Political Prisoners Revisited

A number of people who support MIM's anti-prisons work have nevertheless criticized our insistence on breaking down the divisions between "political" and other prisoners. In the summer of 1995, MIM took a lot of criticism over statements likening Mumia Abu-Jamal to all other prisoners that some people interpreted as lack of support for his cause. In the months that followed the debate carried on as MIM's anti-prisons work expanded. This section of MIM Theory takes on this issue in greater depth. The section includes a letter reprinted from MIM Notes, MIM's review of two essays -- "On Transforming the Colonial and "Criminal" Mentality" and "Toward Clarity on CCs, PPs and POWs" -- which the letter writer sent to us for our comment, and a New York Prisoner's own essay on the subject of political prisoners. --ed

Crimes Against the People Aren't Political
Reprinted from MIM Notes 116, June 15, 1996

Dear MIM,
i am a workers in the New Afrikan Independence Movement. I like your journals and am happy to find much unity in your literature and work. i disagree, however with your assertion that "all prisoners are political prisoners." i had a nice letter all composed, but fell victim to a glitch, so forgive me for mixing my commentary with quotes from both "Injustice System Convicts Another Latino Youth" (MIM Notes 113) and the NEW AFRIKAN P.O.W. JOURNALS> You say that "all prisoners are political prisoners" because, "The criminal justice system targets oppressed nationals, arresting them at a higher rate and giving them much harsher sentences than their white-youth counterparts. . ." (and) "No oppressed national can be given a fair trial in the United Snakes' court system. Every facet of law enforcement, from the pigs to the definition of crime to sentencing guidelines, is about protecting white-nation domination. . ."

All this is true, but it "simply point[s] out the objective colonial relationship" which New Afrikans and other oppressed nationals have to the u.s. empire. We cannot forget that "even reactionary and counter-revolutionary elements within the nation[s] are objective colonial subjects. . ." (BOOK TWO -- TOWARD CLARITY ON CC'S, PP'S, & POW'S, pp. 24-25)

In BOOK SEVEN, "On Transforming the Colonial & 'Criminal' Mentality," We see an attempt to "lay out the true, proper, and NECESSARY criteria for Political Prisoners: PRACTICE is that criteria. On the bottom line, Political Prionsers are revolutionaries; they are conscious and active servants of the people. Political Prisoners direct their energies toward the enemies of the people -- they do not commit 'crimes' against the people." (p.21)

Finally, ". . . so far as the struggle is concerned it must be realized that it is not the degree of suffering and hardship involved as such that matters: even extreme suffering in itself does not necessarily produce the PRISE DE CONSCIENCE required for the national liberation struggle." (Amilcar Cabran, REVOLUTION IN GUINEA, p. 63)

again, i apologize if the tone of this is pedantic, dry, or academic, but i do think that it's important to enter into this dialogue with y'all. … in unity & struggle

(p.s. -- if you should choose to print this letter, please respect my use of 'i' & 'We,' as this is an important aspect of our understanding that "the community is more important than the individual," and that We "believe in collective struggle" and in "fashioning victory in concert with our brothers & sisters.")

MIM responds: Thank you for writing to MIM. It seems we have much unity. We certainly understand that the relationship between Amerika and the oppressed nations within its borders is a colonial one, but are not content to let that (correct) analysis tell the whole story of prisoners. MIM says that all prisoners are political prisoners because we recognize the process by which some people are classified as "criminals" for stealing cars -- and some are classified as legitimate government leaders for stealing whole countries as a political process. We mean to call attention to the criminality of the oppressors in this formulation. So principally we are dealing with the difference between the giant crimes of the oppressor and the lesser crimes of the oppressed.

But it's true that prisoners who've given or risked their lives int eh struggle are in a different category still, and MIM recognizes that. It's why we agitate specifically about the frame-up and imprisonment of Mumia Abu-Jamal (for example) and support the movement to free him. We recognize that campaigns around political prisoners like Mumia are important for exploiting contradictions with the enemy and actually winning on their terms (unlikely). But also for the revolutionary movement outside of prison to learn from the examples and leadership of prisoners.

