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.
18 February 2025 – There is a report from Zambia of the
collapse of a tailings dam that held acidic waste from a copper mine.(1)
The collapse released millions of liters of waste containing
concentrated acid, dissolved solids and heavy metals into a stream
connected to the Kafue River in Zambia. China is the dominant player in
copper mining in Zambia. China uses the copper in smartphones and other
technology. The devastating consequences of this environmental
catastrophe include the widespread killing of aquatic life in the river,
contamination of water used for industrial and agricultural operations
as well as polluting the drinking water of some five million people in
Zambia. Chinese-owned copper mines have been accused of ignoring safety,
labor and other regulations in their imperialist pursuit of earth
minerals such as copper in Zambia. China is using classic imperialist
tactics such as the exporting of capital to secure minerals and other
resources by promoting development programs that put countries such as
Zambia in debt to them. Zambia is reportedly more than $4 billion in
debt to China. Zambians have already defaulted on payments in 2020 to
other nations as well. Clearly we have another case of Chinese state-run
corporations operating without regards to humyn life or the environment.
In conclusion, as a voice in the anti-imperialist movement I
encourage comrades to realize it is not just Amerikans or Europeans who
build their wealth and higher standards of civilization through the
manipulation of underdeveloped nations. We stand against all nations
that are imperialist! Nations we should be also speaking about in
ULK. Nations such as China, Russia and Iran. I mention Iran
because the spread of Islam is also a form of imperialism. Religion has
been the reason for uncounted billions of people who suffer mentally,
physically and even face death. Something that should be more deeply
explored in ULK articles.
Charlie of AIPS responds: Orko is right when ey says
that China is an imperialist country. We have no disagreements there.
Nor do we disagree with eir statement that we should “stand against all
nations that are imperialist”. So why do we focus on the imperialism of
the U.$. in our work? Because anti-imperialism is a question of
political line, while our political work is mediated by the strategies
and tactics we undertake. If you are not familiar with this terminology
from the MIM(Prisons)-ran study groups, let me rephrase.
Anti-imperialism is a fundamental stance that we require others to hold
if we are to collaborate with them. We will not waver on this point. But
as we move beyond the fundamentals, we must consider the particulars of
our unique political situation. We operate within the strongest
imperialist country that has ever existed in humyn hystory: the United
$tates. Our work can have no other aim, then, than to grow and
strengthen the existing Communist movement that resides within the
$tates. We must also acknowledge that one of the hallmarks of
“patriotic” attitudes in the U.$. is criticizing the imperialism of
other countries while defending the imperialism of the $tates. You can
observe this yourself in seeing how united Democrats and Republicans are
in denouncing countries such as China, Russia and Iran. As supporters of
the international Communist movement, we must distinguish ourselves and
our politics from the bourgeoisie and their lackeys. How is this
distinction to be made if we simply echo their points on foreign affairs
(though, admittedly, with more theoretical backing)?
On the note of religion, we must mention that religion, while
fundamentally idealist and antithetical to Marxism, has a dual
character. This is to say, religion can be used both for reactionary
ends as well as for revolutionary ends. Palestine is the perfect
encapsulation of this. The U.$.-backed Zionist entity termed “I$rael”
uses religious arguments to justify their brutal murder and oppression
of Palestinians. On the other side, revolutionary groups such as Hamas
are inextricably linked to religion through their Islamic beliefs. The
key is to consider the particularities of the situation at hand: Which
nations are involved? Which classes? Which side, if any, is
revolutionary at this time? Which groups are tied to religious
movements, and how are these movements connected to the previous
questions? To write off religion as a whole would be an error given the
reality that it can be wielded for revolutionary means.
This all being said, we heartily welcome the contributions in this
article from comrade Orko. It is well-worth noting that the logic of
capitalist-imperialist countries all over the world follow the same
general trends as outlined by V. I. Lenin in eir groundbreaking work
Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism. But so long as
our practice is confined to the borders of the U.$., that is where our
focus must lie.
MIM(Prisons) adds: As Charlie mentions, we use the term
imperialism to refer to the highest stage of capitalism as described by
Lenin. The forcible spread of Islam and Christianity hundreds of years
ago predated imperialism. And to use the history of Islam to call Iran
imperialist today makes no sense. During the invasion of Afghanistan by
the United $tates, pseudo-feminists made the same claim about the
Taliban being “imperialist”, therefore justifying the murder of Afghan
civilians (including wimmin), via their islamaphobia. Currently Iran and
China are primary targets of Amerikans threats. A war with either will
likely mean a global inter-imperialist war. This is not in the interests
of the international proletariat. Nor is it in the interests of
oppressed nations on occupied Turtle Island who will also face increased
attacks when Amerikan nationalism is stoked.
Notes: (1) “A river ‘died’ overnight in Zambia after an
acidic waste spill at a Chinese-owned mine” Associated Press, 15 March
2025.
Addiction does not develop overnight, nor does recovery. Addiction
can be devastating to not only the user who is addicted but eir friends
and family. In fact, addiction is a cultural phenomenon because it is
not specific to any particular race, gender, age, or class. It is
developed in the home through parents or family members who are addicts,
through friends, TV, music, and other observable things in our
environment. It is in every community, in every country, and on every
continent. The irony is that as much support as there is for an addict’s
recovery, that recovery does not come overnight. In fact, reportedly
those who do enter recovery programs have a 60 to 80% chance of relapse
before achieving permanent recovery! This is something I have
experienced first hand, and I am here to talk to those comrades who put
addicts like myself down. To them I offer the following challenge:
instead of doing nothing but complaining about addicts, start a recovery
group. This would be something more truly revolutionary! Because
bitching about it does nothing to help an addict nor have you said
anything to persuade me to want to change.
To them I say, “Yeah I’m an addict,” my addiction began in my home.
My father smoked cigarettes and kept a supply of liquor under the
counter in our kitchen. Drinking was a casual event with family and
friends, usually on holidays. I also observed these similar behaviors
through TV shows, movies, and commercials. As I grew into a teenager, I
heard numerous music lyrics referencing drinking and using various kinds
of drugs ranging from marijuana to heroin to cocaine to prescription
drugs. Though I was told by my parents, family, and drug programs such
as D.A.R.E. to stay away from these things, TV and my experience taught
me something different. It looked like everyone on TV was feeling good
and having fun and from my experience, it was and did most of the time
make me feel good. In fact, it made me feel so much better when I was
experiencing loneliness, stress, and conflict at home and within the
family, boredom, anger, unrealized feelings of being trapped,
depression, and more.
I’ve listed below what are commonly known as “triggers”. There are 10
major triggers I will identify here that can be associated and
experienced by most humyn beings through some stage of eir life and not
just addicts. For me the following 10 major triggers have not only been
a part of my first experiences with drugs and alcohol but especially my
relapse and effects of being imprisoned for over 25 years.
The Ten Major Triggers
Loneliness (even in the physical presence of family and
friends)
Stress and conflict at home and within the family
Boredom or, in other words, lack of meaningful activities or
challenging work
Anger and the feelings of being trapped (i.e. accumulated
resentments, etc.)
Depression (worse with women than men)
Spirituality, or feeling like life is meaningless without a
higher power
Secret disappointment with the straight life
Euphoric recall of being high
Secret thoughts of drugging or experimenting with a new and
different chemical or drug
Reactive denial to using or thoughts of it
I was never taught any fundamental coping skills to combat these
triggers throughout my life growing up at home or school. Even the
coping skills I did learn in recovery groups didn’t seem to work. These
feelings and thoughts seemed to always effect me no matter what. I also
found out addiction is also something that can be hereditary and
generational. What does this mean for my persynal recovery? I do not
know, but my current struggle is real and I can not experience recovery
by myself. So if you are an addict and not just an addict who is
addicted to drugs and alcoholic but are under the definition of the
United Struggle from Within Revolutionary
12 Step Program, then I want you comrades to listen. Not only you
comrades but especially the comrades who do nothing but bitch about us
addicts who use K2, suboxone, and whatever else as defined by the
comrades who came together to create the Revolutionary 12 Step Program.
