Under Lock & Key

Shortly after receiving this issue of Under Lock & Key, a number of USW leaders and other supporters of our work will be receiving the first edition of our Revolutionary 12 Step Program. This has been in the works for over a year now and we are excited to get it into the hands of comrades who are ready to implement the program and provide feedback.

The Revolutionary 12 Step Program is a significant advance for our Serve the People “Re-Lease on Life” Program, which has been in existence in some form from the early years of MIM(Prisons)’s existence.

Who is it for?

When most of us think of the 12 steps, we think of Alcoholics Anonymous or a more general Narcotics Anonymous program. However, our program takes an approach similar to a program called Criminals & Gangmembers Anonymous to address the anti-people behavior of the lumpen class in a more general way.

Drugs and alcohol are a big part of the problems the people face. It is estimated that at least 65% of people incarcerated have a “Substance Use Disorder”, while the number goes up to 85% if you include all who were under the influence during the crime they were convicted of.(1) That’s a lot! As recent understandings of the brain tell us, the lack of impulse control that can lead to destructive behaviors is caused by unhealthy social conditions during childhood.(2) Drug abuse will often overlap with violence towards others and other behavior that is deemed criminal by the bourgeoisie and by the people as well. In the long-term, communism can eliminate the causes of these tendencies, but in the meantime we need to address all forms of anti-people behavior to transform ourselves from a lumpen state of being to a revolutionary proletarian one.

Some people in prison are innocent. Some broke a law in a conscious decision – sometimes even for righteous political reasons. But the vast majority of you reading this broke laws through actions you would have preferred to not have taken. The vast majority of people in prison could use this program to avoid regrettable actions in the future.

All of us have rehabilitation that we must go through because we were raised in a sick society. Ultimately, everyone born in this oppressive system could benefit from our Revolutionary 12 Step Program, but many of you need it if you ever want to stay out of prison.

Why do we need it?

The state, by definition, is run by the oppressors. In our imperialist conditions today the oppressors are the bourgeoisie, the imperialists, the oppressor nations – Euro-Amerika. The institutions of the state will always serve those interests. In the current system you have law enforcement, religious organizations, private prison companies like Geo Group, and more small-time profiteers running reentry programs for the state. None of these serve the interests of the oppressed.

Today, we don’t have the influence to abolish these imperialist institutions, but we do have the influence to build independent proletarian institutions. Not only that, this is part of our central task today as a movement, “create public opinion and the independent institutions of the oppressed to seize power.”(3) We discussed previous independent institutions of the oppressed in ULK 59 on drugs.(4) Since then we’ve been working on developing our own.

One of the lessons we can take from the practice of our Re-Lease on Life Program to date is the need to address the drive to do drugs, engage in dangerous sexual activities, and the temptation of the thrill of the life of crime. We must put in its place the thrill of revolution; of fighting the real enemy; of building something new.

Before MIM(Prisons) had a Re-Lease on Life Program, we had one comrade who was one of our top theoreticians and USW leaders while in the SHU. Ey was released from prison and quickly slipped into alcoholism again. Ey stayed in touch for the first year, and then we stopped hearing from em, and ey never did any political work on the outside. At that time MIM(Prisons) had little to offer this comrade to help em adapt to life on the outside, and we certainly had nothing like a 12 step program to help em with eir alcoholism.

A story that has become too common is USW members who are released and never write us for years. When we finally do hear back from them it’s because they ended up back in prison. One such comrade recently explained:

“something I felt lack of was community. When I left the gates I went straight to a sober living…. During the time there I worked and attended A.A. meetings. I pretty much gave all my attention to my sobriety and recovery. Simultaneously my career was getting started. At this time I am getting myself situated and also enjoying my freedom, it was a really good feeling getting to move around, good food, and women…”

“I got emotionally attached to a girl that did not fulfill my needs or expectations and I became emotionally unbalanced. All it took was one instance of drugs to get high and begin my relapse. All this was in the lapse of a year. The last three months was just a chase for thrills.”

“I felt loneliness because for sobriety I left everything behind, friends, places, everything I’ve ever done, made and been. Also I felt a need for thrills, action; that was my itch for crime. I lost track of it all and I couldn’t find like-minded people.”

From the above testimony we see how sex and romance plays into this as well. We all know how common “crimes of passion” are in our society. Many of us have done time for them. This comrade wanted community and felt lonely, and seemingly tried to find that in a womyn who maybe was not in a good state herself, or maybe just couldn’t fill the large gap in this comrade’s life. The original AA puts god in that gap, a higher power. Our program puts the proletariat, the people. We will all have important individuals in our lives who help us out and other individuals who set us back. But we cannot rely on any one individual to save us, nor to meet all our needs. One of our needs is a spiritual need to be a part of something that gives us meaning. The bourgeois institutions offer you job training and maybe the prospect of a marriage. But as we see with this comrade’s story, you can attain those things and still be lonely, still not be on the path to rehabilitation. That is why we need an independent institution of the oppressed.

Another lesson we can take from this comrade, and from others, is that success will usually mean leaving behind a lot, especially at first. The easiest way to go back to prison is to go back to the same people and places you were around before you got locked up. Ultimately, our aim is not to cut you off from where you came from like a bourgeois program might do. We must stay connected to the people, and your past may offer some such connections. But those connections can only be good ones if you approach them from a new way of thinking and being. There must be a new community that you can rely on that supports your transformation into a new socialist humyn.

Even in the best case scenarios, the bourgeoisie cannot provide the support comrades need to rehabilitate. However, more often you do not end up in the best case scenario in this system as one comrade describes:

“I spent 6 years in the Drug Court program in York, PA, where a predatory judiciary, local bar, probation department (teamsters union) and suck ass ex-junkies prey on the weak and pile them 3 and 4 men to a room in some old crack house and charge them $500 per month rent plus a $500 deposit, which they would lose when they relapsed (95%) and went back to jail.

“Life’s Beacon House means well and has the nicest of these houses but we can do better. The”group homes” or “recovery houses” have 3-4 month waiting lists and so do the rehabs, which county dollars are 95% of their $1000/day business. These houses are 501(c)(3) non-profits and if you start a business to employ the guys that live in these houses, it can operate non-profit too.”

Next Steps

As we said, the Revolutionary 12 Step Program should address something that our Re-Lease on Life Program has been lacking for so long. But to do so, the program must be actualized. Here are some 3-year goals we have related to actualizing this program:

• build a broader network of local contacts across the country so comrades can get more hands-on training and support from other communists

• establish a revolutionary 12-step program, run by released comrades, where others can stay and immerse themselves in the program

• establish satellite programs in prisons across the country that report to the program on the street, learning from each others’ experience and feeding releasees into the street program

Clearly this will require the participation of many of you to succeed. We need comrades on the outside to volunteer to be support people or sponsors for our comrades who are released. Even if you can’t administer the 12 steps, giving them someone to talk to and organize with on a daily basis will be important.

We need comrades on the inside to begin implementing this program locally. Ideal candidates will have successfully gone through the 12 step program themselves and MIM(Prisons) political study courses. And finally, we need similar people on the outside to run our program for post-release. If you think you can play any of these roles, get in touch so we can start building.

<sup>Notes:
1. Center on Addiction, Behind Bars II: Substance Abuse and America’s Prison Population, February 2010.
2. Burke-Harris, Nadine, 2018, The Deepest Well: Healing the Long-term Effects of Childhood Adversity, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
3. What is the plan? What concrete actions can I take? What is to be done? What are you doing?
4. Wiawimawo, November 2017, Drugs, Money and Individualism in U.$. Prison Movement, Under Lock & Key No. 59</sup>

This is your newsletter, as evidenced from the vast majority of articles, reports, poetry and artwork coming from prisoners in every issue. In the last year comrades inside really came together to support our fund drive and our distribution drive as well, and we are making steady progress on both. 2021 was a good year for us overall and we hope to build greater things in 2022, some of which are outlined in this issue of ULK.

Our MIM(Prisons) annual review meeting in December was focused on re-prioritizing tasks in order to expand our outside support base, increase subscribers inside and support the growth of a broader Maoist movement. To increase subscribers inside we’ve been slowly increasing our list of ULK distributors who receive extra copies of ULK to distribute to others in their prison. We’ve reached the point where almost 10% of the newspapers we’re sending into prisons are going to distributors, but we want to see that number much higher in 2022. If you’d like to receive extra copies of ULK to distribute let us know how many you can use and send us reports on your distribution efforts each issue.

Because of the decrease in frequency of ULK and the decrease in subscribers, we are sending less than a fifth of the number of newspapers into prisons we were sending in some years ago. The main way we think we can improve our numbers is by increasing ULK back to every other month. However, we will need to recruit much more outside support to make this happen as we are barely pulling this together every 3 months. Issue ULK 76 was almost delayed, and much work was rushed together at the last minute because we don’t have enough steady supporters.

In spring 2021 we announced we would be doing an annual Fourth of You-Lie fundraiser drive among the readers of ULK. We told you that 7 stamps would cover the cost of your 4 issues for the year. Below we’ve graphed the contributions we received from our readers in prison for the whole year. In Q1 and Q2 we removed the contributions of one particularly generous comrade who contributed over $200 in Q1 because ey was skewing our results so much. By excluding em, we see a steady growth in contributions coming in, and more importantly a steady growth of individuals sending contributions. While we welcome our comrades to send in $200 that can, it is by increasing the number of donations that we know our mass base is growing. Looking at our numbers for the last quarter of 2021, we see about 8.5% of the people receiving ULK 75 sent a donation during that quarter. While we didn’t do the math to track this over time, we believe this is probably one of the higher contribution rates we’ve ever had!

The line on the graph above represents the number of people contributing funds over the four quarters of 2021. The bars represent the money coming in as donations or payments. (All numbers include prisoners only.) ‘Payments’ means people sending money for a specific book or document. In some cases the difference is not important. However, if we get 100 people ordering copies of the TX Pack next quarter, that would shoot up our contributions but none of that money would be going to ULK or other projects, it would just pay to print and mail TX Packs. So it’s better to see the donations portion increasing. If we look at just the donations on the graph, prisoners are covering 18% of the cost of printing ULK! This level of support will make it much easier for us to increase the frequency of ULK, but we still need outside comrades to help do the work.

We hope you will be a part of ULK’s success in the coming year by doing any of the following: donating 7 stamps or more, sharing/distributing ULK, sending in conditions reports, writing articles, creating anti-imperialist artwork and promoting MIM(Prisons) work with your contacts outside prison. Of course, ULK exists to serve the anti-imperialist prison movement, and anything you do to build that movement is why we are here.

TX Pack and book orders

For those of you who are sending payments (no checks/money orders) for books or resources, please expect about 2 months between the time you mail out your request and you receive your item. For TX Pack requests, you must pay 7 stamps or $3.50. We do not have anyone working on the TX Pack, so the 2020 edition is all we have.

In the forthcoming piece We would like to point out the particular inter-connectedness of many of the enemy-states’ recent counter-offensive to Our collective progress. When We speak to ‘progress,’ we’re speaking to the strategic goal of establishing a national prison movement - a revolutionary oriented prison movement. A national revolutionary prison movement that is intrinsically connected with a national revolutionary oriented united front on the outside. In this piece We’ll attempt to illuminate to the reader that recent and present ‘security’ and censorship methods enacted by the enemy-state are indeed counter-offensives and are intrinsically inter-connected both outside and inside.

Any conscious observer will readily concede that in recent years, particularly within the prisons across the empire there has been an increase in censorship tactics. In some cases these methods border on extreme.

For all intents and purposes We can understand that the current prison movement took its first primitive steps forward towards nationalization with the hystoric hunger strikes organized in California from 2011-2013. The underlying blueprint for these actions, the Agreement to End Hostilities, showcased the way forward for many around the empire. Furthermore, and what’s harder to measure, is the amount of inspiration that those actions initiated.

We have a small window into this reality, as it has been recorded that prison officials in other states, by the advent of the third and final strike, began pleading with CDCR to settle the issues the comrades in Califas raised, as they had began dealing with similar unrest in their state’s prisons.

Here it may be necessary to pinpoint that the prison movement as We know it today didn’t begin in 2011. Rather there have been other organizations that have connected the functions of prison to the human rights movement. A notable organization is the Human Rights Coalition led by elder BLA and BPP veteran political prisoner/prisoner of war Russel Maroon Shoatz. [Rest in Power, Shoatz died on 17 December 2021, at age 78, less than 2 months after eir release from prison with cancer.] However, beginning with the Califas hunger strikes there was a substantial qualitative leap forward in both participation and interest, inside and outside countrywide.

Moving forward towards the 2016 National Prison strike; the collective action, along with its subsequent 2018 sequel, did wonders in nationalizing the Prison Human rights movement gaining corporate media attention and subsequently grasping the attention of previously uninterested parties. Some of these parties were prison officials, C.O. unions, police unions, and others intrinsically woven into the criminal injustice apparatus. Others were concerned persyns: a new generation of abolitionists began to spring up, usually deriving from the college campus sector. The spokesperson of the national prison strikes, Sis. Amani Sawari, along with imprisoned activists within key organizations like Jailhouse Lawyers Speaks, Free Alabama Movement, and many in Califas helped bring the key “Ten Demands” of the National Prison strike to the mainstream as these issues began to be debated among presidential candidates throughout 2019 and 2020.

Before We move on it is important to pinpoint here that the Prison Human Rights Movement, has had and continues to have much stratification within its ranks. The first and major stratification point derives from differences in political line surrounding the role of the movement.

Similar to the days of the Civil Rights movement, when the question of ‘non-violence’ was seen by some as a philosophical or theological commitment, while for others it was simply a tactic, one to be discarded if/when it proved un-useful. The current prison movement has many of the same components. While there are many more revolutionary oriented groups/persyns who see the success of the prison movement with the advent of voting rights, or other prison reforms. Instead many of these groups agree that prisons can not be reformed, as it is an intrinsic part of the state apparatus. These groups agree that revolutionary consciousness and commitment are the most meaningful things that can come of the prison movement.

Simultaneously, in recent years there has been an upsurge in radical activity on the outside. Much like in the prison movement there are many youthful combatants, and much decentralized activities. The fact that these movements have risen parallel among each other should not be considered a coincidence, nor should the corresponding and parallel counter-offensives be seen as unrelated coincidences.

As BlackLivesMatter and abolitionist praxis protests arose around the country, particularly in the aftermath of the George Floyd murder, reactionary lawmakers (persuaded by reactionary constituents) began implementing new repressive laws to quell protest. Federal lawmakers, led by the Trump-Pence duo led the way and most states followed suit. Such laws, or rather counter-offensives, included making the blocking of traffic, as had been done repeatedly in recent years, a first degree felony. In states like Tekkk$a$ that means that such protests would be punishable with sentences of 5-99 years!

Also, in a move to revamp Black Liberation era counter-offensives, federal legislators (followed by various states) felonized crossing state boundaries to partake in protests. Some students of the movement may recall that this measure was first enacted against Imam Jamil Al-Amin, the former H. Rap Brown of SNNC, BPP, and RNA at the apex of the Black Liberation struggle.

These are only a few key examples of the criminalization of radical dissent as it pertains to those on the outside. However, C.O. unions, DOC headquarters, and various reactionaries began their countervailing efforts on radical and revolutionary forces on the inside first.

In the almost immediate aftermath of the 2016 National Prison Strike, DOC’s around the empire all began complaining of the same issue: an illusionary influx of drugs coming through the mail. Reading from the limited research materials i have in my cell, it seems that the counter-offensive attacking prisoner mail under the pretext of a major drug influx began in 2017, and the first states to initiate this offensives were Indiana, Pennsylvania, and Florida. States like Tekkk$a$, initiated a different sort of attack on prisoner correspondence by severely limiting indigent mail in 2015. However, relating to the “influx of drugs” ruse, many other states have since followed suit. Another related component to the attack on prisoner mail is the wide spread switchover to digitized mail services. States have begun denying all physical snail mail and mail that have implemented this repressive tactic have also by and large prevented prisoners from receiving books from “unauthorized” vendors, basically mandating that reading material be sent from a sole approved vendor.

All these measures described above are ‘on trend’ among the various states around the empire, meaning these measures are likely to be making their way to a prison near you. What We’re experiencing now is a proving ground for the state, in which they’ve been observing to see which countervailing measures will stir the masses the most, which ones will survive the initial jailhouse lawyer onslaughts.

