ULK Print Versions Online/ Call for submissions

Under Lock & Key: the voice of the anti-imperialist movement from behind bars just marked its one year anniversary as an independent institution of the oppressed. You can now download the print version as a PDF from our website. Please feel free to print and distribute.

ULK will continue to be printed and mailed free to prisoners in the united $tates every other month in 2009, with the next issue coming out in January. Below is a call for submissions of artwork, research and articles for upcoming issues:

Issue 6: Gender - MIM line says that gender is not determined by biology, but rather First World biological wimmin are in fact gender oppressors, while the gender oppressed are generally found among Third World biological wimmin and children. Where does this leave prisoners in the u$? What role does gender play in daily life in u$ prisons and what does it mean for our organizing efforts?
DEADLINE: ASAP!

Issue 7: The Peace Issue - Maoists are being targetted all over the country for being a threat to security of the “homeland”, especially in prisons. Meanwhile, the imperialists use divide and conquer techniques to promote violence among the oppressed. Why do many of our people play along? We need to draw the line in the sand and show who is really willing to work for peace and who is not. We want to discuss successful models and plans for promoting peace between lumpen organizations. It’s been done before, and yet it’s needed now more than ever. Send us your stories, art and ideas.
DEADLINE: February 1, 2009

Issue 8: Prison Labor/Economics - A number of prisoners have written in disagreeing with our article, “Amerikans: oppressing for a living” that appeared in ULK Issue 2, by claiming that prisoners are a source of great profits for the imperialists. While prisoners are being used to subsidize institutions of state repression financially, the reports we have received so far support our assertion that profits are not being extracted from prison labor in the u$ overall. Here’s the questions we are asking prisoners across the country: How many prisoners at your facility? How many of them work? Who do they work for? What work do they do? How much do they get paid?
DEADLINE: April 1, 2009

Issue 9: Migrants & non-citizens in u$ prisons - With prisons, tent cities and militarized zones spreading across the u$ border with Mexico, migrants have been the fastest growing segment of the federal prison population over the last decade. With efforts to curb imprisonment in the largest prison state in the world, non-citizens may be the main reason that the total population keeps increasing. In this issue we will expose what's going on. We want to hear from prisoners who are not u$-citizens and those in states like Arizona and Texas where this boom has been focused.
DEADLINE: June 1, 2009

Biannual Censorship Report - July 2008

Get an update on MIM(Prisons) progress reaching prisoners across the united $tates, with improving data and campaign information. read the report

Unlock the Box DVD pre-orders

MIM Distributors is working with comrades putting out a documentary video on prison control units, called "Unlock the Box." Since MIM Distributors does not generally serve as a distributor for media outside of prisons anymore, you need to order prior to one of the 2 mailings we have planned for fall and winter of 2008. Pre-orders are already being taken. Information on the movie and it's distribution will be updated at http://www.abolishcontrolunits.org/movie

Organizing around Prison Struggles

MIM(Prisons) barely has the staff time we need to run the institutions that we run (a website, newsletter, free political literature program, an educational program, and budding legal work and post-release support). Yet we are not looking to form more branches of MIM(Prisons) on the outside. Instead we are focused on building organization behind bars, and looking for supporters on the outside to help with campaigns and other necessary legwork to build the anti-imperialist prison movement.

We work with prisoners to develop campaigns that meet the needs of the oppressed being targeted by imprisonment. We are limited in our ability to carry out these campaigns to the extent that they often need to be. We usually send one letter to protest an instance of censorship. We should have dozens of letters from that state or region. In many of the states where we are working with prisoners on campaigns, we do not have people distributing fliers, literature and petitions or talking to people on the streets and doing presentations. We could and should.

The functionality of the campaigns section of our website is still not complete, and it is still very short on content. The campaigns we do have up there are important ones that have been initiated by prisoners who are active members of our movement. But in most cases, these campaigns cannot be successfully executed without some real outside support and legwork. People on the outside should be contributing to the campaign pages just as much as prisoners are. We welcome your reports and organizing materials. It is not for lack of issues needing to be addressed that most states don't have active campaigns listed yet, so let us know if you want to get one started in yours.

We won't necessarily get behind any old campaign that has to do with prisons, but figuring out what issues are out there is part of the process for us all to become more effective in our work. In prioritizing prison related struggles, we have focused on censorship and isolation as two of the most important issues threatening politically active prisoners and the future of prison-based organizing, without which, the struggle against oppression in prisons will have no power.

We have put a lot of effort into this website as a tool for documenting and tracking censorship in u$ prisons and are currently working with prisoners in many states to address problems where they are consistently bad. Some comrades are also working hard to develop new research and materials related to the struggle against control units and so-called gang units. For those who are interested in this topic, you may want to look into the upcoming StopMax Conference being sponsored by the American Friends Service Committee (May 30 - June 1).