I want you all to join me in my recovery, in our recovery, together.
P.S. This kept me from using so far today.
MIM(Prisons) responds: The Revolutionary 12 Step
Program pamphlet has been one of our most frequently distributed
publications in recent years. Unfortunately the main author and comrade
who was training others to lead the program has not continued this work.
For now we hope to continue the conversation, development and promotion
of revolutionary recovery here in the pages of ULK. As comrade
Menlo
suggests, we want to create a community here through our readers’ own
stories of recovery. And we thank comrade Orko and comrade Menlo for
kicking this off.
Another publication we want to recommend to those working around
recovery (whether you yourself are addicted or those around you) is Under Lock &
Key No. 59. You can just ask us for the “drug issue” of
ULK. It gives some deeper historical and sociological
background on the fighting of addiction in the revolutionary
movement.
For more, read our “drug issue”
As Orko explains above, addiction is a product of our environment.
That is why when communists seized power in China they were able to
eliminate almost all addiction in short time. And it is why people who
had been life long addicts suddenly quit to join revolutionary
organizations in the United $tates during the Black Power movement. The
hope, meaning and empowerment that comes with revolutionary organizing
is key to the success of our own revolutionary recovery programs.
In anticipation of some responses we might get to this article, we’d
like to ask Orko and other readers for ideas on how to reach those stuck
on drugs. We hear from a lot of readers who say they are surrounded by
zombies, and feel like there is no way to reach such people because they
are always high. What can be done to shift this reality and reach those
in need?
Comrade Eseibio, revolutionary greetings, it is my pleasure to have
the opportunity to conduct this interview facilitated by the comrades at
MIM(Prisons). Let me jump right into these questions:
1. By listening to your work, one can clearly see you have a
firm grasp of social development. Can you share how you initially were
introduced to revolutionary theory and historical organizations and
individuals who practiced a revolutionary line?
My uncle was a Black Panther Party member in the early days of the
Party. So I been around it all my life. My first introduction was me as
a teenager getting caught shoplifting and sent to juvenile hall, and my
uncle came to get me out. That’s something the Panthers did, get young
brothers out of jail and juvenile hall. I was too young to understand
why he did it. Then when I got a little older I had another mentor named
Melvin Dickson
who was a Black Panther Party member. He took me under his wing and
showed me and taught me everything about being a real revolutionary and
pushing a hard revolutionary line.
2. In one of your songs Bust a Cap, you spit: “I’m a
revolutionary Black Nationalist,” Is this still your political
identification? Why or why not?
Yes. I’m a revolutionary, a Black Nationalist, but also much more
than that. Something that the Panthers taught me is that there is no
more nations. Just communities. We use the word intercomunualism.
Because an attack against one is an attack against all.
3. What do you believe is the current state of the
revolutionary Black nationalist movement? What can we do to
improve?
I believe the current state of the movement is heading in the right
direction. Because comrades are getting more politically educated and
are beginning to have more real solidarity with each other. And that’s
what will help us organize more effectively.
4. I’ve been told your new project is centered upon Mao’s Red
Book. What led you to make that book the inspiration of your
project?
Yes all of my album and lyrics reflect the red book. The Black
Panthers sold red books at UC Berkley. That’s a book that I read so many
times it’s a part of who I am and I don’t go a day with out reading it.
The Panthers got a saying: “Malcolm X in my heart, red book in my
pocket.”
5. What is your favorite chapter or quote from the Red Book
or from Mao generally and why?
That’s easy. The very first quote in chapter one. Because it was
written on Sept 15th, and that’s my birth day. It says the force leading
the cause forward is the revolutionary party. And our thinking is
Marxism-Leninism.
6. With the recent elections and the clear rightward shift
among most sectors, What are your thoughts on the best ways to move
forward and organize in this political and social climate?
My thoughts are to organize around providing for the children. That’s
how the Panthers did it. They started with a stop sign at an elementary
school and a free breakfast program that was for the children. By
teaching the truth to the youth you’re educating the next generation of
revolutionaries to continue the struggle. The elder party members taught
me and now it’s my turn to pass on the known. Each one teach one.
7. What are your thoughts about the clear rightward shift of
an increasing amount of New Afrikan/Black men? Does this affect our
ability to reach the masses, if so how?
Yes it does because they got the money and owns all the radio and TV
stations. If we want to reach the masses we gotta be more creative and
out organize them and use technology to our advantage.
8. What musical accomplishment are you most proud of? What
keeps you motivated?
I’m proud of all my work and my biggest accomplishment is my album
that I have not recorded yet. Or even started. It’s and accomplishment
for me to keep going and making good music. Just recently I was in a
documentary movie called “Stop Selling Grandma’s House.”
9. What artists do you listen to yourself?
I listen to a lot of myself. One artist that I think is dope right
now is Dave East. I make beats so I listen to a lot of old school. And I
listen to tons of audio books. From people like Malcolm X, Huey P.
Newton, etc.
10. In your music you reference Political Prisoners often.
Amerika, Inc. denies the existence of Political Prisoners and Prisoners
of War within its institutions. Trump calls the cats from the January 6
incident Political Prisoners. So, there is confusion for some on this
issue. From your perspective who or what is a political
Prisoner/Prisoner of War in the context of occupied Turtle
Island?
Because of the politics of America We all are political prisoners and
we just don’t know it. There’s only 2 Black Panther Party members in
prison left. Mumia abu Jamal and H. Rap Brown [now Jamil al-Amin].
People have that term confused and think that if you throw a rock
through a window and getting arrested makes them a political prisoner.
But it’s much more than that.
11. Anybody on the inside you want to shout out?
Yes I want to shout out MIM(Prisons) and say “All power to the
people!” to all the comrades behind the walls, and free my little cousin
Quincy Lane locked up 20+ years in the California prison system. Free
Mumia and H. Rap Brown. Let’s organize and watch crime drop and turn all
the gang members back into revolutionaries. Listen to my new album “West
Coast Revolutionaries.” Oh yea, can’t forget about all of the sisters in
prison and all the babies born in jail. Recidivism is a serious thing.
Let’s stay out of prison and get back out on the streets organizing our
communities.
P.S. Thanks for your time, Comrade-Brotha Eseibio. The ’rades on the
inside are bumping your music and we salute you for the content you
pushing. Clenched Fist salute. - Triumphant, New Afrikan Political
Prisoner
MIM(Prisons) responds: Thanks to Triumphant and Comrade
Eseibio for this interview; there are a couple things we’d like to
address. First, it is true that Mumia Abu-Jamal and Jamil Abdullah
al-Amin are still in prison, however, as far as we know, Kenny “Zulu”
Whitmore and Kamau Sadiki are still in prison as well, making at least
four former Panthers who are currently incarcerated.
Secondly, we’d like to take this opportunity to discuss the concept
of intercommunalism and what it means for our struggle. Huey P. Newton
argued that by the 1970s the concept of nation had become obsolete due
to the increasing globalization of the world under capitalism. Ey argued
that the whole world has become tied together as a unified, economically
interconnected system, the idea of any nation gaining independence has
become outmoded, and the project of national liberation is not
ultimately possible. Newton said we live in an interconnected world
system called “intercommunalism,” but the kind of intercommunalism we
live in today is reactionary, since it is still based on the overall
dominance of the United $tates. Therefore, the project in front of us is
to transform reactionary intercommunalism into revolutionary
intercommunalism by reorganizing the social relations in society into
socialist ones. Armed struggle and revolutionary nationalism were
opposed by Newton as outmoded forms of struggle in the years following
the peak of the Black Panther Party, after it had split with members who
went on to organize Black Liberation Army cells separately. Newton’s
faction advocated for building revolutionary intercommunalism
community-by-community and building the world into a socialist one on
the basis of the strong economic ties created by capitalism.