So we'll continue to insist that no matter what the "crime," the more than one million people behind bars in Amerikkka are there because of the political superstructure that supports imperialism, and are in that sense political prisoners. We also recognize that many ordinary prisoner who were not activists before they got to prison have become very political once they got there, which accounts for the high demand among so many prisoners for revolutionary study material. But all that won't stop us from acknowledging heroes of the people too. Keep in touch!

Political Prisoners and the Anti-Imperialist Struggle
by MC44
Prison activism - ranging from reformist legal advocacy to revolutionary organization - involves a broad range of social forces and political lines. Here, MIM reviews two essays - "On Transforming the Colonial and 'Criminal' Mentality" and "Toward Clarity on CC's, PP's and POW's" -- and clarifies and expands our position on political prisoners in response to them. In addition to expressing the views of the letter writer on the previous page, both "Transforming" and "Clarity" challenge the position that all prisoners are political prisoners by arguing that building a nation to successfully challenge and defeat imperialism principally requires a class analysis of the oppressed nation that distinguishes between reactionary lumpen "criminal" ideology and revolutionary mentality and practice. Such distinction, the authors argue, is the difference between prisoners who are merely captive colonials (colonial subjects who are in prison for criminal acts, including against the people) and political prisoners (colonial subjects in prison for organizing to defeat the oppressor).

MIM has a lot of unity with these essays, concerning the role of leadership and organization in waging a revolutionary struggle for national independence and socialism. Our main point of difference on this question is in our application of the principal contradiction in our anti-prisons agitation. to the authors of "Clarity" and "Transforming," the main object is to address the internal dynamics of the internal colonies. They object to the broad use of the term "political prisoner" because it implies that all oppressed nation prisoners have a political (nationalist) practice. To MIM, our main focus of anti-prison work is to unite all who can be united to smash imperialism and all its tools of oppression, and our us of the term "political prisoners" is important to exposing prison as a colonial tool.

In this essay, MIM maintains our long held position that the masses of oppressed nation "social prisoners" -- those in prison convicted of social crimes and who as yet lack a political practice -- share the same fundamental social location as their fellow prisoners convicted for being revolutionary leaders of their communities. Making a distinction between political prisoners with a revolutionary practice -- like Mumia Abu Jamal and Geronimo Pratt -- for the purposes of defending revolutionary leadership is progressive. MIM supports the struggles to free these individuals who are leaders of the proletariat and who the proletariat and the party must defend against state attack.

But we do not pit the leaders against the "social prisoners" to champion the leaders. our principal focus is on overthrowing imperialism and its injustice system. In analyzing prisons in their function as institutions of social control and national oppression -- we see a hypocritical, criminal state bent on locking down whole oppressed nation populations, not just the explicitly revolutionary leadership. It's true, the FBI's Cointelpro helped destroy the Black Panther Party by severely repressing its leadership. MIM also recognizes that the destruction of the BPP as a revolutionary vanguard was a prelude to the dramatic expansion of the Amerikan lockdown of Blacks and Latinos in the last twenty years.

That expansion requires an equally resolute defense of the broad masses of social prisoners -- many of whom become radicalized and revolutionary while in prison -- and all of whom are viciously repressed by a government that commits far worse crimes on a grander scale an don a daily basis. The proletariat must defend its leaders without conceding that the masses' imprisonment is any less substantively "political" on the part of the oppressor we seek to defeat.

"political" as Nation-Building

Unlike those liberal activists from the middle forces who believe that most people in prison, who were convicted of crimes with no political content, are justifiably imprisoned by the bourgeois state, "Toward Clarity" correctly argues, as the Black Panther Party did and as MIM does, that the oppressor nation has no legitimacy in trying or imprisoning the oppressed nations: "Prisons are -- form the view of the slave/colonial subject -- in the hands of the imperialist, the empire, the illegitimate ruler who subjugates the nation."(1)

