Under Lock & Key

Countering the Bourgeois Media

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

<sup>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</sup>

As we go to press, the prospects of an inter-imperialist war loom heavy once again. The upcoming U.$. presidential election contributes to the uncertainty as various forces posture and attempt to exert influence. What is clear is that U.$. imperialism is set on backing its Zionist outpost in the Levant (Middle East) while the majority of the world stand in opposition, and even most Amerikans want their government to stop sending arms to I$rael.(1)

Despite public opinion, the imperialists are offering no presidential candidate that will slow aid to I$rael. Military aid also continues despite the United $tate’s own laws.

“ProPublica has revealed USAID and the State Department’s refugees bureau both concluded this spring that Israel had deliberately blocked deliveries of food and medicine into Gaza, but U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and other top Biden officials rejected the findings of the agencies even though they’re considered the two foremost U.S. authorities on humanitarian assistance. Blinken’s decision allowed the U.S. to keep sending arms to Israel. Under U.S. law, the government is required to cut off weapons shipments to countries preventing the delivery of U.S.-backed aid. Days after receiving the reports, Blinken told Congress, quote, “We do not currently assess that the Israeli government is prohibiting or otherwise restricting the transport or delivery of U.S. humanitarian assistance.”

“On [24 September 2024], the Council on American-Islamic Relations, CAIR, called for Blinken’s resignation, accusing him of lying to Congress.”(2)

I$rael received at least $12.5 billion in U.$. aid as of May 2024.(3) And as the 2024 fiscal year comes to a close, they just announced another $8.7 billion in military aid to I$rael in an aid package that also includes $17 billion to “reimburse U.S. operations in response to recent attacks.”(4) This came in the midst of increased attacks on Lebanon and the killing of the leadership of Hezbollah.

“Most of the aid—approximately $3.3 billion a year—is provided as grants under the Foreign Military Financing (FMF) program, funds that Israel must use to purchase U.S. military equipment and services. …U.S. aid reportedly accounts for some 15 percent of Israel’s defense budget. Israel, like many other countries, also buys U.S. military products outside of the FMF program.”(3)

Israel gets 78% of its arms imports from the United $tates.(3) This circulation of capital into the U.$. economy is one reason why the imperialists won’t offer an anti-war candidate. Meanwhile, family members in Gaza send photos of bombs and military equipment used against them stamped with “Made in USA”.

An April 2024 Pew Research poll showed much lower opposition to sending military aid to I$rael among Amerikans than other polls, but its breakdown by age reflected who is out in the streets, and who is putting their bodies on the line to stop the genocide here in the United $tates. While 45% of 18-29 year olds opposed U.$. aid to I$rael according to Pew, this number decreases with age, getting down to only 22% of Amerikans 65+.(3) This conflict between the young and the old has been reflected in the anti-imperialist movement for decades, and we see this as the principal contradiction within the Amerikan nation where class contradictions and the contradictions between male-bodied and female-bodied people are generally not antagonistic.

The military-industrial complex (MIC) ensures politicians represent economic interests by massive investments in lobbying:

“Lobbying expenditures by all the denizens of the MIC are even higher—more than $247 million in the last two election cycles. Such funds are used to employ 820 lobbyists, or more than one for every member of Congress. And mind you, more than two-thirds of those lobbyists had swirled through Washington’s infamous revolving door from jobs at the Pentagon or in Congress to lobby for the arms industry.”(5)

Weapons manufacturers have bigger budgets than those in charge of the wars, and more influence than any other industry. In 2020, Lockheed Martin received more money from the U.$. government than the budgets of the State Department and the Agency of International development combined. Meanwhile, more than 75 percent of the top foreign-policy think tanks in the United $tates are at least partially funded by military contractors. These weapons manufacturers are also deeply involved in Hollywood movie production. This is why we think it is misleading to use terms like “prison industrial complex” or “non-profit industrial complex”. The size, influence and importance to the U.$. economy of military production is not comparable to such theories.(6)

