Federal Prisons

We often give updates on progress of the Communist Party of India (Maoist) in our strategic confidence column. Here we print an article by a comrade that gives a brief introduction to who they are, for those who don't know, and we follow up with some excerpts from a recent report from CPI(Maoist). - editor]

Half a century ago, India was in turmoil, with rebellions popping up in the countryside. One such being the Marxist-led food movement of 1965 and another being a peasant revolt in 1976 in a village in West Bengal called Naxalbari. This peasant revolt would later inspire a Maoist-led people's movement, which was named after the Naxalbari revolt, and inspired by Mao Zedong's model of agrarian reform. The rebels are today known as "Naxalites" by the locals; we know them as the Communist Party of India (Maoist) (CPI(Maoist)). Today they are leading the largest Maoist struggle in the world, liberating vast areas in the jungles, mountains, and the countryside from the neo-colonial regime of India.

The first Maoists to arrive in the jungles of Abujamarh in 1989 were largely petty-bourgeois revolutionaries and college students from the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh following a government crackdown on communists in the cities. It is here that the Naxalite cadres have taken up the people's struggle. In the depth of the jungles the Naxalites have found a new ally: the adivasi. Adivasi means "original people" and they are the First Nations within India, who number 84 million, or about 8.6% of the population. Today the Naxalite communist forces include not only the petty bourgeoisie and college students, but also very large numbers of revolutionaries from India's socially disadvantaged segment known as "the backward class." As a matter of fact, while the CPI(Maoist) was initially composed of various intellectuals from the cities, it is the admixture of the intellectuals with the peasants that has given the people's struggle new life and sustainability. As the struggle rages on it's the adivasi who have taken up leadership roles as CPI(Maoist) cadres, in particular the wimmin who, according to reports, now make up 60% of the Maoist top hierarchy.

In India's countryside, where 180 million exploited people survive on less than two dollars a day; where in poor rural areas like Abujmarh the farmers, peasants, and the poor can't even feed themselves; where children are malnourished and plagued by disease; the people have taken a revolutionary stand against national oppression. They have taken up Maoism. According to a recent National Geographic article, what kicked up the insurrection was newly elected Prime Minister Narendra Modi's attraction to the country's mineral wealth, which happens to be in the Naxalite territories. The coal reserves being the most attractive, the coal reserves (the fifth largest in the world) fuel the power plants that light up India's very distant metropolises. The company Central Coalfields Limited (CCL), a local subsidiary of Coal India Limited (CIL), has offered money to locals, jobs and other petty bribes in return for the locals' land. Some accepted the bribes, but I wonder for how long will they last? To the peasant farmers whose livelihood is linked to their land the state's bribes hold little attraction.

The bullshit money CCL offers will go as quick as it came and the petty jobs will not last forever. What then? The people want to keep their farmland to be able to feed their families. Many have resisted the capitalist encroachment, but some have been unable to resist the pressures from big business. Others have simply sold out. Since it became law in 1894, the Land Acquisition Act (a colonial legislation created to allow the bourgeoisie to seize land under the so-called principal of "eminent domain") has left millions without homes due to the state's mining activities. In response to this the Naxalites have established people's courts within both the disputed and liberated zones so that the masses can not only put the predatory land agents on trial, but the traitors as well. Such institutions of the oppressed are part of the building of dual power in India, where an emerging socialist state challenges the existing capitalist one. The people's courts follow in the traditions of the Bolshevik and Chinese revolutions. In particular the latter, after Japanese imperialism's defeat and liberation from both British and Amerikan imperialism. With these courts the targets of the masses were not only pro-Japanese landlords, but counter-revolutionaries as well.