But illegitimate confinement does not mean that the prisoners themselves are political, the essay argues. "Clarity" disagrees with exceptionalizing the institution of prison as a colonial tool distinct from schools, workplaces, housing or other institutions that constitute colonial subjugation. The essay seems to argue that such exceptionalism detracts from the understanding of all institutions within the mother country (oppressor nation) as illegitimate. While it is true that no oppressor institutions are legitimate institutions for the oppressed, MIM argues that prisoners are particularly well situated to understand and oppose colonialism. The hypocrisy of criminal injustice in meting out punishment, combined with the extreme conditions of the gulags, does distinguish prison from institutions such as education or electoral politics in which there have been some neo-colonial, integrationist gains. Consider Catharine MacKinnon's explanation of legally criminalized rape: "Men who are in prison for rape think it's the dumbest thing that ever happened. . . . It isn't just a miscarriage of justice; they were put in jail for something very little different from what most men do all the time and call it sex. The only difference is they got caught."(2)

"Clarity" also argues that prison does not alter the relations among oppressed nations, or between oppressed and oppressor nations; and that there is one movement for Black national liberation, which exists both inside and outside of prison: "the relations between imprisoned Afrikans, and imprisoned nationals of other oppressed nations, the nationals of the oppressor nation, are the same as those which exist outside."(3)

In other words, just because oppressor nation peoples are in prison doesn't make them part of the same class as oppressed nation prisoners, and it doesn't transcend the primacy of nationalist struggle. While MIM believes that the national struggle is principal, and the demographics of the prison population itself reflects that struggle, we do expect prison to yield more oppressor nation revolutionaries than other social institutions. Because the bourgeoisie and petit-bourgeoisie of the oppressor nation are protected (with very few exceptions) from going to prison in the first place, the potential for turning against the system is disproportionately greater for those (relatively propertyless) that are in prison. The 1971 uprising at Attica State Correctional Institution, which included some multi-national forces, is one such example.

Fundamentally, the argument against classifying all prisoners (or even all oppressed nation prisoners) as political is to preserve the term for people with a political practices, as opposed to the masses of lumpen prisoners locked down for non-political crimes. The essays argue that objective, material conditions that cause crime and uneven punishment define oppressed nation prisoners' social location as colonial, but only action on behalf of the nationalist struggle constitutes "political." Political practice includes actions that led to the imprisonment in the first place, or a revolutionary practice adopted by any "captured colonial" while in prison.

But MIM believes that the colonial condition -- the contradiction between imperialism and oppressed nations -- is principal. The absence of a political practice among the materially oppressed means that those prisoners need leadership, organization and struggle. Since our principal task is to build public opinion against the imperialist state and for communism, we focus on indicting the state for its crimes against the people (including mass imprisonment) and uniting all who can be united for this goal. "Transforming" describes a scene from the film "Battle of Algiers" in which a Prisoner of War recruits a potentially revolutionary "common criminal." While in this situation the differences between the two are significant and should be emphasized -- the common criminal is a potential revolutionary in the first place because of political and economic conditions that the National Liberation Front was trying to overthrow. Here in the United Snakes, MIM does not object to distinguishing between prisoners at different stages of political development -- but we are able to understand the process of rapid radicalization of "common criminals" as a profoundly political one. In our agitation, we emphasize that process as reflecting the material basis for revolution.

When we talk about exercising the necessary discipline and leadership to make that revolution, MIM has a lot of unity with "Transforming." The essay correctly argues that adventurism, an easier course for the oppressed masses than "protracted revolutionary struggle," reflects a lack of "confidence in [the oppressed's] ability to win a revolution."(60 The difference between MIM and the authors is that, to the authors, the crucial difference between adventurism and revolution is lost when the term political prisoner is applied to all captured colonials. MIM believes it can make the correct argument about leadership and organization, while not backing down in trying to convince the broadest forces on the outside that all captured colonials are held captive for political reasons -- and therefore the institution itself is illegitimate.