In practice, the theory of intercommunalism results in
“micro-politics.” Instead of fighting for the large goal of national
independence and self-determination, we should fight for small,
community-level changes that will eventually build up into a global
change. Second, intercommunalism prevents us from supporting struggles
for national liberation abroad, even though Huey Newton still upheld
this to an extent, supporting the Vietnamese struggle against the United
$tates; but if we carry the theory to its logical conclusions we cannot
come to the conclusion that national liberation is a practicable goal.
It goes without saying that these views on what is to be done are in
direct contrast to ours. We see our struggle as expressly for the
national liberation of the oppressed nations of the whole world, and it
is for that reason that we say that we are for the nationalism of the
oppressed.
But let us touch on the theory of intercommunalism briefly. It is
undoubtedly true that capitalism has a tendency towards the economic
integration of all nations into a whole, in a word, towards
globalization. However, Newton regards this process as already complete.
But if this process is complete, where does the spontaneous tendency
towards nationalism arise? The struggle in Palestine, for example, is a
spontaneous reaction to national oppression. Why this national division
if nations no longer exist? Instead of explaining why national
liberation struggles continue, Newton regards them as mistakes. Newton,
therefore, fails to explain the events of the world, and merely
denounces them. It is evident to anyone who asks the question as to the
origin of continuing national liberation struggles that we cannot merely
write them off as being the product of people having a false
understanding of the world: they are rather based in the real, material
interests of the nations involved. To the supporters of the
theory of intercommunalism, we ask for an explanation of why national
wars continue to exist. In the absence of such an explanation, we regard
intercommunalism as an exaggeration of capitalism’s inherent tendency
towards globalization, an exaggeration which takes a mere tendency to be
already complete.
When tablets came out in 2017 the very first tablets were sold to the
prisoners. I had a loved one to buy me one. Then the Florida Department
of Corrections (FDOC) decided to change the mail to digital mail, so
FDOC picked up all tablets that the prisoners paid for and came back
around and passed out free tablets for every one. Since then all tablets
have been updated no less than three times.
This comrade just got released from a Close Management Unit and was
transferred to Hamilton C.I. Since I got here I found out that for the
past year the Property Room Sergeant has been confiscating tablets, most
of the time giving prisoners a disciplinary report for tablet tampering
in which prisoners are found guilty 99% of the time and are suspended
indefinitely from having another tablet. On top of this, most now have a
loan on their inmate trust fund account of $130 restitution. FDOC gave a
little for a period of time, then turned around and took everything.
They gave the tablets, tablets belong to the state, and now they have an
excuse to take them.
The Prisoner Population
I’ve been in prison for 28 years and this whole thing changed. This
is not a prison anymore, this is a child care center for these fools to
hang out. Everybody wants to belong to a gang but let me remind you that
before you take that oath, you need to find out why that nation, group,
or gang was born. It was born by the oppressed to fight in unity as a
group against oppression. Who is the oppressor? Pigs that work here, the
administration, the system, the state, the government. I know my
history, do you know yours?
FDOC have a total of no more than 30 officers per shift (with 1/4 of
them pushing overtime) and that is counting the front controls
operators. It is embarrassing how that small group of pigs can control,
oppress, and abuse no less than 1250 to 1500 prisoners, thugs,
gangsters, criminals, and gang members. FDOC prisoners have no unity and
no self-respect. I said self-respect because I might have a debt of a 78
cent soup and you ready to kill me, but the pigs call you and the whole
dorm a “bunch of bitches” and you put your head down.
FDOC prisoners, mostly gang members, would rather have the pigs as a
friend than anybody else with the same uniform color. They respect the
pigs more than their fellow prisoners. Ali-al
haf from Georgia, I read your article in the ULK Winter 2025 issue –
you are not alone! I think it is a virus that is spreading. Now
prisoners do the pigs’ jobs. They check and make sure that your cell
door is secure, they pass mail, they make sure you don’t eat twice in
the chow-hall, they even stand next to some of the pigs like bodyguards.
All this ass kissing and at the end of the night your ass is just like
mine: locked down behind a door. It doesn’t matter how down you might
think the pigs will be, at the end of the day they will not put their
paychecks on the line because of you. Coño Preso – look at the fucking
color of your uniform. Ain’t you noticed that it has a different
color!
Learn the difference between a right and a privilege. Use the
grievance process, you must leave a written historical track in case
issues need to be handled at another level. Written proof is all there
is that shows a peaceful avenue was tried before going all the way out.
All those comrades that in the past sacrificed their prison sentences,
release dates, family, and some of them even their lives for this new
generation to throw their hands up and surrender. Really? That is how
we’re doing time in 2025?? Where are your cojones??
Let’s get together in the same line of thought. Before you complain
about not having a tablet or not being able to watch the game on TV, we
need to think about how high canteen prices are, receive more gain time,
bring parole to lifers like me, get better food. Sorry, but prison is
not a place that you come to to hang out with your homies and have a
good time. This is the cemetery of the walking living dead, where your
whole future could change in 15 seconds. Don’t forget where you are,
your culture, where you came from. Do not submit to do the pigs’ work. I
won’t be surprised if in a few more years visitation is done solely via
video and they stop all contact visits. If we don’t get together and
stand up and work as a group, as a family, we are going to keep losing.
Remember that before you became a gang member you were a man, a human
being – not a beast. And I refuse to be trapped like one. No quiero
abrazos con la vida hasta que mi pueblo sea libre.
A Georgia prisoner echoes Ali-al haf’s report: Here at
Baldwin State Prison in Hardwick, Georgia, some things are the same as
Valdosta, GA. Gang members having a room all to themselves and picking
on the weak, taking all their property.
In one building the unity manager has her boys, [gang members] to
beat some prisoners up (mostly whites). It is told that the female
officer unit manager is a [gang] member. She is always talking down to
the whites.
The drugs are plenty here and the drug called strips is where most go
to.
The mail system is really screwed up. Mail is passed out maybe two
times a week. The mailroom officer puts mail out daily for night shift
to pass out.
Stabbings happen daily. Some cut themselves to be placed in the hole
to get away from the gang members. Some gang members force some, mostly
whites, to put money on their books or send them cash and make them go
to the store for the full amount only to take it from them and officers
let it happen.
Baldwin State has nicknames such as “Bloody Baldwin”, “Body Bag”, and
“Cut Throat”. The names fit well and also life flight.
$prayer responds from Pennsylvania: Our comrades here
in the PADOC would rather be focused on going at each other and being on
the C.O.’s side and doing a bunch of nonsense, it’s sad. Our comrades
aren’t even focused on their own lives like they should be instead of
worrying what others are doing. They oppress their other comrades like
they’re the oppressor, like they’re not oppressed by the oppressors too.
The oppressing comrades do what the oppressors want them to do so they
take the heat off of their own backs and put it on their own comrades’
backs. Like I really can’t believe all of the OPPRESSION between
comrades, it’s really sad. Like the oppressing comrades call us (who
stand against the criminals of permission “cops”) rats, but look at what
they’re doing, they’re doing the oppressors’ bidding. So who’s the real
rat? They are, aren’t they, since they’re doing the oppressors’ bidding
right? They really need to ask themselves who’s the rat. We’re supposed
to stand up to our oppressors, not stand with them against our own
comrades. Am I right or am I wrong?
MIM(Prisons) adds: We also published a report in
February from a Tennessee
prisoner being extorted by a drug gang that was protected by staff.
Ali-al haf’s article really struck a cord with our readers, indicating
the state of affairs across the prisons systems on occupied Turtle
Island. This relates to our campaign: Stop Snitching, Stop
Collaborating, where comrades have repeatedly pointed out that you can’t
snitch on pigs. These prisoners described above are collaborating with
the enemy.