When discussing political affairs, chiefly the oppression and exploitation of the Third World countries, people ask, what do you care? You're on the other side of the world. Well, as humyn beings we should care. What the Naxalite/adivasi struggle teaches is that without national liberation for self-determination of an oppressed nation, which should be led by a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist vanguard, imperialist oppression will never end. As anti-imperialists we are duty-bound to support the struggles of the oppressed against imperialism. The adivasi and other peasant masses are tired of foreign and domestic capital exploiting their people and their land. The adivasi struggle is our struggle! With unification of the masses, and with the correct leadership of the Maoist unity, victory is on the people's side.

excerpt from a March 2015 report from India:

"Overcoming innumerable obstacles and snatching initiative, PLGA fighters and urban action team combatants led by the Western Ghats Special Zonal Committee (WGSZC) of the CPI (Maoist) have opened up a new war­front in the State of Keralam, situated along the South Western coast of India... The necessity of taking up arms and advancing the revolutionary war as the true means to seize and secure the rights of the adivasis and other masses over the 'Land, water and forests' has been widely propagated through these actions.

"...These actions were carried out as part of a Politico­-Military Campaign (PMC) carried out over a three month period, from November 2014 till January 2015. The aim of the campaign was to prepare the masses for the revolutionary war, defeat the initiative and aggressiveness of the enemy armed forces and advance the revolutionary movement...

"The successful completion of the PMC marks a qualitative turn in the expansion of the people’s war led by the CPI (Maoist) in the country as well as an overcoming of the stagnation faced in the armed struggle initiated in the Western Ghats more than a decade ago in the Malnad region of Karnataka. Facing heavy repression, the party lost 16 of its valiant leaders and fighters, including comrades Saketh Rajan and Rajamouli (Secretaries of Karnataka State Committee) during this period, while striving to sink firm roots and advance the new democratic revolution by rallying the masses. Meanwhile, efforts to initiate the armed struggle in Tamil Nadu and Keralam too failed to get off, suffering grievous losses of comrades who were martyred in enemy attacks.

"...[Decades earlier] Wayanad was one of the main areas of revolutionary struggles in Keralam inspired by the armed peasant rebellion of Naxalbari... Keralam has a long history of communist activity and valiant armed struggles led by the communists. When the CPI leadership deviated into revisionism, rank and file comrades in different parts of the State started seeking a way forward. They were attracted to the fierce ideological struggle being waged against Khrushchev revisionism under the leadership of Mao Tsetung.

"Ever since then Maoist led revolutionary activities has been a regular feature of the political scene. A number of heroic armed actions were carried out successfully. Many militant mass struggles were organised. At different periods, youth and students came forward in large numbers to join the revolutionary movement and serve the people. Yet all these efforts did not lead to building a sustained and developing Maoist movement. All throughout these decades, the revolutionary movement was repeatedly derailed by wrong tendencies and rightist deviations.

"This was ruptured with in the early 1990s. On the one hand, a section of comrades rebelled against the revisionist line of K. Venu, rejected the theses that conditions in Keralam are not conducive for people’s war and went forward. This initiative would be one of the components forming the Maoist Unity Centre, CPI (M­L), along with comrades in Maharashtra, and then later, the CPI (M­L) NAXALBARI, uniting with revolutionaries led by the late comrade SA Rawoof. A group of comrades, who had formed a new centre, rebelling against CPI(M­L) Jana Shakthi rightist leadership, later merged with this. Meanwhile, sections who were disgusted with the right opportunism of the various M­L parties present in Keralam rebelled and joined the CPI (M­L) People’s War in the early 1990s, which later merged with the Maoist Communist Centre, India in 2004 to form the CPI (Maoist). They too set out to rubbish the revisionist theses of Keralam’s exclusivity. Both of these initiatives had been working independently towards initiating armed struggle."(4)

30 March 2015 - As ordered by the Federal government, the U.$. Army must reduce Amerika's active-duty soldier ranks by more than 40,000 by 2017. Recently, here in Alaska, a state which, since its colonization and subsequent possession by the United $tates, has been very heavily subsidized by government funding, large crowds of predominantly white petty-bourgeoisie turned out to demonstrate and rally against the military cuts. The reason? Some 10,000 troops and their families may leave the state, causing 1 billion dollars in losses to the state economy.(1) In other words, large groups of social parasites, living off the largess of their imperial overlord in Washington and the Pentagon, and the sub-parasites who feed off the primary parasites' existence, stand to lose their stable and guaranteed incomes and relatively high standards of living (gained mainly from the oppression and exploitation of the Third World and enforced by the same military) and may need to find other ways to support themselves.