Again, it must be understood that the major drug influx cited by (all) these state DOC’s is illusionary. That isn’t to say drugs aren’t in prison, but they’re flowing in the same frequency as prior to 2016 (national prison strike). So why now? Why suddenly the state-to-state focused attack on prisoner correspondence, and the digitizing of mail, only after 2016? The answer points to a New-COINTELPRO type program (NCTP). Part and parcel with this NCTP is the widespread, coordinated countervailing attacks against progressive and revolutionary prisoners. From Califas, Oregon, Nevada to New Mexico, Indiana to Pennsylvania; from Virginia to North Carolina, South Carolina to Florida, Alabama to Tekkk$a$, dissident prisoners are under attack. These attacks range from down right malicious assaults to poisoning of food/water supplies, from permanent solitary placement to the systemic silencing of these militants. In places like TDCJ’s Allred Unit, which Texas uses to isolate and torture political prisoners and captive journalists. They’ve employed a specialized individual, ex-military/ex-cop, to survey ‘specific inmates’ mail and book deliveries. Is it clear yet?

As the 2020 summer uprisings raged on into the late fall in some areas of the empire the Trump-Pence regime had already began laying the foundation to begin the mass warehousing of political dissidents on the outside utilizing some of the new laws mentioned above. As these protests raged on, political radicals have filled up prisons and jails around the empire. Do you all understand what this could mean for the prison movement?

The last time in movement hystory that We experienced a mass influx of militants and revolutionaries entering the prisons was during the Black Liberation era (late 1960’s into the 1970’s). Atiba Shanna, and the New Afrikan Prisoner’s Organization did a superb job illustrating the effect political prisoners entering the prisons in mass had on the already bubbling prison movement:

“As a result of the repression exercised upon the struggle taking place outside the walls in the late sixties and early seventies, leaders and activists in these struggles were captured and imprisoned. These were the political prisoners and prisoners of war. Their initial imprisonment was a result of consciously motivated political actions.

“The escalation of struggle outside the walls also resulted in a significant increase in the number of politicized prisoners already inside the walls… We can admit that the economic and socio-psychological ties that these politicized prisoners had with the oppressive system were such that they represent the most conscious element among us - the most conscious, that is, of the presently waging undeclared war between themselves and those who rule. Thus, they are the most receptive and responsive to the need to become ‘the people in uniform.’ BUT, their politicization resulted primarily from their being members of oppressed nations!” (1)

The people who are responsible for holding people in cages, and keeping us in cages, are acutely aware of the possible and very likely culture shock that is to overtake U.$. prisons that experience an influx of political radicals. Never forget that in the time frame mentioned above by Comrade Atiba, that the activities of the BLA and other similar formations eventually led to the U.$. moving to build more newer, more ‘secure,’ and high tech prisons designed to keep Our political prisoners and prisoners of war within them, and to prevent anymore political prisoners of war from arising from among the captive populace.

Therefore i concur that We’re currently experiencing such countervailing efforts by the enemy-state so that they may monitor captive militants, their networks and families (with the design to turn them into captive militants themselves) and prevent the rise of a more militant, more ideologically consolidated, more revolutionary national prison movement that is intrinsically inter-woven with a more militant, ideologically consolidated, more revolutionary outside united front.

By this point We hope it is clear that just as the prison movement and the movement on the other side of the walls have a dialectical relationship; the enemies on both sides of the wall also have a dialectical relationship, they also work together to the detriment of Our progress. As more revolutionary oriented comrades advance the national prison movement forward, repression will increase in intensity. We must begin to operate in a way that one’s struggles become all Our struggle. If comrades in one state are being overly repressed We must band together in multiple states, letting the pig power structure know “WE SEE YOU AND WE WON’T STAND FOR IT: 1LOVE 1STRUGGLE!” We must reach such a level of organization and operation, and We are on the cusp of it NOW. I encourage progressive and revolutionary captives to begin dialoging, corresponding, with each other. Seek out the means to do so. We must keep each other abreast to the local happenings from unit to unit, state to state. Comrades that is why publications like Under Lock & Key, San Francisco Bay View, and others are so important. However, We aren’t utilizing these platforms to their greatest extent if We aren’t constantly sending in reports, articles, informing other comrades on what’s happening. And We must also begin to support these institutions more effectively as a whole. I challenge all ULK subscribers to raise at least 10 stamps to mail to MIM(Prisons)! Which state can raise the most funds? TX where ya’ll at!? Those 10 stamps can go a long way towards prisoner organizing and educational efforts.

RE-BUILD TO WIN

^{1. Notes from a New Afrikan P.O.W. journal #1 by Atiba Shanna}

Revolutionary greetings to all the comrades!

In this article I-self will be building with ya’ll in unity, criticism, unity on the ongoing discussion on organizing strategy that’s been going on in the last 3 ULKs. But where my focus is going to be on are the questions that the comrade Wiawimawo stated at the end of Comrade S. Xanastas’ “An Ongoing Discussion Organizing Strategy Pt. 2” in ULK No. 74. Also, a little on the redefining words that are used to villianize WE from Comrade Triumphant’s article “Forever Protecting the Community: We Are Our Own Liberators” in ULK No. 75.

The questions posed by our comrade Wiawimawo are stated below:

“can building the Re-Lease on Life and University of Maoist Thought programs mobilize and reach the masses in the same way as the campaigns making demands from the state?

“…Isn’t a campaign exposing the widespread use of torture in U.$. prisons an undermining of U.$. imperialism regardless of the maneuvers the various states make to cut back on or hide their use of long-term isolation? Or should we focus solely on the Third World neo-colonies and expose U.$. meddling in Ethiopia, Cuba and Haiti?”

To answer the first question: can building the Re-Lease on Life and University of Maoist Thought programs mobilize and reach the masses in the same way as the campaigns making demands from the state? I would have to say yes, and I also think that the Re-Lease on Life and the University of Maoist Thought Programs will aid and assist with the campaigns making demands from the state. Reason why is that the University of Maoist Thought programs and the Re-Lease on Life will give the de-imperialization study groups, programs, or classes, etc. Plus the most right and exact educational class WE can bring to the masses so WE can liberate ourselves. Which will in turn not just promote these campaigns, but these individuals who “over”take these classes will have a sense of duty to not just self, but the whole commune to start up campaigns that are making demands from the state. In turn, this will open the opportunity to capture the minds of more of the masses from the imperialist reigns of control to be re-directed to our de-imperialization study groups and/or classes, and then that situation repeats until the masses are overwhelmingly pushing S.O.P.s in these koncentration kamps and communism to the outside free world.

Next question is: Isn’t a campaign exposing the widespread use of torture in U.$. prisons an undermining of U.$. imperialism regardless of the maneuvers the various states make to cut back on or widen their use of long-term isolation? I knowledge that these campaigns that expose widespread use of torture and long-term isolation, with the many campaigns to teach the deaf, dumb, and blind of our First World lumpen class to see, be mindful, and more nationally, internationally, revolutionarily conscious, and be able to discern the difference from what is revolutionary and what is not. This will breed the revolutionary souljas which is needed to topple U.$. imperialism and imperialism as a whole. Souljas like those in the Ayiti (Haiti) revolution (Aug. 14, 1791 - Dec. 1803) the first and only successful revolution of Afrikans where General Francois Capois yelled this battle cry at the final battle:

“Grenadye, also! Sa Ki Mouri, Zafe a yo! Nan pwen manman. Nan pwen papa. Sa ki mouri, zafe a yo! Grenadye, aloso!”

Which translates to:

“Soldiers attack (or to the front and move forward)! Those who die, so what! There is no mom. There is no dad. Those who die, so what!”

WE have to come with this mindset while in this realm of revolution, and if WE are not there yet then WE better hop-scotch into a Usane Bolt sprint to it and lock it in for eternity. For this is the mindset which is going to get us to the transfer of power from imperialism to communism. WE gotta be expecting that the imperialists are going to try to hide their dirty laundry after WE show how filthy their ways are. So in saying that we ALL have to become counter-attack masters and specialists just as much as WE ALL ARE to be ready to become future leaders of the revolutionary struggle.

Which is also answering the following question: or should we focus soley on the third world neo-colonies and expose U.$. meddling on Ethiopia, Cuba, and Haiti? Now just stating that WE ALL have to become counter-attack specialists and be ready to become future leaders, the comrade with the most knowledge gets to speak on either of the three. If WE don’t have any of the comrades or leaders who have that knowledge, then WE gone get into that study hall classroom and get some knowledge, wisdom, understanding, and elect a cadre to each country.

So the focus that is needed to build campaigns that will undermine the imperialists here in the U.$. and the world abroad, will be there in full discretion. WE gotta become the monsters that the beast is scared to death of. Since everybody has or had a monster that they was afraid of, why not BE the monster(s) the imperialists shit and piss in their pants every time they think of WE. Then die of heart attack when WE manifest in the flesh.

Because WE as revolutionaries and FW lumpen have been villainized by the imperialists already right? It’s either now that WE redefine these words or abandon words like “monster,” “demons,” “gang,” “criminal”, and etc. Just how the comrade Triumphant stated in their article “Forever Protecting the Community: We Are Our Own Liberators,” I see and knowledge that this task is going to be a difficult one. First, redefining these words to the point it’s worldwide spread that even our opps – the imperialists – knows the redefinition of word that they use to villainize WE and use the new definition their damn selfs. Example: How many knows Tupac Amaru Shakur’s redefinition of the word ‘NIGGA’? Which is “Never Ignorant Getting Goals Accomplished” or does the first thing a persyn think about is a New Afrikan individual? And this leads into part two: WE have to remember our leaders and souljas locked away like Larry Hoover Sr., Iman Jalil Amin, Dr. Mutulu Shakur, Bomani Shakur, and many others’ lives are dependent on WE and if WE fail to redefine correctly and get it worldwide recognition; WE’ll do more harm to WE then forward progression of the movement. This will push us back like Gang injunctions and R.I.C.O. acts. Just something WE should keep in mind as we progress forward in these stages of organizing strategy.

L’UNION FAIT LA FORCE = UNITY MAKES STRENGTH

Sadly far too many people who should know better believe that a sign of “equal justice” would be if Kyle Rittenhouse was housed in the empty cell down the tier from me. Additionally far too many people actually felt and argued that a sign of the system working was the guilty verdict given to the McMichaels for killing Ahmaud Arbery. However i wonder what exactly such people believe happens when these people are in fact placed into prison. Do people believe these people would share the same experiences as someone from the semi-colonies? Do they believe these people will be subjected to the same level of brutality from the state or its representatives? Do they believe this is “rehabilitation”?

i’ve even heard far too many people state that these people should not even be given bourgeois rights while going through the courts. Such people obviously believe in amerikkkan “democracy” and only aim to put and keep their people in power specifically through the Democratic Party where they can use the levers of bourgeois civil society to dominate* the Republican Party. This is vengeance against the Amerikan bourgeoisie’s political party by another - not justice and definitely not revolutionary. We should condemn this at every turn.

2020 was lost because spontaneity dominated instead of actual consciousness. Lenin stated in 1900 that the “spontaneity of the masses demands a high consciousness from us.” Another obvious failure was the failure of analysis of what amerikkka’s capitalism-imperialism is and who her citizens are and their relationship to this specific form of late capitalism-imperialism. Had this been done there would’ve been less talk of trying to stuff a true history lesson down the settler-colonist throats as if this would make them see the light and instead teaching this history to New Afrikans, First Nations, Raza, API and receptive whites with an emphasis on self-determination struggles, self-reliance, anti-imperialism and internationalism. A proper class analysis would’ve concluded there’s no real opposition to capitalism-imperialism (in 2020) and most amerikans benefit from this system. The people protesting, thinking pigs would be or should be neutral, while their system was under attack; that they would not welcome vigilantes and even thank them were foolish. If any one was surprised at all by how that night played out, regardless of the Rittenhouse verdict, they need to go back to the ABC’s of amerikkkan history (maybe Critical Race Theory would’ve helped them).

Not only should we not root for U$A injustice system even against our enemies**, we should denounce bourgeois criminal behavior, not just gangsterism but even in protests. We are not terrorists nor do we believe in focoism or anarchy. We advocate revolutionary consciousness. We do not lead the people to slaughter. We gather forces or at least sympathy for revolution.

What are prisons for? We know all too well about the school-to-prison-pipeline and who this is designed for. We know we are considered surplus-population and prison acts as a social tool to keep idle people idle. We also know that amerikkkans are infatuated with law and order (and punishment). We know amerikkkans rest assured when its carceral system locks people away for 40 or 50 years for whatever crime…we know amerikkka does not bat an eye at such abuses. In fact immediately after Rittenhouse’s GoFundMe page successfully got him acquitted Vice President Harris professed her role as top-cop in California was to make the system more “equitable” and his acquittal means there’s obviously “more work to be done”. Again, but what are prisons for? Rittenhouse should go inside a box (for obviously many, many years), get old and then be judged (by a specific faction of the bourgeois dictatorship - the democrats**) to see if it’s enough years gone by. This is the only purpose prison in bourgeois society serves so what kind of people advocate such a thing?

Even in prison it’s not well known what prison is used for. Not only that, even in prison bourgeois mentality is prevalent and ubiquitous… We sit in cages like animals. We are psychologically tortured, sexually humiliated, manipulated and harassed. We must fight for outside contact, safety, humanity and freedom but a majority of captives sit around in their assigned boxes and literally direct their anger and future violence at other captives. Not just that but rebellion against our circumstances and capture is far too often shunned. Revolution even in hell isn’t automatic. Bourgeois society will go down as the most adaptable. When almost everyone has a price how could it not?

When i hear “lock em up” or that “justice” was served i know for sure i’m in the midst of enemies. i know such people deep down believe i’m exactly where i should be. Revolutionaries cannot parrot Jesse Jackson, Alicia Garza, Amy Goodman or anyone else’s call to “lock em up.” Let’s leave that to Trump and Clinton and all the other enemies of the revolution. Instead let’s learn how to protect each other starting with a proper class analysis. True political consciousness going into 2022 must start from the empire’s utter success in buying off all but a small percent of its population and the knowledge that this demand and lame-ass attempt to take over the bourgeois system “from the inside” with this pro-police imperialism, pro-FBI socialism, anti-revolution revolutionaries is worse than a joke.

Salutes to TX Team One, FPC, Republic of Aztlán, and the entire USW,

NA Struggle RL NAIM CA-MLM

*Obviously if this had the potential to advance anti-imperialism in any way it is to be considered but we will not first exploit internal contradictions between the capitalist then as a response to this build our forces. No, there must first be a revolutionary force to galvanize otherwise it’s just more imperialism and pro-imperialism.

**It would have to be Democrats because Republicans believe this was just.

MIM(Prisons) responds: We agree with this comrade’s focus on building our forces, building anti-imperialism, building movements for self-determination. As we say on page 2 of every Under Lock & Key, we have a different solution to the bourgeois prison system and that is proletarian justice. We distribute the book Prisoners of Liberation about Amerikan spies in a Chinese socialist prison that we use as a starting point for how prisons can be used to serve the people and give everyone the resources to reform and contribute positively to society.

But implementing pro-people rehabilitation on a mass scale is a ways off for us in this country. And we agree with our comrade here that these calls for “justice” are the battlefield of bourgeois politicians. If Rittenhouse was given a long prison term, that would only increase the chances of him becoming the Nazi that he has been branded already in the media; an indication of what these bourgeois prisons actually do. There are class enemies, and both sides will use force against their class enemies. But we must first build proletarian institutions, before we can implement proletarian justice.

While Governor Abbot has enacted a full on assault on women’s rights here in Texas, I heard him defend his decision to not even allow young rape victims to have an abortion. His reasoning was that he has plans to end rape in the great state of Texas (and I have plans to win the powerball lottery). This is almost as good news as was President Nixon announcing that he was, “Not a Crook”, or George H.W. Bush promising, “No new taxes.” But what would you expect from a guy who cannot manage to keep the electric on in a state that makes its fortunes in the energy business?

