MIM(Prisons) is a cell of revolutionaries serving the oppressed masses inside U.$. prisons, guided by the communist ideology of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism.
Humyn health is perhaps the most basic measure of oppression that we
have. More than economic exploitation, humyn health measures the degree
to which the basic survival needs of people are being met. Looking at
the conditions of health in U.$. prisons, as well as reservations,
barrios and ghettos across the United $tates, does not paint a favorable
picture of imperialism and its ability to provide for humyn needs, not
to mention even worse conditions across the Third World. Given this,
health becomes an issue that we can rally the oppressed around to both
serve the people and oppose imperialism.
We’ve been pushing this very issue in United Struggle from Within (USW)
circles in California for some months, in some cases leading to state
repression. With the recently suspended mass hunger strike in that
state, a rash of deaths in Texas and the usual array of abuses across
U.$. prisons, we thought this was an opportune time to focus an issue of
ULK on health struggles.
Health was a central theme in the California hunger strike where
prisoners began to pass out from lack of food and other complications.
Bill “Guero” Sell died after a approximately two weeks on hunger strike.
The state says it was suicide, but however he died, the SHU was the
cause of death. One San Quentin prisoner’s kidneys shut down, and many
complained of the lack of medical monitoring and the aloofness of
medical staff. We have been sending regular updates to comrades in
California about what has been going on over the last two months. For
those who want to see more reporting in ULK, send in your
donations to help reach the goal of $250 to add 4 pages to a future
issue.
In at least two Texas prisons we have comrades organizing around the
murders of prisoners by staff abuse and neglect, the most basic health
campaign. In Texas we also have positive examples of organizing sports
as a way to bring people together and improve health. Meanwhile comrades
in more restrictive conditions in one California prison were punished
for organizing group exercise, calling it “Security Threat Group
activity.”
The manipulation of people through chemical substances is another common
health theme. Many comrades are being denied medications they depend on
and facing life-threatening conditions. At the same time oppressed
communities fight the use of recreational drugs to oppress their people
as seen in the struggle of the Oglala Lakotah. The exposure of this form
of low-intensity chemical warfare right here in North America is
particularly relevant at a time when the blood-thirsty imperialists have
been ramping up for an invasion of Syria based on unsubstantiated claims
of chemical weapons use by the government there.
From rotten potatoes in Massachussetts, to inadequate servings in Nevada
and people forced to rely on vending machines in Florida, basic
nutrition is denied to people in a country where 40% of food is wasted.
Recently, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization reported that
greenhouse gases from global food waste is more than the emissions of
any single country except China or the United $tates.(1) Water, another
vital resource, is also used to produce all this wasted food. From U.$.
prisoners, to the global countryside where malnutrition leads to
thousands of deaths daily, to the environmental services that all of
humynity depend on, the capitalist profit system has failed to serve
humyn need.
We can look to the barefoot doctors in revolutionary China, or the
mobile health units of the
Black
Panther Party or the Young Lords Party as examples of serving the
people’s basic health needs in a revolutionary context. The Chinese also
took a completely different approach to mental illness, which bourgeois
society does more to cause than to remedy. Materially, the capitalist
economic system can produce enough for everyone, but cannot provide it
to them. It’s a system that uses the denial of basic health as a form of
social control, because if it did not the system would be overthrown.
Rather than begging the oppressor for a little relief, let’s implement
real solutions to these problems.
For the annual day of peace we pulled together approximately 70
prisoners scattered around the institution. We avoided the cafeteria at
all costs and kept our contact with the pigs at a minimum. We had a lot
of cats who faked or simply broke weak because of their watered down
hearts, but as a whole we are proud to say that you can add
Arkansas/Varner unit to the list of participants.
Next year we’re going to expand with a stated goal of at least a
thousand participants crossing all lines toward producing unity among
the poor and oppressed is a struggle that we must take step-by-step,
making small gains with each step until we’ve achieved our goal.
As a mail-based prisoner support organization, the ability to get our
mail in to our comrades and subscribers is an essential part of our
ability to organize. If we can’t get mail in, we can’t help lead the
anti-imperialist struggle behind bars. We are under no illusion that
we’ll ever be free from censorship; if our enemy hates us, we’re
probably doing something right! But the U.$. Constitution and our
humynist morality support our insistence on fighting censorship as much
as possible so that we can have as big of an impact on the international
revolutionary movement as we can.
Often times our subscribers don’t even know how much censorship they
persynally are experiencing, let alone what’s going on around the
country. Our annual censorship report gives our subscribers an idea of
how much political repression we’re facing overall.
This year we started recording our mail in more detail, and removed a
lot of flaws in how the data is aggregated (although it’s not perfect!).
At the bottom of the chart, “% Unconfirmed” tells you how accurate the
snapshot is for that reporting year; the lower number the better,
because a lower percent of unconfirmed mail means we actually know what
happened to more of the mail we’ve sent in. Unconfirmed mail not only
covers up censorship in cases where the prisoner never got the mail but
we haven’t been made aware of it; it also may exaggerate the level of
censorship we’re actually facing in a particular facility or state where
our mail is actually getting in to some people but they haven’t told us.
Of course we know the content of our literature is not held in high
regard by most prison staff, so assuming we’re being censored when we
aren’t sure what is going on is probably more accurate than not.
A facility is considered to be banning our literature for that reporting
year if they have censored two or more items, and no items have been
confirmed as received. An entire state is considered to be banning our
literature if they have censored any mail, and no mail has been reported
as received. Another note on the chart: it is only a snapshot of what is
going on with our mail. A facility might be banning us in the same state
where we also had victories, or a complete statewide ban may only
actually affect a few subscribers (plus the potential new subscribers we
might gain if our lit wasn’t censored).
To improve our data on the level of censorship we’re experiencing, you
may receive a list from us of mail we’ve sent you, asking you to confirm
receipt or censorship of each item. This list is called an Unconfirmed
Mail Form (UMF). We recommend everyone keep a log of all your mail,
incoming and outgoing, with dates received/sent, from/to who, and
contents. That way if your mail with us, or anyone, is tampered with,
you are one step ahead of the game. And if you get a UMF, you will be
able to fill it out accurately rather than guessing. But do not wait to
receive a UMF to tell us what you’ve gotten! When you write to us, you
should always tell us what you’ve gotten from us since the last time you
wrote. That will save time and money so we can send in more books and
literature.
Facilities banning all our mail in the last reporting year:
Colorado - Arkansas Valley State Prison
Connecticut - Northern Correctional Institution and Northern Supermax
this is the second consecutive year in Northern Supermax
Florida - Suwanee Annex
Illinois - Menard Correctional Center (two years in a row)
Michigan - Gus Harrison Correctional Facility
South Carolina - Leiber Correctional Institution
Utah - Central Utah Correctional Facility
Virginia - Hampton Roads Regional Jail (two years in a row)
Wisconsin - Green Bay Correctional Institution and Kettle Moraine
Correctional Institution
Facilities banning ULK in the last reporting year:
Connecticut - MacDougall-Walker Correctional Institution Reason:
“Rejected publication per the Media Review Board”
Florida - Franklin Correctional Institution Reason: MIM investigated
as Security Threat Group
Florida - Jackson Correctional Institution No reason given
Illinois - Menard Correctional Center Reasons: “Threat to safety and
security”
Michigan - G Robert Correctional Facility No reason given
New York - Riverview Correctional Facility Reasons: “Incites
disobedience, describes gang activity”
North Carolina - Marion Correctional Institution Reasons: “MIM
Distributors on disapproved publication list,” “encourages
insurrection”
North Carolina - Warren Correctional Institution Reason: “On ban
list”
Pennsylvania - State Correctional Institution Waymart Reasons:
“Unauthorized enclosure” and no reason given
Wisconsin - Wisconsin Secure Program Facility No reason given
Florida is also attempting to classify Under Lock & Key as
a “Security Threat Group,” which would likely make all mail from MIM
Distributors banned as gang-related, and subject anyone in possession of
mail from us to disciplinary action. We have not received an update on
this process since
April.
We do know that for a couple years Florida was a booming United Struggle
from Within state, and some of our more active comrades have recently
asked to be removed from our mailing list for fear of repression. We
aren’t sure whether the administration is threatening parole eligibility
or physical abuse, or other forms of torture such as solitary
confinement; or if they’ve already gone ahead and beaten the shit out of
these comrades to get them to stop talking to us. Yet we’ve seen this
enough times to know that something like that is going on. It’s
incredible the lengths Amerikans will go to to keep someone who’s
already locked up in prison from doing something as innocuous as reading
a newsletter, participating in a study group, and talking to other humyn
beings.
A popular reason for citing censorship in Nevada has been “Per AR 750…
Address labels are unauthorized.” Our guess is that this policy of the
Nevada Department of Corrections would not hold up in court as being
reasonably related to penological interests and the safety of the
institution. A subscriber in Nevada who has been missing mail due to
this rule should take on this struggle in a lawsuit! Another comrade in
that state reported that prison officials have admitted ULK is
not banned, but now they are resorting to “unofficial censorship” by
simply throwing out incoming and outgoing mail. This is another reason
why it’s important to track your correspondence.
Victories and Struggles
Appealing censorship and filing grievances can lead to small but
significant victories. The victories in Arizona, Pennsylvania, and on
the Federal level are attributed solely to prisoners filing appeals of
the censorship, without any supporting letters from MIM Distributors. Of
course not all appeals will be granted, and we don’t expect to ever be
completely free of censorship from the state. But we encourage everyone
to at least attempt to appeal all censorship of their mail. Send us
copies of your documents and we can publicize and track them on our
website
www.prisoncensorship.info.