The "Rally For Our Troops," attended by more than 400 people, was organized by Anchorage, Alaska-based business, civic and municipal organizations and was aimed at sparing cuts to Anchorage's joint base Elmendorf-Richardson and Fort Wainwright in Fairbanks. Alaska has more veterans per capita than any other state, and in the so-called "worst-case scenario," as many as 10,800 troops and 19,000 dependents could be forced to depart, amounting to a loss of about 4 percent of Alaska's population.(1) This is not surprising, as some estimates place the amount of the working population associated with government employment as high as 60%.

Of course, the event began with a resounding display of the imperialists' early indoctrination and brainwashing of the young through a performance of a local middle school's Drum Corps and Flag Team, accompanied by hundreds of others waving little Amerikan flags and cheering. After the initial show, the discussion began around convincing the four-person army committee present of the "strategic importance" of the main unit (4th brigade/25th infantry combat team).

The local community concern over losing Army Combat Brigades is economic. It could cost the state 1 billion dollars in economic impact, according to Bill Popp, Anchorage Economic Development corporation President and one of the rally coordinators.(1) That, along with the expected population decrease aforementioned, is the overriding concern for businesses and many concerned participants. Hence, we are here confronted with a major historic and pernicious problem with such outlooks: that being the insipid and persistent factor of self-interest and economic dependence of a large percentage of the Amerikan labor aristocracy on the continuation and preservation of imperialism and its most oppressive and pervading manifestation, the military industrial complex.

The labor aristocracy's support of imperialism coupled with the strategic concerns of the ruling class in perpetuating global capitalist domination via military and political power are two of the biggest foes of the international proletariat in achieving socialist revolution and change in the world today. The front-line defense of any existing, regular administration and order of imperialist rule is its police and regular army, and will be deployed against the will of the revolution when it comes. It will undoubtedly obey its political and economic masters. History is replete with examples of the U.$. military being unleashed not only on the international proletariat to further the interests of the imperialists in their unceasing quest for strategic domination and natural resource/labor exploitation, but also on internal colony repression and domestic discontent control. The U.$. military, just as much as the prison system, is an inherent and vital mechanism for social control and the protection of the established order.

Historical instances abound around the world where the military and U.$. troops were used to break workers' strikes, put down political and social demonstrations, and help corporate power exploit and repress the working class and quash popular discontent with governmental policy. Often times they use quite brutal and violent means and tactics, including blatant murder of citizens, armed or not. Troops have also been used to entrench and enforce racial and economic inequality and conserve the status quo.

To illustrate a few examples of domestic military oppression: from very early on, continuing right through to almost the mid-20th century and including sporadic examples even in the present day, the military was very frequently called out to suppress and eliminate labor disputes and strikes all over the United $tates at the bidding of their corporate masters in Washington. This occurred primarily in the days when a true economic and political proletariat existed within the U.$. borders. One example of this type of domestic military oppression was the infamous "Ludlow Massacre" of 1914, in which the Colorado Fuel and Iron Corporation, owned by the Rockefeller family, used murder, beatings, imprisonments and gun attacks to break the strike of thousands of deplorably-exploited foreign-born miners, employing the Army National Guard to do so. At one point, the National Guard opened fire with machine guns on an encampment housing hundreds of women and children, which resulted in the deaths of 11 children and 2 wimmin after the Guard set fire to their tents with torches.(2) Less than 60 years later, another Rockefeller was responsible for the brutal Attica prison massacre, once against perpetrated by the Army National Guard.(3)

During the civil rights era, military attacks occurred against Black demonstrators repeatedly, such as happened in Watts, Los Angeles, Detroit and Chicago, with numerous accounts of brutality committed on peaceable demonstrators and even mere bystanders. In Ohio, college students demonstrating against the imperialist Vietnam War were mowed down by Federal troops. The list of such barbaric and repressive actions against U.$. citizens by military agencies is far too long to include here, but just these few examples should show succinctly how willing and ready U.$. military forces can and will be in violently confronting anyone who poses any challenge to the Amerikan status quo and imperialist agenda.

