreciate this comrade’s thoughtful response to ULK No. 79. It brings up a number of issues i will try to address here with suggestions for further study.

Historically, in the CDCr, and elsewhere, New Afrikan communists and revolutionary nationalists have joined hands with neo-Nazis to unite around common interests as prisoners. These united fronts represented different groups with different interests (for example, white prisoners and New Afrikan prisoners) that had an overlapping interest that came to the forefront. This is similar to the unity of the Communist Party of China with the bourgeois Nationalist Party to fight the Japanese imperialists. After joining forces for a period, many Nationalists went on to fight the Communists, though some joined them. To join in a united front may represent a stage of struggle and not a permanent alliance of interests.

If a group of New Afrikan revolutionaries can join forces, in a principled way, with white Nazis, then certainly the divide between general population and sex offenders can be bridged. The sex offender issue is very persynal for many, but so is the nazi issue for New Afrikans.

We can point to the example of Lucasville, Ohio, outside of CDCr, where the unity between nazi’s and New Afrikans became permanent, however, despite the work of key leaders, the masses of white prisoners did not follow suit. In the case of sex offenders we believe the contradiction is less antagonistic. In other words it is more resolvable.

To an extent we agree with the author about the form hatred takes towards sex offenders being in peoples’ heads. But we don’t agree that it derives from the ideas of the individual. As Jean-Paul Sartre wrote in Anti-Semite and Jew:

“Underneath the bitterness of the anti-Semite is concealed the optimistic belief that harmony will be re-established of itself, once Evil is eliminated. Hist task is therefore purely negative: there is no question of building a new society, but only of purifying the one which exists.”(1)

In Under Lock & Key 55 i contrasted our approach of dialectical materialism to that of metaphysics, that sees things as having an unchanging essence.(2) To many people, the sex offender is evil that must be eliminated and cannot be changed. Yet in prison, these same people will often preach for rehabilitation and parole for other prisoners who have committed crimes. As Sartre points out with the anti-Semite, their views are advantageous in allowing for laziness. There is no need to figure out how to make society better or transform ourselves as the solution is easy – eliminate others.

Above i acknowledge the persynal motivation of hating sex offenders. A very high percentage of people in the criminal injustice system were abused as children, often sexually.

Now where we strongly disagree with the author is with eir implications that sex cannot be criminal because everyone does it. On the contrary, we say under patriarchy that all sex is rape. We also say that all of us in the imperialist core are reforming criminals, whether we are in maximum security in the concentration camps or on the streets in minimum security. Where the author seems to think there is nothing wrong, we think there is something gravely wrong that can only be resolved by changing the whole system. We might call it overthrowing the patriarchy.

The author above is correct to note the difference between the national question internationally and within the United $tates. It is only the delusional who see people in this country as having the same interests as the masses of Central Africa, South Asia, the Andes Mountains, etc. It is much more reasonable to claim that New Afrikans or Chican@s have the same interests as Amerikans. The minimum wage laws apply to all U.$. citizens after all. However, other statistics on wealth, health, segregation, as well as history indicate great divides that still exist and in some cases are increasing.(3)

Therefore, it remains MIM line that the principal contradiction in the world is around nation (oppressed nations vs. imperialism), and the principal contradiction in the United $tates is around nation. Again the author is correct to recognize these as 2 separate, though parallel, contradictions.

One point of argument in favor of the MIM line is you can actually find a lot of support for Amerikan so-called workers from the Third World proletariat and their fighting organizations/communist parties. Yet it is the internal semi-colonies in the United $tates where we find more sober assessments of the role of the euro-Amerikan nation. If there is anything unique that the internal semi-colonies have to offer the International Communist Movement, it is this.

The author refers to sex offenders as the biggest lumpen group. There are currently about 20,000 sex offenders out of about 96,000 prisoners held by the CDCr, so this is not off-base. We have written plenty on the need to unite across these divisions. But this comrade brings up the important topic of how to do so. While this was the topic of ULK 55, which we recommend comrades check out, this is not a question with easy answers. The examples of uniting with nazis mentioned above focused on finding unity around key struggles.

We must recognize though that often those who are the most oppressive towards sex offenders are those who are most friendly with the cops. See the recent grievance response received from a Nevada comrade, where the pig responded with,

“Stop Sniveling! Child molestors have no rights and will get no help from me… If you send me anymore kites I’ll make your life a living hell, do you want to be… labeled a snitch? Maybe I put your charges up on every bulletin board in the quad, or PREA your ass.”

So in response to a request to be returned to the appropriate housing level this pig threatened to falsely label this persyn a snitch among inmates, publicize eir sex offenses to other inmates or to create a false charge against em claiming ey sexually assaulted someone (Prisoner Rape Elimination Act). The pig is openly demonstrating how the state uses these divisions to control the population, especially those fighting for prisoner rights. As long as other prisoners play along with this, unity will require a lot of creativity and looking for opportunities.

In the long run, teaching dialectical materialism and promoting MIM gender line can undercut the deep held beliefs behind these divisions; if not in the old-guard, then in the youth. We know there are many “sex offenders” (whether actual or labelled) out there, we get your letters. Real solutions come through struggle, so we challenge you to join the struggle and find the answers yourself as this comrade is challenging emself to do – and then share them with us in the pages of ULK. As the saying goes, “real recognize real.”