So it should surprise no one to know that Gov. Abbot’s Texas Department of Criminal Justice(TDCJ) has enacted extremely stringent mail room policies (BP-3.91), which has prisoners and their family members up in arms! (see: Texas Censorship Rule (BP-3.91) Being Revised, Under Lock & Key No. 75) These restrictive policies were put in place because family members of sex offenders complained that their loved ones were not able to get the rehabilitation that they need while in prison because of all the drugs and photos of women in their underwear that all of the other prisoners possess. What does TDCJ do? They pass a rule that not only prevents sexually explicit photos from entering this prison it also does not allow any crayon, marker, colored paper, or greeting cards and many books and magazines are denied.

I myself had my Men’s Health and National Geographic magazines denied for “sexually explicit content,” and just today I was denied the opportunity to even read a letter from my aging, almost 80-year-old mother because it was written on colored paper. I was also recently denied a drawing, from a church member’s son for the same exact reason and he is only 7.

TDCJ thinks they can stop drugs and sexually explicit content from entering into prisons by trampling all over the First Amendment, but the sad fact of the matter is that outlawing and strict policing laws cannot and will not ever stop people from doing what they want to do. It hasn’t worked with the drug nor anti-sodomy laws and it darn sure won’t work inside of TDCJ while they have low-paid, over-worked, understaffed employees looking to make a buck.

Well, Governor, if you’re not too busy stalking abortion clinics or sifting through citizen’s personal mail, you might want to check out what all of those locked up sex offenders and gang bangers are doing here. Since you don’t feel it profitable to sufficiently staff your prisons so that prisoners have healthy activities like outside rec and mental health support groups to engage their minds, you leave them to lounge around in their rubber sandals all day, soaking up the wonderful air conditioning, selling their psych meds, smoking K2, tobacco and meth and snorting and overdosing on oxycontin, suboxone, percocet and alcohol while they eat cheese puffs and have guards scroll through the seemingly endless selection of partial and full nudity labeled shows on the On-demand cable TVs.

The really tough thing for Gov. Abbot and the unit Wardens is that it is against the rules for prisoners to operate or even touch the remote controls. So either their officers are not following the rules or they themselves are choosing to force this kind of programming on a captive audience. This is exactly why they don’t allow prayers to be read over school intercoms any more, because you cannot avoid hearing it even if you want to and believe me, there are some things you just cannot un-see or un-hear.

Here there is no escaping second-hand smoke, nor the scorn of porn, no matter how many mothers’ letters the mail room denies.

Wiawimawo of MIM(Prisons) adds: We’ve been pointing out the false logic in recent waves of censorship and digitizing of mail across this country, with evidence that drugs in prisons have not been reduced, which was the stated aim of these policies.(1) Now with BP-3.91 aiming to eliminate material that might prevent sex offenders from recovering we find out that the policy is used to censor educational material, holiday cards and letters from children while prisoners are watching porn on TV all day whether they want to be or not.

We like the connection this comrade makes to Abbot’s great plan to ban abortion and eliminate rapists. Below we print another story about gender and rape in prisons from a comrade who has been studying MIM’s writings on gender. This adds to the critique of Abbot by pointing out how all sex is rape under patriarchy, as well as pointing to the intimate relation between porn and profits that prevent rape from being eliminated under capitalism. The tying of pleasure and power to motivate the consumer class to keep capital circulating in the economy is so important to the bourgeoisie that rape has become an unavoidable feature of capitalism.

A California prisoner writes: After reading the MC5 paper Clarity on what gender is, I was a bit confused about MacKinnon’s line that all sex is rape. It took me a few days to comprehend what she was trying to say. First if something does not make sense, check your premise.

Her statement didn’t add up because my premise was that she was making a statement, when in reality her line is a metaphor of patriarchy (oppressive culture where men dominate). I recall feminists using a similar line in South America, “You are the rapist.” And I believe this is what MacKinnon was trying to say. This is a metaphor of the dominance of men in gender oppression.

It really became clear for me at “pill call.” I was waiting in line for my pills and on the other side of the fence some other prisoners were waiting in line for pills. One group was nuts to butts and a second the same. Both groups were standing 6 feet away from a sex offender as if he had some sort of contagious leprosy.

It is at this point a nurse walks by and the first group starts murmuring obscene comments amongst each other about her body. The second group started panting like a bunch of wild dogs and talking among themselves about the girl’s body. Meanwhile the isolated sex offender said nothing.

Everyone in line had something disgusting to say about the nurse except for the one man that everyone else is pretending to be better than. There is no doubt in my mind that every single one of those disgusting animals would be a rapist if it was just them and her in a room alone, thus giving merit to the feminist line “you are the rapist” and clarifying MacKinnon’s line “all sex is rape.”

Those men that so quickly became something less at the mere sight of a female are taught by an endless barrage of television commercials exploiting a woman’s beauty, that women are objects. Every time anyone wants to sell something in this capitalist culture the object is next to a beautiful woman, thus the object for sale is automatically associated with a woman as an object, similar to hypnotism.

Some of the men were probably only acting like wild animals just to fit in because they think that objectifying the woman is what is expected of them. However, that is somehow worse than the one who really is only seeing an object, because a mindless animal who can’t think for himself is always worse than a self-thinking man of reason.

From a woman’s perspective she truly must feel oppressed living in a world where all men act like disgusting animals. Truly she must feel like “all sex is rape” because all men act like rapists. As a reaction, women are past the point of tolerance and a lot of men are now doing serious time in prison for nothing more than what the capitalist system teaches them to do. For the liberation of women it becomes necessary for men to become oppressed, especially so here in Amerika where the answer to every conflict is a life sentence in prison.

Revolution from my perspective is never accomplished by half measures of compromise (small talk, legislation, reform, etc). Rights are never granted, they are won.

We all, female and male, must unite to win our right to be treated as a human being. We all must fight for our liberation. The monster that is the U.S. government cannot be reasoned with, cannot be reformed, every time we win 1 step, we lose 2. It is now all or nothing. For all of us that are oppressed the time is now. We must rise not for ourselves, but for a better future.

final comments by Wiawimawo: This comrade’s assumption that any of these men would have raped the womyn if given a chance contradicts eir assumption that some are just following along in the act. But this reinforces the point that rape is a systematic thing, that even if each of those men would not have raped that womyn if they found her alone, they participated in the culture of rape.

We’d also point out that many females do not “feel like all sex is rape”, and we argue that this is the case in the oppressor nations because of the gender privilege females have here they are gender oppressors, or men.

If Gov. Abbot’s big plan for ending rape is to lock up rapists, this will fail on two accounts. One is that Amerikan prisons do not reform or rehabilitate, which is why we are building our own independent institutions of the oppressed. But more importantly, rape is not about individual choices and behaviors, just like all crimes that are epidemic in imperialist society. Our culture creates rapists every day. It is only by transforming the relations between humyn beings that we can eliminate rape. And as mentioned above, capitalism is so dependent on selling sex, it is only through overthrowing capitalism that we can begin to make real strides in this transformation.

^{1. A Texas Prisoner, March 2021, TDCJ: Your Staff are Bringing in the Drugs, and it Must Stop, Under Lock & Key No. 73.}

In 2017, MIM(Prisons) published Under Lock & Key #59 (ULK) which focused on the impact drugs have on the prison movement. ULK #59 was particularly significant to our cause, given the fact that drugs play a central role in preventing the lumpen from developing into a revolutionary force inside U.$. prisons. As various comrades attested to in that issue, drugs are poisons that eat away any potential unity of the oppressed, by fostering violence amongst the imprisoned lumpen, and the bourgeoisification of those involved in the trade. Also, discussed in ULK #59 was the scourge of the synthetic cannibinoid K2 and the rise of opioid use in prisons at the time. Since then, another opioid has gained popularity behind prison walls, mostly because of its availability; Suboxone.

In 2020, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation(CDCR) introduced Suboxone to its 33 prisons as part of its Integrated Substance Use Disorder Treatment(ISUDT). Suboxone is a medication used to treat opioid addiction, specifically in the detox and withdrawal stages of care. According to the San Quentin News, “ISUDT is touted as the largest in-prison medically assisted treatment program in the nation.”(1) CDCR credits Suboxone with a sharp decline in overdose deaths in its prisons since its introduction. But is there more than meets the eye to this apparent miracle drug?

What is Suboxone?

Suboxone is a combination medication containing buprenorphine and naloxone.(2) Suboxone is derived from opium, and was supposedly intended to be a less addictive alternative to methodone, morphine, and oxycodone.(3) Though viewed as a safe alternative to other drugs, Suboxone can still be deadly when taken intravenously or in combination with other drugs and alcohol. Other side effects are:

* cardiac arrhythmia
* irregular blood pressure
* respiratory issues
* liver and kidney problems
* constipation
* urinary retention
* sweating
* short term memory issues
* difficulty thinking clearly and focusing
* impaired coordination
* headache
* nausea and vomiting
* sedation (4)

Where Did Suboxone Come From?

Suboxone was developed in the 1970s by Reckitt Benckiser, a Briti$h company at the behest of the Amerikan government. At the time, the United $tates was searching for a “less addictive” alternative for patients with opioid use disorder. After Suboxone was created, Reckitt Benckiser shipped the drug to the United $tates narcotic farm in Lexington, Kentucky to be tested on detoxified addicts. The farm was also a prison and treatment facility as well as the site of the U.$. government’s Addiction Research Center.

It was at the Addiction Research Center that the government discovered just how addictive Suboxone could be, yet it was still marketed as a useful tool to combat addiction. Originally the doctors prescribing the drug had to hold special licenses and undergo special training. However, the government loosened its restrictions in response to the number of opioid associated deaths. Since then, Suboxone has raked in billions of dollars for pharmaceutical companies and millions more for the addiction treatment sector that sprang up in its wake.(5) Yet, there have been 100,000 overdose deaths attributed to opioids in the last 12 months.(6) Those same doctors trained by the government have also been found to be some of the most unscrupulous predators around.(7) As such, it was perplexing to many that the CDCR would provide such a highly addictive drug with such potential for abuse at a time when most prison addicts had already detoxed and gone through withdrawals, thanks to the statewide prison lockdown in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Drugs are Chemical Weapons

The use of drugs as part of a larger strategy of unconventional warfare dates back to the 16th century when Europeans created the drug trade to finance the expansion of their empires and the rise of industrial capitalism.(8) One of the most infamous examples of this was the Briti$h East India Company’s use of opium to subdue China and bring it into its sphere of influence by creating a nation of addicts. While the Portuguese and Dutch were the first to popularize opium smoking in China, it was the Briti$h who took full advantage of this. When the Chinese realized what was happening, they attempted to ban all foreign ships from entry and close their ports. The Briti$h claimed the Chinese were blocking their access to Chinese markets, and used this as a pretext to launch the first of two opium wars. By 1900, 27% of all adult males in China were addicted to smoking opium and China was forced to cede Hong Kong to the Briti$h.(9) This chapter in Chinese history marked the beginning of what Mao Zedong called China’s dark night of slavery to the west.

It was around this same time that alcohol was used by Amerikkkans to facilitate the genocide of First Nations people and the theft of their land. This period also marks the first recorded use of biological weapons, when the U.$. Army used smallpox infected blankets to decimate natives and clear the land for white settlers. Together, these acts of savagery resulted in the extermination of 98% of people indigenous to what is today the United $tates and the worst genocide in humyn hystory.(10) Events similar to these played out in Africa, Asia, and the Americas.(11)

During the 20th century, the Briti$h and Amerikkkan imperialists developed more sophisticated means with which to subdue the oppressed nations. Project MK-Ultra is one such example. Project MK-Ultra was initiated by the CIA in the 1950s along with the Briti$h MI6, their sometimes collaborators. This top secret project involved using drugs and the media to attack and discredit Amerika’s political enemies.

Lysergic Acid Diethylamide (LSD), or just simply “acid” for short, became the drug of choice for the CIA at this time. LSD was created by Albert Hoffman, a Nazi collaborator working for the Swiss IG Farben. Starting in the 1950s, the CIA began producing their own acid in “tonnage quantities” after asking pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly to synthesize Hoffman’s formula. This was part of the CIA’s larger plan to dose the water supply of the Soviet Union. The CIA knew for themselves the effects of LSD as they tested the drugs on prisoners at the same facility in Lexington, Kentucky that Suboxone was tested at twenty years later! Here, prisoners were kept tripping for 77 days straight as part of Project Artichoke which was one of many programs under the umbrella of Project MK-Ultra.(12)

The connection between the development of Suboxone, the CIA and Acid’s early days are alarming given the fact that Suboxone was introduced to California prisons at a time of heightened political consciousness amongst prisoners, an economic recession, a rise in white nationalism, Black Lives Matter protests, a statewide no visiting lockdown, and the ten-year anniversary of prison hunger strikes that rocked CDCR and produced ripple effects across Amerikkka’s gulags. Thus, it was certainly in the interests of the imperialists to suppress the germs of any potential organizing amongst the oppressed lumpen.

And although the CIA’s plans with respect to the Soviet Union never came to fruition, they did use LSD to attack the political enemies of the Amerikan bourgeoisie. Outspoken college professors critical of the U.$., political activists, communists, government whistle-blowers and their families all fell victim to LSD and were publicly discredited.(13)

As the anti-imperialist movement gained traction both outside and inside of U.$. borders, the use of LSD and other chemical weapons was expanded. Throughout the 1970s heroin became part and parcel to the fight against New Afrikan, Chican@, and First Nations national liberation movements. Asian-produced opium also became critical to U.$. imperialism’s war against Vietnam. Drug money was used to help facilitate the creation of Taiwan as a U.$. ally against Maoist China prior to these events.(14) Methadone too was linked to the opioid problem in New York City in the 1970s. Methadone as “maintenance treatment” for heroin addicts was funded by the Rockefeller Program.(15) The Rockefellers have also been implicated in Nazi atrocities, the red scare media campaigns, and CIA operations.

The 1980s brought us the Iran-Contra scandal responsible for the introduction of crack-cocaine into the ghettos and barrios of the United $tates. Again, the CIA was found to be at the heart of these dirty wars which involved the use of Iranian money to buy Amerikan guns. Money from the Iranians was then use to buy cocaine from Colombia for sale in the United $tates. Amerikan drug money was then re-circulated to fund counter-revolutionaries in Nicaragua fighting the leftist Sandinistas.(17)

More recently, Operation Fast and Furious made international headlines when the CIA was exposed for selling firearms to Mexican cartels as a means of keeping the Mexican government destabilized and the Mexican people from fighting their oppressors. The last thing the U.$. wants is for a neo-colonial country on their doorstep to turn independent and determine their own destinies.

The Problem as We Understand It

If the imperialists really wanted to they could shut down the drug trade, but that runs counter to their interests. Addiction defines capitalist society. Addiction lies at the center of supply and demand economics and is what drives the anarchy of production. From cell phones, to soap operas, to opioids and methamphetamines, everyone living in a capitalist society is addicted to something. Addiction in capitalist society is encouraged as a means to realizing profit; but also as a way to keep people in general, and the masses in particular, distracted and unable to rise up against oppression. Nowhere is this seen better than in the recent hystory of the oppressed nations.

In a critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, Karl Marx explained how religion had hystorically been urged to drug people much in the same ways the bourgeois uses actual drugs today:

“Religious suffering is at one and the same time the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.”(18)

Marx was writing at a time of the industrial revolution when the “miracle” of capitalism was creating advancements in humyn hystory never before seen. However, it was also creating grinding oppression and poverty previously unknown. Capitalism also promoted ideas of individualism, self-centeredness, greed, and exceptionalism, some of the worst qualities in humyn behavior, and expanding them to include entire populations, most pointedly in the labor aristocracy. All this combined led to lives full of misery and desperation for the masses. Lives in which the only solace was that of an afterlife. And while religion continues to act as a smokescreen in the oppression of the masses, the use of drugs has proved indispensable.

Today the root causes of oppression can be better traced to nation, class, and gender contradictions which have completely warped the way people interact on both a macro and micro level. The root causes of addiction are much the same.

In regards to religious suffering, Marx knew better than to simply call for the abolition of religion. Instead, he realized that it was the conditions that led to religious suffering themselves that needed to be abolished. Otherwise, some other new feel good belief would come to fill the void left by religion, and the oppressive system itself would remain in its place:

“The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their conditions is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusion. The criticism of religion is therefore in embryo the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo.”(19)

In other words, religion sanctified capitalism and helped make it tolerable for the oppressed. Drugs play a similar role in today’s culture. If one is high all the time than ey does not think about the many years ey have to spend in prison. One does not have to deal with the fact that ey made a decision that impacted countless lives because of eir parasitic behavior. The use of drugs allows one to cope with the impact nation, class, and gender contradictions have had on em through intergenerational trauma, all the while keeping them unable to understand how the three strands of oppression manifest through that trauma.