There are a lot of easy ways to get involved in supporting the work of MIM(Prisons). We need help with typing, writing protest letters, doing research, and from lawyers and law students we need help around legal battles. All of this work can be done from wherever you live, in many cases without leaving your computer. Local prison rights organizers can also help us get the prisoner-initiated campaigns that we promote on the streets in their area and building concrete alliances between prisoners and communities on the outside.

Maoist cells, fanclubs and cops

This announcement is for those who read our website because we are part of MIM, and not because they are doing prison work. With the exception of the discontinuation of the organs MIM Notes and Notas Rojas, the Maoist Internationalist Movement, as it has always been defined, still exists. The structure changed a lot a couple of years ago. With the decentralization, we have many groups with their own specific focus and tasks. And as expected, these many groups have developed their ideas in different directions, and in many cases a healthy debate is taking place. We at MIM(Prisons) view this as a good thing, an opportunity for many new flowers to bloom and for those serious students of revolution to develop their own scientific analysis.

We see no progressive role in the creation of a new center at this time. Nor do we see the creation of lists and associations as helping anyone besides the pigs. When someone sets up a blog with a couple articles vaguely parroting Maoism and then tries to do a who's who in the Maoist camp without even making a substantive theoretical critique of the groups in question, one must wonder what the motivations of such sites are. Others have already criticized extensively the trend of fly-by-night blogs and websites who would link to various groups that results in a blurring of lines between those upholding Maoism and those on the revisionist road. In this period of decentralization that we have in the First World today, cells should determine for themselves who they affiliate with and recognize as fraternal. And this should be done when necessary to unite with other cells in struggle, not as a way of building your link traffic or making one feel like your not alone cause you have a couple other half-ass blogs that think you're cool. That's what differentiates a Maoist cell from a Maoist fanclub. There's so much work to be done, that only pigs could find the time to spend creating fanclubs.

Others continue with one-liners disparaging cells that have evolved from the decentralization. These comments are not useful to anyone, and create negative talk around the movement that can be discouraging to the masses. Self-described Maoists should think about what dividing line questions are and focus their efforts to combat revisionism there.

Those who are actually interested in working with MIM(Prisons) should check our next announcement on prison organizing.

First Biannual Censorship Report

MIM(Prisons) is ringing in the new year with our first biannual censorship report since launching our website. We will print these reports every 6 months to keep the world updated on the state of free speech in the largest prison nation in the world and to track the progress of our movement.

Submit Your Censorship Reports Online

One of the main goals of this site is to bring together allies in the struggle against censorship in u$ prisons. We are working hard to document the struggles that we are currently engaged in and we want to know what struggles you are carrying out so that we might work together.

We now have a public portal for reporting incidents of censorship in prisons. Any organization or individual can report censorship, upload scanned images of documentation as well as the text of protest letters. All submissions must be approved by MIM(Prisons) before they will be available on the public site.

You will need to submit an email address to register with the site. We recommend that you use an anonymous email account and keep security in mind. Once you register you can return and use that same email address to post censorship reports for the same organization (if you are not part of an organization then it will just be posted as an "individual"). Valid email addresses are preferred in case we need to contact you about your submission or want to try to work together in our campaigns.

If you run into any problems with this new feature please let us know.

MIM(Prisons) Announced as Independent Cell

In the past year the Maoist Internationalist Movement has taken some security hits and has changed its organizing strategy as a result. One of the significant changes relates to cell-based organizing. With the unveiling of this web site, MIM spins off the prison ministry into an independent cell.

The Maoist Internationalist Ministry of Prisons or MIM(Prisons) upholds the MIM cardinal questions and political line. We distribute MIM Notes and MIM Theory and recommend these independent media outlets as well as the MIM web site at etext.org as sources for correct news and theoretical analysis. We carry forward the work of the MIM in the fight against the criminal injustice system.

also see: MIM on Prisons & Prisoners

Prison Ministry Cell launches its own site

About a month ago the Maoist Prison Ministry went public with our own website. This site is the product of many years of work and input. As we have already begun to attract new readers we want to let you know what this site is and plans to be.

To date, we have been continuously under construction. So please bear with us. As of today, we have complete news and censorship reporting pages that are indexed and searchable. Currently we are working hard to update the content and the technology of the site simultaneously. This winter everything should be put together and we will only have to deal with content.

Coming soon will be a fully functional Campaigns section that will link to censorship incidents and articles and provide agitational materials. Until then those who wish to support our work can check out the example letters that comrades have sent to fight censorship under the incidents of censorship that have been reported. Anyone can write letters and send them to the prison administration. Please email us copies of your letters so that we can post them online and keep track of our cooperative efforts.

We are also working to get allies and potential allies in the anti-censorship struggle to contribute to the reporting of censorship incidents. If you experience censorship from u$ prisons and want to submit your experiences to the site, email us and let us know. We plan to implement a procedure for outside submissions in the near future.