<sup>Notes:
1. Jean-Paul Sartre, 1965, Anti-Semite and Jew, Schoken Books: New York, p.43.
2. Wiawimawo, March 2017, White Nationalism and the prison Movement, Under Lock & Key 55.
3. see “Who is Lumpen in the United $tates?” for our analysis.</sup>

“That is to instill a psychological sense of self-worth, without actually altering the material conditions that actually cause the lack of self-esteem in the first place, nor do they attempt to alter the conditions” - Power to New Afrika (1)

I agree with Comrade Triumphant. I would just like to add a little and ask a question. This quote – if I’m not mistaken – speaks to those Black bourgeoisie who led the masses to believe that pro-Black capitalism was progress. It is said that the achievements and rewards gained from jobs, hustles and labor wins the respect and dignity from their peers and society. That status in society is what the people seek and this is what instills that psychological sense of self-worth. But before they reached that status they had a lack of self-esteem because of their lack of material goods. They were comparing themselves to those that had and recognized that they themselves had not. So in comparison, they were less than because they had less than.

Once wealth and status is accomplished the conditions that created the “lack of” in the Black Nation remains, therefore continuing its destructive effect on the people of that nation. This destruction is both on the objective and subjective level: the people’s revolutionary spirit gets high-jacked by Black capitalism. Individualism gets promoted instead of unity because of the competition that comes along with it. We then see ourselves as enemies fighting over crumbs at the lower levels of this capitalist society. Now those that make it out of the poor communities ride high on their psychological sense of self-worth and disregard their communities. They get big-headed and become bourgeoisified. And the only time they reach back is either training the people to be entertainers, drug pushers, or funding politicians who favor reform – from which we all know are just tools of pacifying the people.

This is a major problem with trying to revolutionize the people. First because we must show that we can produce in a capitalist society. Nobody wants to hear from someone who has no money how to run their lives. So the revolutionary may start with intentions on gaining influence and persuading the masses to revolutionize, but if to do so they must participate in the same thing that extorts from the people – that’s a contradiction and a bit hypocritical. Not to mention it’s a slippery slope. That psychological sense of self-worth becomes a high, then the Black capitalist begins to chase that trying to stay relevant. And to do so – more money must be made, more material things must be bought, and more of our brothers/sisters/friends from our own nations and other oppressed nations of world imperialism will be exploited and manipulated as a result. So my question is how to do that without falling victim to embourgeoisfication: the desire to have, so once the proletariat has, how does he not become bourgeoisified?

Wiawimawo of MIM(Prisons) responds: The premise presented here by Melo X is that nobody will listen to someone without money, so we must make money to succeed at revolution. Ey goes on to assert that to succeed at making money traps us in a life of chasing money. I would challenge both of these premises.

The first premise is one that i’ve heard many times. I’ve even received feedback from the masses that i was not presenting myself in a way that garners respect. There are countless organizations that use the dress up approach to get respect in the hood. The Black Panthers even did this to an extent with their uniforms and black leather jackets. Many thought this looked cool. But they did not present themselves as having wealth, they were mostly kids, often with no job, no hustle, living in cramped conditions. They merely presented themselves as being organized, disciplined, powerful.

The point that Triumphant was making in that article is that we can present and assert power in ways that are not how capitalism teaches us to do so. And in fact we must assert power in these ways in order to actually meet our real needs, as Melo X recognizes.

The second premise, that chasing money is a trap has a lot of truth to it. It is often a necessary evil. But not because we need to be rich for the masses to follow us, but because we must fund our projects. We must demonstrate to the masses how to be effective. A strong mass-based movement should have diversified sources of resources coming from the masses themselves because they see its effectiveness. Our mass base in prisons has been growing in the form of financial support over the last few years, which we see as a success. Yet most of our funding comes from comrades working at jobs outside.

Having to work is about survival and basic functioning in our society. If you don’t have stable housing and basic needs met, it is hard to be consistent in organizing work. For most of us at this time, working is a necessary evil. And it will eat up a lot of our time and energy. As such it will affect our consciousness as well. But it is not so addictive that we will become slaves to the dollar. We should all strive to find ways to get the money we need for our own sustenance and the sustenance of the movement in a way that best allows us to serve the people. In a high-cost, highly monetized society this is a challenge that we must approach strategically.

If you are an individual just trying to do good for your people in this society, yes you will most likely become bourgeoisified as you succeed in this society. It is by putting politics in command, using Marxism-Leninism-Maoism as our guiding ideology, that can keep us from failing into that trap.

SunWukong of MIM(Prisons) adds: Another aspect of gaining respect from the masses is through mass line. We can learn from history on this aspect - namely the Black Panther Party’s (BPP) serve the people programs and the Communist Party of China’s (CPC) people’s war. Whenever the Chinese communists first entered a village and started setting up a base area, it surveyed the material needs and subjective wants of the local masses. Many of these problems included backward irrigation methods and agricultural practices that have been used in China for centuries, and because many of the Chinese communists came from an academic/intellectual backgrounds, they were able to gain knowledge of more “modern” and developed agricultural methods of the advanced imperialist countries. Once the mass line is set up, the peasants would even offer their sons and daughters to the People’s Liberation Army to fight for the revolutionary cause. Green fatigues and red stars didn’t have much cultural aesthetic clout in semi-feudal China, but it was the implementation of the mass line and building the proper relations with the masses that gained the CPC so much respect to where peasants were fine with their kids joining a guerrilla army.

^{Notes: (1) Triumphant, August 2022, Power to New Afrika, MIM Distributors.}