We encourage people to get drug free and stay that way, but this requires more than the status quo in addiction treatment, which only teaches how to better cope with the trauma of imperialism. We encourage comrades to go further and destroy the conditions that require illusions. We encourage comrades to take up revolution.

MIM(Prisons) adds: We will be doing a follow-up on this article with the results of our second survey on drugs in prisons found in ULK 75. We are still collecting and aggregating your responses. It’s not too late if you have not responded yet.

We know the state is opposed to our efforts to expose and combat the plague of drug addiction among imprisoned lumpen. Branchville Correctional Facility in Indiana censored ULK 75 citing:

“denied based on the article about Suboxone, and the common drug slang terms and sale information used in one of the articles. The items in the article violate IDOC/BCF policies.”

The drug sale information of course was that the C.O.s were selling it. See Targeted as Mentally Ill for Honesty & Not Participating in Staff Drug Running and Retaliation for Writing On Drug Smuggling for more on repression of those who don’t play the drug game.

^{Notes: [1] San Quentin News, September 2021, Pg. 8.
[2] 5 Myths About Using Suboxone, Peter Greenspan MD, October 7, 2021
[3] Extended Suboxone Treatment Substantially Improves Outcomes for Opioid Addicted Youth, November 4, 2008
[4] Suboxone vs Methodone: Positives and Negatives, Avatar, May 21, 2021
[5] Addiction Treatment with a Dark Side, New York Times, 2013
[6] Amanpour & Co, PBS, December 7, 2021
[7] Addiction Treatment with a Dark Side, New York Times, 2013
[8] Drugs As Weapons Against Us: The CIA’s Murderous Targeting of SDS, Panthers, Hendrix, Lennon, Cobain, Tupac, and Other Activists, John L. Potash, Trine Day LLC, 2015, Pg 7-9
[9] Ibid, pg 10
[10] J. Sakai, 1989, Settlers: Mythology of the White Proletariat, 3rd Edition, Morningstar Press, p. 7. Sakai cites 200-300,000 native people remaining by 1900, of an estimated 10 million people before colonization.
[11] Drugs as Weapons Against Us, Pg 10
[12] Ibid, Pg 29-30
[13] Ibid, Pg 31-36
[14] Ibid, Pg 45-51
[15] Under Lock & Key, Issue 59, Pg 5, 2017
[16] Drugs as Weapons Against Us, Pg 13-14
[17] Ibid, Pg 279-285
[18] Karl Marx, 1843, Introduction to “A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right.”
[19] A Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, Karl Marx}

I have to praise my fellow prisoners at the Allred Unit for challenging the injustices that have been happening to all alleged/suspected STG’s. I have been unjustly confirmed as a member of the “Mexican Mafia of Texas” since 1986. But, was suspected prior to that year. And all, because I was one of the few prisoners that got tired of correctional administrators in the 1980’s using some prisoners to conduct their dirty work for them. This is where, I believe, that I became suspected as an STG member. Which is why I have a lot of respect for my fellow prisoners that stood their grounds along with me at the Ferguson Unit in 1983, until I was shipped in 1985.

Back then I was a young person. So fighting was my type of show, my true colors. But now as an older adult I have a different mindset. Don’t get me wrong I can still get my boxing game on, only if I have to defend myself. But now I believe that a pen and paper is mightier than a sword.

This is why I believe that the only way that we’ll end all types of violence or hostile activities is for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice Correctional Institutions Division(TDCJ-CID) to be open to “STG” prisoners being released to the general population with unit level agreements between all “STG” members of different groups.

At this moment there are two types of renouncement programs. The first is known as Reg. GRAD for ex-members that enrolled not considering that the form they signed is unconstitutional because those individuals incriminate themselves and probably others. The second renouncement program is called “Population Release - GRAD.” And they have to allegedly incriminate themselves and others, and renounce all gang activities. But, I believe, that if the two types of GRAD groups are combined together that would open up the other STEP DOWN the prison violence by releasing “STG”s with a different kind of mindset. Because the majority of these two GRAD programs at present time are full of young set-minded street gang individuals.

I believe I am being set up by someone in the Unit’s “Security Threat Group Management Office”, with ex-members of different groups that have enjoyed “general population” for decades. They target those who don’t believe in the constitutionality of the now existing renouncement programs due to 2 reasons:

1. the incrimination of each enrollee and the incrimination of others; and
2. the “waiver of liability” for the TDCJ-CID

These are two serious violations of the 1st, 5th, 6th, 8th and 14th Amendments of the United States Constitution and Article 1, Section 19 of the Texas Constitution.

MIM(Prisons) adds: This is a familiar story for those of us who were part of the struggles against SHU and validation in California over the last decade. We encourage the comrades in Texas to study the lessons from that struggle and develop proper leadership so that the masses are not led into the same dead ends as they were in California where SHU still exists and the list of STGs was greatly expanded.

Ultimately, making organizations of the oppressed illegal is reflective of the class nature of the state. It is only by replacing the current bourgeois state with a proletarian one that we will see the oppressed allowed a true path to redemption. It is only in a proletarian state that the oppressors and exploiters will be seen as the criminals rather than the poor and struggling. We must keep this goal in mind as we organize for the state to recognize basic bourgeois rights to free speech and association.

There are no rights, only power struggles. The second the oppressed let up as they did in California, the oppressor is there ready to tighten the screws back down. That is why we must build strong, independent organizations and not put all our energy into short-term battles.

When I first came to prison in 1995, there were hardly any for-profit corporations doing business inside Virginia prisons. Almost all services including medical care, dental care and the commissary were provided by the state. This began to change in the late 1990s and early 2000s, with the introduction of corporations like Prison Health Services to provide substandard prison health care and keep the commissary filled with high priced commissary items. Prisoners’ communication would also be outsourced to JPay, another for-profit company.

The Virginia Department of Corrections administration implemented a series of policies to manipulate us and our loved ones into accepting JPay as our only method of communication. On 6 August 2013, A. David Robertson, the Chief of Corrections and Operations, issued memorandum #073-2013, advising the prisoner class that effective 1 October 2013, our loved ones can no longer send us money orders through the postal mail and that they can only send us money through JPay, which requires our family to pay exorbitant transaction fees. If money orders were received in the mail after that day they were returned to sender.

On 7 May 2014, Robertson issued another memorandum, #033-214, advising the prisoner class that effective 1 July 2014, we can no longer receive more than 5 photographs through the mail. If a letter arrived at the prison containing more than 5 photographs, the entire letter including the 5 photos were returned to sender. This may seem small, but again this was subtle manipulation for acceptance of what was to come.

Perhaps the Virginia Department of Corrections most draconian policy implementation was detailed in a 13 March 2017 memorandum issued by the then warden of Sussex State Prison. In this memo we were advised that effective 17 April 2017,

“all incoming general correspondence, that is U.S. postal mail, will be photocopied at a maximum of three black and white photocopied pages front and back will be provided to the offender. The original envelope, letter and all enclosed documents will be shredded in the institutional mailroom. The entire correspondence and all enclosed items, including photographs, greeting cards, newspaper articles, etc. that exceed the established photocopy or size limit will be returned to sender.”

What this memo did not mention is that during the process of copying and scanning incoming postal letters from our loved ones, a digital copy of the letter along with the name and address of the person who sent it is uploaded and cataloged in a massive database. This policy was implemented under the guise of preventing the flow of drugs into these prisons, however the real motivation for this policy is reflected in the following one-sentence reminder listed in this memo:

“Individuals will still be permitted to send an offender secure messages, photographs and other attachments through the JPay system as it is currently authorized.”

Many prisoners and our loved ones view the amenity of exchanging emails with our loved ones as incredibly convenient. As a conscious prisoner I recognize that it also makes it easier for prison officials to censor and disrupt our communications and conduct surveillance and intelligence gathering on prisoners and those we communicate with. According to the Virginia Department of Corrections operating procedures 803.1, which governs offender correspondence and JPay emails inside all Virginia prisons, our incoming and outgoing correspondence is not supposed to be withheld for longer than 48 hours. However, our incoming and outgoing JPay emails are routinely withheld for several days or weeks at a time. Sometimes they are held for months at a time.

Operating procedure 803.1 prohibits prison officials from opening and reading our outgoing correspondence absent an approved mail cover from the warden, and reasonable suspicion that the correspondence violates state or federal law, or threatens the safety of the facility. However all incoming and outgoing JPay emails pass through a screening mechanism, whereby the prison’s mailroom staff and intelligence officers sit behind a computer monitor and read the personal and intimate words of prisoners and our loved ones, which, like our photocopied letters, are then cataloged and stored in a massive database.

Operating procedure 803.1 also prohibits the censorship of offender correspondence unless the censorship is based on legitimate facility interests of safety and security. However, JPay makes it easier for mailroom staff and intelligence officers to sit behind a computer monitor and with the click of a mouse block or censor the outgoing emails of prisoners complaining of prison conditions as well as incoming emails of loved ones containing information about the Black Panther Party and other progressive and revolutionary movements from the 1960s and 1970s.

The U.S. Supreme Court in Procunier v. Martinez (1974) ruled that:

“Communications by letter is not accomplished by the act of writing words on paper. Rather it is effected only when the letter is read by the addressee. Both parties to the correspondence have an interest in securing that result. As such, censorship of the communication between them necessarily impinges on the interests of each.”

This U.S. Supreme Court ruling and prison policies of surveillance and censorship listed above reveals that the fascist and repressive nature of prisons extend beyond these prison walls and adversely impacts those of you in the community. This should give human and civil rights activists, including our loved ones, additional motivation to work in solidarity with incarcerated freedom fighters to challenge these Constitutional violations via civil litigation.

Ultimately, what we need to do is develop a collective inside/outside analysis and strategy to dismantle the U.S. imperialist prison system.

All Power to the People!

On 28 December 2021, Hisham Abu Hawash of the Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine has gained a victory against I$rael’s counter-revolutionary “administrative detention” policy. Hawash’s lawyer, Jawad Boulos, has stated that I$rael pledged for Hawsah’s release on 26 February 2022 and therefore the hunger strike will end.(1)

Hawsah is a 40-year-old father of 5 and a member of the Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine. He is among several Palestinian revolutionaries waging a hunger strike in protest of I$rael’s unjust policy, which locks up Palestinians without any due trial. He has faced 8 years of time imprisoned with 4 of those years under administrative detention.(2)

The Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine (PIJ) rightfully threatened counter-attacks if Hawsah ever died in custody.(3)

Palestinians across the occupied land have gone in protests supporting the strikers. One protest in the West Bank city of Ramallah, on 6 January 2022, included signs which read: “Those starving behind bars feed the universe with dignity” – a slogan we extend to hunger strikers not only in Palestine but across the world.(4)

The Reactionary Policy of Administrative Detention

Administrative detention is a form of arrest or imprisonment done without trial – usually for issues of “terrorism” or rebellion. Many imperialist countries use the tactic of administrative detention to control unruly populations/groups.(5) In the United $tates for example, around 182,869 migrants from the Third World were held in detention centers through this method in 2020.(6) Despite the more advanced and developed contradictions between I$rael and Palestine, compared to oppressed nations in the United $tates and Euro-Amerika the year after, I$rael held a mere 1,595 Palestinians in administrative detentions. Amerika has truly earned the title “Big Satan” in contrast to I$rael’s “Little Satan” status on this front.(7) The administrative detention policy of the I$raelis work through the arrest and detention of Palestinian revolutionaries and activists. The idealists arguing for I$rael will say that administrative detention has been applied to I$raelis as well – notably, against ultra-chauvinist zionist terrorists and unruly settlers. Throughout the years, only 9 I$raelis were held in administrative detention; Palestinians and Arabs number in the thousands.(8) Any sober minded person and materialist will be able to recognize that the exception proves the rule in this case like so many often times.

DOWN WITH ADMINISTRATIVE DETENTION!

THOSE STARVING BEHIND BARS FEED THE WORLD’S DIGNITY

^{Notes: 1. Joseph Krauss, “Palestinian prisoner ends hunger strike in deal with Israel” Associated Press, January 4th 2022}

^{2. Ibid.}

^{3. Ibid.}

^{4. Ibid.}

^{5. “Israel’s Policy of Administrative Detention,” European Parliament}

^{6. “United States Immigration Detention Profile,” Global Detention Project}

^{7. “Prisoners society: Israel issued 1,595 administrative detention orders against Palestinians in 2021,” Press TV}

^{8. “Stop Administrative Detention,” Prisoner Support Human Rights Association}

Congratulations to De’Shawn Drumgo, who just let us know ey won eir lawsuit against Sergeant William Kuschel. In 2014, Sgt. Kuschel groped and squeezed Drumgo’s genitals while being held captive in a Delaware prison.

If anyone has information on how to open a bank account from within prison, without family support, please let us know. We have a couple comrades who have won lawsuits recently who do not want to hand this money over to the prison administration. We are trying to investigate other options.

While lawsuits like this serve as a line of defense for individuals, we also know they change nothing. We get letters from people every week about horrible abuse and brutality they face across Amerikkka’s gulags. To win a case like this is truly rare, and to even be able to file a successful lawsuit is not possible for most. Ending police brutality behind bars requires ending the imperialist injustice system altogether. The people must be in charge of justice.

In the recent history surrounding Texas prison reform there has been an erasure surrounding the plight of those held captive in solitary confinement as it’s practiced by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice’s(TDCJ) Restrictive Housing Units(RHU). There are numerous groups and persyns who proclaim that they advocate for the interests of the Texas prisoner class, but their class interests prevents them from aligning themselves with the objective struggles of this prison system’s cast-a-ways in RHU.

Many of these groups whom i’ve had the choice opportunity to dialogue with via correspondence, or have spoken to captive representatives of these groups, have fallen into the keeper’s trap of the ‘violent’ offender as the new boogey man. This line of thought ultimately concedes that those of us trapped in these isolation tombs deserve such conditions, that we’re beyond redemption. Sometimes, such persyns spew the rhetoric that We in solitary are actually well-off, and living a privileged existence. They say, ‘your food is brought to you, your laundry, and everything else’ They assert that all We have to do all day and night is basically chill, and We should be appreciative. Some officers express a form of jealously, that We don’t pay bills, yet have a handful of privileges, and seemingly unlimited downtime.

What people like this do not understand is that solitary confinement as it is practiced via TDCJ’s RHU, is an artificial environment. By artificial this means that it is an unnatural habitat. It is unnatural to relinquish all civil and domestic responsibility from humankind. We must also pose the question as to whether or not such circumstances are productive for the individual or the society? Of course not! Who benefits from the cultivation of a sub-class of people who’re forcefully and entirely dependent upon everyone else in the society, and do not provide any sort of productive function in return? When humans cultivated civilization the world over and social responsibility was entrusted to those of the peer group, these responsibilities were not merely for the betterment of the social cohesiveness, but also for the better and more balanced function of the individual as well. In short, humyns need to be engaged in meaningful and proactive activities in order to function at their highest levels of consciousness.

The conditions of TDCJ’s solitary confinement debilitate rather than rehabilitate thousands of people each day. i’ve spent 8 1/2 of the last ten years in solitary confinement. At no point in this time frame have i ever had the opportunity to take part in any form of organized instruction. i entered these isolation tombs as a politically ignorant cast away. i’ve evolved, and redeemed myself via my own independent efforts, without the interference or assistance of my keepers. Despite the state’s stated mission to have the best interests of the general public at heart, their true motives and intentions for their warehousing of so many prisoners is clear. This class of people who at any time find themselves confined in RHU are intended to be kept in an unending state of dependence and politico-economic alienation. This is even, and especially, after release. It is with this notion that i assert that it is this class of prisoners whom embody ‘paper-citizens’ in amerika, as coined in the ‘New Afrikan Declaration of Independence’.

New Afrikan revolutionary nationalist political prisoner Mutope Duguma articulated one profound statement, ‘Ask yourselves why is it that so many New Afrikans who have a strong political line just happen to be locked up in solitary confinement units. We know they are not terrorists, We know they are not gang members & We know that they are not criminals.’