According to both essays, the main pitfalls of believing all prisoners are political are implied integrationism and bourgeois nationalism. "Transforming" argues that to ignore differences among the oppressed nation prisoners (between revolutionaries and drug dealers, for example) is to only evaluate the oppressed in relation to the oppressor -- hence implying only the need for reform of the system and integration into it:

"[If] We only see ourselves as opposed to the oppressor . . . the implications of this view are that We only perceive a reform of the oppressor's system, so that We'll be treated 'the same' and with 'equality' with the oppressor and the masses in the oppressor nation. Such a view is not revolutionary, and runs counter to other ideo-theoretical and political lines rooted in a colonial perspective, and aim toward independence and state power -- the building of a nation, based on class analysis of the colonized people."

The political nature of colonialism is a given for the essay, whereas it maintains: "we won't begin the journey of nation BUILDING without an analysis of our own internal, colonial, social structure." 

"Transforming" is correct that resolving these internal contradictions is essential to nation-building in the sense of developing an oppressed nation into a liberated nation. In a revolutionary nationalist struggle, the proletarian feminist line must lead -- over the national bourgeoisie and over the lumpen ideology. But here MIM criticizes the essay on strategic grounds. Building a nation means going beyond an analysis of the internal dynamics of the social structure -- to actively incorporating social prisoners into the struggle. The question of leadership can be a separate one, but a social prisoner's position in relation to imperialism should be evaluated and understood in terms of the oppressor before it is criticized in relation to the oppressed. Before national liberation and self-determination, the commonality of condition among the oppressed nation is principal over the internal contradictions of the nation. Maoism and dialectics teach us that internal contradictions determine the character of the revolutionary struggle. Emphasizing the difference between, rather than the commonality among, prisoners with an established political practice and "social prisoners" weights that character too heavily against the masses. The oppressed, in other words, have more to gain at this stage of the struggle by stressing that all imprisonment is a political phenomenon, and more to lose by pitting prisoners against each other.

In "Transforming" the author argues that one category for all prisoners as "political" liquidates "the status of Political Prisoners and Prisoners of War, thus, in the same process, liquidating the politics behind the struggle for national liberation" and therefore represents bourgeois nationalism. But we believe that the best road forward for revolutionary nationalism involves uniting all who can be united, and bringing out common interests where they truly exist.

The essay is also concerned that unless we make a distinction between revolutionary actions and acts of rebellion against unjust conditions (the actions of the lumpen, or crime), we will not distinguish between the goal of the former (national independence) and the result of the latter (bourgeois civil rights). It argues that while crime may be perceived as revolutionary in some ways, since it negatively reflects oppressive property relations: 

"If we were to leave the objective analysis/understanding of the economic basis for 'crime' and proceed no further, we end up legitimizing the dope pushers in our communities, the pimps and other backward, reactionary elements who engage in such activity because of the circumstances caused by the present economic order."(4)

MIM does not say "free all prisoners now," because we do believe that some prisoners should and will make self-criticism for their actions under a socialist regime. Elsewhere, MIM has defended imprisonment and self-criticism as it has been practiced by proletarians in socialist China.(5) But "Transforming" goes too far with this concern, and ends up isolating the lumpen element under the reactionary definitions of crime. Consequently, it commits the worse error of implying that the (anti-social) crimes of the oppressed are worse than the crimes of the oppressor. MIM believes that in the course of building public opinion, emphasizing that all imprisonment is substantively political is more important than criticizing the lumpen element at this time.

Along the same lines, both "Transforming" and "Clarity" are concerned that a blurred distinction between rebels against oppressive conditions and political prisoners leads to a reformist idea of change -- and insists that only those actions which question the oppressor's right to rule have transcended the criminal mentality -- a necessary requisite for building a nation and a revolution. Only prisoners who have made this leap are political prisoners, they say.

MIM believes that this position is essentially undialectical. As Leninists, MIM understands the role of revolutionary leadership and the distinction between rebellion and revolution. We apply this distinction to maters of party-building. But in the case of prisoners, MIM is not facing prisoners as a static population, but is actively organizing, distributing revolutionary study material to, and struggling with "ordinary" prisoners. So we are more concerned with applying revolutionary leadership to an overwhelmingly revolutionary population than we are concerned that we will confuse people into thinking we are elevating rebellious attitudes to revolutionary status. And as A New York Prisoner points out in the accompanying article, if consciousness rather than material conditions was principal then oppressed people who did not think they were oppressed would not be.