In the last year we’ve focused much energy on fighting censorship in
Missouri and North Carolina. In Missouri we’ve met some success with
letter writing, but in North Carolina it has been a different story.
After a surge in USW activity in North Carolina, every issue of
Under Lock & Key has been placed on their ban list for over
3 years straight. Upon appeal, not only do North Carolina prisoncrats
tend to simply uphold the decision of the lower level with no
explanation, but when asked to explain how their “independent” review
process works, we are given no response. When we filed a public records
request with the state, the only documents they had to demonstrate that
the independent review process existed was a stack of the original
censorship notifications, further putting into question the existence of
the “review process.” We have comrades working on this case in North
Carolina who could benefit greatly from some additional legal
assistance.
Multiple
subscribers
in Illinois have volunteered to assist MIM(Prisons) in fighting
censorship in that state, and one has two lawsuits pending on this
issue. While ULK is not getting in at all in some facilities in
the state, some of our subscriber-volunteers are able to receive
ULK and copies of the censor documentation. Also they are
intimately familiar with the mail rules and appeal procedures in their
state. Although it is a slower process for volunteers on theinside
working via mail, this has been a very beneficial campaign, and one that
anyone with legal knowledge can contribute to in their own state.
MIM(Prisons) facilitates a Prisoners’ Legal Clinic (PLC) to help
jailhouse lawyers plug into projects that will push forward the
collective legal knowledge and experience of the anti-imperialist
movement behind bars. Write in to get involved! Any lawyer or law
student who is interested in helping prisoners push forward these
anti-censorship lawsuits should
contact us.
In late August 2013, in an unprecedented move, the head of the Texas
Prison Guard Union, Mr. Lance Lowry, joined a lawsuit filed against TDCJ
by Scott Medlock of the Texas Civil Rights project. Mr. Medlock has
filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Brad Livingston, the Executive
Director of TDCJ on behalf of the families of 14 prisoners who died
because of neglect and the oppressive extreme heat in Texas prison
facilities.
This announcement comes on the cusp of many revelations that TDCJ
continues to engage in behavior which shows a blatant disregard for the
health and safety not just of prisoners housed in their facilities, but
a blatant lack of care or respect for their employees also. However, my
focus is on the prisoner because I am a prisoner. I stand in solidarity
with the prisoners housed on the Connally Unit in Kennedy, Texas whose
water supply was taken from them by a Warden who has ignored the basic
human needs of the prisoners in her care.
Prisoners at Connally Unit are on water rations, they are being denied
showers, and they can’t flush their toilets! They are being forced to
live in the heat and the filth because TDCJ decided to give the water
well that serviced the prison to the residents of Kennedy!
In August we learned that Brad Livingston approved the spending of
$750,000 on 5 climate controlled buildings for pigs! Literally, the
Agency of TDCJ has spent three quarters of a million dollars on pigs
which prisoners raise for consumption in TDCJ. Prisoners are dying down
here Brad, what the hell are you doing?
But it gets better comrades. The American Correctional Association (ACA)
has even made Brad Livingston the current chair of the organization that
makes policies for all Amerikan prisons and jails across the United
$tates. When the subject of heat-related safety precautions came across
his desk, Mr. Livingston decided no heat standards were needed! So as we
clearly see ACA is a sham and a fraud!
The fact that the head of the Prison Guard Union in Texas joined the
lawsuit against TDCJ is a sign that prison officials like Brad
Livingston have been passing misinformation and disinformation about the
conditions in TDCJ for years. Soon a murder cover-up will be exposed
with Brad Livingston being a chief culprit.
If you were thinking about joining USW and are housed in one of Texas’s
many gulags where inhumane treatment is the status quo and norm, now’s
the time. As Bobby used to say, we must Seize the Time! I don’t know who
got first down, but we got next!
MIM(Prisons) adds: This is a good example of the oppressed taking
advantage of contradictions among the oppressors. It is rare that we can
unite with part of the criminal injustice system against another part,
but in the case of this lawsuit, if we can play some prisoncrats off
against others, we can work this to the favor of the oppressed. Even
better, and rarer, is when oppressors see the injustice and side with
the oppressed, actively biting the hand that feeds them.
These preventable deaths from heat are a sad but clear example of the
waste of humyn life under imperialism. A system that values profit over
people, imperialism will never fix the problems with the criminal
injustice system. But we can win some small reforms, and prevent some
deaths, while exposing the system and building a movement that can take
it down and put a system of people’s justice in its place.
“Once again we are presented with a campaign to end third world poverty
and oppression that is incapable of confronting the roots of this
oppression because it is bound up in the cycle it pretends to
critique.”(1)
I couldn’t of put it better myself as those are the exact same
sentiments/thoughts that went through my head as I watched Girl
Rising, the highly touted new documentary film that is concerned
with drawing attention to, and putting a stop to the oppression of young
girls in the “developing world.”
Now, being that this special aired on the info-tainment CNN television
station I decided to watch to see just how exactly cable TV would handle
this topic. Predictably enough, CNN and their NGO partners (Non
Governmental Organizations) show us what most anti-imperialists are
already aware of: that most wimmin and girls in the Third World suffer
at exponentially higher rates than their First World counterparts.
Beyond that however, the film didn’t really make any poignant statements
relative to the emancipation of wimmin, neither did they explain to us
how these girls are supposed to rise, despite the film’s name. Instead,
the film-makers, the so-called NGOs, and the corporate sponsors they are
both in bed with, used the children depicted in the film as a way to
launch yet another offensive at the supposedly backwards culture of the
oppressed. The take away? “Just look at how miserable these girls in the
Third World are, look at how they suffer.” The reason? Backwards,
internal development, lack of First World ingenuity and innovation, and
the reactionary culture of the global south. And the answer? Immediate
imperialist intervention whether by bullion or by bullet.
Girl Rising is a movie centered around the life experiences of
five Third World girls whose stories are told to us in order to garner
much-needed attention to the endemic problem of gross patriarchal
oppression in the periphery. Yet the patriarchy is never even referred
to. Furthermore, the film leaves one with a rather pessimistic outlook
for girls in the impoverished zones absent a western-style bourgeois
democracy. And indeed, it would seem then that this documentary was
designed just to induce such feelings. Conveniently enough this film
fails to mention just how the oppressor of wimmin and girls in these
countries is not mere happenstance, but systematic and directly linked
to the uneven development of Asia, Africa and Latin America. Nor does it
mention that the systematic oppression of young children in these
societies (as the ones featured in Girl Rising) are a permanent
fixture and of complete necessity for the ongoing parasitic privilege of
beneficiary populations such as the United $tates. The perpetuation of
capitalism in these countries, and the finance capital that is sent
there and dressed in the veneer of “aid,” is part and parcel of keeping
these nations from developing self-sufficient economies independent of
the global status quo.
Almost every other commercial during this two hour presentation is from
some imperialist multi-national bragging about what they do for Third
World wimmin and girls, when in reality all they are doing is
commodifying these girls’ oppression. Capital One, BNY Wealth Management
and Intel all had their greedy hands in the cookie jar. Here’s a perfect
example: During an Intel commercial that aired during the movie, a
narrative states: “A girl is not defined by what society sees, but how
she sees herself.” Now, besides the obvious commercialization of its
product, Intel is just flat out wrong because, while that sweet
philosophical statement holds some truth here in the United $tates where
wimmin have “rights” (privileges) and know how to have them enforced, it
is a completely different story in the Third World where the gender
roles are not the same and are directly dependent on capital.
Amerika maintains the image that they are the gold standard when it
comes to gender relations, just as they maintain the gold standard when
it comes to how they treat their workers. Point in fact, the very first
commercial during the film is brought to us by a feminine hygiene
product maker depicting their version of how they see girls rising in
the periphery. They show us how they make an African girl’s dream come
true by giving her the chance to direct a commercial for the day. Surely
this dream is not reflective of the billions of Third World girls
currently toiling under the weight of comprador regimes, death squads,
sexual slavery, feudalistic landlords, and assembly line sweatshops. No,
from the looks of this girl it is the dream of a privileged sector child
whose parents might very well be a part of the technocratic
petty-bourgeois intelligentsia of this much hyped “developing world.” A
far cry from the realities of the lives depicted in the film.
From little Wadley in disease ridden and underdeveloped Haiti, whose
dream is to be able to attend school with her mates, but who is
unfortunately unable to because her mother just doesn’t have the money.
Or Zuma in Nepal who was sold into slavery as a child, was liberated
from her abusive masters by a teacher and now as a young adult organizes
other girls to liberate those still held in captivity. Yazmin in Egypt
who is no more than nine but is raped by some scumbag and then refused
help from the police because the chance of prosecution is little to
none. Azmera in Eritrea who narrowly escapes a life in bondage, and
Senna in Peru whose life seems doomed to mining for scraps of gold. All
these lives and their portrayal in Girl Rising are but glimpses
into the real yoke of imperialist oppression.
We are constantly told that the mode of production called capitalism is
the best humynity has to offer, and that a capitalist economy has
already been proven superior to socialism, yet whenever the mode of
production has been revolutionized and a socialist economy has been put
into effect the people of those societies have seen a tremendous growth
in the overall well being of their populations. This is most notably
true for wimmin who’ve been immediately pulled out of their traditional
roles as housewives and mothers and thrown directly into the production
process, in which they help their nation create not only sustainability
but wealth (in particular see socialist
China
and the USSR). The conditions created by wimmin’s participation in the
production process likewise creates the condition for participation in
the political process where they assume power utilizing revolutionary
politics to push people out of the middle and dark ages and into the New
Democratic period in which the people truly hold power.
Certainly wherever socialism has triumphed it has been only as a direct
result of wimmin’s role and participation as guerrilla warriors,
battalion captains and proletarian-feminist leaders in liberating her
nation from not only the imperialists but the patriarchy; as only by
defeating the one can she defeat the other.