The organization and movement proactively mobilizing Texas’ captive population is known as Tx TEAMONE. We’re an organization founded for and by the captives themselves, not by opportunistic outside (or inside) elements, but by proletarian conscious prisoners. One of Our main tactics in Our Mission of elevating the socio-political commitment and awareness of Texas’ lumpen class, is the prisoner-led mobilizing for the abolition of solitary confinement as it’s practiced by TDCJ’s RHU.

A Case Study on Why RHU must Go!

Beginning with the general and moving to the particular, a conscious observer can readily notice that around the empire, from state to state, politically active prisoners are being held in the most barbaric, and unthinkably repressive conditions imaginable. Almost invariably these captives are sitting in solitary confinement cells. The few that aren’t are being shipped from state to state, sea to shining sea in a federal effort to ostracize these captives from their political base(s).

Solitary confinement advances the same purpose within each prison facility. A politically active captive’s political base begins with their peers whom are also in captivity. The productive revolutionary behind the walls is the one who’s successful in organizing their peers behind a revolutionary program. (think; Attica; Angola BPP etc) Therefore, the tactical use of solitary confinement to quell revolutionary organizing has been a re-occurring reality in prisons around the world in the imperialists’ task of keeping the masses of people blind, deaf, and dumb to the socio-political truths of Our collective predicament as oppressed nation people in the era of imperialism.

Whether We look to Califas, where revolutionary New Afrikans were kept warehoused in SHU’s, or in Indiana were Bro. Kwame Shakur is being tortured in a SHU, or the domestic exile of Shaka Shakur, or the thousands of unnamed, lower-profiled politically active prisoners, New Afrikan or otherwise, it is clear that long-term and indefinite solitary confinement is being utilized to strategically remove political dissent off the face of the amerikkkan empire.

In tekkk$a$, there is a long hystory of not only warehousing political dissenters, but assassinating them. In June of 2000, innocent death row captive, Shaka Sankofa s/n Garry Graham, was murdered by the state of tekkk$a$. Not only had evidence came out that Shaka was innocent but he, unlike most of death row prisoners or prisoners in general, had become politicized while in captivity. Garry Graham revolutionized his self into Shaka Shakur, a New Afrikan revolutionary. Consequently, tekkk$a$ saw him as better off dead than alive as a freedom fighter. Six years later Shaka’s comrade Derrick Frazier, aka Hasan Shakur, another innocent Black captive whom while on tekk$a$’ death row revolutionized his self into a New Afrikan ‘revolutionary socialist to the 10th power’. He too was subsequently executed on Black August 31st 2006, while serving as both the founder of the Human Rights Coalition-TX chapter, and Minister of Human Rights of the then-named New Afrikan Black Panther Party. Lastly, yet not for lack of more victims, there is the case of Sandra Bland, a New Afrikan womyn and activist who was mysteriously found dead in a tekkk$a$ county jail.

i think it is logical to pose the question that, if the deceased freedom fighters had not been politically active New Afrikans, would they’ve still met the same fate? For We know and it has been substantiated by the recent International Jurist’s verdict, that there has been/is a systemic genocide against New Afrikan, and indigenous people in north amerika. We also know that those who possess a revolutionary orientation are the people’s only hope of defeating this genocide, and of course this reality renders such political prisoners as prone to enemy attack and sabotage.

tekkk$a$ has warehoused and isolated political prisoners in what is now called RHU for decades. Revolutionary Chican@ political prisoner Xinachtli has been in such a predicament for over 20 years. Xinachtli was signaled out for assassination by sheriffs in Brewster County tekkk$a$, for his legal advocacy for a Chican@ death row prisoner who in turn wasn’t killed by the state. Xinachtli defended his self by disarming the pig sent to murder him and for exercising his humyn right to self-defense this comrade has languished in prison for over two decades, most of which in solitary confinement.

Recently officials of tekkk$a$’ prisons have identified Texas TEAMONE cadre as ‘enemy combatants’ and singled key members out for indefinite solitary confinement (for those who weren’t already serving indefinite terms), unprovoked cell raids, in which the only confiscated materials are ones’ outside contact information. Cadre have been victims of harassment by illegally confiscating typewriters of journalist comrades, illegally disappearing mail, and upping the level of publication censorship – specifically that which is politically orientated.

In a recent twist, this writer was recently sentenced to ‘life without parole’ in solitary confinement. After some officials had elected to release Triumphant from solitary, those in the know regarding ey’s political orientation and activity demanded this comrade be retained in such conditions. Even going as far as scratching out the handwriting which stated that Triumphant shall be released. When asked for the reasoning for said continued confinement, officials listed ‘LWOP’. Of course this sentence, placed on Triumphant’s shoulders unjustly, will not remove itself from reality in six months when the next arbitrary hearing is to take place. Therefore, the state has announced that it intends to confine, isolate, and destroy, yet one more New Afrikan political prisoner in order to perpetuate amerikkka’s genocidal campaign against the oppressed nations of the globe.

In case it still is not clear to you. All freedom fighting peoples, those outside and inside, have in their best interest to work with TX TEAMONE as We struggle to politicize tekkk$a$’ captive population, while doing just that We are even more determined and justified in Our quest to abolish long-term and indefinite solitary confinement in TX prisons and prisons around the globe.

FREE ALL CAPTIVE REVOLUTIONARIES

DARE TO INVENT THE FUTURE !!!

I recently paroled from C.D.C.R. into the B.O.P. Observation and inquiry reveals a downward trend in the cut, caliber, and clarity of the general population.

General Mao Zedong tells us we have to become the change we want to see. Legion in the past has built at length under Unity-Criticism-Unity on the people’s struggle for self-determination who are entangled in the underground commercial sex industry. Observation within the C.D.C.R. revealed that there was no incentive for a person, male or female and regardless of sexual bent, to “program” at first, it’s shocking to reveal.

However, when you are sent to prison you get a 841. It used to be a long green sheet of paper – now it’s all electronic. They have “P” codes for violent offenders, arsonists, and anyone convicted of any “sex” crime. “P” coded individuals include (but is not limited to) domestic abusers, indecent exposure, child-touchers, rapists, pimps, prostitutes, Johns, etc. In California alone, a large part of the population has a “P” code.

“P”-coded people at first were ineligible for milestones and relief under Prop 47, Prop 35, Prop 57, SB260 and SB261. The “People” of California always exclude rather than include under the guise of public safety. They always combine “murderers & rapists” in their cry for tough on crime policy. And will give a murderer the opportunity to procreate but not the rapist. In turn, a lot of persons flock to alternative living because they have no hope.

My duty is to build people’s brains. And under the guidance of MIM(Prisons) to build public opinion and independent institutions of the oppressed. To quote “ULK” we support the self-determination of ALL nations and peoples. That said Legion is calling on all ESP (Erotic Service Providers) in the confines of U.$. prisons under the thick net of oppression to ADOPT, RATIFY, GROW, and INSTITUTE the 3P initiative:

1. The safety factor, there is always safety in numbers.
2. Education of revolutionary thought & practice, ignorance of the knowledge around you is NO EXCUSE.
3. You aren’t alone, you are not the anomaly.

These are the reasons to adopt, grow, and institute.

Legion is well aware of the hardship people face when subjected to the “P” code. This label is akin to the Jewish persecution in Nazi Germany during Hitler’s reign of terror. This is what is meant when you get your 128-G printout and people see your “P” code in these “people’s” mind its a green-light for extortion, violence, and sexual assault. UFPP is against these parasitic practices in prisons and abroad. ESPs are not just the vessels but the senders and the users. And everyone has a seat at the table. The 3P initiative is a work of Legion ergo it is rooted in UFPP and USW. DLS (Dirty Little Secrets) and the WWC (White Wolf Collective) are some of the initiates of 3P and are apart of the cell Legion.

– Peace

THE 3P INITIATIVE

1. PROTECT OUR INTERESTS AT ALL COSTS
2. ELEVATE OUR STANDARDS
3. UNITE OUR PEOPLE

– Accept yourself and be your own

– I CAN DO NOTHING BY MYSELF. IT’S ABOUT: US, WE, AND OURS!

MIM(Prisons) adds: In Under Lock & Key 61 we addressed in depth the question of sex offenders and their role in the prison movement. One article in that issue concluded with:

“Maoists believe that problems amongst the people should be handled peacefully among the people and thru the methods of discussion and debate. Most prisoners are locked up exactly because they engaged in some type of anti-people activity at one point or another of their lives. Should these actions define prisoners? According to MIM Thought, all U.$. citizens will be viewed as reforming criminals by the Third World socialist movement under the Joint Dictatorship of the Proletariat of the Oppressed Nations (JDPON). The First World lumpen will be no exception regardless of crime of choice.”(1)

We do not put any special conditions on “sex offenses,” but recognize some crimes as more serious than others. We do think we all need to undergo transformation, guided by criticism/self-criticism, as we create a world free of oppression. We believe all people can be redeemed and will have the ability to in the future. Unfortunately, today that is not the case. But we welcome with open arms all who are ready for redemption through revolution to begin with our new Revolutionary 12 Step Program.

Regarding Prop. 57, there was a California state Supreme Court decision on 2 January 2022 that CDCR shall not allow early parole to people who have any sentence terms that are violent felonies (In re Mohammad, No. S259999). Similarly the original law was implemented by CDCR to exclude anyone with a required sex offender registration under Penal Code subsection 290. However, this was overturned on 28 December 2020 (In re Gadlin, No. S254599). Such people should be “referred to the Board by July 1, 2021 and must be scheduled for a hearing by no later than December 2022.” (see CCR title 15, § 2449.32)

The Prison Law Office should be able to provide you with additional details if you are uncertain how this affects your parole eligibility: PRISON LAW OFFICE General Delivery, San Quentin, CA 94964-0001

^{Note: 1. Ehecatl, April 2018, Sex Offenders and the Prison Movement, Under Lock & Key 61: March/April 2018.}

The state is tightening its control on free communication and association in prisons across the country by imposing digital monitoring systems, and in some cases banning hard copies of mail.

The North Carolina Department of Public Safety has begun using a company called TextBehind to handle their mail and push people towards their digital communications platform. This allows the company to extort people to pay whatever prices they want just to send their loved ones a message, while the state gets to monitor every word.

MIM Distributors began sending mail to TextBehind last month only to have it returned unopened. It turns out TextBehind does not process letters from organizations, only from individuals. As an organization we would be required to set up a corporate account with non-public pricing schemes. In other words, as a member of MIM(Prisons) I cannot just put a stamp on an envelope and drop it in the mail for a comrade in NCDPS custody anymore. This is a blatant violation of our First Amendment rights to speech and association. At this time it appears that newsletters and books are still allowed through the prisons, but we will not be able to correspond with you directly, send you study guides or other information persynalized to you if you are being held by NCPDS.

UPDATE: We just had a package of ULKs returned to us from Roanoke River Correctional Institution saying, “This facility DOES NOT accept friend and family mail directly” and that we must send mail to TextBehind. But TextBehind does not accept publications, only letters that can be scanned. So it seems mail to NCDPS is being blocked on all fronts.

Pigs Bring in Drugs, While Prisoners Mail Suffers

First thing first, I am still in Wisconsin. They are making all of us have our families and comrades send personal letters and photos to the Phoenix, Maryland PO Box (189) to inspect them for drugs such as K2, even though drugs, cell phones and other contraband items come from the fascist pigs that work in these imperialist gulags. Newspapers, books, publications are still to be sent here.

In ULK #73, MIM (Prisons) published one of my articles entitled: Da Struggle Continues: We Still Charge Genocide. In said article i announced the coming of the international tribunal 2021, which took place October 22-25, and has now passed. In this article we will look to a few of the events that have taken place since that previous article, and how it pertains to Our plans going forward.

For those who do not know, the verdict given by the International Jurists was an emphatic GUILTY of all charges. These charges include:

• Police racism and violence
• Mass incarceration
• Political prisoners and prisoners of war
• Environmental racism
• Health inequalities

In the wake of the hystoric verdict leaders of this campaign announced the next step forward being the establishment of what they’ve coined a ‘People’s Senate’. This infrastructure is a key stepping stone for New Afrikan, Indigenous, and Chican@ nation citizens to formulate the common unity needed to eventually conduct a U.N. supervised plebiscite, which will finally legitimize Our quest for Self-determination.

Ultimately, that is the reason the tribunal was so important. With the advent of the guilty verdict the political line that seeks revolutionary nationalism for internal semi-colonies in north amerika has been legitimized within the eyes of the international community, and the United Nations (U.N.).

While Our struggle(s) have long been legitimate in Our own eyes, when establishing an independent nation it is prerequisite that a nation gain international diplomatic support. In the past New Afrikans have had such support. However in recent decades such support has waned as New Afrikans have become increasingly more bourgeoisified, and more and more assimilated. As a result other countries have been hesitant to step out on a limb in support of amerikanized ‘negroes’.

Now with the advent of the People’s Senate We will possess the infrastructure to properly seek out reparations, and independent nationhood. Up until this point the reparation push in this present landscape has been one which revolutionary nationalists would be hard-pressed to support. This was because the institutions and hand-picked persyns chosen as the voice for reparations movement were amerikanized negroes, seeking further assimilation into amerika, utilizing the economic plight of segments of New Afrika to advance their own agendas. With the People’s Senate, We will guarantee a people’s voice, and a people’s control of the direction of Our collective movement. Incarcerated persyns may also take part in this People’s Senate. You should contact the Jericho Movement for further details on how to participate. # Power Moves

The above-mentioned international tribunal took place in Harlem, at the Malcolm X and Betty Shabazz center, which is the exact location Bro. Malcolm X. was assassinated.

Now, 56ADM (56 years After the Death of Malcolm), those men who’ve languished behind bars falsely framed by the U.S. government for Bro. Malcolm’s murder were officially exonerated 18 November 2021. This long overdue exoneration came about after a February 2020 Netflix documentary, Who Killed Malcolm X aired, and its startling conclusion initiated calls from the Shabazz family to re-open the case of Bro. Malcolm’s assassination. The basic conclusion is that the actual shooter, along with others present were working on behalf of the FBI, when they murdered Malcolm X on the orders of their masters.

Of course to many this is not ‘news’, but merely a confirmation of a long-held belief. What is outrageous to this writer is that with the government basically admitting to assassinating one of the greatest and best leaders We’ve had for the New Afrikan liberation cause, the level of outrage is basically zero. Brother Malcolm once said that We have gone from a race of warriors and untamed runaways, to a race of complicit house n___ers. Sad, but true. When the U.S. can for all intents and purposes admit to assassinating Malcolm X, a liberatory leader, when Kyle Rittenhouse can be found not guilty (more on this later) and there is no outrage or sustained resistance, when Ahmaud Arbery’s murderers begin trial and not ONE New Afrikan persyn is selected on their jury in a county that is 25% New Afrikan (more on this later) and there is no outrage nor sustained resistance, We’ve become complicit in Our own oppression. We’ve capitulated to the will of Our enemies. WILL THE REAL NEW AFRIKANS PLEASE STAND UP!!!???

AS if Our case for Black secession, and a socialist Republic of New Afrika weren’t clearly justified, events like Kyle Rittenhouse’s acquittal, and the lack of Black jurors in the case of Ahmaud Arbery underscore grievances issued by generations of neo-colonized Afrikans in amerika. What We as a people must overstand is that these issues do not persist because of racism. Malcolm X wasn’t assassinated by racism, but by a corrupt power structure. Kyle Rittenhouse’s murderer of two Black Lives Matter supporters and the wounding of a third, wasn’t acquitted by a racist, nor because of racism, as his victims were white themselves. Instead he was acquitted because the political orientation that led to his actions (settler-colonial imperialism) is part and parcel with the political identity of the corrupt power structure. And finally, the murderers of Ahmaud Arbery are being tried by a jury of their peers, while New Afrikans have been pleading for the same consideration for literally centuries, because their actions were in furtherance of the corrupt power structure’s sustained power. That is while some of us have been struggling to ‘FREE THE LAND!’, a New Afrikan is unable to run FREELY in the LAND. The devilish cowards that murdered brother Ahmaud reinforce the colonial relationship between New Afrikans and the white settler amerikans.