Even soldiers themselves can become victims of imperialist greed. In both the Vietnam and Iraq wars thousands of veterans were for years denied medical care or even recognition of numerous insidious maladies, many life-threatening, resulting from munitions or chemicals used by the military in those wars: Agent Orange in Vietnam, uranium=tipped shells and inoculations for chemical warfare in Iraq, and other causes of "Gulf War Syndrome" in Iraq. Of course, all this says nothing for the countless thousands of indigenous victims of these brutal wars of imperialist oppression, many civilians and children, who get no help at all from the Amerikan government since such statistics aren't kept by the Pentagon.

The imperialists create new threats and dangers to justify ongoing funding to the already enormous Amerikan military. The "Cold War" and the "War on Terror" are just two examples of these excuses for maintaining a hugely bloated military establishment. As leftist political commentator Noam Chomsky wrote: "the appeal to security is largely fraudulent, the Cold War framework having been employed as a device to justify the suppression of independent nationalism - whether in Europe, Japan or the Third World." As Maoists, we recognize that it includes the suppression of internal colonies within the United $tates as well.

Of course, the biggest threat to any revolutionary movements is the standing army, which reactionary and counter-revolutionary factions and governments will not hesitate to use, unleashing military personnel and arms against citizens who pose any threat or challenge to the establishment. As was seen in the 1917 Russian Revolution, reactionary generals such as Kornilov and Kaledin initiated counter-revolutionary attacks against the newly-formed Soviets, and the Western imperialist powers inserted military forces in an intervention aimed at undermining the socialists and keeping Russia embroiled in the inter-imperialist world war.(4)

Revolutionary activists need to confront rallies like the one held in Anchorage with their own counter-rallies opposing military spending and maintenance. Those under lock and key can write letters and send petitions to representatives, suggesting more funds be spent for educational, nutritional or medical programs for the dispossessed and recently-imprisoned as opposed to military funding. Any opposition to military expenditure and activity is desirable as first steps toward the future of socialism in imperialist Amerika. Don't let the official, unceasing propaganda in the media (i.e., ISIS, Russia/Putin, etc) fool anyone - the imperialist military establishment needs to be opposed at all levels and through all possible endeavors by all committed socialists, even if it conflicts with relations to family members who may be enlisted. Every dollar spent on military funding should be seen as one less morsel for food, one less book or pen, or one less dose of life-saving medicine for the world’s proletariat. And now with imperialist defenders and lap dogs like Representative John Boehner asking for increased funding for military and "national security" in the face of the continuing "ISIS" farce and propaganda, and U.$. Senator Dan Sullivan proclaiming that "he who owns Alaska owns the entire world" (statements from U.$. politicians don't get more imperialist-minded than that!), we can see that the Amerikan imperialists will continue to use any excuse to perpetuate the money pit and pig sty that is the U.$. military establishment and its presence both domestic and abroad. Socialists everywhere must hold it as among the highest priorities to organize and act against this greatest of threats to humynity and equality.

MIM(Prisons) responds: This writer does a good job explaining the importance of opposing the U.$. military and the reasons why so many Amerikans support this imperialist army. S/he proposes that we take action by demanding that the money currently funding the military be instead used to help provide food, medicine and education for the international proletariat. As a goal for improving the lives of the world's people we certainly agree. But we do not see this as a winnable battle under imperialism. As the author explains, the Amerikan military is a tool of U.$. imperialism: it's purpose is to keep the people around the world in line so that imperialist corporations can exploit the workers and steal the natural resources. This colonialism is fundamental to the economic model of imperialism. Calling on the Amerikan government to voluntarily redirect military funds to the very people that military is helping to oppress and exploit is not a battle we can win with words alone.

It will take the forcible overthrow of the imperialist government before they will lay down their weapons and give up their wealth. History has shown this time and again: peaceful revolutions are not really revolutions at all. By playing their game and asking kindly for the government to redirect military funds to humanitarian needs we give the imperialists the chance to pretend they are actually working in the interests of the people. We should not mislead people into thinking this is possible. Any so-called humanitarian work by the imperialists is just a cover for their brutal militarism.