The liberation of wimmin is not accomplished via equal pay for equal
work nor by the granting of “abortion on demand” as these are really
only
privileges
given to the gender aristocracy for their allegiance to empire.
Instead of advocating for more privileges that are contingent on the
backs of their Third World “sisters,” the NGOs and the
First
World pseudo-feminists at the helm of such propaganda like Girl
Rising and the “Because I am a Girl” campaign(1) should all aim
their guns at the imperialist rape and plunder of the periphery that
makes it possible for the First World pseudo-feminists to have “abortion
on demand” and equal pay for equal work! Real feminist leadership can
only come from the proletarian perspective and not from First World
wimmin who are really just globally gendered males who have a real
material interest in holding up the global system of oppression and
exploitation.(2)
“If this campaign actually wants to change ‘the plight’ of girls then it
should endorse wimmin’s militias and factory takeovers on the part of
women and girls. Such a revolutionary agenda, though, would put it at
odds with its corporate sponsors and so, like every NGO, it will remain
caught within an imperialist framework.”(1)
Liberation of the neo-colonies from the patriarchal grips of the
imperialists will set wimmin free in the global countryside; not charity
from the imperialist centers.
According to the Collective’s statement, they have suspended their
strike in response to a pledge by state legislators Tom Ammiano, Loni
Hancock and Tom Hayden to hold a legislative hearing into conditions in
the Security Housing Units (SHU) and the debriefing process.
MIM(Prisons) is not optimistic of the outcome of such hearings. Ammiano
held a hearing in August 2011 in response to the first of three mass
hunger strikes around this struggle, and nothing changed, leading to the
second hunger strike that October. Back in 2003, our comrades as part of
the United Front to Abolish the SHU attended a legislative hearing on
the conditions in the California SHU and the validation process. They
published an article entitled,
“CA
senate hearings on the SHU: we can’t reform torture.” Ten years
later, little has changed. These hearings keep happening, but they are
little more than pacifying talks by those in power. The facts have been
out there, the state has known what is going on in these torture cells.
So what is the difference now? And how can we actually change things?
CDCR Done Addressing Problems
Before we look at how we can change things, let’s further dispel any
illusions that the CDCR or the state of California is going to be the
source of this change. In the latest iteration of the strike, an
additional 40 demands were drafted around smaller issues and widely
circulated to supplement the
5
core demands. On 26 August 2013, the CDCR released a
point-by-point
response to the demands of those who have been on hunger strike since
July 8. The announcement by the CDCR cites a 5 June 2013 memo that
allegedly addresses many of these supplemental demands. Others are
listed as being non-issues or non-negotiable.
This CDCR announcement implies that we should not have hopes for
negotiations or actions towards real change from CDCR. The Criminal
Injustice System will not reform itself; we must force this change.
The Struggle Against Torture Continues
At first glance, the fact that this struggle has been waging for decades
with little headway (especially in California) can be discouraging.
However, our assessment of conditions in the imperialist countries
teaches us that right now struggle against oppression must take the form
of long legal battles, despite claims by the censors that we promote
lawlessness. Sporadic rebellions with lots of energy, but little
planning or longevity, do not usually create change and the conditions
for armed struggle do not exist in the United $tates. We are therefore
in strategic unity with the leaders who have emerged to sue the state,
while unleashing wave after wave of peaceful demonstrations of ever
increasing intensity. All of us involved have focused on agitation to
shape public opinion and promote peace and unity among prisoners, and
then using those successes to apply pressure to the representatives of
the state. These are all examples of legal forms of struggle that can be
applied within a revolutionary framework. Lawyers and reformists who can
apply constant pressure in state-run forums play a helpful role. But
make no mistake, prisoners play the decisive role, as the strikes are
demonstrating.
Control units came to be and rose to prominence in the same period that
incarceration boomed in this country. As a result, in the last few
decades the imprisoned lumpen have been a rising force in the United
$tates. Within the class we call the First World lumpen, it is in
prisons where we see the most stark evidence of this emerging and
growing class, as well as the most brutal responses from Amerikans and
the state to oppose that class.
In California prisons in the last three years we’ve seen that with each
successive hunger strike, participation has more than doubled. Just
think what the next phase will look like when the CDCR fails to end
torture once again! And as a product of this rising force in prisons,
support on the outside has rallied bigger each time as well. As we said,
this outside support is important, but secondary to the rising
imprisoned lumpen.
Over 30,000 prisoners, one-fifth of the population in California,
participated in this latest demonstration against torture. Many who
didn’t strike the whole time wrote to us that they, and those with them,
were on stand-by to start up again. These grouplets standing by should
be the basis for developing cadre. The 30,000 plus prisoners should be
the mass base, and should expand with further struggle and education.
If you’re reading this and still wondering, “what is it that
MIM(Prisons) thinks we should do exactly?” – it’s the same things we’ve
been promoting for years. Focus on educating and organizing, while
taking on winnable battles against the injustice system. Fighting to
shut down the control units is important, but it is only one battle in a
much larger struggle that requires a strong and organized
anti-imperialist movement. We run our own study programs and support
prisoner-run study groups on the inside. We provide Under Lock &
Key as a forum for agitating and organizing among the imprisoned
lumpen country-wide. We have study materials on building cadre
organizations, concepts of line, strategy and tactics and the basics of
historical and dialectical materialism. Each of these topics are key for
leaders to understand.
Organizing means working and studying every day. In addition to the
topics above, you can study more practical skills that can be used to
serve the people such as legal skills, healthy living skills and how to
better communicate through writing and the spoken word. Prisoners are
surrounded by potential comrades who can’t even read! We need Serve the
People literacy programs. Combining these practical trainings with the
political study and trainings promoted above will allow leaders to both
attract new people with things they can relate to, while providing
guidance that illuminates the reality of our greater society.
Principled organizing builds trust and dedication, which are two thing
that comrades often report being in short supply in U.$. prisons.
Principled organizing is how we can overcome these shortcomings. It is
not an easy, nor a quick solution. The opponent we face is strong, so
only by studying it closely and battling strategically will we be able
to overcome it.
Whatever other tactics comrades on the inside decide to take to continue
this struggle against torture, the need for building, organizing, and
educating is constant and at the strategic level. Without that the
movement does not strengthen or advance. If you’re taking up this work,
we want to hear from you and we want to support you in your efforts.
I was confined to Ad-Seg in Harris County Jail while my case was under
trial. Texas law requires the jail to give prisoners at least one hour a
day for exercise and meaningful recreation. I stayed in segregation for
nine months. Not once was I allowed out of cell exercise. I filed
grievances, which were denied. I then filed a Section 1983 lawsuit for
violation of my 14th amendment right to due process. The litigation is
ongoing, however the jail refuses to
stop this
barbaric and inhumane treatment of 24 hour lockdown. The “justice”
system is failing to protect the incarcerated individual. Again.
I traded several of my meals to other prisoners for a few stamps. I was
only able to gather 5 stamps. I know it’s not much, but I hope it helps
some. I have been spreading the MIM(Prisons) campaigns, and have put
together a small group of other prisoners to remember the Attica
uprising. We have planned a fast for September 9, 2013.
MIM(Prisons) adds: This comrade is organizing others to
participate in the
country-wide
demonstration September 9. Calling attention to the treatment of
prisoners, this demonstration coincides with the anniversary of the
Attica uprising.
Regarding the
dietary
petition you sent to my friend, we had those 10 filled out
immediately, well 9. I sent one to the law library to get 10 copies
made. From these 10, I had 9 more signed within a day. I tried to send
it to the law library to have copies made again. I was informed that I
would not receive copies because the law library would not copy blank
forms. The form was returned ripped, with my cell # written on it in
permanent marker. Of course this was a lie. Ely State Prison does copy
blank forms, they just don’t want me copying the petition and/or
distributing it.
However I erased my name etc. from the form, sent it out to a comrade of
mine in San Diego, and I asked for 30 copies so I could distribute them.
This comrade sent me 100 copies. I did receive these copies, and have
been passing them around, and have received many more signed copies. I
and another are also attempting to send copies to individuals in other
institutions. However, my mail is now being read and I have been
informed that if I continue to distribute and push the petition I will
be written up and my transfer request denied.
I have been housed at Ely State Prison (ESP) since 2002. ESP is a
supermax where we are locked down 24 hours a day. I have spent 8 years
trying to get a transfer. I was finally approved last month, and this
threat to keep me here is their way of trying to force me to stop
passing around the petition. I am not going to stop with my effort to
have these petitions signed. If it costs me my transfer so be it, I’ve
been here almost 11 years, I can handle more!
MIM(Prisons) adds: This is just one more example of how Amerika
uses long-term isolation as a form of social control against those
trying to organize for better conditions, even small reforms around
basic needs. This comrade’s determination to continue the fight against
food deprivation, even with the threat of ongoing long-term solitary
confinement, is an example for prisoners everywhere. This campaign has
gained support among prisoners in Nevada because it is a clear problem
for all prisoners, and one that we can reasonably expect to win. We do
need to be clear when spreading campaigns such as this one that this is
just a small battle that must be part of a broader effort to educate and
organize prisoners against the criminal injustice system. Only an
anti-imperialist movement with the long-term goal of a system where no
group of people oppresses another group has a chance of putting an end
to the criminal injustice of imperialism. The oppressed, united under
this goal, must build a new state that applies proletarian justice,
making depriving people of basic food and medical care a crime that is
punished and eliminated.