The time has come to move away from BLACK LIVES MATTER to the NEW BLACK LIBERATION MOVEMENT. We are not fighting racism, We’re fighting oppressive and exploitative POWER. In order to ever be FREE, in order to have a REAL influence on whether or not incidents like those mentioned here ever happen again, We must obtain POWER, and We must exercise POWER in non-exploitative or oppressive manners. To accomplish this, the formula is simple, We must organize now for people’s WAR, Vita Wa Watu, to seize power, and implement socialist (non exploitative/oppressive) power.

LONG LIVE THE SPIRIT OF MALCOLM X

WILL THE REAL NEW AFRIKANS PLEASE STAND UP

POWER MOVES

Dear MIM,

I’m writing to advise of a need for you to publish in your next issue a Notice of Pending Civil Action concerning those that did not receive the $3,200.00 EIP #1,#2,#3 Thirty-Two Hundred even after filing correctly. There are lots of prisoners who filed by mail and were discriminated on by IRS and such violates a prior order. If you can, please publish in Next Volume:

Clay v. Director of IRS Mnuchin No4:21-CV-08132-PJH

Sub Class Representative Thomas H. Clay advises all prisoners who filed for EIP from Oct. 2020 – August of 2021 and did Not receive any check in mail or Direct Deposit. After filing Form 1040/1040SR or letter with SSI# and copy of such to show proof of filing; then write To:

If you are filing the following criteria below:

1. Non-disabled or physically or mentally impaired prisoner in State or Federal Prison Institution in the United States
2. Correctly filing legal letters to IRS or 1040/1040SR Form 2019/2020 from October 15,2020 thru tax season of January – August 17, 2021
3. Utilizing only Institutional Regular Legal/or Indigent Legal Mail System in State of Federal Prisons.
4. Who did not receive any payment from IRS of EIP #1 #2 #3
5. In the form of “Check in Mail” or “Direct Deposit to Account”.
6. Who can “Prove upon Request” proof of the correct timely filing by: copies of letters to the IRS office in your State area, Prison Mail Room Record of Legal Mail logged letters showing IRS address. Indigent mailing file showing letter sent to IRS or 1040/1040SR copies or responses from IRS during that period from any of its offices.
7. And you were not issued any checks for EIP #1 $600.00 EIP #2 $1200.00 or CVRP/EIP #3 $1400.00 totaling $3,200.00

The court is reviewing Contempt of Court Order and Sub Class Action from prior suit Scholl v. Mnuchin that does not protect the rights to amount of payment withheld from prisoners in a discriminatory manner by IRS.

Possibly those who read MIM will donate something once they receive their compensation entitled after requesting to be a class member.

Thank you M.I.M.

Dillard v. Davis, et al. Civil Action No. 7:19-cv-0081-M-BP

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: TX. Team O.N.E. Legal Representative 113 Stockholm, #1A Brooklyn, NY. 11221

Incarcerated individuals currently housed in the Texas Department of Justice’s Restrictive Housing (Solitarty Confinement) are moving to intervene in the civil action [No.7:19-cv-00081-M-BP] filed by fellow incarcerated individual, Daniel D. Dillard, challenging the constitutionality of TDCJ using Restrictive Housing as a form of punishment and also challenging the cruel and unusual conditions of confinement that are known to cause irreparable mental harm. Dillard filed this civil action in 2019 after being falsely accused of assaulting a correctional officer, the false disciplinary proceeding resulted in Dillard being removed from the general population on the George Beto Unit and reassigned to administrative segregation on the James V. Allred Unit under the conditions that has repeatedly consisted of deprivations of exercise, showers, and meals in retaliation of exercising his First Amendment right to the redress of grievances. Dillard, the original Plaintiff, filed his first amended complaint adding several new defendants’ (including TDCJ-CID new director- Bobby Lumpkin) and brought claims of widespread abuses on behalf of the Restrictive Housing population and ALL those similarly situated to him. After word got out that Dillard is challenging Restrictive Housing others began moving in to intervene on the grounds that Restrictive Housing seriously effects their mental health when used in the long-term or for prolonged periods of time. Some of these people have been in solitary confinement from 3 years to 30 years without reprieve. TDCJs Restrictive Housing does not allow any audio/visual stimulation, people are kept in their cell for 22 to 24 hours a day, they are prevented from educational, vocational, and/or religious programming, they are continuously isolated for years on end. The Nation is turning away from using solitary confinement but Texas continues this…To intervene on this litigation use the contact information above but first see Dillard v. Davis, et al., civil action No.7:19-cv-00081-M-BP.

The latest issue of ULK (#75) was very informative. The article on Afghanistan was a good review of many of the issues.

One you did not mention and that is one of the reasons that China is sending money is that of the mineral resources of the country.

About 8 years ago I had a teacher who applied to work as an analyst for the CIA. As part of his application he did a report on Afghanistan. He found out why the U.$. invaded the country. There are large deposits of copper and lithium ore. The U.$. soldiers were to protect the Chinese workers who were building the railway that would transport the ore into China for processing.

Just like Spain, France, etc. in the 16th and 17th centuries, the U.$. government was in another country to steal its natural resources.

MIM(Prisons) responds: Certainly, natural resources continue to be a major impetus for imperialist foreign policy and war. The gas lines through the Caspian Sea were also a key concern in the region at the time.

Your description of the roles of the Amerikans and Chinese in Afghanistan is emblematic of the relationship between the two countries ever since the capitalist roaders took over in China in 1976. Today contradictions have heightened as Chinese capital has become more developed and therefore needs to exert its interests independent of the United $tates. Meanwhile the Amerikans have begun looking at bringing production and supply chains of basic goods a little closer to home after becoming dependent on the labor of Chinese proletarians. These contradictions playing out demonstrate why inter-imperialist conflict is the rule.

Cause #:3:21-CV-00337

Styled name: F. Martinez and all inmates similarly situated in TDCJ-CID, “Doll” and “Pineapple Pictures” versus members of the Texas Board of Criminal Justice, TDCJ-CID, Director, Members of the MSCP, Members of the DRC, and mailroom supervisor at the Terrell Unit.

Dear Friends,

I am writing you in regards of the lawsuit filed on 3 December 2021, in the U.S. District Court, Southern District of Texas, Galveston Division.

I am the leading plaintiff and I am representing all inmates similarly situated in TDCJ, Doll and Pineapple Pictures, both outside vendors.

The reasons in filing this lawsuit is to challenge the unconstitutionality of rules 1 (C), IV(A)(10)(11) of the “Uniform Offenders Correspondence Rules” (BP-03.91) of the TDCJ-CID.

Rule 1(C), which limits to receive ten photos per envelope, and rule IV(A)(10), which is a total ban on “sexually explicit images” coming into the general prison population, and rule IV(A)(11), which bans any altered photos, all in disguise of rehabilitation purposes. I am challenging these rules under the First, Eighth and Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution.

I am writing you to request your support of this lawsuit by notifying the inmates in TDCJ, publishers, outside vendors of commercial photos and catalogs, and all persons affected for the enforcement of these rules in the TDCJ-CID.

Inmates may join to the lawsuit by writing letters to the U.S. District Court to the following address:

They need to include the styled name and number cause above written.

Thank you for your support and assistance.

A comrade responded to the article “Oh So You Woke” in ULK 73:

“In this article the author criticizes the likes of Angela Davis and John Lewis. neither Ms. Davis nor Mr. Lewis were agents of propaganda for the bourgeois as the author implies, but rather they were committed to the struggle and spent many years on the front lines. As far as penetrating the police and other arms of state imperialism/control, someone is going to fill those roles. Is it better us or them? WE must attack the status quo from multiple fronts – from the inside as well as the outside. WE need more Angela Davises and John Lewises.”

I do agree with the comrade that WE do need to attack the status quo from multiple fronts but when one of our own lumpen falls into the lines of reformism and revisionism while on the road of revolution or liberation, instead of being a die hard non-compromising, non-settling, give-me-death-if-I-can’t-have-real-life-liberation revolutionary like Fred Hampton, Bunchy Carter and the many fore Fathers and fore Mothers of our lumpen communities, who died and were imprisoned so that the eternal fire of Freedom, Justice and Equality will never lose its light and intensity in the surviving generations and their children. So they can fight on until that day comes in entirety. Then one has to ask the question … who do you work for?

If WE as a First World lumpen and Third World proletarian revolutionaries have more individuals like Angela Davis & John Lewis, We’ll never fulfill the S.O.P.’s of the UFPP. We’ll be in a state of Reformism and Revisionism, being closely intertwined with imperialism/capitalism instead of overthrowing it.

First and foremost Angela Davis is a major reformist, she was a part of the Communist Party, U$A, where the CPU$A was about that Real Life revolution before the 1940’s but by the 1960’s all their members that took inspiration from Mao Zedong had left the party. After the attempt of Jonathan Jackson of freeing his older brother George Jackson, Fleeta Drumgo and John Clutchette (Soledad Brothers) at Marin County Courthouse in San Rafael, CA, was then Angela Davis charged with aiding the attempted escape and placed on the FBI’s most wanted list due to her close correspondence with George Jackson. She was found not guilty after her case was severed from the other defendants like Ruchell “Cinque” Magee who is still locked up in these Koncentration Kamps, while the rally call of the masses at the time was “Free Angela Davis and ALL POLITICAL PRISONERS!” Then in 1973 she founded the CP front the National Alliance Against Racism and Political Repression that REFUSED to come defend Black Liberation Army members facing prison time.

Later on in her “revolutionary” life she got back into academia while still being a huge influence for the CPU$A, where she ran twice for Vice President of the U$A. She supported Democratic presidential candidates, like Joe Biden, to pressure them when in office to the CPU$A’s Khrushchevite peaceful transition into socialism agenda or the Pac-Man politics (biting away at imperialism until it collapses on itself). She also co-founded the Committees of Correspondence with a moniker that points to the CPU$A’s notion that “Communism is 20th Century Americanism.” In her writings and university lectures in the academic realm, she promoted the CPU$A’s reformism and postmodern politics, the basis of this day and age concept of “Abolition,” and not the dire need of armed revolution.

John Lewis is basically the same in the sense with the Pac-Man politics, Abolition reformist movement and post-modernism. Also one of the leaders of the Civil Rights Movement and a leader in the peaceful nonviolent strategy of protest and civil unrest. The “Woke” U.$. leftists, who are the petty-bourgeoisie, praises Angela Davis and John Lewis as saints and the imperialist aided in placing them on those pedestals to be praised by the masses, because they knew with the ideologies and concepts that these two individuals promote will do no real harm to their oppressive establishment. Point proven in the last summer series of protest after the murder of George Floyd and many others.

What real change came from that civil unrest in a real revolutionary way? It’s because of Angela Davis and John Lewis that We have to re-educate and un-brainwash the masses from the concepts and ideologies of Reformism, Revisionism, Postmodernism and the Pac-Man politics with the concepts and ideologies of Marxism, Leninism and Maoism to gain liberation from imperialism through armed resistance and revolution. Reason why it was stated that they are agents of the imperialist propaganda in the article “Oh, So You Woke.” Whether it was intentional or not they step out of the realm of being First World lumpen to the realm of the petty-bourgeoisie and benefited from the transition also. It pays to be famous and in the limelight of the pop culture revolutionary contest, right? Even after being on the front lines where they witness first hand so many of our souljas and leaders lose their lives, placed in exile and/or imprisoned, they settled for positions of comfort for self and appeared to be in the struggle still, instead of being ten toes down in the mud with WE overthrowing imperialism/capitalism to establish socialism, and later communism, nation- and world-wide.

DON’T FALL FOR THE POP CULTURE REVOLUTIONARY HYPE COMRADES.

The San Francisco BayView newspaper has outed their former editor Keith Washington as an informant and a manipulator. Previous editor Mary Ratcliff has reasonably posed that this could have been an FBI operation to undermine the BayView. Yet, Washington’s brief stint as editor after being released from prison, followed by relapse into addiction and violence also seems consistent with someone who has jumped from group to group driven by eir own self-interest.

Keith Washington, aka Comrade Malik, was a politically eclectic, self-promoting prison activist. It is for those reasons that his passions often did not overlap with the program of MIM(Prisons), despite being in close contact for many years. During eir time in prison, Washington was a regular reader of ULK, MIM Theory and other literature we distribute on the Black Panthers and Maoism in general. For years ey could not receive ULK because of TDCJ censors, so we had to mail em select articles separately.

We are not saying we did not work with Washington, for we published dozens of articles and reports by em while ey was in prison. Most were reports on conditions in Texas prisons. For a quick minute, ey was even part of the the USW Council, but was quickly removed for openly disagreeing with MIM(Prisons)’s 6 main points. The reason they were even considered for the position was that it was hard to pin down eir political line.

Washington seemed to work tirelessly to expose the corruption and abuses within the Texas Department of Criminal Justice(TDCJ) – though ey often did so from an angle that seemed to believe in the system. This approach conflicted with eir initial focoist tendencies when we first encountered Washington and ey seemed to believe that we were too hesitant to use arms. Later eir politics hinted at patriotism. For much of the time ey worked with USW ey also was working with the New Afrikan Black Panther Party - Prison Chapter, ideologically led by Tom Big Warrior and Kevin “Rashid” Johnson at the time. At one point Washington was the Deputy Chairman of NABPP, but ey never was consistent at upholding NABPP line. Ey went back and forth on the labor aristocracy question in an opportunist way that seemed to be attempting to please MIM(Prisons) with one message and Rashid with another. But communication with Rashid was much more difficult than with us, so ey seemed to lean towards us at times; another example of opportunism over political line. This also showed there was no effective democratic centralism within the NABPP. This is why we say you cannot be part of a democratic centralist formation while encapsulated by the state, except perhaps in an organization within a prison where you can freely interact with other members of the formation.

While Washington pledged eir allegiance to MIM and the NABPP, overtime ey branched out into other forums and organizations, always promoting the persona of “Comrade Malik”. Despite all the articles we did print by em, there were many more we did not, or we had to cut down significantly due to the self-promotion.

We must learn to recognize political opportunism. We should not be surprised that someone with such a history would also opportunistically lie to the pigs to earn favors.

At best, political eclecticism is a sign of immaturity; an immaturity that cannot be trusted with leadership. This is not to say we do not work with younger people or people who are still learning, far from it. We just must recognize their role. But when someone has spent a decade or more studying revolutionary literature, and they are still putting forth eclecticism, or just straight reformism, then it is clear they are not a revolutionary, and perhaps they can play a role better somewhere else. If we cannot convince such people to follow our leadership, then we must work harder to prove our effectiveness.

Eclecticism is always connected to forms of subjectivity and idealism. They are thinking about what feels good to them or feels right to them. Combine this with the self-promotion of “Comrade Malik” and you have a risky individual who will probably bounce from one group to another, one line to another to serve eir own self-interests, leaving havoc in eir wake. This is no longer immaturity, but a conscious self-interest.

In our introductory study course we go over the question of how to implement an effective security program for your organization. This example of Washington is a good demonstration of how political line was applied by MIM(Prisons) to keep a potential wrecker from playing a more damaging role. We would say the work Washington contributed to the pages of ULK served the people, as it was done under our leadership. We did not allow Washington’s self-promotion or right opportunism to take away from the mission of ULK or United Struggle from Within. For organizations that look for the charismatic individuals to promote, this is a danger.

We must also recognize that addiction to chemical substances, violence and criminal behavior plagues the lumpen. The transformation of the lumpen into proletarian revolutionaries is an arduous and life-long task. Even those who have seemed to overcome for years while imprisoned, will often relapse with the dramatic changes and pressures of being released to the free world. That is why we have developed a Revolutionary 12 Step Program that takes the proven techniques of the steps, as applied by the lumpen masses in California, and reframes them to include the transformation to the proletarian mentality. It is the constant struggle to submit our self-interest to the interests of the Third World proletariat that can solidify our own transformation from addiction to action that changes society. Imperialism has addicted us all, especially in this consumerist society in the United $tates.

Our leaders must be forged in a disciplined revolutionary organization built on democratic centralism. They must exhibit self-sacrifice and embody the interests of the Third World proletariat. We cannot follow the bourgeois individualist approach to leadership that decides elections and celebrity in this country. We must put politics in command when developing relationships with new comrades and bringing them into our circles. Some people may never exceed a supporter role, and that is okay, we welcome their support. Being around longer, having connections or resources, or being energetic is not enough to qualify comrades to lead. A consistent practice that upholds the correct line is how we must judge who is to be trusted with responsibilities and leadership roles.