According to statistics gathered by the National Defense Industrial Association, there are currently one million direct jobs in arms manufacturing compared to 3.2 million in the 1980s.(4) But we all benefit indirectly in this country, and the east coast dock workers agree:

“Dating back to World War 1, the ILA was always proud to note that ‘ILA Also Means Love America’ when it came to its “No Strike Pledge” in handling U.S. military cargo at all its ports,” said ILA President Harold Daggett, who served in the U.S. Navy and saw combat duty during the Vietnam War. “We continue our pledge to never let our brave American troops down for their valour and service and we will proudly continue to work all military shipments beyond October 1st, even if we are engaged in a strike.”(7)

While it is not clear exactly what the U.$. strategy is for I$rael right now, two things remain true: 1. I$rael is an outpost for U.$. interests in the Levant (which is rich in fossil fuels), and 2. weapons production is a key prop to the U.$. economy by continuously increasing the circulation of capital.

France announced it has ceased any military aid to I$rael to be consistent with their calls for a cease fire. The United Nations called on I$rael to withdraw its military from Palestine and Lebanon and evacuate settlers from lands occupied since 1967 (124 countries voted in favor, 14 against, 43 abstained). Weeks later, I$raeli troops fired at 3 UNIFIL positions in southern Lebanon, injuring a number of UN peacekeepers. Countries continue to join the International Court of Justice case against I$rael, including Chile, the Maldives and Bolivia most recently. Meanwhile, Nicaragua, an early signatory, has just cut off diplomatic ties with I$rael.

I$rael has killed an estimated 8% of the population of Gaza after one year of war and displacement.(8)

<sup>Notes:
1. a June 2024 CBS poll had 61% opposing sending weapons to I$rael and 37% who wanted an end to all military actions in Gaza; a majority of Amerikans have consistently opposed sending arms to I$rael since 7 October 2023
2. Democracy Now!, 26 September 2024, U.S. Gov’t Agencies Found Israel Was Blocking Gaza Aid. Blinken Ignored Them to Keep Weapons Flowing.
3. Jonathan Masters & Will Merrow, 31 May 2024, U.S. Aid to Israel in Four Charts, Council on Foreign Releations.
4. Laura Kelly, 26 September 2024, Israel says it secured $8.7 billion military aid package from US , The Hill.
5. William D. Hartung and Benjamin Freeman, 9 May 2023, The Military Industrial Complex Is More Powerful Than Ever, The Nation.
6. Wiawimawo, April 2016, The Importance of Militarism Under Imperialism, and Why Prisons Aren’t So Much, Under Lock & Key 50
7. International Longshoremen’s Association, 25 September 2024, press statement.
8. Ben Norton, 13 October 2024, Global South denounces genocide in Gaza, Nicaragua breaks relations with ‘fascist’ Israel, Latin America supports Palestine, Geopolitical Economy Report.</sup>

i enjoyed comrade Grim’s article on Christian Zionism and the prison tablet propaganda. i wanted to comment a little since Grim asked for comments from TX comrades.

Comrade Grim was spot on with what was said about the ideas and ideals driving Christian Zionism generally and as it manifests itself in the prison tablet space.

Regarding the group Grim mentioned by name, Real Vida TV, i was able to work closely with Real Vida while organizing on behalf of Texas T.E.A.M. O.N.E. At the time their line on solitary confinement was that they saw it as torture and that it should be shut down in its totality. This matched Our own line on solitary confinement and Real Vida was willing and did assist us in spreading Our message, connecting us with interested groups and opening their platform up to us and our supporters. At the time it was only an audio radio show, not a podcast, and there were no tablets. They also acted as communication assistants helping us make important contacts with each other from plantation to plantation as we organized a state-wide hunger strike against solitary confinement. All this is to say that at the time we had a working relationship, regardless of their Christian Zionist beliefs.

However, this changed after Operation Al-Aqsa flood. Personally speaking i couldn’t even listen to the garbage they were spewing let alone look past it. Ties were severed. To me the question of the Third World proletariat and the Palestinian nationalist struggle far out-weighs the U.$. prisoner class-based struggles.