I’ve been through quite a lot in the six months or so since I’ve become
involved in the anti-imperialist movement. Starting out in a state
prison here in Massachusetts, I began by trying to devour as much
literature as I could on our collective struggle. In order to digest the
principles upon which our rebellion is based, I have tried to discuss
the ideas with other prisoners. However, I found it incredibly perverse
that so many other prisoners would posture and pay lip service to the
principles yet when it comes down to forming any kind of movement they
were cowed by the mere thought of the oppressor.
For example, I attempted to initiate a grievance campaign. There were
actually people willing to get involved but I had to write up each
individual grievance myself. Although this took up much of my personal
time I gladly did it, and actually saw some results. The prison was
serving rotten potatoes for about four years. Changed. Open shower drain
in one shower with the possibility of serious injury. Fixed. Broken law
library computer in the cell block. Fixed. Broken law library computer
in segregation. Fixed. I suppose the grievances weren’t all for nothing.
A couple of months ago I was transferred from state prison to a county
jail to serve a separate sentence. Now I’m getting ready to file my
first civil suits against this jail regarding the disciplinary process.
Hopefully the changes that I seek will stop the current disciplinary
staff from smoking everyone on their misconduct reports. Indeed, there
is a lot of shady stuff going on in the disciplinary board office,
especially the use of duplicate offenses to rack up extra segregation
time as a tool of oppression and complete non-compliance with the jail’s
own policy and procedures regarding disciplinary hearings.
MIM(Prisons) responds: We get many letters from activists behind
bars who are frustrated with the lack of interest and support from their
fellow prisoners. There are several important things to keep in mind
when thinking about why we can’t quickly and easily unite all (or most)
prisoners behind the anti-imperialist cause. First, prisoners come from
the same wealthy society that, on the streets, keeps the vast majority
of Amerikans supporting imperialism. While the class status of lumpen
prisoners makes them more likely to take up anti-imperialism, they are
not immune to the wealth and culture of Amerika.
Second, even where class and nation interests might put someone on the
side of the anti-imperialist movement, we have some serious educational
work to do to counter all the reactionary education they got for most of
their life. While some will instinctively join the revolution, drawing
correct conclusions from their own life and education, others will need
patient education and observation of our practice. This is true in all
revolutionary movements, and it is the job of our leaders, people who
already see the importance of the anti-imperialist struggle, to approach
people where they are at, and patiently provide them information and
examples as we work to win them over. If we look at socialism in China
in the 1960s, we see that even after seizing state power and all of
their great achievements, they still had to wage a vigorous Cultural
Revolution to combat bourgeois ideas all the way up to the Party’s
central committee. So we should not be surprised, nor get frustrated, by
the resistance we face in the United $tates today.
It is victories like those grievance battles won, combined with
education to give people the broader context for our struggle, that will
help us to win supporters and turn them into new activists. Always keep
in mind that you were not born an anti-imperialist. Someone had to
provide you with education, information and/or examples. Now it is your
turn to do the same for others.
I’m writing to give you an update on the
protest
back in June. The protest in June was just the start. The real
protest will jump off in October. The one in June went on for six days,
not two. It was on for two days before the south and north compounds
took part. We really wanted to go off with the July 8 one, but things
here were getting so bad the prisoners just couldn’t hold back any
longer. By October all should be ready. If not, those that are prepared
will be ready to share the understanding of what is going on so all the
population will be on the same page. And everyone understands this is a
peaceful protest, too much is just not right. I’m not the one doing the
talking but I’m surely a part.
MIM(Prisons) adds: As another comrade from New Jersey reported:
“Although nothing has changed as of the writing of this report, it is
important to highlight that the level of unity achieved across nations
and groups, the effective organization of the protest, and the fearful
response by the state demonstrate the power of non-violent resistance in
a corrections environment.” We agree this unity is critical. We are
seeing unity in resistance in prisons across the country. We need to
take advantage of this opportunity to educate and build. As this
prisoner points out, those who are ready for October in New Jersey will
share information so that all the population will understand. We call on
anti-imperialist comrades in prison to expand this education and take
this opportunity to educate others about the nature of the injustice
system and its role in imperialism in general. Protests to improve
conditions are important, but they are just the start.
I was discussing the issue of declining membership with a well known
organizational leader with tens of thousands of followers. He stated
that you only want to write if it is behind your philosophy, and that
you criticize anyone who does not agree with your strategy. He
specifically mentioned the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement. So your
criticism, well intended or not, is doing more dividing than uniting.
MIM(Prisons) responds: This letter is responding to the article
in ULK 33summarizing
our annual congress which reported that our number of subscribers
has dropped in the past year. First, we want to be clear that
subscribers are not the same thing as members. We reported in the same
article that the number of active United Struggle from Within members
has increased over the past year. But still, we want to see an increase
in ULK readers as well and so this is a bad trend.
It is true that MIM(Prisons) is critical of other organizations. This is
because we see political struggle and education as fundamental to
building an effective revolutionary movement. The MXGM is a good example
of an organization that we have
reported
favorably about in the past. But we need to be honest about where we
see faults in the political lines or strategies of other organizations.
We hope others will do the same for us. We cannot build real unity if we
just ignore significant disagreements over political line and strategy.
Further, we work towards a
United
Front with all organizations who can unite with us on basic goals.
This is an important Maoist strategy that allows different organizations
to come together for common goals without sacrificing their independence
or brushing real political differences under the rug.
We see these practices as principled. It may lead some individuals to
dismiss MIM(Prisons) as too divisive, but we see the real divisiveness
in those groups that refuse to publicly acknowledge political
differences while privately gossiping or positioning themselves into
power. We are willing to lose a few supporters who can’t take open
political discussion and disagreements to maintain clarity of political
line.
It seems as if all chaos has been released on this unit, as now the
security officers and administration officers are denying prisoners here
their prescribed medication. Medical wants to close evening pill
dispensing at 5.30pm whether all prisoners get their medication or not,
to avoid overtime. The unit is relatively small and if run by security
staff properly, it could run pill window for all prisoners by 5:30pm.
But the prison creates conditions that make this impossible, delaying
count, shutting down prisoner movement, etc.
Because of a lack of proper medication several prisoners have had
violent epileptic seizures. Other prisoners have gone days at a time
without their medication. A building missed their medication three days
straight.
It is obvious that the wheels have fallen off when the medical
department blames security for such denials of a person’s medication,
and security blames medical by stating they “have no control over
medical decisions.”
Four days out of ten last month I myself missed medication, and I was
placed in protected custody twice for speaking out against such blatant
violation of our rights. Because of this, trouble is brewing that
presents an environment that is hostile and unsafe for both officers and
prisoners, a violation of our right to a safe and secure place to do our
time.
MIM(Prisons) adds: Medical neglect is all too common in Amerikan
prisons. This should be no surprise as capitalism puts profits before
health, and in the case of prisons it puts social control before health.
This is a clear example of the criminal injustice system punishing
prisoners just for the sake of punishment. There is no possible
rehabilitative purpose to denying prisoners their medicine. It is a way
to put lives in danger. They might claim to save a few dollars on staff
overtime in the short run, but the long-term financial cost of treating
seriously ill prisoners will far exceed these savings as many prisoners
are on medication critical to control serious conditions.
The abysmal health care in Amerikan prisons mirrors the situation on the
streets in this country that spends more money per persyn on health care
than any other in the world, but yet has far poorer health than most
First World countries and even some Third World countries. Ironically
this poor health hits the wealthy in Amerika too. These are some ways in
which communism will serve all the world’s people, not just the poor.
Although the wealthy will be brought down to the same economic level as
everyone else in the world, improvements in healthcare, an end to
environmental destruction, and opportunities to lead productive lives
are all important enhancements in life that all will enjoy when
capitalism is overthrown.
The Minister of Defense of the
New Afrikan Black
Panther Party (Prison Chapter) recently
stepped in(1) to defend
Turning
the Tide against our USW comrade’s critiques.(2) We can appreciate
the greater clarity and honesty in Rashid’s piece compared to
Michael
Novick’s, but still cannot forgive him for getting the first
question of importance to communists wrong: who are our friends and who
are our enemies? Like
Jose
Maria Sison and
Bob
Avakian, Rashid has long been exposed to MIM line and writing, and
many attempts to struggle with him have been made. It does great damage
to the International Communist Movement when these people become icons
of “Maoism” in many peoples’ eyes, while promoting chauvinistic lines on
the role of the oppressor nations under imperialism.
Rashid opens his piece with the most common strawpersyn argument of the
revisionists, that the MIM line is wrong because Marx and Lenin never
abandoned organizing among Europeans and Amerikans. Rashid needs to be
more specific if he’s claiming there are groups that are refusing to
work with white people or moving to the Third World to organize. While
our work mostly targets prisoners, we target prisoners of all
nationalities, and similarly our street work is not very
nation-specific. The question we would ask instead of “should we
organize Amerikans?”, is, “what is going to achieve communism faster,
organizing rich people around demands for more money, or organizing them
around ideas of collective responsibility for equal distribution of
humyn needs and ecological sustainability?”
Rashid’s third paragraph includes some numbers and math and at first
glance i thought it might have some concrete analysis. But alas, the
numbers appear just for show as they are a) made up numbers, and b)
reflecting the most simple calculation that Marx teaches us to define
surplus value. To counter Rashid’s empty numbers, let us repeat our most
basic math example here. If Amerikans are exploited, then to end
exploitation would mean they need to get paid more money. Dividing the
global GDP by the number of full-time laborers gives an
equitable
distribution of income of around $10,000 per persyn per year.(3) To
be fair, in Rashid’s article he addresses this and quotes Marx to say
that we cannot have an equitable distribution of income. In that quote
from Wages, Price and Profit Marx was writing about capitalism,
which is inherently exploitative. Our goal is communism, or “from each
according to her ability, to each according to her need.” But we’re not
there yet, Rashid might argue. OK fine, let’s take Rashid’s hypothetical
McDonald’s worker making $58 per 8 hour workday. If we assume 5 days a
week and 50 weeks a year we get $14,500 per year. According to the World
Bank, half of the world’s people make less than $1,225 per year.(4) That
report also showed that about 10% of Amerikans are in the world’s
richest 1% and that almost half of the richest 1% are Amerikans. So
Rashid wants to argue that under capitalism it is just that the lowest
paid Amerikans earn over 10 times more than half of the world’s
population because their labor is worth that much more? How is that?