This author is correct: "Every dollar spent on military funding should be seen as one less morsel for food, one less book or pen, or one less dose of life-saving medicine for the world’s proletariat." The urgency of the situation can not be overstated, people around the world are dying while Amerikans are rallying for expansion of the imperialist military.

En realidad, la celebración de Agosto Negro debería ser todo el año. Solo nosotros(as) podemos hacer que esto cambie. Carter G. Woodson es el creador de la semana de historia Afro-Americana (Black history week), y 50 años después tenemos mes de historial Afro-Americana (Black history month). Para los(as) que no tienen conocimiento de Agosto Negro, este mes se celebran a los(as) "luchadores(as) de libertad." El color de la piel es irrelevante. Te amo hermana Marilyn Buck (descansa en poder), Lolita Lebron (descansa en poder), y Silvia Berrideni, entre otras que no eran de color negro. Pero ellas eran negras. Porque para el(a) oprimido(a) de cualquier nacionalidad, negro no es un color.

Negro es un establecimiento creado para proteger los derechos civiles de uno(a). Negro es valentía. Negro es motivación propia para ganar. Negro es visión. Negro es respeto. Negro es amor. Negro es lealtad. Negro es unidad. Negro es orgullo. Negro(a) eres tu! Además y más importante, negra soy yo!

Colectivamente, estas expresiones de cariño negras somos nosotros(as) (por ejemplo, soldados unidos y soldadas unidas). Por esto creo que Agosto Negro, la celebración de luchadores(as) de libertad, debería ser todo el año.

En preparación para esta celebración, estoy llamando a todos los(as) camaradas que escojan a un(a) luchador(a) de libertad de su preferencia y sometan una redacción de 250 palabras de su escogido(a) luchador(a) de libertad, escribe porque lo(a) selecionaste y el impacto que éste(a) luchador(a) de libertad tuvo en tí. En solidaridad con Bajo Llave y Candado (BLC), (Under Lock & Key en inglés) estoy llamando a todos(as) los(as) leyentes de BLC que participen. Aunque cada artículo no sea publicado por limitaciones financieras y por espacio, su participación no será ignorada. Fortalezcamos a la voz de BLC. Porque si somos considerados la voz de BLC y no la fortalecemos, ¿quién lo hará?

La unidad es una herramienta poderosa cuando es aplicada adecuadamente. Unámosnos en vez de destruirnos.

El MIM(Prisiones) añade: Decidimos aceptar la llamada de este camarada para la presentación de redacciones de luchadores(as) de libertad todo el año, anunciandola durante Agosto Negro y siguiendo con la publicación de redacciones sometidas por leyentes de BLC en futuros ejemplares. De importancia particular en esta llamada, es el entendimiento que todos(as) los(as) prisioneros(as) son prisioneros(as) políticos(as) y por eso no solo identificamos a luchadores(as) de libertad como personas que fueron famosas por su activismo político antes de que fueron puestos(as) bajo llave y candado. En cambio, sugerimos que piensen de prisioneros(as) que te han influido en una manera positiva, incluyendo esos(as) que no han escrito libros o recibido atención por la prensa. Celebremos a todos(as) los(as) luchadores(as) de libertad y esforcemosnos en ser luchadores(as) de libertad nosotros(as) mismos(as).

Science keeps us grounded in reality; it helps us proceed and understand the way things are. The opposite of science would be faith, a hunch, or metaphysical concepts in general. As revolutionaries we use the scientific method to make decisions on how we interact with the world we live in. The scientific method relies on observation and experimentation with the world that we live in so that we fully understand it and thus transform it.

Science, then, is a tool which helps us make the proper decisions and enables scientific leadership, focused on truth and reality. Scientific leadership allows for one to percieve truth because one studies hystorical events which have been tested and experimented with. Learning from all of this allows scientific leadership to make real power moves which advance the people, as opposed to decisions based on idealism or lofty visions.

What Does Scientific Leadership Look Like?