But lumpen orgs working with the imperialists is not a forgone
conclusion. We know this because there are plenty examples in history of
lumpen orgs working on the side of anti-imperialism, especially in the
internal colonies of the United $tates. We also know this because, as
Trauma points out, there is a common material interest in the lumpen
coming together for conditions and for respect. And as $prayer says,
most prisoners should be comrades on the same side. We can make that
happen through education and organization. We must build institutions
that serve the interests of the lumpen better than the state does, to
win over the masses.
Last summer, around June, I ordered several copies of the North
Carolina Grievance petition from MIM, then had copies made and sent out.
Then I announced to the block how to use the petition forms as a
solution to our grievances not being answered. The forms were then
distributed in the block, door-to-door in our segregated dorm. Sadly
some papers were heard being ripped up as soon as they entered the cell.
I challenged the chicken-shits to reveal themselves, to no avail. The
remaining forms were distributed in other blocks. It wasn’t long before
I realized hardly anyone would use the forms.
A couple weeks later my neighbor mentions the petition during a
conversation with someone else and was telling the guy, “the police gave
it to him, he saving it to the day he need to file a grievance so he
could attach it to the grievance.” Translation: he has no idea how to
use the petition.
Other than some people being lazy and others just don’t care, this is
what I learned:
I can’t assume we are all convicts
Gather participants first and speak to each of them to confirm their
ambitions
Write directions on top of the form, where to send it, such as “send
to address on last page or which ever office/dept you’re trying to
target”
Sometimes an orchestrator may need to influence members to
participate
I actually did many years in the Arizona Department of Corrections.
The last six of those years was spent in the max (Brickeys/Cummins), cuz
I ‘bucked’ on em repeatedly. I’ve personally been through years
of what this Arkansas prisoner is describing. I filed hundreds of
grievances and they always responded with a denial of allegations and
found the grievance without merit, as this Arkansas prisoner said. I’ve
also had similar experiences with the disciplining hearings, with
disciplinary hearing officers, like ‘no-socks’, cutting the hearing
camera off on me mid hearing and automatically finding me guilty, etc.
For the longest time I held yards/showers down, barricaded cells with
spears, stabbed people, flooded toilets, busted sprinklers, slipped cuff
and attacked pigs to get justice, but I learned several things towards
the end of my set that helped a lot.
So when you – this Arkansas prisoner – ask what to do I decided to
give you a few answers in the long/short term; it’s inspiring to see
fellow Arkansas comrades goin’ down the same path as me, while “fighting
and spreading the word” in chains.
Okay, so in the short-term, request the prisoner’s self-help
litigation manual (4th edition) from the law library, they usually keep
several torn-up copies of them on hand, go to the exhaustion of remedies
section and pull up the case law at the bottom of the pages to
“shepherdize”. In 2016, while I was at Brickeys, Prison Legal
News sent me a free copy of their magazine and it had a case in
there from the Supreme Court that says that when a remedy (grievance) is
unavailable, then it is a “dead-end” process and doesn’t have to be
exhausted.
What I’m getting at is that there are certain circumstances (such as
when you’re being retaliated against as a result of exhausting your
remedies) that enable you to file the 42 U.S.C. §1983 lawsuit, without
completing the grievance process. You just gotta explain to the courts
in the §1983 complaint package why you had “no available remedy to
exhaust”, which sucks, cuz then you gotta survive a “summary judgement
motion” – it’s not easy either – once you file the lawsuit. The Arkansas
pigs are aware of this, which is why they don’t mind not signing
grievances or doin’ anything about your grievances once signed. Plus
they’re aware that the chances of them gettin’ sued are low.
Successfully sue them a couple times and watch their attitude adjust. I
personally went through this and didn’t get to finish the lawsuits cuz
the pigs where I am now trashed all my files.
Don’t just take my word for it though. Study into the case law on
grievance exhaustion and go from there (there’s no way to cover all the
case law inside of one article). If you don’t know how to shepherdize
cases, the book I told you about will instruct you on all that. On the
bright side it’ll give you something to do in the max. Get in the law
library, cuz while grievances don’t work in Arkansas, lawsuits do.
In the long term, I plan on collaborating with MIM(Prisons) to get a
campaign going against the PLRA (Prison Litigation Reform Act §1997) –
we’ll call it the “PLRA campaign”. The PLRA is what demands that
prisoners exhaust all available remedies, prior to filing any Bivens/42
U.S.C. §1983 lawsuits (Bivens are filed against the federal government,
while §1983 is for the state/local level). According to the 1st
Amendment of the U.$. Constitution we have the right to “petition the
government for redress of grievances.” And according to the 14th
Amendment of the U.$. Constitution we have a right to equal protection.
The PLRA violates both the 1st and 14th Amendments and I intend to
organize a class action challenging the constitutionality of the PLRA,
through the PLRA campaign.
In theory, our ability to “petition the government for redress of
grievances” is life-threatening and often injurious, cuz we’re forced to
exhaust dangerous grievances, prior to filing §1983’s. The fact is that
prisoners can and do get killed and fucked off – injured – for filing
grievances nation-wide. Filing grievances is dangerous in an infinite
amount of ways. They can’t legally force us to participate in a
grievance process that’s going to get us stabbed in the neck or jumped
on by fuck-boys, who are often in collaboration with the pigs. We are
unable to petition the government if doin’ so is going to get
us hurt in any kind of way. We can prove in a trial that it’s common
knowledge that guards, nation-wide, are capable of silencing and do
silence prisoner litigants’ petitions through retaliation which
intimidates many prisoners from initiating grievances or lawsuits. The
feds spent decades tryin’ to take down the five Italian mafia families,
in part for silencing litigants, so why not help us take down the pigs’
PLRA, which is essentially a technical loophole that they use to evade
justice or trials and silence litigants with mafia-like tactics.
The whole “deliberate indifference” standard that applies to 8th
Amendment (cruel and unusual punishment) lawsuits wouldn’t apply in a
1st Amendment claim. We’d be arguing that the PLRA exhaustion
requirement is “abridgement”, which doesn’t necessarily have to be
deliberately indifferent.
The PLRA violates the 14th Amendment cuz the prison class
can’t seek redress for mental injuries without there being a
physical injury, and the non-prisoner class can seek redress
for mental injuries even if there isn’t any physical injuries involved,
which is unequal protection. Shutting the doors of the courts in
prisoners’ faces so that we can’t seek redress for mental injuries
doesn’t allow us equal access to the courts, which also violates the 1st
Amendment. An injury is an injury. Take it from me, a severely mentally
ill prisoner, when I say that many mental injuries are just as bad, if
not worse than, physical injuries. Suffering from mental injuries is
also a “grievance” that we should be able to “petition the government
for redress” for, under the 1st Amendment. We have to ask ourselves what
the aim of the PLRA is when it comes to barring us from the courts for
redress of mental or psychological grievances? I think that the answer
to the question is obvious and speaks volumes.
How would the prison system look without the PLRA? The PLRA is an
obstacle standing in our way of combating the number one form of
psychological torture of the Amerikan nation’s prison system – control
units. And this is due to the fact that we can’t sue anyone for the
mental injuries involved with doing hole time if it doesn’t cause
physical injuries, and doing hole time, by itself, doesn’t cause
physical injuries. If we can successfully take down the PLRA, then we
can sue to receive compensation when we suffer mental injuries as a
result of doing long-term hole or max time, without there being any
physical injuries. If they have to compensate prisoners every time
somebody suffers a mental injury as a result of living long-term in
control units, they may lean more towards changing living conditions in
the hole (such as giving one access to books, radios, phones, jobs,
fixing temperature issues, etc.), flat out abolishing the control units,
or reducing length of control unit sentences.