What Marx was talking about in Wages, Price and Profit was
scientific: a strong persyn might be twice as productive as a weak one,
or a specially trained persyn might add more value than an unskilled
persyn. So Rashid wants to use this to justify paying anyone who was
birthed as a U.$. citizen 10 to 25 times, or more, the average global
rate of pay? We have no idea how Rashid justifies this disparity except
through crass Amerikan chauvinism.
This empty rhetoric is not Marxism. It is ironic how today people will
use this basic formulation for surplus value from Marx to claim people
of such vastly different living conditions are in the same class. No one
else in the world looks at the conditions in the United $tates and Haiti
and thinks, “these countries should really unite to address their common
plight.” It is only pseudo-Marxists and anarchists who read a little
Marx who can come up with such crap.
Rashid later establishes commonality across nations with the definition,
“The proletariat simply is one who must sell her labor power to survive,
which is as true for the Amerikan worker as it is for one in Haiti.” We
prefer Marx’s definition that the proletariat are those who have nothing
to lose but their chains. According to Rashid, we should determine
whether someone is exploited based on different measuring sticks
depending on what country they live in. Apparently, in the United $tates
you must have a $20,000 car, a $200,000 home and hand-held computers for
every family member over 5 in order “to survive.” Whereas in other
countries electricity and clean water are optional. More chauvinism.
Rashid continues discussing class definitions,
“For instance, if there’s no [Euro-Amerikan] (‘white’) proletariat in
the US, then there’s also no New Afrikan/Black one. If a EA working in
McDonalds isn’t a proletarian, then neither is one of color. If there’s
no New Afrikan proletariat, then there’s no New Afrikan lumpen
proletariat either (”lumpen” literally means “broken”–if they were never
of the proletariat, they could not become a ‘broken’ proletariat).”
Lumpen is usually translated as “rag.” Even in the United
$tates we have a population of people who live in rags, who have very
little to lose. However, we completely agree with Rashid’s logic here.
And that is why MIM(Prisons) started using the term “First World lumpen”
to distinguish from “lumpenproletariat.” There is little connection
between the lumpen in this country and a real proletariat, with the
exceptions being within migrant populations and some second generation
youth who form a bridge between Third World proletariat, First World
semi-proletariat and First World lumpen classes. Rashid continues,
“Yet the VLA [vulgar labor aristocracy] proponents recognize New Afrikan
prisoners as ‘lumpen’ who are potentially revolutionary. Which begs the
question, why aren’t they doing work within the oppressed New Afrikan
communities where they’re less apt to be censored, if indeed they
compose a lumpen sector?”
This is directed at us, so we will answer: historical experience and
limited resources. As our readers should know, we struggle to do the
things we do to support prisoner education programs and organizing work.
We do not have the resources right now to do any serious organizing
outside of prisons. And we made the conscious decision of how we can
best use our resources in no small part due to historical experience of
our movement. In other words we go where there is interest in
revolutionary politics. The margins, the weakest links in the system,
that is where you focus your energy. Within the lumpen class, the
imprisoned lumpen have a unique relationship to the system that results
in a strong contradiction with that system. The imprisoned population
could also be considered 100% lumpen, whereas less than 20% of the New
Afrikan nation is lumpen, the rest being among various bourgeois
classes, including the labor aristocracy.
“And if the lumpen can be redeemed, why not EA [Euro-Amerikan] workers?”
Again, look at history. Read
J.
Sakai’s Settlers and read about the
Black
Panther Party. Today, look at the growing prison system and the
regular murder of New Afrikan and other oppressed nation youth by the
pigs. Look at where the contradictions and oppression are.
The only really interesting thing about this piece is that Rashid has
further drawn a line between the MIM camp and the slew of anarchist and
crypto-Trotskyist organizations who are still confused about where
wealth comes from. They think people sitting at computers typing keys
are exploited, and Rashid accuses our line of requiring “surplus value
falling from the sky!” We already told you where the high wages in the
imperialist countries came from, Rashid, the Third World proletariat!
That is why the average Amerikan makes 25 times the average humyn, and
why all Amerikans are in the top 13% in income globally. As the
revisionists like to remind us, wealth disparity just keeps getting
greater and greater under capitalism. The labor aristocracy today is
like nothing that V.I. Lenin ever could have witnessed. We must learn
from the methods of Marx and Lenin, not dogmatically repeat their
analysis from previous eras to appease Amerikans.
In 2001 at the Lynaugh Unit in Fort Stockton while at medical out in the
cage “outside waiting” a man came out of medical and turned around and
hit the door, then fell out. The guard kicked the man and told him to go
to his cell. Then the guard kicked him once more and told him once more
to go to his cell. The man was dead! He had gone to medical to complain
about chest pain. The doctor and nurse checked him out and told him that
nothing was wrong. This is due to the lack of real medical attention
given in prison.
MIM(Prisons) adds: Medical neglect is a serious problem in
Amerikan prisons. While the government reports deaths in custody, they
do not report how many of those were avoidable. Under Lock &
Key reports many deaths as well as cases of medical neglect that do
not immediately lead to death, but we only cover a small number of the
incidents. Exposing this abuse is a critical element in our fight
against the criminal injustice system. We need to share this information
both with other prisoners and with people on the streets, and urge them
to think about why we have a prison system that wants to let people die
of neglect. This is not a system trying to rehabilitate people, it is a
system of social control, serving imperialism.
19 August 2013 - Today, a federal court approved the force-feeding of
people who are on hunger strike in California prisons to protest torture
in the form of long-term isolation and group punishment. The
force-feeding itself is considered torture by many, including those who
have been on hunger strike in Guantanamo Bay since February and have
been suffering through force-feeding for months.
For those interested in why it is considered torture, Yasiin Bey bravely
provided the world with a video of what that is like (click picture).
The decision in California came shortly after we posted a report from a
comrade who was
denied
liquid supplements and collapsed on July 21 in Corcoran State
Prison. Many others have collapsed since then, and the state’s
behavior has made it clear that the health of prisoners has not been a
concern of theirs. They apply very strict rules to how they count people
as being on “hunger strike,” knowing that strikers depend on the state
to report their numbers to the public, forcing them to abide by these
rules that don’t allow for any electrolytes.
The state has consistently used health care as a weapon to manipulate
prisoners into submission, rather than act as the custodians of health
and safety that they claim to be. Now that strikers are approaching
life-threatening conditions, the CDCR is acting to prevent them from
exercising one of the strongest forms of protest that they have from
within these isolation cells. The attention given to the situation
inside California prisons right now is already unprecedented and they
fear that if more prisoners die they may lose their power to torture
prisoners in the future. The torture is important to them because it is
what they believe to be their best tool to prevent the oppressed from
fighting their oppression (the injustice system’s true purpose). The
ongoing hunger strike, decades in the making, has begun to turn the
tables on that idea though.
This recent report asserts that 70 of 130 prisoners currently on hunger
strike have been going since July 8, 2013. There are a number of groups
of prisoners in California who are ready to restart hunger strike in
support of the 70 (or more) who are in it for the long haul as the
struggle heightens.
In the months leading up to July 8, there was some debate about the
return to the hunger strike tactic, particularly as previous attempts
were aborted prematurely without any changes from the state. But those
first two strikes resonated among the oppressed across the country, and
particularly in California where 30,000 prisoners stood up against
long-term isolation on July 8, 2013. As we approach 50 days on strike,
and repeated assertions from participants that they will not stop for
mere promises this time, this struggle is approaching a crucial point.
To date, control units have been a fairly effective tool of repression.
But if oppression breeds resistance, then even these tools of total
control can be overcome. At no other point have we been closer to that
goal than we are right now. Those who have and will give their lives for
this struggle must not die in vain. Those 30,000 plus prisoners who
supported this campaign must take every opportunity over the coming
months to build, educate and organize to prepare for the next phase of
this struggle. A failure to seize this moment in the prison movement
will mean much more suffering for the imprisoned lumpen in the decades
to come.
I will be fasting this September 9. I’ve been on lockup since 2011 but I
will refuse my trays from midnight to midnight Sept 9, 2013 to pay
homage to the fallen brothers of the cause in Attica and everywhere
else! And I will encourage other brothers to do so as well.
The pigs decided to give us showers today. They are walking each cell to
the shower individually. Three pigs for one inmate, one of which is
holding an assault rifle looking gun that shoots paintballs of mace.
Cowards!
MIM(Prisons) responds: We commend this comrade for stepping up to
the
United
Front for Peace in Prisons call for a solidarity demonstration on
September 9th after reading only one issue of Under Lock &
Key. We would not call the pigs cowards for their vast outnumbering
and assault weapon use with prisoners: this is realistic fear of the
power of the oppressed. Right now we don’t have the level of unity in
the prisons to present more than sporadic points of resistance, but the
very event this comrade mentions, the Attica uprising, demonstrates the
potential power of prisoners when acting in unity. This unity is built
through struggle and discussion, something that is much easier when
prisoners have contact with one another. And for this reason, this
active prisoner, and tens of thousands of others, are on lockup in
isolation cells, being kept from contact with others so that they can
not spread the dangerous ideology of unity and peace among prisoners.