They’re the most reactionary manifestation of the christian prison ministries and also one of the most popular. A lot of their videos are widely discussed afterwards and i’ve had more than a few disputes and even fisticuffs surrounding the B.S. they spew. The cold truth is that as MIM(Prisons) says, not all prisoners are swayed by this garbage. But the Palestinian struggle has unearthed the reactionary, patriotic amerikkkan spirit among the lumpen here. What i observe is that only the most politically and socially conscious prisoners side with the Palestinian struggle, and this is the minority.

The tablets play a role in that they have very limited selection of voices and ideas, particularly on this sort of issue. Pando App dominates the landscape and prior to March 2024, when podcasts were uploaded onto all tablets, Pando was basically the only source of entertainment. i have filed complaints concerning discrimination in content that is available on the KA Lite app, which is an education app that has a wide variety of scientific and hard historical factual knowledge, but the prison admin has to allow permission to download content. My complaint came after observing that there was no content concerning Africa, the Black Liberation struggle, and anti-colonial revolutions. Although these videos have been made by the app creator, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) has not allowed us access to the content. i also filed a complaint on the podcast platform for similar reasons but pertaining solely to Palestine.

The final comment is that outside comrades have to begin to get their content on the music and/or podcast platforms. i sent a previous note to MIM(Prisons) on how to do that with the Securus people.

Firewater of USW also responded: Grim, read your article in ULK 86. I totally agree with you about the Christian religion and these “evangelists” supporting mass murder and exploitation around the world. The people at Real Vida are real nice folks, but they are brainwashed and misguided like all Christians. We need to be able to copy what they do only for our revolutionary work.

We need to be doing what Real Vida is doing but like you said the Christian Zionists have a monopoly on these tablets and it needs to be broken up! I was in medium and high security and all we could watch was “Pando App”, which is nothing but Christian Evangelists and we have an FYI App that is run by TDCJ and is all Jesus all the time!

TDCJ is run by these Christian Chapels and they oppress other religions such as Muslim, Native American, Eastern religions, etc. The Church of the Larger Fellowship (CLF) Unitarian Universalists’ Prison Ministry said that the “PANDO” App would not allow the CLF to participate. Probably because the PANDO folks are right-wing evangelical kooks and the CLF and UUA are extremely liberal organizations.

Grim is right on when ey talks about the genocide of Turtle Island and the raping and pillaging of Mother Earth’s treasures. They love to tout capitalism as the greatest engine of wealth ever created. But it’s like Orwell’s Animal Farm, where the farm animals are ruled by their newly formed governance of PIGS!

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) is a pro-Zionist, reactionary watch-dog organization that has posed as an unbiased civil rights organization since 1913.

The ADL is one of the main groups whose connections and influence help drive the false narrative that anti-Zionism is anti-semitic. This false narrative is now driving the erosion of First Amendment free speech protections, backlash against university campus protests and their demands related to Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS). As such, ADL is not only a threat to those of us who support the national liberation of Palestine, but also otherwise unengaged people in the Corporate States of Amerikkka.

ADL is funded, as a non-taxed 501(c)(3), by mega donors on the far right. And has been lobbying for legislation to criminalize political dissent against settler-colonialism in I$rael. The ADL did the same thing during the South African apartheid years. Even going as far as to spy on anti-Zionist and anti-apartheid activists for the FBI during the 1980s and early 1990s. In total ADL spied on 700 socio-political organizations. In the McCarthy era the ADL snitched on communists and anarchists to the House of Un-Amerikan Activities Committee.

The ADL runs and operates a non-governmental police education program which sends police to I$rael for training. The ADL has said publicly, through its “research director”, that the “American Left that’s the biggest threat to American Jews”.

It is this conclusion that has led the ADL to insult, snitch, and spy on nearly every major New Afrikan organization from the era of SNCC and the BPP to today’s Black Lives Matter.

For this reason we believe that you, the reader, should contribute to exposing the ADL’s track record. Sign the open letter, “Open Letter to Progressives: The ADL is Not An Ally” (DropTheADL.com).