Anything mentally injurious going on inside of the prison that is
simply for revenge-based punishments and not for security purposes could
then lead to mass amounts of compensation. The compensation will deter
psychological torture and amplify mental-health treatments.
The last aspect of taking down the PLRA is that prisoners would no
longer have to exhaust remedies in order to file Bivens/§1983s. If we
can end the PLRA in the long term, then this would end the grievance
campaign altogether.
With that I’ll close. I hope my response was helpful.
Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, where the Palestinian resistance factions
(of which the Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, was the largest)
united in response to the continued occupation of their homeland by the
Zionist entity, was launched on 7 October 2023. Since then, the brutal
daily oppression by the occupation forces, and the continued desecration
and assaults on Al-Aqsa Mosque atop al-Haram al-Sharif in occupied
Al-Quds continues.(1) In the last 15 months, there have been many
occasions to have political discussions and pass out literature
regarding Palestine in the hopes of bolstering the support for Palestine
among the imprisoned lumpen here in the South Bay. I would never assume
this to be an easy task, and it hasn’t been, but slowly but surely more
people are breaking from the miasma of post-9/11 anti-Arab/Islamophobic
sentiments (which itself is an accomplishment as this has been deeply
ingrained in the Amerikan consciousness since the beginning of the
so-called “War on Terror”).
Here in the majority liberal South Bay, the main sources that
prisoners get their news from is the San Jose Mercury News
newspaper and the local news channel, Fox 2 News. Like all
bourgeois media, both have been reporting on the genocidal Zionist war
on Palestine from the general viewpoint of the Democratic Party, that
is, a pro-U.$., pro-i$rael view (with some small exceptions, most coming
in the form of re-prints of articles by New York Times columnist
Nicholas Kristof and the occasional pro-Palestinian letter to the
editor, though they have never printed any that I persynally have
sent).(2) So on that note, it has been of paramount importance to combat
the repetitive assertions of the usual incessant line, “the war began
when Hamas terrorists (sic) launched a surprise attack on southern
Israel (sic) …”, which is taken as unquestionable truth in line with the
discourse of post-9/11 hysteria plaguing the psyches of those here on
Occupied Turtle Island.
Being that the events of 11 September 2001 (9/11) are the main source
of today’s generalized sentiments in a large portion of Amerika’s
collective psyche, I believed it to be fitting to begin my organizing
work by passing out and making available copies of Ward Churchill’s
wonderfully insightful 2001 essay “On the Justice of Roosting Chickens
(Some People Push Back),” which echoes a quote made by Malcolm X shortly
after the assassination of John F. Kennedy on 22 November 1963. I chose
this essay because it, more than any other short and concise work on the
subject, blows out of the water the commonly accepted reasons,
propagated by the U.$. government, on the causes of 9/11. Churchill
centers the reasons firmly on the shoulders of Amerikan imperialism and
neocolonial exploitation and oppression of the Arab world.
I paired this essay with copies I made of AIPS comrade Lila’s equally
insightful and engaging article “What is
Hamas?” (see Under Lock & Key No. 85). USW comrade Da
Pale One’s October 2023 article “A
Brief History on Palestine” from ULK No. 84 was also very
helpful for laying a basis for those willing to challenge their
preconceived notions on Palestine, and those who had no previous opinion
on the region and its indigenous inhabitants and wanted to learn
more.
The conversations I had regarding the above writings led to much more
interest into what the actual truth is behind the Palestinian people’s
valiant struggle against the ideology of Zionism and its
settler-colonial project, and why it seems that Amerikan media has over
the decades either been completely silent or ambivalently acquiescing to
the will of the Zionist entity, protecting its blatant aggression and
genocidal mentality towards the Palestinian people and its denial of
their legitimate claims to the hystoric land of Palestine.
Who Supports Palestine
vs. I$rael?
Though it is probably obvious, those who are most against Palestine
in this jail are most of the Euro-Amerikans, as well as the
bible-thumping Christians. On the flip side, the people I have been
working with and who I have persynally found to be most interested are:
the Vietnamese prisoners and the Samoans/Pacific Islanders. There are
large communities of both in San Jose and, just like the New Afrikan
neighborhoods and the Chican@ varrios, they are also subject to brutal
occupation and surveillance by SJPD pigs and at times also catch the
ever-watching gaze of the FBI, which has a main field office in the
largely gentrified town of Campbell, west of downtown.
I have had many interesting conversations with Vietnamese prisoners,
not just on Palestine, but also on the the genocidal Amerikan war
against the people of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. I get a general
feeling from these discussions that, though they are fiercely proud of
their peoples’ decisive victory against the world’s #1 bully,
imperialist Amerika, they are also troubled by the largely unanswered
and undiscussed questions of, “What went wrong? What happened to our
peoples’ beautiful vision of a future communist nation?” I am glad to
see them attempting to answer these questions, decades after many of
their family members fled the atrocities of the Amerikan military and
their South Vietnamese puppets.
On a final note, both the people of Vietnam and the people of Samoa
have had firsthand experience with European colonialism and Amerikan
hegemony. The fact that they are able to connect their peoples’
struggles to the relatable struggles of the people of Palestine is a
success that I am willing to celebrate.
Prison Tablet
Propaganda Continues, With a Victory
A barrier that those organizing for Palestine behind the walls, have
had to deal with since Al-Aqsa Flood is the Christian Zionist prison
ministries whom, as comrade Firewater noted in ULK No. 87,
“have a monopoly on [the] tablets … [that] needs to be broken up!”(3) I
want to thank both comrade Firewater and comrade Triumphant very much
for their insights on this topic in the Texas Department of Criminal
Justice (TDCJ). Before writing my original article on it, comrades in
California began submitting multiple complaints related to the education
app on Our tablets, “Edovo”, which allows ministries like the right-wing
evangelists who produce the “Real Vida TV” podcast from their studio in
Tyler, TX, to continue to upload content that radiates conservative
Christian or Christian Zionist rhetoric and beliefs. Much of this
messaging is equal parts antisemitic, anti-Arab, Islamophobic, queer and
transphobic and anti-immigrant. Thankfully, in apparent response to this
deluge of complaints, Edovo removed all of Real Vida’s content from
their platform, which is as much of a win as We could have hoped. A more
long-term goal would be to get MIM content on our tablets for a
refreshing counterpoint to Our enemies’ propaganda.
This removal of Real Vida from Edovo does not account for the fact
that on other tablets and apps in other states’ jails and prison
systems, Real Vida continues to be available as Triumphant and Firewater
have noted from the Texas prison system. In research I conducted after
reading both comrades’ responses, I found out several things. Firstly,
the tablet app called “Pando” is indeed, as Firewater suspected, created
and maintained by “right-wing evangelist kooks” as I was able to
ascertain from watching a podcast interview with the main creator of the
app, Isaac Holt.(4) I further learned that the apparent go-to excuse for
Pando refusing content from providers is because “they only want to
upload high-quality Christian content”(4), which apparently means
refusing content from Christian organizations and denominations with a
more liberal/progressive worldview like Unitarian Universalists.
I also heard a radio show/podcast that our TX comrades are likely
familiar with called “The Prison Show” (which airs every Friday night
from 9-11 PM central on KPFT 90.1 FM out of Houston). They recently
uploaded about 50 of their previous episodes to Edovo, from December
2023 to November 2024. In several episodes they discuss the ridiculous
game of stringing along and avoidance that both TDCJ and Securus
Technologies played with David Collingsworth (the current producer of
the show) for over four years in the shows quest to get on the tablets
so everyone across TDCJ and in other states could tune in. He also spoke
about their meetings with Pando executives who asked them to sign a
mandatory contract, that states that in order to be allowed to upload
content, you must agree that all content will emphatically “preach the
word of Jesus”.(5) This ridiculous prerequisite should tell you all you
need to know about Pando, its CEO Jake Bodine and what they and the TDCJ
are trying to promote: an endless cycle of brainwashed evangelic “field
ministers”, of which I’m told TDCJ already has a great deal of.