We have received word from another comrade in Maryland that others are
participating in this 24 hour fast on September 9th to commemorate the
Attica brothers unity and organization.
[In response to the article MIM(Prisons) printed about the
Martinez
hunger strike demands, calling on prisoners there not to isolate the
“mental health” prisoners from the “non-mental health” prisoners, we
received the following update and clarification.]
Maybe we were not clear on the housing of mental health prisoners here
in Ad-Seg. Our point is that there is an entire module for mental health
prisoners where they can get help for their issues with trained staff.
There is no mental health staff stationed in Ad-Seg, and no groups or
therapy for prisoners. Bottom line is, mental health prisoners should
not be housed in Ad-Seg on the whims of classification unit. Yes these
guys are a headache to have in Ad-Seg, but more importantly they receive
no help and deteriorate further by being warehoused in Ad-Seg. We are
not trying to cause division in the prison population.
There are 53 inmates housed in Ad-Seg here. 13 prisoners did a 24 hour
support strike while 5 of us continued for 6 to 12 days. We continue to
support all those still on strike. Our strike is suspended, not stopped.
If we do not continue to move forward in our demands or we come to a
place in time when it is warranted, then we will continue our strike.
MIM(Prisons) responds: This letter addresses our criticism of the
demand by MDF prisoners to “immediately cease and desist the
unconstitutional custom, practice and unofficial policy of improperly
housing inmates with mental health issues among the
non-mental-health-status Ad-Seg detainees” as unnecessarily divisive.
The original demand complained of the disruptive behaviors from the
mental health prisoners but did not mention the lack of treatment
options for these individuals. If conditions are better in the mental
health module, it would be an improvement for these individuals to
escape Ad-Seg and be placed there. However, the “treatment” for people
with mental health problems in the United $tates is, at best, a
targeting of the symptoms, and at worst leaves people either physically
or medically restrained in a drug-induced stupor.
Mental illness in prisoners can often be linked to the conditions in
which they are housed, especially long-term isolation. So we are
naturally skeptical of any treatment offered by those same captors who
insist on locking people up in conditions that induce the health
problems in the first place. But we appreciate the additional
explanation that the MDF prisoners did not intend the demand for mental
health prisoners to be divisive but rather targeted treatment for these
individuals. We hope they will consider carefully the wording of such
demands in the future.
In the short term, we know that capitalism will continue to produce new
cases of mental illness which can not be successfully treated until we
address the problems of a society that generates these illnesses. We
look to China under Mao for an example of successful treatment of mental
health conditions by addressing both the immediate problems and the
systemic roots of these conditions.
Meanwhile, the comrades in Martinez are not the only ones on suspended
hunger strike. A number of comrades have reported a willingness to
restart in support of the
five
core demands as the struggle heightens.
The bourgeoisie seems to be losing the battle for free enterprise
against the repressive U.$. government. There can no longer be any
commercial email service that does not provide direct access to all its
users’ information to the U.$. intelligence agencies. We discovered this
today when our email server, lavabit.com, was no longer accessible and
the owner posted a message stating,
I have been forced to make a difficult decision: to become complicit in
crimes against the American people or walk away from nearly ten years of
hard work by shutting down Lavabit. After significant soul searching, I
have decided to suspend operations.
The clear implication is that the feds approached him to demand access
to the communications on his server. Existing communications were
advertised as not accessible to anyone but the user who owns the
account. In order to not release any future user info to the feds he
shut down the server; a decision surely not taken lightly when people
depend on their email for so much of their lives.
Just earlier this week it was revealed that a popular hosting service
for Tor hidden services was comprimised and sites on that server were
infected with malicious javascript to reveal users’ IP addresses
(usually hidden by the Tor network) to a server located in Virginia. The
obvious implication there was that this operation was related to U.$.
intelligence agencies which dominate the region. One of the more popular
sites affected by this attack was Tormail, another self-proclaimed
secure email service.
All of this comes on the heels of the release of information on the U.$.
National Security Agency’s (NSA) system of monitoring all electronic
communications in the world. Information released makes it clear that
all major commercial software companies have provided backdoors to their
software and online services to the U.$. government. With the
destruction of Lavabit and TorMail, it seems clear that the United
$tates has no intention of letting any exceptions to that rule continue.
Whistleblower Edward Snowden was known to use lavabit.com for his email,
leading many to conclude that Lavabit was a victim of the U.$. hunt for
Snowden himself. Others have speculated that the attack on Tor was an
attempt to scare people out of the so-called darknet and back into the
friendly arms of Google, Microsoft, et al.
While using allegedly secure online services can provide an extra layer
of protection, you cannot rely on an unknown party for your security
anyway. That is why services with built in PGP encryption, like
hushmail.com, are a joke from the get go. Hushmail.com openly works with
the Amerikan government already even though they are not a U.$. company.
Certainly other nations will attempt to seize the competitive advantage
they now have over a business that has long been dominated by U.$.
companies. And as we recently said, the positive of all this is a
surge
in demand and innovation in the realm of computer security.
For now, you cannot email MIM(Prisons); instead, see our
contact page. We
will be investigating alternative solutions and post them on our
announcements and contact page once they are available. If you’re still
using unencrypted email for political work, get with the times and start
studying our
security links
on our contact page. The last revolutionary generation underestimated
the role of COINTELPRO until it was too late. It would be a crime
against the people for us to make the same mistake with everything we
know today.
16 July 2013 - I would like the brothers in the struggle to be aware
that their movement is being felt all the way on the east coast. As you
are aware I was last at Auburn Korrectional Facility. I was put in the
box and given a 180 day sentence for rallying 22 other komrades on this
end to go on a food strike in support of our brothers out west. It got
so bad that 8 of us were held in the kamp’s hospital and a court order
was given to force feed us. I just got out of the hospital yesterday and
I have restarted my strike along with the other 7 brothers I spoke of.
The pigs have violated our property and they have destroyed our books,
including my Afrikana, Assata, and my Black’s laws dictionary that my
dad bought for me before he died. To make things even worse they
destroyed my pictures, including a lot of my parents who are both in the
essence now. I don’t have any family outside these walls, so my komrads
(and a deep seeded hatred of how these pink pigs treat us) are all I
have.
I wanted you to print this in your next issue because I know how them
brothers are struggling and they may think that they are in it by
themselves. But I want them to know that they have some real militant
brothers who have lost a lot now to join them in their struggle. There
are only 7 others with me out of the 22 of us who put this thing into
effect over here. The rest of my komrades have been scattered in other
koncentration kamps. New York State has about 65 prisons from maximum
security, which we are in, to minimums. What I do know is that we are on
watch and soon will be whisked away where these pigs will fill us up
intravenously so they can say they care. But we will continue our
movement on y’all behalf until we hear or read that y’all have received
the basic necessities in which you are fighting for.
MIM(Prisons) adds: While they are no doubt facing significant
repression and conditions that merit struggle in New York, these
comrades have stepped up to fight on behalf of the hunger striking
prisoners in California. This prisoner and his comrades demonstrate the
important principals of unity and self-sacrifice that are so critical to
building the communist movement. While we frequently appeal to
prisoners’ self-interest in calling them to action, when this
self-interest in aligned with the interests of the anti-imperialist
movement, ultimately communists will act without regard for
self-interest, in the service of the oppressed.
On 07-19-2013 all MDF hunger strikers suspended their hunger strike.
Below are the demands that were met by MDF command staff:
DEMAND #1 was granted in full. Classification shall tell you in writing
what you are being held in Ad-Seg for as well as program expectations to
be released from Ad-Seg.
DEMAND #2 Command staff is working to come up with a free time schedule
that follows title 15 standards. One part of this that is granted in
full is that all detainees will be given an opportunity to empty their
trash can EVERYDAY.
DEMAND #3 had 3 parts. Two parts were granted in full. MDF
medical/mental health staff shall no longer conduct ANY type of
appointment on the intercom system nor at detainees’ cell door where
private medical issues are heard by others in violation of medical
privacy laws (HIPPA). The third part of allowing Ad-Seg detainees’ to
reach medical triage on the phone systems, as all other modules do, is
still being worked on with command staff.
DEMAND #4 Command staff informed classification to ONLY house mentally
ill inmates on D-module as a last resort.
DEMAND #5 was granted in full. ALL MDF detainees’ will be allowed to
purchase ink pen fillers from canteen. Also necessary photo copies will
be made for detainees’ filing court documents. These will be implemented
in a reasonable time frame.
It is in good faith that we suspend our hunger strike and that MDF
command staff will continue to implement our 5 Core Demands. MDF command
staff has been very open to our ideas. With the exception of DR. DENNIS
MCBRIDE who tried to guide detainees’ into refusing water as well as
food. We hope all other hunger strikers can get some much needed
relief on their demands. If this does not occur we will resume our
hunger strike. Special thank you to our loved ones on the streets,
all organizations and media outlets who covered our struggle, as well as
Sarah Shroud, Shane Bauer- Welcome home & Dan Horowitz, Nicole,
Lesli and Mikes sister.
MIM(Prisons) responds: See the original
article
announcing the Martinez demands where we address the shortcomings of
their demands, which included segregating mentally ill prisoners. The
victories here are small reforms riding on the coat tails of the central
struggle here, which is to shut down long-term isolation. Control units
were originally created to separate leaders from the general population.
But this division has been two-fold in that now the interests of those
in control units are not felt as dearly by those in general population.
Even so, the last few weeks have shown a great level of consciousness
among the whole prison population about the inhumane conditions those
comrades in SHU and Ad-Seg face. We hope those who stood up in Martinez
continue to support that struggle, which is really central to the prison
movement itself. Without a prison movement, prisoners have no real means
of addressing abuse, which can be so common in prison.