The Material Basis for Crime

We have unity with "Transforming" (quoting Comrade George Jackson) that crime results from "grossly disproportionate distribution of wealth and privilege." While the authors rightly caution not to take Jackson to mean that the material (objective) causes of crime also automatically "cause" revolution, they do not sufficiently explain what creates the necessary subjective conditions for revolution. 

MIM argues that only through the smashing of imperialism and the building of a just society in which groups do not oppress groups will we eradicate crime. "Clarity" argues that "the only way to prevent crime among us is to make a conscious decision to liberate the nation and establish among ourselves a more equitable distribution of wealth and privilege." Here it sounds as though they mean to eradicate crime through conscious decision before the revolution and consequent altering of material conditions. Although we can probably expect crime to decrease during the national liberation struggle, as evidenced by such developments as the gang truce following the 1992 Los Angeles rebellion, MIM emphasizes that it is the changed conditions that will eliminate the material basis for crime -- and that only through organization and discipline will we achieve the power to make those changes. Asserting our leadership, and defending imprisoned leaders is key to this struggle -- as is an analysis of the whole system that incorporates all prisoners into a potentially revolutionary population.
Notes:
1. Toward Clarity on CC's, PP's, and POW's, by Y.Y. Shanna.
2. Catherine MacKinnon, Feminism Unmodified, p.88.
3. Toward Clarity on CC's, PP's, and POW's.
4. "On Transforming the Colonial and 'Criminal' Mentality." Reprinted from New Afrikan P.O.W. Journal, Book Seven, Spear and Shield Publications. 1340 W. Iriving Park Road, Suite 108, Chicago, IL 60613.
5. See Prisoners of Liberation by Adele and Allyn Rickett.
6. On Transforming the Colonial and "Criminal" Mentality.

Who Are the Political Prisoners

This is a compilation by the editor of two essays on the subject by A New York Prisoner - ed.

by A New York Prisoner

"The ultimate expression of law is not order -- it's prison. There are hundreds upon hundreds of prisons, and thousands upon thousands of laws, yet there is no social order, no social peace. Anglo-Saxon law is tied firmly into economics. . . . The law and everything that interlocks with it was constructed for poor, desperate people like me."(1)

In "Toward clarity on CCs, PPs and POWs," Y.Y. Shanna attempts to separate prisoners into three different groups: Captured Colonials, Political Prisoners and Prisoners of War. These are defined thus:

"1) Captured Colonials -- are the mass general prison populations which Afrikans compromise.
"2) Political Prisoner -- one who has made and acts on a conscious political decision to change the present state of property relations. . . . Political prisoners are those arrested, framed and otherwise imprisoned because of relatively peaceful political activity against the oppressive conditions of the people. Political prisoners are also those captured colonials inside the walls who have adopted a 'revolutionary mentality' and become political active.
"3) Prisoner of War -- Afrikans who have been imprisoned as a result of their having taken up arms or otherwise engaged in acts of organized revolutionary violence against the u.s. imperialist state. . . . We also regard as prisoners of war those captured colonials and political prisoners who consciously (or otherwise) commit acts of revolutionary violence while behind the walls. . ."(2)

The author of this paper says all Afrikans are POWs and PPs, but only relation to the oppressor nation; only those who understand/partake/recognize the nature of their oppression are truly worthy of being labeled a political prisoner or prisoner of war, as the three above-mentioned criteria point out.

"Men have constantly made up for themselves false conceptions about themselves, about what they are and what they ought to be. . . . Once upon a time an honest fellow had the idea that men were drowned in water only because they were obsessed with the idea of gravity. If they were to knock this idea out of their heads, say by stating it to be a superstition, a religious idea, they would be sublimely proof against any danger from water. His whole life long he fought against the illusion of gravity, of whose harmful results all statistics brought him new and manifold evidence."(3)

But Y.Y. Shanna does just this: one becomes a political prisoner by an act of self-perception, and as long as a prisoner remains ignorant we cannot call that prisoner a political prisoner! 