Origins of Zionism and
Christian Zionism
Central to the understanding of the land of Palestine and the
Palestinian liberation struggle is understanding the twin ideologies of
Zionism and its mostly Amerikan cousin, Christian Zionism.
Both ideologies are antisemitic in nature and began that way from
their respective origins. Zionism, like any other settler colonial
project, is based in the genocidal erasure of the indigenous inhabitants
of a land, in this case the Palestinian Arab people, and the
self-indigenizing of the settlers. The strange thing about Zionism is
that far from being helpful to the Jews, both ideologies are grounded in
antisemitism. This can be hard to grasp for people, as one would think
that something supposedly in favor of the Jews couldn’t possibly be
antisemitic. The truth however, as with most things, lies in its
hystory.
Zionism, began as a political ideology, grounded in the antisemitic
belief that the Jews did not belong in Europe and therefore should be
removed from Europe to some other locale. The land of Palestine was also
not the first place that Theodor Herzl, the founder of Zionism, proposed
to remove all of the Jews to, as Herzl considered locations in Uganda in
East Afrika and South America before landing on Palestine.(6)
This removal to Palestine was of course fully backed by Britain,
culminating in the oft-cited Balfour Declaration of 1917 written by Lord
Arthur Balfour, himself an antisemite, with strong backing from other
British and Amerikan antisemites like Lloyd George, Woodrow Wilson, and
Harry Truman. Britain was the major imperialist power vying for control
of the region at the time, with France a close second.(7) This is the
same Arthur Balfour who was quoted as writing in an August 1919
memorandum, “The four great powers are committed to Zionism, and Zionism
be it right or wrong, good or bad, is rooted in
age-long tradition, in present needs, in future hopes, of far
profounder import than the desire or prejudices of the 700,000
Arabs [the actual number at the time was at least several hundred
thousand more] who now inhabit that ancient land. In my opinion
that is right.”(8)
Having an ostensibly European outpost in the Arab world was also
thought by the Amerikans and Western Europe to be a strong tool for
holding the spread of both Islam and communism at bay.(9)
As the horrors of the Nazi genocide became apparent and as European
Jewish refugees continued to flood out of German-occupied Europe aside
other groups singled out by the Nazi regime, instead of accepting these
refugees into U.$.-allied countries, they were vehemently refused and
forwarded on to seek refuge in the New Yishuv (in Hebrew:
settlement/community) created by the Zionists in the land of
Palestine.(10)
The Old Yishuv of Jews had been living in Palestine long before the
creation of Zionism and the First and Second Aliya (Zionist-sponsored
immigration waves of Jews to Palestine beginning in 1882). It bears
mentioning that the Old Yishuv was, until the end of 1945 and WWII,
majorly against Zionism and the hopes of the Zionists of creating a
Jewish state on top of and instead of Palestine. However, this mostly
changed after the world was made fully aware of just what the Nazi
regime planned and carried out in regards to their so-called “Final
Solution” to the so-called “Jewish problem”.
Finally, after the initial 1948 Nakba (“the catastrophe”, or ethnic
cleansing of Arabs) and into the present day, the Zionist entity has
supported, partnered with, trained the military forces and death squads
of, and aligned themselves with some of the most genocidal and
virulently antisemitic regimes and individuals in recent decades. These
range from Somoza and the Salvadoran and Guatemalan generals and Central
American dictators (11) to recent interactions in late 2023 and 2024
between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other i$raeli leaders and
Elon Musk, a purveyor of antisemitic and white supremacist rhetoric and
conspiracy theories, all in the name of Zionism apparently.(12)
The ideas behind Christian Zionism were around long before Herzl’s
ideology in Christian Europe. Christian Zionism, like its cousin
Zionism, is predicated on antisemitic tropes about the Jews which date
back to the Christian belief that the Jews (in the biblical form of the
Pharisees, an ancient Jewish sect) are responsible and to blame (and to
be hated for eternity) for the death of Jesus. As I’ve discussed
previously in ULK, Christian
Zionism is led in Amerika primarily by sections of the Christian
Right, mostly consisting of right-wing evangelists.(13) These
evangelists descend from the Protestant sect of Christianity that
seceded from the Roman Catholic Church during the Reformation and
adhered to the doctrine of Martin Luther, a staunch antisemite who
authored the antisemitic work, “On the Jews and their Lies”, in
1543.(14) Hitler and the Nazis were admirers of Martin Luther, as
exemplified by a 1933 Nazi propaganda poster that read, “Hitler’s fight
and [Martin] Luther’s teaching are the best defense for the German
people.”(15) Today the Trump administration supports Netanyahu, includes
Evangelical Christians and the richest man in the world Elon Musk who
gave a Nazi salute at the inauguration.
Christian Zionists see the Jewish people as simply a pawn in their
deranged so-called “End-Times prophecies”, believing that the only Jews
who are “redeemable” in their eyes are those who accepted Jesus as the
“messiah” and their “lord and savior”, thus converting to Christianity
and leaving their own religious beliefs behind. They call these converts
“Messianic Jews”. According to these “prophecies”, those who do not
convert will burn in hell with the rest of the non-believers, as the
true believers ascend in “glorious rapture” with their “messiah” Jesus
Christ to the pearly gates of Lala Land. In short, those “washed in the
blood of Jesus” are worthy and all others are the scum of the Earth.
The largest specific grouping of those who hold these hateful and
outrageous beliefs in the United $tates are known as the New Apostolic
Reformation (NAR), a right-wing Christian nationalist movement of around
3 million Pentecostal and evangelical Christians whose ideology also
commands adherents to capture the so-called “Seven Mountains” of
societal influence – education, religion, family, business, the
government and military, the arts and entertainment, and the media.(16)
They are an organization that we, as revolutionaries, should keep an eye
on, especially in lieu of the “Oompa-Loompa Man” and his MAGA fanatics
taking control of the presidency and both houses of Congress this
year.
Groups like the Proud Boys have been relatively inactive since the
Capital riot on 6 January 2021, mostly due to fracturing after their
leadership was locked up. In addition, other white
supremacist/nationalist formations, like the “White Lives Matter” crowd,
the virulently antisemitic Goyim Defense League, Identity Evropa,
Patriot Prayer, Blood Tribe, Nick Fuentes and the “Groypers”, the
so-called “Active Clubs” and many others (some of which have been
reported as trying to worm their way into the Palestine solidarity
movement with antisemitic signage, chants and pseudo anti-Zionist
discourse, i.e. anti-Jewish rhetoric masquerading as being
pro-Palestinian or anti-i$rael) may feel they have some wiggle room to
recruit and organize after Genocide Joe leaves office and MAGA becomes
the “law of the land”. These concerns stem from discussions I’ve had
with some of my outside comrades that have been active in the Palestine
solidarity movement recently in college campus “Liberated Zones” and in
the streets.
Concluding Thoughts
As the Palestinian resistance continues on, steadfast in their
struggle for liberation and return and in fierce opposition to the
genocidal logic of Zionism and settler-colonialism; as the Lebanese
resistance takes time to restructure their leadership apparatus in lieu
of the aggressive Zionist
assassination operation of Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah and the majority of
the political and military leadership of Hezbollah; as the brave
members of the Yemeni Ansar Allah party continue their assault on the
Zionist entity and their widely successful operation to throw
innumerable monkey wrenches into the gears of the imperialist war
machine and a global capitalism in unshakable support of the Palestinian
people and their resistance; and as uncertain possibilities
open up in Syria, all of Our eyes should continue to be firmly
focused on Palestine and the Levant. The Christian Right’s “stand-in
messiah”, Trump 2.0, is threatening there will be “hell to pay” if the
Palestinian resistance doesn’t return the i$raeli citizens taken during
Al-Aqsa Flood. Trump may also take revenge against the Islamic Republic
of Iran for allegedly plotting to assassinate him before the
election.