To: Sheriff David O. Livingston, Under Sheriff Michael
V. Casten and All Martinez Detention Facility Command Staff, Deputies
and Officials
From: Pretrial Detainees, Inmates, Prisoners and Civil
Commitments housed in Administrative Segregation (Ad-Seg) in D-Module at
Martinez Detention Facility
PLEASE TAKE
NOTICE: On Monday 8 July 2013, detainees housed in Ad-Seg
will actively be taking part in the hunger strike being implemented
statewide by prisoners, inmates, detainees (etc.) confined under
unconstitutional conditions in California state prisons and jails.
Martinez Detention Facility (MDF) Ad-Seg detainees support the core and
supplemental demands of our partners in Pelican Bay Prison Ad-Seg/SHU
programs and we join them in opposition of their, and ALL,
unconstitutional conditions of confinement in all California state
prisons and jails.
MDF Ad-Seg detainees hereby also provide notice of our own 5 Core
Demands to stop unconstitutional conditions of confinement blatantly
enforced here at MDF.
CORE DEMAND 1
MDF Ad-Seg detainees demand Sheriff/Jail officials immediately cease and
desist the unconstitutional custom, practice, and unofficial policy of
placing detainees in Ad-Seg without any due process. Some detainees have
been held in Ad-Seg indefinitely (over 5 years) without any notice,
hearing or due process required by Constitutional Law. If a detainee
submits a request or grievance on the issue, they receive a response
from classification only stating “you are housed appropriately.”
CORE DEMAND 2
MDF Ad-Seg detainees demand Sheriff/Jail officials immediately cease and
desist the unconstitutional custom, practice and unofficial policy of
locking detainees in filthy cells with no windows or light controls for
48 hours (or more) before being allowed out of our cell for 1 hour to
shower, groom, use phone, exercise and inadequately attempt to clean our
cells.
Detainees request that they be allowed out of their cells for at least 1
hour daily in the morning, afternoon or evening and also be allowed to
shave daily as state regulations require.
Incorporated within this demand, detainees also seek a provision for a
daily opportunity to clean their cells. Currently detainees are only
allowed (every 48 hours or longer) a broom, dust pan, and a mop. They
are not provided with disinfectant, toilet bowl cleaner, rags, or any
other cleaning supplies to adequately clean cells. Detainees must also
keep trash (from 6 meals) in their cells for 48 hours or more.
CORE DEMAND 3
MDF Ad-Seg detainees demand Sheriff/Jail officials immediately cease and
desist the unconstitutional custom, practice and unofficial policy of
daily holding medical and mental health appointments at the detainees’
cell doors which allows all other detainees to hear the confidential
medical/mental health issues. This is in violation of the “Medical Act
and Privacy Rights.” Detainees also seek the equal protection of a
“TRIAGE” phone line as other MDF detainees on other modules are
provided.
CORE DEMAND 4
MDF Ad-Seg detainees demand Sheriff/Jail officials immediately cease and
desist the unconstitutional custom, practice and unofficial policy of
improperly housing inmates with mental health issues among the
non-mental-health-status Ad-Seg detainees. Currently all Ad-Seg
detainees are subject to the behaviors, problems, actions and disorders
of the mental health status Ad-Seg inmates which include:
Loud yelling/banging all night, keeping detainees awake.
Getting feces and urine thrown under detainees doors.
Delusional actions/comments against or towards detainees.
Spitting through detainee doors or on glass.
Feces, urine, debris etc. in shower, hot water pot, on floor
Breaking and/or destroying hair clippers/shavers, preventing other
detainees from using for court, visits, etc.
CORE DEMAND 5
MDF Ad-Seg detainees demand Sheriff/Jail officials immediately cease and
desist the unconstitutional custom, practice and unofficial policy of
denying all MDF detainees access to pens to submit legal work to the
courts, nor copying provisions for our writs and other valid legal
documents to the court. Also, there is no readily continuous access to a
pencil sharpener which is often broken, preventing detainees from
writing legal documents and/or sending letters to family and friends for
weeks.
There are many more unconstitutional conditions of confinement here at
MDF. Those are 5 of the most egregious which we present as issues.
Detainees will be hunger striking to correct, beginning Monday 8 July
2013.
Detainees peacefully and respectfully request that Contra Costa County
Sheriff Office engage in swift and prompt actions to correct these
unconstitutional conditions of confinement.
MDF Hunger Strike Representative
MIM(Prisons) responds: While we support the hunger strike going
on in Martinez Detention Facility, we would like to warn against
creating unnecessary divisions between prisoners. We have reported in
the past that mental health status is greatly exacerbated by the
conditions of imprisonment generally, and especially of long-term
isolation. Often times these prisoners are put in isolation (or even
imprisoned in the first place) because of their disruptive behavior
stemming from their mental illness, which does nothing to improve their
condition.
Not only does imprisonment worsen the condition of those who already
suffer from mental illness, but it can, and does, induce mental illness
in people who would otherwise not suffer from delusions, post traumatic
stress disorder, anxiety, sensitivity to light, noise, and touch,
suicidal thoughts, etc. It is well documented,(1) and MIM(Prisons) has
witnessed first hand, that the state uses long-term isolation as a
tactic to specifically wreck the mental health of prisoners who are
engaged in political work and organizing.
While we understand the impact that this disruptive behavior has on this
contributor’s ability to sleep and focus, we worry that a demand to send
mentally ill prisoners “away” would lead to further isolation and
deterioration.
Mental illness isn’t caused by inadequacies within individuals, but is
instead a symptom of all the irreconcilable contradictions in our
society. Mental illness has systemic roots. Therefore, all short-term
solutions to help people with mental illness in this country are just
bandaids on gaping wounds. Reported in Serve the People:
Observations on Medicine in the People’s Republic of China, a book
by Victor and Ruth Sidel, all mental health conditions in communist
China under Mao were cured except for some extreme cases of
schizophrenia, and those who had previously been suffering became
productive members of society. Reasons for this turnaround include not
only relief from stressors which had previously led people to mental
illness – severe gender oppression, inability to survive or thrive, etc.
– but also a flood of resources dedicated to mental health research and
application which hadn’t been possible before when society was organized
based on the profit motive.
Around 1971, the Sidels wrote,
The methods currently being used to treat mental illness are collective
help, self-reliance, drug therapy, acupuncture, “heart-to-heart talks,”
follow-up care, community ethos, productive labor, the teachings of Mao
Tse-tung, and “revolutionary optimism.”
They go on to explain in detail what each of these methods consists of.
Similar to how feudalism in pre-liberation China led many wimmin to
suicide, it is clear that most mental illness is a direct result of our
capitalist and imperialist society. The most stark example of this being
the post-traumatic stress disorder suffered by at least 20% of U.$.
veterans of the Iraq and Afghan wars.(2) Hearing any account from a
member of Iraq Veterans Against the War, you can see that a large
contributing factor to the PTSD is the unjust nature of these wars;
killing for no reason. In People’s War, the cause is just (self-defense)
and the aim isn’t to murder and intimidate, but to liberate the most
oppressed and create a better world for everyone. That is quite a
contrast.
We know it is difficult to organize in Ad-Seg, and we know it is
especially difficult to organize with people who are in the middle of
full-blown mental illness. But we still encourage our comrades to look
for ways for prisoners to come together against their common enemy and
to fight on behalf of the common good of all prisoners and oppressed
people generally. A more progressive demand than number 4 above would be
an end to solitary confinement for all prisoners. For more on our
perspective on mental health, see
Under Lock &
Key 15 or
MIM
Theory 9: Psychology & Imperialism.
We’ve had a
recent
death here due to use of excessive force. We’ve been dealing with
that, getting outside sources to reach out to and filing complaints on
the inside. I’ve had only one response from outside: the Houston Police
Department’s internal affairs. They’ve told us that our complaint has
been sent to the state Inspector General’s office. I was told yesterday
that 20 or so men who filed complaints have been given some sort of case
for filing. I have to look into that.
Our close comrades have been busy coordinating weightlifting and
basketball events. These events allow us to increase our profile and
spread our message of unitary conduct. This also encourages others to
adopt the principles which make us comrades. So, maintaining that as a
sustained front has been a priority. This is how we are able to locate
minds who are receptive to USW literature and who are prepared to come
into greater degrees of organizing. We’re finishing up our basketball
season this week. We are signing up rosters for a soccer tournament
which will begin next week. And we are beginning to coordinate our 3rd
annual unit-wide collective fellowship meal, which has always been a
powerful way of advocating for unity across ethnic and racial
boundaries.
So, in addition to writing to you and four other outside groups united
in our struggle, I need to, today, brief 5 other comrades who want to
coordinate functions of their own under our banner. I mentor a young
development of 2 others who are new to our collective. And I need to get
at least 10 others some recent commentary to keep them in the loop. I
absolutely need to delegate more. But even that is a process in itself
in this environment.
While all of this is going on, I’ve had to mediate a situation where a
young comrade had a conflict with a white guy. Because the white guy was
so much bigger and older, Black families were upset. Because Blacks got
involved and the white guy used to be associated, white families are
upset. So, you try to keep the peace while pride and ego come into play.
The whole time understanding the stakes involved, the potential for
escalation, and knowing that the Mexicans are watching
Triple
C closely right now, judging how I conduct myself in the affair.
I realize always that lives are on the line. I do the work so that these
men and their children can gain more power to determine their economic,
political, and social condition. So much of that work involves meeting
cats where they are at, and working to provide solutions to immediate
needs; doing that while communicating one big picture, and while
demonstrating methods of achieving evolved conditions of living.