We must understand that under the current conditions classes are constant while the people who occupy them aren't. People can commit class, national or gender suicide, but this does not negate the entire class, nation or gender that they came from. If Y.Y. Shanna is ready to say that consciousness determines your status then those who think they aren't oppressed would be free form oppression.

According to the author, "the only way to prevent crime among us is to make a conscious decision to liberate the nation." Eureka! Our solution to crime is to simply change our minds, we need not even fight! This is all wrong and reeks of idealism. "Crime" develops under specific conditions, not due to a frame of mind but due to the material conditions that give shape to the frame of mind. The author recognizes that objectively all prisoners are political prisoners when s/he says, "Yeah, all Afrikans are POWs and PPs whether inside or outside of kamps" -- but then goes on to say that "all these simply point out the objective colonial relationship" and that "the objective existence of Afrikan peoples' enslavement over three centuries ago don't alone make for national liberation."

But the colonial relationship does make these political prisoners, whether they yet know it or not. The objective conditions give rise to the necessity for national liberation struggle, and make it possible. We recognize that it is the objective conditions that give rise to the subjective and no mysterious soul, spirit or God that allows us to think the way we do. So when one negates the objective one falls right into the pit of idealism or simply resorts to irrelevant psychobabble. The author claims to be making "an analysis of the colony's social structure, " but in reality the author is making an analysis of the subjective structure while negating the objective reality. The author is right when s/he says that we need "an analysis of our own internal colonial structure, " and MIM has begun to do this.(4)

Just because there are compradors who may commit a class suicide does not mean that the comprador class does not exist. We must define the classes of the internal colonies according to their relationship to the U.S. Empire. Just as every Black birth is a political birth, all prisoners are political prisoners as a group, due to the conditions of national oppression under which their position is imposed. 

Y.Y. Shanna makes the statement that "If we continue to see nothing but 'All Afrikans are POW's and PPs', we'll end up struggling against imperialism, but not necessarily for national liberation." This is totally incorrect, it's utterly backward. By only recognizing a few individuals as only PO's and PP's, then we will only be struggling against imperialism and not for national liberation, such as the Big Bourgeoisie does and those who have an otherwise national bourgeois mentality.

It's well known that the national bourgeois, such as the NAACP, Martin Luther King Jr. and other bourgeois integrationists and assimilationists, are those struggling against imperialism but not for national liberation. History has shown that genuine national liberation cannot be realized without a genuine Marxist-Leninist-Maoist organization leading it. The national bourgeoisie is incapable of leading the nation to genuine liberation. All the national bourgeoisie is capable of doing is struggling against one master in order to find another one. Witness Cuba, Algeria, Egypt, South Africa, etc., where there had been "national liberation" struggles but no national liberation.

These Sisyphus-like acts are part of the national bourgeoisie's bankruptcy. Such is various prison movements, they are struggling not against the injustice, abuse, oppression and exploitation of all prisoners but only for a selected few prisoners, as if these prisoners are special and merit more attention than the rest. By doing this, they are struggling against imperialism for certain people but not national oppression, or liberation as a whole. The revolution is put on stand-still in order to get a couple of individuals released, cases recognized, or injustice against those few individuals brought to attention. This is a form of bourgeois individualism.

There is a strong revolutionary potential in the broad majority of prisoners. True, there is an uneven development to revolution and some advance in revolutionary leadership, but those who are advanced in revolutionary science have a duty to transform the potential into kinetic. Lenin tells us that "we cannot -- nor can anybody else -- calculate exactly what portion of the proletariat is following and will follow the social-chauvinists and opportunists. This will only be revealed through struggle, it will be definitely decided only by the socialist revolution."(5)

Applied to prisoners of the oppressed nationalities it would say this:

"we cannot -- nor can anybody else -- calculate exactly what portion of the prison population will follow the reactionaries or become or are stool pigeons. This will only be revealed through organizing prisoners as a whole against imprisonment, imperialism, oppression and exploitation, it will be definitely decided through national liberation and scientific socialist revolution. In order to do this we must start by recognizing that all prisoners are political prisoners, and acting on this recognition.'"