May we all continue to learn from the steadfast courage of the
Palestinian people, and may they find swift victory against the Zionist
entity in the coming year.
Glory to the Marytrs
Freedom to the Prisoners
Healing to the Wounded
Revolution until Victory
Notes: 1. Hamas Media Office, January 21 2024, “Our
Narrative… Operation Al-Aqsa Flood”,
www.palestinechronicle.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/PDF.pdf 2.
Nicholas Kristof, November 24 2024, “Warrant for Netanyahu’s arrest also
implicates United States”, San Jose Mercury News 3. Firewater and
Triumphant, October 2024, “Christian Zionism Tablet Propaganda Helps
Keep Support for Palestine Small”, Under Lock & Key 87 (Fall
2024) 4. Inside Out Podcast, Season 1 Episode 7, “The International
GPT Version” 5. The Prison Show, September 27 2024, KPFT 90.1 FM
6. Edward W. Said, 1992, “The Question of Palestine”, Vintage Books, pg.
23; and Ilan Pappé, 2022, “A History of Modern Palestine” (3rd Edition),
Cambridge University Press, p.47-48 7. Noam Chomsky, 2014, “The
Fateful Triangle - The United States, Israel, and the Palestinians”,
Haymarket Books, p.96-97 8. Said, op. cit., p.16-17 9. Ibid,
p.29 10. See generally, David S. Wyman, 1984, “The Abandonment of
the Jews: America and the Holocaust, 1941-1945”, Pantheon Books 11.
Chomsky, op. cit., p.29-31 12. Shane Burley and Ben Lorber, 2024,
“Safety Through Solidarity: A Radical Guide to Fighting Antisemitism”,
Melville House, p.219-220 13. Grim, July 2024, “On Christian Zionism
and the Prison Tablet Propaganda Machine”, Under Lock & Key 86
(Summer 2024) 14. Burley and Lorber, op. cit., p.82 15. Facing
History and Ourselves, June 2022, “Nazi propaganda depicting Martin
Luther”,
https://www.facinghistory.org/resource-library/nazi-propaganda-depicting-martin-luther
16. Burley and Lorber, op. cit., p.160 and p.163-164
Greetings Revolutionaries, activists, thugs, radical students, pimps,
hustlers, players, strippers, sex workers, and all the thoroughbred
Runaway Slaves in the First World; this is strictly addressed to the
First World Lumpen. Marxism has taught us how to operate and harness the
laws of the universe in the interests of those systematically locked out
of the production process, those who finance-monopoly capitalism
continue to dehumanize in its relentless, dogged, determined pursuit of
endless profits.
Fascism is the word of the current movement. Trump’s election
represents a certain heightening of contradictions. This is a sign of
the imperialists recognizing their need for that strong persyn to move
this space into its more authoritarian direction, into its more
authoritarian disposition.
We have to be vigilantly on the prowl for the emergence of fascism.
Social commentary should center primarily on building public opinion in
this direction. Even in its embryonic stages, fascism doesn’t miss out
on any opportunities to undermine the working-class revolution and smash
working class organizations; First World and Third World.
It is time to crack open the history books and practically apply the
dialectical-materialist analysis of history. There is nothing else at
the moment that warrants any more attention. Period. 2020, though a
moment, a flash point in social development, like I said previously in
some past article was not in any way contradictory to the U.$. empire;
nor was there any easing of tensions between law enforcement and those
of us trapped in the ghettos that pockmark this landscape.
In 2022, actual U.$. military expenditure exceeded $1.52 trillion –
more than twice the officially acknowledged level of $766 billion.
Overall military spending are not included in the empire’s “defense
budget” strategically. To estimate actual U.$. military spending,
dialectical materialist methodological approaches must be utilized. I
recommend publications like Monthly Review.
Nothing will be gained at the expense of the Third World because of
our lack of genuine effort to combat our First Worldist dispositions. We
in the ameriKKKan heartland must sit down and focus on studying fascism.
We most definitely have the leisure time because of the labor
aristocratic essence of the working class demographic in these parts.
The class of people in the First World who are excluded from the
productive process, by virtue of living in the First World, on average
receive more material benefits from imperialism than the global
proletariat. This is the First World lumpen. But the radical student
movement is now with us, thanks to the gunshots let off on 7 October
2023 in Palestine and its people’s struggle to free their land from
i$raeli and ameriKKKan aggression.
We have to have a completely scientific understanding of the concrete
reality of our situation. George Jackson once spoke of this. I believe
his classic work Blood In My Eye must be resurfaced and
consulted for the best, most in-depth theoretical analysis of the
current moment. Fascism and its historical significance was the point of
his whole philosophy on politics, and its extension, war.
George posited how corporate-fascism’s nature advanced world-wide
socialist consciousness after WW2. U.$. imperialism emerged after the
Western powers had already divided up most of the most important markets
in the world. The aftermath of WW2 left those same Western powers
severely weakened, the U.$. became head honcho.
Social development continues to march ahead towards its logical
conclusion – via stages of course. All the forces of reaction and
counterrevolution have localized themselves and continue to radiate
their oppressive energy in the now emerging ameriKKKan corporate-fascist
state. Despite the presence of political parties, corporate politics is
all that truly matters here. Corporate personhood command all state
power.
We hear about the corporate political maneuvering of entities like
Amazon, IBM, Facebook, Samsung, Apple, and many more. The modern chip
industry speaks to the authority large private corporations have over
state bodies. Just as steel a century ago was the essential commodity
for economic development, the chip is the 21st century repeat. Chips are
central to the technology pivotal to the present order. I say that to
say that possibly by 2030, China’s chip industry could rival Silicon
Valley’s influence; so this means something, the implications are beyond
disruption of U.$. tech firms and trade flows, we are talking about a
reset of the balance of military power.
Huawei has been at the center of all sorts of geopolitics in recent
years. I think it’s time USW comrades study Huawei, and learn what makes
this entity’s political maneuvering such a nightmare for Western
imperialists, and sidestep amerikkka’s “Russian threat” distraction with
the whole bogus fabricated Uhuru 3 persecution.
The African People’s Socialist Party are posing a very serious
question that all revolutionaries active at the moment should sit down
and reflect and ponder over: Did the FBI conspire with Russian
intelligence to frame up Black activists in the United $tates?
The Uhuru 3 free speech trial has positioned me as an historical
singularity, as that historical singularity who sees all angles, all
sides, who sees the furthest ahead and who more than anyone at the
moment understands the line of march the New Afrikan liberation movement
should be taking, as fascism continues to kick its boots at our doors in
the First World.
I will be waiting to hear your thoughts soon. In the meantime, all
efforts on our boycott campaign should center on Securus. No
opportunities to vilify Securus between December 6 and December 13
should be missed.
We agree with the author that the re-election of Trump indicates that
the imperialists are looking to reshape things. In 2019, we wrote about
how the absence of a real proletarian threat makes fascism unnecessary
and unlikely. The threat that has emerged since then is the Palestine
heightening it’s war of national liberation, which has forced all
parties involved in the region to make their positions clear. In
addition to this shakeup in the Middle East, there has been the Russian
invasion of Ukraine and its affects across Europe. What seems likely is
the imperialists are seeing cracks in the previous world order and signs
of economic crisis that require a shift in strategy.
Trump remains erratic in eir speeches, and we have no great
predictions for how this next term will go at this time. What is clear
is that the need to build a strong movement against imperialism and
fascism is now. There are opportunities on the horizon, and we hope you
will join us in preparing for them.
Notes: 1. MIM(Prisons), April 2019, “Fascism,
Imperialism, and Amerika in 2019”, Under Lock & Key 67. 2.