MIM(Prisons) adds: This is a good example of the day-to-day
ground work that revolutionaries engage in to build the movement against
imperialism. While exercise, in and of itself, may appear unrelated to
anti-imperialism, this is something that can be turned into a solidarity
activity, especially in prison where even such basic activities are
greatly restricted. We have reported on
similar
organizing in California prisons. This comrade is part of an
organization that is in the
United Front
for Peace in Prisons which is focused on building peace and unity
within the prison population. Wherever we can break down divisions
between groups and build unity to fight our common oppressor we will
contribute to a stronger anti-imperialist movement overall.
1 de Mayo, 2013 – El llamado movimiento obrero en los países
imperialistas ha tenido un respaldo social e influencia muy limitados
desde hace mucho tiempo debido a las condiciones increíblemente
privilegiadas en las que la mayoría de los primermundistas viven. Así,
en un intento de parecer relevantes, y tal vez para ocultar su
nacionalismo blanco, éstos proclaman su “solidaridad” con las luchas de
los trabajadores alrededor del mundo. En el peor de los casos, esta
“solidaridad” se utiliza de forma activa para dirigir erróneamente la
lucha del proletariado hacia el economismo y el seguimiento del modelo
de desarrollo del primer mundo. Pero incluso cuando esa “solidaridad” se
queda en palabras, se utiliza para defender el privilegio de las
poblaciones explotadoras del primer mundo. En este Primero de Mayo, la
entrevista principal del programa Democracy Now! (¡Democracia Ahora!)
resumió esta tendencia.(1)
Charlie Kernaghan del Institute for Global Labour and Human Rights
(Instituto para el Trabajo Global y los Derechos Humanos) fue
entrevistado en un segmento sobre la reciente tragedia en Bangladesh y
la lucha obrera en general. Kernaghan nos informó que 421 personas han
sido confirmadas muertas y otras 1,000 están aún desaparecidas,
queriendo decir que probablemente han muerto bajo los escombras de la
fábrica que se derrumbó. Explicó que los trabajadores no sólo fueron
amenazados con no pagarles el mes, lo que significaría pasar hambre,
sino que también se enfrentaban a la amenaza inmediata de matones con
garrotes. Como nos enseñó la reciente explosión de fertilizantes en
Texas, la búsqueda de los beneficios en el capitalismo pone en riesgo la
vida de todos. Aún así, hoy una diferencia cuantitativa entre ser
forzado a base de golpes a volver a una situación peligrosa, y el no ser
consciente de que esa situación peligrosa existe. El riesgo relativo al
que se enfrentan los trabajadores en el tercer mundo es más alto.
Como MIM y otros han mostrado en numerosas ocasiones, hay una diferencia
cualitativa entre el salario que ganan los primermundistas y los
proletarios explotados; el salario de los primeros está por encima del
valor que generan, lo que los convierte en explotadores de los
segundos(2). La conversación acerca de la tragedia en Bangladesh
degeneró en nacionalismo blanco cuando la entrevistadora Amy Goodman
comenzó a preguntarse sobre lo que deberíamos hacer. Después de defender
la protección de los salarios Amerikanos, el invitado comenzó a pedir
aranceles comerciales para las mercancías provenientes de países como
Bangladesh hasta que puedan cumplir con ciertos estándares laborales
similares a los de los Estados Unidos. Tal oposición al libre comercio
organiza a los explotadores a costa de los explotados.
El tema tabú se hizo más difícil de ignorar cuando el invitado comenzó a
hablar de trabajadores ganando 21 centavos a la vez que hablaba de la
inmiseración de los trabajadores Amerikanos. Cuando Goodman empezó a
danzar alrededor del tema de los salarios el invitado respondió: “Bueno,
como dije con la legislación, no es nuestro trabajo el establecer
salarios alrededor del mundo. Esto depende de los habitantes de cada
país. Lo que si podemos hacer es exigir que si quieres traer productos a
los Estados Unidos, debes dar a los trabajadores que los producen
derechos legales.”
¿Cómo es que podemos obligarles a aplicar leyes sobre trabajo infantil,
pero en lo que se refiere a sus salarios el tercer mundo se las tiene
que arreglar por su cuenta? ¿Cómo puedes hablar de “solidaridad
internacional obrera” sin hablar de un salario mínimo internacional? La
idea es ridícula y la única razón por la que esto sucede es porque los
líderes obreros Amerikanos saben que el salario medio en el mundo está
por debajo de lo que ellos ganan. Quieren seguir ganando más de lo que
les corresponde y al mismo tiempo poner aranceles comerciales a los
productos fabricados con mano de obra explotada.
Suponemos que las personas del Sur de Asia no confundirán a aquellos que
ganan 20,000 dólares al año, o mucho más, como miembros del
proletariado. Pero conforme nos acercamos al corazón del imperio la
perspectiva de clase proletaria distorsiona más y más. No hay mejor
ejemplo de ello hoy en día que el de Aztlán, donde trabajadores
inmigrantes observan la enorme riqueza que les rodea y la posibilidad de
obtener parte de ella. Después de que las naciones oprimidas tomaron el
control del Primero de Mayo en los Estados Unidos hace siete años, el
ala izquierda del nacionalismo blanco trabaja horas extra para infundir
a este nuevo movimiento proletario en el corazón de la bestia con la
linea política de la aristocracia obrera.
Hoy, conforme el gobierno federal declara estar cerca de promulgar una
“reforma de inmigración” que equivaldrá a más excepcionalismo y
favoritismo Amerikano, nosotros preferimos un enfoque basado en la
reunificación de las familias que algunos ya defendieron en este Primero
de Mayo en Los Ángeles. Este es un asunto que enlaza perfectamente con
la cuestión nacional y no con las peticiones economicistas para un mayor
acceso a salarios propios de los explotadores. La reunificación desafía
la frontera represiva que mantiene a familias separadas, y mantiene a
naciones completas alienadas de las riquezas que producen. Al igual que
la integración dentro de los Estados Unidos ha avanzado, el desafio a la
frontera y la lucha contra el nacionalismo blanco, o mejor dicho contra
el primermundismo, necesita estar en el centro de un movimiento
proletario progresivo en Aztlán. Estos son los problemas que realmente
movilizaron a las masas en las manifestaciones del Primero de Mayo en
2006 en respuesta a la Amerika pro-Minutemen(3). Este es el espíritu con
el que celebramos este Primero de Mayo.
Logic & Last Resort featuring Maverick Sabre, Akala & Big
Frizzle from the album True Talk (2012)
[Logic] Let me start with the basic structures of a Western
country Imperialism, it’s all about the money While we moan and
complain when it’s not sunny Little kids hustle foods, tryna fill
their tummy’s And, every kid’s seen a gun, when you go to places like
Iraq and Afghanistan While kids over here think that shooting’s
fun Kids over there shoot to protect their mums And, over here, we
can’t claim real hardship Trust me, we don’t really know what hard
is A hard life, where your family is starving A hard life, where
your family is killed by the army A life where you’re seen as a
target A life that you wish never started But, they got big
hearts, big smiles and energy to make a change I make music for them
to play
[Hook: Big Frizzle] I said we’ll never know Because the places
we’ve grown Ain’t nothing like what they know Cause we’ll never
know
[Maverick Sabre] Whoa little lad, I know you’re feeling sad Trust
me there’ll be better days you never had The pain you face will never
last Try and say we ain’t the same, walkin’ to different paths Why
must I hate? Turn on the TV and just sit and laugh But, that child’ll
never smile, he’s lost his dad Seein’ foreign flags fly above his
mother land He’s hearin’ gunshots like shots from your block When
he bleeds, do we not bleed the same blood? There’s no lovin’ growin’
up as cold thugs Imagine growin’ up where every sip of water makes
you throw up Where soldiers patrol every road, throwin’ stones To
protect your home, all alone, when there’s no-one else So they say we
ain’t relatives, cause the difference in our melanin As hell as being
relevant, fuck it all, to hell with it This evil has been spreading
it And, even if my death comes quick I’ll be fighting ’til the end
of it
[Sample] We live in a period where our world has both the
resources, The technology and the know-how to end world
poverty. But, unfortunately we also live in a point in time When
at no other point in history has there been so much suffering
[Hook: Big Frizzle] Cause we’ll never know
[Akala] Okay, let me make clear my position I know your estate
feels like shit to live in And, watching mummy graft to stop bailiffs
from ringing Is enough to make you wanna hit the block and start
slingin’ I’ve been there, no gas, no electric to the
kitchen Fridge cuts off, defrosts and starts stinkin’ Whether
Gorbals in Glasgow, Mumbai or Brixton May not be the same shit but it
is the same system But, this is Britain. As hard as some of us have
it We’re still far better off than ninety-percent of the
planet And, that is what you learn, when you get to start
travelling Unravelling the bullshit that they are babbling So,
this is for the nameless, faceless Millions that die everyday, but
don’t even get a funeral And, we tell ourselves because where they
were born They are less worth, less intelligent or beautiful Well,
I don’t agree, they are you and me And we are them, but we’re too
blind to see While some have everything, they ain’t got shit And,
we tell ourselves, well that’s just how it is There ain’t enough to
go around, on this abundant planet Of course there is, it’s just that
some of us are ganits And, the habits we developed That are so far
divorced from the source We don’t even stop to pause, at the
destruction everyday Of counts of this human family, it’s just normal
insanity
[Hook: Big Frizzle] I said we’ll never know (We’ll never know, never
know) Because the places we’ve grown (Places we’ve grown) Ain’t
nothing like what they know (Ain’t nothing like ohh-oh) Cause we’ll
never know (We’ll never know, never know, never know)
I said we’ll never know (We’ll never know, never know, never
know) Because the places we’ve grown (Places we’ve grown) Ain’t
nothing like what they know (Ain’t nothing like they know, ain’t nothing
like) Cause we’ll never know
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