There exists within the majority of prisoners a revolutionary potential due to the material conditions that they exist under. This revolutionary potential cannot become kinetic without the proper tools, one of which is leadership. How do we know that revolutionary potential exists with the majority of prisoners? Because, there is a material foundation for it. What is the material foundation? We all know the axiom, "repression breeds resistance." Well, this is all the more true in prison. To state a simply absolute: human consciousness develops from without to within -- i. .e from matter to mind, and not vice versa as some bourgeois oriented intellectuals tend to incorrectly think. Therefore the repression that exists against all prisoners exists "in its crude state, impetuous and compelling, in the consciousness and in the lives of the men and women who are imprisoned."

Everyone should know by now that prison is politics, it is part of the imperialistic policy of exploitation, oppression and domination over the internal colonies. It is true, as Y.Y. Shanna points out, that not all resistance is revolutionary; some resistance is retarded and not directed in a revolutionary manner. But this small truth does not negate the bigger truth that the revolutionary potential exists with the broad majority of prisoners and can only be realized through a broad based prison leadership movement that focuses on and gives support to the broad base of prisoners, not just a selected few. The prison population is a broad revolutionary movement waiting to occur.

When organizing workers for a strike we do not organize a few workers to strike, but all of them. This brings us to a statement of Y.Y. Shanna's that "the relations between imprisoned Afrikans, and imprisoned nationals of other oppressed nations, the nationals of the oppressor nation, are the same as those which exist outside."

I beg to dissent. On the outside members of the oppressor nations are a labor aristocracy, they are now forced to live with us under the same conditions as us. However, in prison they are forced to live with us, under the same conditions as us. Take for example various prison rebellions such as Lucasfille, where the fascists and Muslims united to put forward the same demands, quite the contrary on the outside. Have fascists united with Farrakhan for the Million Man March? Have they given support or unified with the oppressed nationalities against the things such as Prop 187? Of course not! Why? Because the material relationships are different on the outside than they are on the inside. And material relationships matter. Therefore this only proves that prison politicizes and we can righteously call all prisoners political prisoners.

let us take an example. When you have an electrical socked you will not know it has juice in it unless you test it, and in order to test it you need certain tools. As it exist the socket is potential energy, but it cannot be verified until it becomes kinetic energy. In order to realize this we must use testing tools such as an electrical tester, a metal object that is a conductor of electricity, or, if you are foolhardy, your tongue. When the fact that this socket has juice has been verified by these tools and actualized to the human senses it can no longer be called kinetic energy. So it is with prisoners, as stated earlier this potential does in actual fact exist but it can only become realized through genuine leadership. To just ignore and disregard the majority for the minority is incorrect. The revolution in Peru was not put on hold so they could develop a free Chairman Gonzalo movement. This would fall into individualism and subjectivity. This is not to say that leadership should be ignored, but that without the vast mobilization of the people both inside and outside the prison system leadership loses its meaning for existence.

By recognizing that all prisoners are political prisoners due to the existence of the material basis for this conclusion we will be more efficient in pumping life into the revolutionary movement. The experiment of mobilizing all those prisoners who can be mobilized can only benefit the revolutionary struggle and cause its advancement. The struggle must continue no matter where one finds themselves upon bourgeois-dominated soil. Let us dispense with the bourgeois notion that deals with a selected few individuals and instead deal with the revolutionary practice of mobilizing all prisoners against U.S. imperialism.

Death and destruction the U.S. Empire!

Birth and construction to the prison revolutionary movement!

Notes:
1. George Jackson, Blood in my Eye, p.85.
2. "Toward clarity on CCs, PPs and POWs," by Y.Y. Shanna.
3. Reader in Marxist Philosophy, Howard Selsam & Harry Martel, eds., p.321-322.
4. See MIM Theory 7, "Proletarian Feminist Revolutionary Nationalism on the Communist Road."
5. MIM Theory 7, p.42.