^{note: Nube Brown, 3 November 2021, Was the Bay View Infiltrated by a ‘rock star’ informant?}

Revolutionary salutations to all Texas USW comrades, leaders, supporters, and those reading this wonderful newspaper for the first time. In issue #75 there was some dialogue regarding the BP 3.91 and i would like to speak to some things.

Comrades, as you all read in the last issue, Allred RHU went on hunger strike in protest not only against B.P.-3.91, but also the illegal use of solitary confinement as practiced via RHU, and we also fought for other pressing issues. Due to this action, on September 8th i was pulled off the outside rec yard, and brought to a cage; this cage is very similar to the one illustrated by the comrade in the last issue. Me and another New Afrikan brother were the only two of all the strikers who went through this. After standing in the cage for about 30 mins to an hour I was informed by an inmate worker that “they takin all yo shit.” By this i assumed he meant food/beverage items of which i only possessed empty condiment bottles so I had no worries. Half an hour later, the property officer and a lieutenant come to escort me. They tell me i will have to send property, particularly books, home; i have too many and they may not be given to another prisoner. As they say this i have heated words with the property officer, and have to be escorted by a major and some others. They bring me to the office and outside my property (all of it including state property) is slung everywhere. I’m irate to say the least.

It is at that time that i entered an office with regional director David Blackwell, along with three unit wardens. Here is a brief overview of what was said pertaining to the B.P.-3.91 policy.

So this policy was supposedly pushed for by these “family groups”. He mentioned Texas Inmate Families Association(TIFA) as the main culprit. Supposedly one of the TIFA members has a brother who’s a sex offender(S.O.), and she learned that he was allowed to write pen pals who sent her brother sexually charged letters. Further investigation led the sister in question to observe that he could also view/receive pictures of women as long as the female wasn’t showing her “parts”. This woman was immediately concerned that her brother was not being allowed the proper environment to rehabilitate his behavior, and this is what led to the rule change.

In case you don’t know, every week, like clock work, TIFA and other family groups like the Families for Air Conditioning in TDCJ, have phone/zoom conferences with the executive director and other top personnel. In these conferences these groups are having influence on policy changes and other things that affect us here in prison. The issue is that these groups are not in contact with the masses, which in this case is US, the captives. TIFA has a $25 membership fee yearly, and imprisoned people can join. However, imprisoned voices are a minority, and are/will be over rode by the petty-bourgeois/labor aristocrat elements which dominate this terrain and don’t allow prisoners to practice any level of self-determination. Even worse is that these groups (TIFA in particular) do not even reply to inquiries from prisoners. The pigs mentioned above provided me with their info to contact and begin dialogue. I’ve wrote, I’ve e-mailed, I’ve DM’d, and have gotten no response. This is on trend as we of TX TEAM ONE have repeatedly contacted them in the past during our previous 3 hunger strikes in the last 4 years, not including this year’s. Never have we received any reply. So what does this tell us?

It tells us that the class divide is very profound in the TX prison movement, even on the “left”. It tells us that at this present juncture we can not collaborate with such reformers in any concrete way. Our movement MUST be prisoner-led.

Speaking specifically to the BP-3.91 issue, from observation one can see that these pigs are picking and choosing when/where to enforce this rule. THE RULE DID PASS! Initially we were told that it hadn’t, that’s not the case. Not only did this Director tell us so, but as i scribe this, Allred Unit has been under rolling lock down and the pigs (from what We in RHU are being told) are solely focused on pics, mags, etc. We in RHU haven’t been hit yet. Last week the ACA came to the unit. An audit. The pigs were verbally reprimanded (the wardens were) by ACA personnel for even operating the lockdown/shake down while they are/were still supposed to be under COVID protocol. This is a violation of CDC guidelines, which is one of the things we called attention to during the strike. The ACA demanded the wardens to cease the shake down. They did so for the week the ACA was here, yet today (9 November 2021) We’ve heard that they’ve resumed on the ECB building, and are to be coming here next. U.S. weekly and Cosmopolitan have been denied here.

The legal standing they’re trying to stand on with this move is that if they were to target specifically sex offenders with this rule while not applying it to the masses of the prison population who are not S.O.s then they open themselves up for suit by the S.O.s for discrimination. What it boils down to is We’re gonna have to come together and fight this through litigation. Simple.

We encourage others who are SERIOUS about litigating this issue to contact us. While our writers within TEAM ONE are busy challenging RHU confinement, We can possibly put all Our heads together to formulate a way forward. All those who’ve filed step 1 & 2, and look to move forward towards litigation should reach out to us: Tx TeamOne/ 113 Stockhom, #1A/ Brooklyn, NY 11221

It is not uncommon knowledge; given you have internet access; that the South-Eastern Correctional Center (herein after referred to as ‘South-Eastern’ Plantation or SECC) is by far a reflection of the “Survival of the Fittest”, mentality; (distorted interpretation of Charles Darwin’s theory dubbed ‘Social Darwinism’) that the fascist pigs who run this country maintain, and it’s core beliefs was founded upon. Theodore Roosevelt in the preface to Vernon Kellogs, a German intellectual, book “Headquarters Night”, stated that “The man who reads Kellog’s sketch and yet fails to see why we are at war, and why we must accept no peace save that of overwhelming victory; is neither a good American nor a true lover of mankind”. Remind you, this is a book where Vernon Kellog states “The creed of the Allmacht of a natural selection based on violent and fatal competition is the gospel of the German intellectuals; all else is illusion and anathema”. Scary to think that our President at the time shared the same core beliefs that kindled the Holocaust!! Individual self-seeking in hopes to promote the good of society only breeds contempt and enmity amongst social-classes by separating that which is “We the people” into “they the people”, “We a people”, “There’s some more people”.

Staff-on-Inmate to Inmate-on-Staff ratio for assaults is mind-boggling. In a last minute attempt, due to a 5 min riot in February where 3-7 C/Os were hospitalized, one in critical condition and one in a coma, SECC and Plantation Master Bill Stange issued sham pretext investigations on over 67% of the facility to target, arbitrarily and artfully punish offenders who the administration has a certain disliking for. Individuals who were in no way shape or form involved in said riot; in order to obtain order and security of the facility, more commonly known and acknowledged as oppression and submission of the offender population. On top of violating Constitutional rights, protected liberty interests, and adhering to corporal punishments, the South-Eastern Plantation in retaliatory effort has cut the camp population by over 50% and have re-administered long-term Administrative Segregation confinement(Ad-Seg). Two individuals have killed themselves this year, and 5 different hunger strikes have been done, in an attempt to obtain that which is our Constitutional right(s). The struggle against Ad-Seg isolation here continues.

The inhumane conditions, injustice, and complete disregard for policy and federal law here at the South-Eastern Plantation is amongst the worst in the state of “Misery”(MO). Particularly those who work here at the South-Eastern Plantation; with the blatant approval or blind-eye of Jeff Norman, Anne Precythe, Alana Boyles (Directors of MDOC); pigs here have taken to various different modes of divide and conquer tactics as a stratagem to warfare. One particular incident occurred on November 2nd, 2021 when COI PIG Ms. Reed rolled an offenders door without cuffing him upon request, and stepped aside so in the Ad-Seg. Unit he could stab a cuffed offender exiting from the shower. PIG Ms. Reed then directly thereafter allowed retaliation of another offender who too was handcuffed and shackled to the door. She is now on investigation along with the COI PIG Hood who before payed for an LGBTQIA+ trans woman to be assaulted by another offender.

Minimized food rations, one state bar of soap a week in Seg, rec once a week, mice infested houses, free cases and beatings; SECC is in need of some serious outside attention. Us comrades here continue to fight Capitalism-Imperialism with our dying breath. We will not stop until we bring conscious awareness of the proletarian state and the science of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. We seek a world without chains, slavery, and oppression.

I have done it again. I have earned myself a mental health referral from a C.O. for the 2nd time in 1 year. Both times for simply speaking the truth. Apparently, C.O.s are so blinded by lies that they interpret the truth as some sort of mental illness.

So last week I was being escorted to medical by a C.O. and do not remember the topic of conversation but I remember the statement I made that earned me a mental health referral. I said to the C.O., “Out of all the 1000s of inmates at this prison, not one of them has ever kidnapped a person and held them in a cage for a whole lifetime. That is real evil and only the government is guilty of that kind of evil.”

Of course, he had no reply. One week passes and I get a ducket yesterday for mental health(M.H.). My first thought is, “what is this, I have not submitted any request?” But then I look at the date of referral on the ducket (last Wednesday) and I remember the only thing that happened last Wednesday is my statement of blame to said C.O. and now it is clear why I have this mental health referral.

This is the 2nd time I have earned a M.H. referral under this circumstance. Earlier this year there was a campaign to remove me from 5 Block. Some of the C.O.s there were bringing drugs in for 1 of the inmates. This inmate did not trust me because he knew I do not agree with that lifestyle, and so he was asking the C.O.s to kick me out of the Block. I did not snitch; really I couldn’t care less about what corrupt C.O.s and gangbangers do, but they were afraid of my honest lifestyle choice, and so they tried their hardest to remove me, and they failed in that.

Well, one day as I was entering the Block the tower cop stopped me and asked me why some of the C.O.s had such a problem with me. I simply told him the truth. I said, “No, I am not doing anything wrong but if some C.O.s are collaborating with gangsters then that is something that should be looked at, so stop looking at me as though I am the problem.” The following week I received a ducket for mental health. The truth was interpreted as a mental illness, so I have discovered that when C.O.s are confronted with truth, they tend to attack it. I think this phenomenon is because they feel the guilt of their own actions. They are taught from a young age to have blind faith in someone else’s interpretation of what is right and wrong; so completely blinded by lies that when I remove the blindfold, and reveal the simple truth, it is interpreted as mental illness.

There was a 3rd time I hit a C.O. with the truth, but I did not get a M.H. referral that time. Again, as I was entering 5 Block, a tower cop stopped me and asked me why I was having such conflict with the C.O. that is bringing the drugs in. I replied that “I don’t like (greensuits) because I am doing a life sentence for a crime I did not do.” She was taken aback momentarily by this, but she recovered quickly and shot back that, “It is not my fault, it is the court that did that to you.” A classic little Eichmann.

I did not continue to argue with that C.O. because I have a lil respect for her straight forward approach as evidenced by the fact she did not give me a M.H. referral. Rather, I gave her all the time she needs for the truth to sink in that she is the one that pushes the button to either open or close the door on my cage.

Her own greensuit makes her directly responsible for my imprisonment. It is irrelevant that she has good looks or that she has qualities that I admire such as an honest straight forward approach, or that she is blinded by lies of what is right or wrong. All that matters is that tower cop is directly responsible for depriving an innocent man of his freedom. She is directly responsible for holding guilty men in a cage far longer than anyone should be detained.

MLK said that “when confronted with truth, we have an obligation to stand up for what is right.” The only thing greensuits stand up for is a dirty paycheck. We all must remove the blindfold of faith and see ourselves, truth!!

First, on B.P.-391 in Texas, there are units that are fighting this policy, yet here on Connally Unit they are taking and denying everything they can and they are not allowing us to appeal anything. We’ve written a bunch of grievances and they all got returned saying that the issue is not grievable, and when we file step 2’s, they are all getting thrown away. We have no wins here on Connally.

Second, we’ve contacted the TDCJ ombudsman on multiple ranking officers and regular officers. In doing that we are getting retaliated on and harassed. They are cell searching and destroying our property, tearing our pics, denying us our privilege of commissary, rec or day room. We’ve sent multiple grievances on these officers and they never come back. The wardens are letting them retaliate on us and not doing anything about it! The Connally Unit is steadily short staff only on their Fridays and payday. Right now we’re short staffed and when we asked a question about what’s going on, they put us on 23-hour lockdown – for asking a question. They are playing with peoples’ lives and freedoms here on Connally Unit. We can’t grieve officers because they always come back saying “this isn’t grievable.” We’re in a no-win situation here!

MIM(Prisons) responds: If they won’t let you grieve, then it’s time to come together with all who can be united there and get creative. We’ve been fighting the grievance battle for years. It is only a tactic. It will never solve comrades’ problems overall because the rules are only applied when they want them to be.

My organization’s name is Black Mighty Loyal Soldiers/All Black Loyalty. I am the founder of B.M.L.S. and Comrade Ziggy is the founder of A.B.L. He is housed at Bland Correctional Center. He would love a copy of your newsletter as well. He should be coming home.

The united front principles mean a lot to my organization, because I have been brought up on these principles since early 2011. With needless conflicts amongst ourselves, we could be making a lot of progress towards our goals. Oppressing each other only keeps us back economically, educationally, and weak.

I try very hard to unite those facing the same struggle as me, so they can see what’s been going on with us and communication is a must to expose imperialism and capitalism. Unity can and will have us at the finish line.

I love Growth, because “We don’t go through life, we go through life.” We have to continue to educate ourselves on financial literature, health, and our history to understand our identity. I love to teach people the “Ten Wealth Principles.”

We can’t fight against oppression if we support any form of it. It’s insanity, people should learn about internationalism (all oppressed people). To see that policy is how it should be, we all move as one fighting for the same goal.

The more independent we are, the better we are as a whole, that’s how I can relate.

I am going to send copies of my organization protocol, and principles.

Ten comrades in Texas’s William G. McConnell Unit signed and submitted a petition to Mrs. Emma Guerra, Investigator II with the Texas Department of Corrections and Justice (TDCJ) on 25 October 2021. The letter does a good job of citing grievances that have not been responded to as well as retaliatory actions by staff for filing said grievances. They also cite the relevant policy from the TDCJ grievance procedures and inmate handbook.

We have not succeeded in organizing a statewide coordinated campaign around the grievance system in Texas, but it remains an important campaign at the local level for pushing back against abuses and organizing others around a common cause as these comrades have done at McConnell. With their well-documented petition, perhaps they have a vision for how to unite others across the state for this common cause.

Greetings & Respects Comrades,

I been wanting to write this letter for about a year now. Society needs to be aware of what’s really going on behind the walls of prison. On March of 2020 I wrote an article that was printed on the pages of your newsletter. It was called ‘TDCJ: Your staff are bringing in the drugs, and it must stop’(see ULK 73). Since the print of the article, I’ve become a target of harassment and retaliation. Administration and C/O’s here at Coffield Unit are a part of a Good Ol’ boy system that use these types of methods, to make the prisoner pay when the truth is being exposed.

A shakedown team was put together by Warden Garcia. When the team comes across a prisoner, who refuses to be extorted for information (something that can place the prisoner’s life in danger), they will harass/retaliate, even falsify government records, in order to place the prisoner in the worst part of the prison as a form of punishment for not cooperating. It happened to me, and I will go into detail later in the letter.

There wouldn’t be drugs or cellphones in prison, if corrupt C/O’s didn’t bring them. Can prisoners just walk out of prison, score drugs, take a detour by Wal-Mart, pick up a couple of cellphones, then return to prison? How is it that this type of contraband finds itself inside prisons? Governor Greg Abbott needs to answer these questions. Since the last article, nothing has changed. A constant flow of K2 (a drug laced with roach spray), Meth, Cocaine, Heroin, pills and cellphones, flow through the prison. In 29 years of my confinement, I’ve seen my share of things but nothing like whats going on today, in the prison system.

Eighty percent (80%) of young people in prison are terribly addicted to drugs, that C/O’s bring in. The only difference between correctional officers and prisoners is the uniform. They themselves are criminals. This type of thing needs to be brought up next time some politician out there screams “We need more prisons”. ‘Go to Texas prison with a bad drug habit, leave worse when you get out’. That should be the politicians slogan.

TDCJ proudly states “We are an agency of rehabilitation and positive change”, the best lie being sold to the public. The only thing TDCJ higher-ups care about, is that government funding. At the moment Coffield has a sky high suicide rate due to all the drugs. This place is completely out of compliance and under-staffed. Prisoners are left in dayrooms (that have no toilets) for hours and have to use the restroom on shifts because there’s no one to let them in the cell to use the restroom.

Hours pass with no security checks, a clear breach of security. A few days ago there was an audit on the unit, C/Os from other units were called in, so they could pass the inspection. As soon as the inspectors left, the C/Os from other units left behind them. There’s no outside recreation, the water is getting prisoners sick, but plenty of K2 to keep the prisoners “Dumbed down”, so there won’t be complaints.