Wiawimawo of MIM(Prisons), November 2016, The Strategic Significance of
Defining Fascism, Under Lock & Key 53.
I recently read a writing titled: “Law, Prison and Double-Double
Consciousness: A Phenomenological View of the Black-Prisoner’s
Experience” by James Davis III. This led me to write the following:
“What I pondered was my own double-double consciousness! The
development of the”New Afrikan” within the greater black populace of
captives. From the taking of the Afrikan attribute(s)’s learning of
Ki-Swahili, the mandated study of all things dealing with black culture,
history and struggle, to the daily remaking of one’s world view through
study and application…the identity of “New Afrikan” implores one to rise
above the lowly station of inmate, of n-word.”
In reading this piece by Mr. Davis, I was reminded of the innate
power of a man. The power to literally reinvent oneself within an
environment designed to annihilate the soul of a man. Prison(s) are
created with a purpose to force a human to willingly acquiesce to
half-man existence.
To develop a double-double consciousness is to resist such inferior
station(s), to be a man! One who stands on principle(s), personified
purpose, and willingly accepts his responsibilities to both uplift and
reeducate the masses, which is a revolutionary ideal!
To embrace a revolutionary ideological precept is to strive even
harder at evolving this “double-double consciousness”. Aside from the
aforementioned character improvement(s), the revolutionary-minded man
immerses himself in all things dealing with progressive politics and the
science of struggle.
As his prison cohorts grow comfortable living captive man half-lives
(i.e. embracing typical prison activities: gambling, drug usage, etc.)
the revolutionary-minded captive creates a compass of consciousness
which guides him daily. He spends his time always pushing himself to
excel, regardless of tasks or conditions.
This is the cat who aligns with other men who reject the half-lives
and/or inferior designations expected of the captive class. Whenever
he/they are seen, they’re reading something, writing something,
attending college, engaging in some form of constructive dialogue, or
physically training their bodies. Forging his new self: the unbroken,
unbowed man that’s living and potentially dying, upon revolutionary
standards and practices.
The identification of oneself as a militant, as a revolutionary
theorist, anchors oneself. As those around him list to-and-fro,
uncertain of their next move(s), the innate belief within the mind of
the man moving by a revolutionary compass is that he represents
something greater than himself. That he is a soldier that happens to be
behind enemy lines if you will: captured! It is through this perception,
that he re-imagines his reality, and in turn finds purpose in his every
action. He discovers the reservoir of resistance within which moves him
to set his personal bar of daily exemplary conduct higher than those
around him. Understanding his calling, devoting himself to the people.
To meeting their needs.
I find all of the above to be quite close to describing myself.
Though admittedly, I fall short of the mark most days. Being human, with
all of the subjectivisms that accompany it, at times, my objective
conditions threaten to overwhelm me. Yet it is the will to win, to
resist the “colonial mentality” which has historically impacted my ilk,
propels me to stand firm. Existing within a perpetual mode of
resistance!
In looking back, I can really see that I’ve been in a state of
rebellion my entire life! That I have never been one of those “go along
to get along” type of brothas. Unfortunately, this ingrained sense of
recalcitrance has led to many years of imprisonment and designations by
those of the oppressor class, as being anti social and/or suffering some
mystery “personality disorder”. To not be a shoe shine boy, a buck
dancing coon, a tom! The conventional roles assigned to the U.$.
man/woman of color! Is to be castigated by those in power, and/or
positions of authority.
I now fully comprehend this whole “double-double consciousness” as it
pertains to myself individually and my New Afrikan/black kinfolk!
Collectively! All colored folk whom live in capitalist society, which is
governed by those who use race and class as measurements of worth! Not
only adjust to the double consciousness of faux citizenry…they also
develop their own “double-double consciousness” to cope!
However, the one brutal fact which distinguishes the U.$. Black
man/woman from any other ethnic groups is the historical miscarriage of
chattel slavery! Our socio-cultural creation of a double-double
consciousness is our collective survival mechanism if you will. A way to
figuratively stay rooted in our Afrikan beginnings! Whilst literally
standing on the shoulders of the many, many activists, struggle-ists,
revolutionaries, and average citizens whom were wounded, imprisoned,
tortured, and murdered! For daring to dream of having freedom, justice
and equality! We repay the debt to our martyrs by clinging fiercely to
their memories, living within our “cocoon’s” of double-double
consciousness! Forging bonds with other forward thinking folk of Afrikan
ancestry. And then, united in purpose, teach others how to “escape” our
half life existences! Moving towards a revolutionary ideology and
corresponding actions as the conditions reveal the time to manifest
them! I stand firm within the confines of a satanic creation! Striving
to be the catalyst for progress and change. As I survive, only through
my own “double-double consciousness” cocoon.
MIM(Prisons) adds: Davis’s double-double consciousness
is a product of alienation through oppressive structures. These
oppressive structures isolate people from “the world”, putting them in a
new reality, with new rules and norms, that are generally worse than
“the world” they know in every way. This is in contrast to prisons in
socialist China – where people were encouraged (you might say coerced)
to study the outside world, to better understand their own actions and
find a new way to be in that world that is in line with the interests of
the people. In a socialist prison, criminals can focus on struggling
with themselves because they aren’t forced to struggle against the
oppression of the prison environment first.
We offer comrades support in developing the consciousness that is in
rebellion against the oppressive system. We offer Under Lock &
Key as a forum to connect with and share ideas with other
like-minded individuals. We have our Revolutionary 12 Steps
that is one tool for those trying to transform themselves into new
people. And we have books on revolutionary societies like China, and
their prison system, and how they were able to radically transform a
whole society. So if this comrade’s essay resonates with you, get
involved and get plugged in with these resources today!
Happy Mass Murder Day,
The last Thursday in November,
a day to give thanks to god;
for the natives being massacred.
What kind of god do we believe in,
making heroes out of criminals,
celebrating the atrocities,
of the so-called founding fathers,
thieves, humyn traffickers,
rapists, and slave holders?
Thanking god for the parasites,
no wonder we are still their sufferers.
Happy Mass Murder Day,
The history speaks for itself,
we see why the very same invasions,
and massacres are happening,
to the Palestinian natives.
Funded and armed,
by the very same parasites;
who invaded and massacred,
the American natives.
Pretty soon there will be,
a Thanks Giving day,
for the invasion and massacre
happening in Palestine.
Inevitable, as long as the parasites,
are in control of the narrative.
Happy Mass Murder Day,
to who, the lawmakers,
who got millions invested
in military weapons
manufacturing companies?
And the owners of the companies
manufacturing the bombs?
Or the poor defenseless victims;
wombmen and children
being blown to smithereens,
with systematic impunities?
Y’all keep celebrating the murderers,
I’ll keep celebrating the victims
of these crimes against humanity,
victims of CIPWS atrocities.
Happy Mass Murder Day,
Isn’t Gaza and the West Bank,
in and of themselves reservations?
Hasn’t Gaza and the West Bank,
been enduring the very same foreigner
settler colonization and occupation,
for 76-plus years?
Doesn’t that call for
Palestinian indignation?
And isn’t it being done,
by the very same victims
of holocaust extermination?
How do you scream “self defense”
against a people you are denying
self-determination?
Where is God,
or the United Nations?
Happy Mass Murder Day,
why isn’t anyone seeing
a double standard of international law?
Why isn’t anyone seeing the Zionist,
as being truly anti-semitic to the core?
Why isn’t anyone seeing
that Amerikkka is arming the Zionist
against the Palestinian poor?
the blocking of humanitarian aid,
the targeting of wombmen and children,
attacking hospitals and aid workers,
medical personnel and UN Officials,
need I say any more?
Netanhitler is a proxy of the U.$.,
so he cannot be a war criminal,
and what’s happening in Palestine,
in their eyes is not even war.
Must be just a figment of my imagination,
just keeping it raw.