Society needs to realize that prisoners will return to neighborhoods out there. How can prisoners, whom are sent to prison to rehabilitate themselves, accomplish that goal, when the good law-abiding correctional officers, bring poison, to make them worse? These same prisoners will be released, will reoffend, commit worse crimes, due to a drug problem that got worse in prison. How many crooked C/Os have been indicted, for the victims of suicide and drug overdoses, that have died in Coffield, due to the drugs these C/Os bring in? This system and its C/Os are the problem, something people in high places, refuse to admit to the public.

For years our families got blamed for the drug flow coming into prison. When COVID-19 arrived, visitations got shut down and the truth was exposed, as to who really brought the dope in. Over a year, no visitations yet the dope was delivered on time. The truth is K2 is sprayed on just about anything, or brought in liquid forms. Meth, heroin, cocaine and pills can easily be hidden on C/Os that bring it for a nice hefty price. A $20 cellphone now goes for $2000 OR $2500 each.

So let’s put this together: the proposed solution is a pig team that goes after prisoners who PURCHASE contraband from C/Os. This helps the Warden shift the blame and cover who the real crooks are, and everything’s blamed on the prisoners. This way the truth is not exposed and questions never need to be answered.

For my writing about this type of corruption, I am now under fire by the warden and administration. Enclosed are copies of complaints filed with the Ombudsman’s office due to harassment/retaliation against me. The Ombudsman’s office claims to be an independent entity, that investigates family complaints against TDCJ officials - (NOT TRUE). In reality, they work hand-in-hand with TDCJ officials.

“Due to a lack of evidence, your allegations could not be substantiated.” (Lack of evidence? There are cameras all over the unit, that record video) If Ms. Melodee Blalock would have performed a proper investigation of the date and time the incidents occurred, she could have retrieved video that would have placed C/O Brewer at my cubicle/cell destroying my property. She just wouldn’t go against the Good Ol’ boy system.

Violations of misconduct by staff, when confirmed (Notice the words “When confirmed”) are addressed in accordance with established administrative procedures. Such decisions are considered confidential (Notice the word ‘Confidential’) and not released to the general public. TDCJ and Ombudsman both work as the outside cops. When a C/O has violated policy or harassed a prisoner, a wall of silence instantly goes up and things are quietly swept under the rug.

The reply my sister received means: Even if C/O Brewer is guilty, it will be covered up by the good ol’ boy system that’s designed to never admit wrong. I was housed at the dorm area from 2017 till 2021 with no altercations of this sort. After I wrote the first article, full retaliation was enforced. When it got really bad, my sister filed the complaint. 46 days after filing, the same C/O Brewer, who the complaint was filed against, showed up at my cubicle with his supervisor SGT Hom, to place me in handcuffs.

I was escorted to a segregation cage, which had no restroom or running water. I was stripped searched and left in those conditions, under extreme heat without relief (water, fan, restroom break), on a hot July day. I was there from 9 am till 4:30 pm. I was denied water and was forced to urinate in bottles that an SSI had to sneak to me.

Just one example of the injustice prisoners have to endure at the hands of the oppressors. Which politician, with a nice desk, watches over the oppressors, who enjoy violating prisoners rights and get off on abusing their power? I will continue to expose a corrupt system that’s in real need of prison reform. And to accomplish that goal, the prison reform needs to start with its own C/Os.

I see parole March of 2022, after 2 three year set-offs. If something happens to me, comrades the answer as to why, is in your hands. Thanks to each of you. May God walk with each of you.

Respectfully Always,

“End the Prison System”

“Give Power to the people”

Ever since prison officials at the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility (RJD) were made by a Federal court order to wear body cameras and to cease their terrorist practices and abuses upon the most vulnerable prisoners, the disabled and elderly, (see: Armstrong vs. Newson, et al. Case No. C94-CV-02307 CW) the RJD prison has experienced total lack of programming abilities resulting in lockdowns, modified programs, and other programming restrictions which impede or otherwise undermine one’s opportunities to earn sentence-reducing credits and to perform in a manner expected by/from the Board of Prison Terms, in order to parole. Especially on the weekends, when the Warden and other Department of Corrections administrators are unavailable to mandate corrective actions.

RJD ranking officials will tell you that this is due to a staff shortage, training mandates etc. The truth, however, upon my information, is that these are calculated and coordinated efforts of something more sinister indeed. A Union-coordinated boycott.

The California Correctional Peace Officers Association (CCPOA) at the RJD prison complex is, apparently, unhappy with the fact that years and years of beatings, false reports, lying for one another and even murder, yes MURDER, has resulted in a Federal court order in the Armstrong case, requiring the staff to wear body cameras. Cameras that not only record the video interactions of sworn personnel and those they speak to, but the audio versions thereof as well.

The actions and omissions of RJD’s sworn officers and other CCPOA members is organized, timed, and planned for maximum effects, and is very clearly a snubbing of their proverbial noses at the RJD Warden and other Corrections administrators.

Through this sophistication these officials protest and boycott the lawful orders of a Federal court judge – a judge they have subsequently claimed was/is biased and therefore should not have presided over those proceedings leading to the court-ordered wearing of body cameras.

If you’re doing what you are paid to do by the public, and if your tactics and demeanor is not disturbing and offensive, why worry about body cameras? They are allowed to turn them off in the bathrooms even.

Through a sophisticated scheme, these prison officials organize and conduct mass strikes via fraud and the misuse of sick leave and personal days, holding prisoners’ access to programs and such hostage. Knowing that, without access to and completion of which (many times, in a set time frame), the prisoners participating in such (now unavailable) programs and activities, will suffer by not being able to benefit from good time sentence reduction for successful completions.

Instead of taking its direction from the federal court (by court order), RJD corrections officers turn their ire on their employers: the CDCR and RJD’s Warden. Under injunction, the very corrections officers who so blatantly demonstrated a propensity for criminal thought processes, activities, brutality upon disabled and other prisoners, and other such criminal misconduct, now employ further, separate and additionally questionable practices intended to undermine, and to otherwise circumvent the lawful processes of the Federal court and the Honorable Claudia Wilken, United States Federal District Court Judge.

GIVE THEM WHAT THEY WANT AND IT’LL GO AWAY, RIGHT?

That is called ‘blackmail’ where I come from. It is illegal, anti-people, and is being committed here by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. Whether by approval or turning a blind eye thereto. It is still an anti-people and illegal violation of a Federal court order in Armstrong v. Newson, C94-02307 CW.

In fact, a recent order in the above case acknowledges that many of RJD’s correctional officers have assumed a gang-like culture and behavior. The CDCR does not contest these assertions and the Federal court has openly acknowledged the veracity of same. RJD has many Mexican corrections officers who have acclaimed and begun carrying themselves in a manner akin to their Mexican Mafia prisoner counterparts. Both in vernacular, actions and conduct. Including secret identification to one another of membership. And this is anything but the first time. For more on the history of this kind of behavior in California prisons read The Green Wall by D.J. Vodicka.

Racketeering: Today, racketeering often has the broad sense of “the practice of engaging in a fraudulent scheme or enterprise.” Dictionary of Modern Legal Usage, 2nd Ed. by Bryan A. Garner.

I just wanted to let you know some more of the tricks the system is implementing against me via the J-Pay E-Mail/kiosk system they have set up.

It seems that anytime I send an e-mail to my loved ones asking them to contact a Court and/or government official these e-mails show up blank, yet J-Pay says these messages are being held and/or censored by the prison for reasons of “third party contact” (SMH). Imagine that, I can’t even send an e-mail to my Power of Attorney to contact the courts on my behalf as my LEGAL REPRESENTATIVE!

What would they be trying to “censor” from reaching the courts? (rhetorical question).

In other (related?) news they are also using some device to “un-download” movies I purchase from this same system shortly after I lock back into my cell. This is causing me to lose the movie sometimes due to time restrictions on them, which is a form of consumer fraud.

Note that only here on my company in Auburn Correctional Facility, have the oppressors instituted kiosk privileges 1 day per week, when Directive #4425 clearly states 15 minutes daily. Also, due to Covid restrictions we don’t have visitation privileges, so these once a week e-mails are cruel & unusual due to the already strained circumstances.

I have been debilitatingly sick here twice already taking all precautions against such especially at the times I got sick. I didn’t leave my cell outside of showers, packages & visits for approximately 6 months.

By intentionally taking away in-cell entertainment you force one outside where the chances are higher of me getting sick. Because of prior retaliation akin to this, this seems the most plausible ploy. Let me know what you think.

In Struggle.

MIM(Prisons) responds: We agree with our comrade in Virginia that there is a strategic effort to profiteer off prisoners and their families while increasing surveillance and censorship of prisoners’ communications with the outside world. The fact that you are losing movies you paid for, or others are being charged by the minute to read a book is just JPay profiteering off of control of data. It’s the same in the outside world where companies like Apple and Google lock you into a system where they can keep tempting you to spend more money and they decide what media you consume. Only in prison you have less choice.

Many prisoners write us asking to communicate on platforms like JPay, which we cannot do. These platforms increase censorship, surveillance and state control over what you can read or listen to. If we do not fight this, other states will join North Carolina in banning U.S. postal mail and materials like MIM(Prisons) study packs and resource guides.

On 2 January 2022, mass protests raged across the cities of Kazakhstan in response to the sharp spike in oil prices. 3,000 Russian paratroopers were called into the country to quell the uprising,(1) and 5,800 people were detained during the unrest with 164 people reported to have been killed.(2)

A Single Spark in Zhanaozen

One day before the uprising, the Kazakh government started off the new year with a lifting of the government enforced fuel price cap. This action doubled the fuel price of 60 tenge to an average of 120 tenge per litre (approx. U$D $1.06 per gallon). With the average monthly income of a minimum wage proletarian being less than the equivalent of $100 a month, the rebellious consequences of an overnight doubling of fuel prices – in a country with oil production as its major industry – isn’t surprising.(3)

The beginnings of the uprising started in the city of Zhanaozen located in the western part of the country bordering the Caspian Sea. Protestors blocked the roads, demanding stabilization of gas prices and prevention of fuel shortages. Two Akims (the title of local leaders in provincial, district, or municipal government of Kazakhstan) were called by the demonstrators: Akim Nogaev and Akim Ibagarov – neither were brought forth. Instead, acting leader of the city of Zhanaozen Akim Baijanov advised the crowd of protestors to write a complaint letter to the city administration.

Encampments of tents and protestors numbering in the 100s popped up in other cities of the country. Most of these encampments were staged on the respective city’s center squares. The crowds of encampment expanded to 1000s, and the demands chanted shifted from stabilization of gas prices towards fair elections of local leaders. By 4 January 2022, the biggest city and former capital of Kazakhstan, Almaty, had 1,000 protestors in the centre of the city. Police tactics of stun grenades and tear gas were used against the demonstrators, and the president declared a state of emergency. The country faced a mass internet outage; the mayor’s office of Almaty was stormed and set ablaze; and locations of firearms were seized by protestors.

On the 6th of January, dozens of protestors alongside 12 Almaty police officers were reported to be killed with one officer who was found beheaded.(4) Mass “looting” and burning of government buildings occurred with 2,298 people having been arrested for partaking in the protest. On the same morning, 3,000 Russian troops were sent from Moscow after president Tokayev of Kazakhstan made a “formal” request of assistance.(5) At this point in the uprising the police and the army of Kazakhstan were given “shoot to kill” orders. (6) After days of gunfire and burning, the Interior Ministry of Kazakhstan has claimed 175 million Euros in property damage; 160 people dead; and 5,000 arrested.(7)

Soviet Revisionism’s Legacy in Kazakhstan

Approximately 100 years before the masses were on the streets rebelling against a corrupt and despotic bourgeois dictatorship, Kazakhstan was facing immense amounts of transformation as the nation – like many of the colonial or semi-colonial nations at the time – were entering the world of modern capitalism-imperialism. In the early 1900s, Kazakhstan faced settler-colonialism and imperialist rule by the czarist government. During the 19th century to the first third of the 20th century, Kazakhstan was settling around 400,000 Russians. Resentment against colonial rule, and competition of land with foreign settlers in a semi-feudal country resulted in various revolts.

Three years after the czarist government fell and Russia became the first proletarian dictatorship on a country-wide scale; Kazakhstan came under socialist rule in 1920. Through the war against fascism, Kazakhstan saw industrialization but mostly still stayed an agricultural economy. After the war, with Stalin’s death in 1953 and the restoration of capitalism in the USSR by Khrushchev, Kazakhstan also enters a new period in history.

The “virgin lands campaign” by Khrushchev would transform Kazakhstan into a major grain producer for the Soviet Union. Transformation of smaller and weaker nations under the control of the Soviet social-imperialism into monolithic agricultural hubs for Russia was often the fate of recently liberated countries. Cuba, for example, became the major sugar producer for the USSR. With further bureaucratization of the republic’s government into the hands of the social-imperialists of Moscow, Kazakhs became a minority in Kazakhstan by 1959 making up only 30% of the country.

With further weakening of the revisionist Soviet state, the bureaucratic state-capitalist government of Kazakhstan would declare independence on 16 December 1991. It was the last Soviet republic to declare independence. Ten days later, the USSR itself would no longer exist and turned into the Russian Federation. The revisionist bureaucrats governing Kazakhstan would become the leaders of the new and liberalized economy. The Kazakh masses would enter a new period of industrial exploitation.

In 2011, proletarian workers of the oil fields in Zhanaozen (the same city which sparked the uprising this January of 2022) would form a strike for better wages and working conditions. The state oil company fired 1,000 of these workers and the strike was declared illegal by the local courts. The protest went on with furthering of demands such as independent political parties formed by workers free from the government – similar to our own work of building independent institutions within U.$. prisons. On the 16th of January, the police opened fire at protestors, killing 11.

Revisionist Geopolitics vs Internationalism

With the quelling of January 2022, Russian president Vladimir Putin described the new year’s event as a “foreign backed terrorist uprising.”(8) The president of China, Xi Jinping, expressed that “China opposes external forces triggering unrest in Kazakhstan.”(9) With the social-imperialist Chinese “Communist” Party and the imperialist Russian Federation being the great hope of revisionists and social-chauvinists around the world; many revisionists express this sentiment that all mass uprisings in the Third World against Russian or Chinese friendly governments are a ploy from external forces.

When it was socialist, China called for a relentless criticism of revisionism and for rebellion against reactionaries. Since 1976, the Chinese Communist Party has promoted unprincipled peace and “stability” indicating how much the colors have turned in the former socialist republic. As Maoists, we recognize that internal contradictions are always the impetus of change as external contradictions are the basis of how that change and movement is played out. Even if the first stone cast in Kazakhstan was from the hands of a covert CIA spy – or an “Islamic radical” as Kazakhstan’s government would state – the fact that there was a prairie fire for a single spark to start in the first place reveals much in regards to the objective conditions of Kazakhstan’s political economy and the subjective forces of the masses of Kazakhstan. Unless the revisionists claim that every single protestor was a non-Kazakh foreign spy, this claim is idealist and metaphysical. A real internationalist political line would be the recognition of the people of Kazakhstan as friends against world imperialism and part of the world’s people. Our line in the imperialist countries must also be able to combat the militarism and meddling of our respective imperialist governments.

Notes <sup>1. Walker, Bisenov, “Russian paratroopers arrive in Kazakhstan as unrest continues,” The Guardian, January 6, 2022.
2. Heintz, “Kazakhstan says 164 killed in last week’s protests,” AP News, January 9, 2022.
3. Kantchev, “Kazakhstan’s Elite Got Richer on Natural Resources. Then Came the Unrest.” Wall Street Journal, January 7, 2022.
4. Walker, “Dozens of protesters and police dead amid Kazakhstan unrest.” The Guardian, January 6, 2022.
5. “Moscow-led bloc to send ‘peacekeeping forces’ to protest-hit Kazakhstan.” France 24, January 5, 2022.
6. “Kazakhstani president issues ‘shoot to kill’ order to quell protests” The Hill, January 7th, 2022.
7. “Kazakhstan: More than 160 killed, 5,000 arrested during riots,” Al Jazeera, January 9th, 2022.
8. Vaal, “Putin claims victory in defending Kazakhstan from revolt,” Reuters, January 10th, 2022.
9.”China opposes external forces triggering unrest in Kazakhstan, says Xi Jinping.” Asian News International, January 7th, 2022.</sup>