How much leadership can accomplish depends on whether it is scientific leadership or not. For example, scientific leadership in a political movement must study the world's hystorical movements to see what in hystory has worked, which social experiments have been successful and which have not.

By studying movements and revolutions one would know better than to invest time and programs on Trotskyism because one would quickly see that it has yet to liberate a people anywhere in the world. Science shows that Maoism was most successful because, among other things, it teaches that even after a nation is liberated class struggle continues — even after socialist revolution. Understanding this will reveal why nations such as Vietnam flip-flopped back to capitalism after liberation; it's because the leadership were not Maoists and did not accept that class struggle continues. In short they did not have scientific leadership.

Within prisons it becomes easy to stray off the path of science because in so many ways our methods for surviving in these dungeons and the ways we cope with an unbearable existence may not be anchored in our best interests. Because we are placed in survival mode by the state the minute we are imprisoned it becomes easy to try to come up at another prisoner's expense, but this method is incorrect and parasitic.

When we study hystory we learn that people around the world did not liberate themselves and their people by preying on other similarly situated or oppressed people. They did so by struggling together for their collective interests. One cannot at the same time exploit their own people and free them. Attempting to advance one's own people in order to better exploit them amounts to bourgeois nationalism. This is not scientific leadership because it means the leadership did not learn from hystorical cases of bourgeois revolutions.

Studying revolutionary nationalism reveals what scientific leadership looked like for oppressed nations. Mao's China gave us the greatest example of this so far. But Mao used science to continuously break ground and lead the social forces out of the woods of ignorance and dead-end politics. As he put it:

"Natural science is one of man's weapons in his fight for freedom. For the purpose of attaining freedom in society, man must use social science to understand and change society and carry out social revolution. For the purpose of attaining freedom in the world of nature man must use natural science to understand, conquer and change nature and thus attain freedom from nature."(1)

A scientific leadership should ensure that its people are a politically educated people. To monopolize on knowledge and hoard education within a chosen few means that should these leaders get slammed down in the hole or control unit the masses become lost. This is why educating the people is something that should be constantly focused on. Building cadre is investing in a movement's future.

Can the People be Led Without Science?

Prison can be a brutal environment. In the old days it was the most brutal who rose to the top of the heap and led, although it may have been down a dead-end road. Without understanding who is oppressing you, the oppressor will not only continue to oppress you, but you'll end up focusing on those who are not oppressing you. You consequently never dig yourself out of the hole that you don't even realize you are in.

Unfortunately the people can be, and in many cases are, led by unscientific leadership. The prison rebellion in Santa Fe, New Mexico was a concrete example of what happens when leadership is not based in the scientific method. Violence and parasitism are promoted rather than steering the people toward liberation. Lumpen organizations (LOs) that are not scientific will more often than not be swayed to lumpen-on-lumpen crime. They are not looking at their social reality from political lenses and instead they will look more to immediate needs and self-gratification. This is the breeding ground for escapism and individualism. This does nothing to combat the oppressor and almost always reinforces national oppression.

Unscientific leadership is not a revolutionary leadership. It is not for the people's real interest and will never get past making a little money here and there and gaining some recognition from those in prisons and other lumpen, while never rebuilding their nation or contributing to freeing their nation.

This means that people will be led, but it will be down a path which leads nowhere productive. If anything, it is a path which helps destroy their own people. Their goals will remain in self-destructive behavior which works alongside the state in many ways. The un-scientific approach ends up being an enabler to the state and one's very own national oppression. One essentially ends up tying the knots for our oppressor which binds us, helpless and vulnerable.

So What is Scientific Leadership For?

Ultimately people are led towards a goal. Scientific leadership is communist and working toward liberating oppressed people. Prisoners within U.$. borders are mostly from the internal semi-colonies, so for us scientific leadership works toward independence from Amerikkka. All of our decisions as a scientific leadership should be with the intent of inching closer to our goal of liberating our nation(s) and obtaining complete independence.

Emancipation will take work, but prisoners can contribute in many ways. Scientific leaders within U.$. prisons should first identify their political hystory and who they are as a nation. This means guiding one's flock to also understand who they are and to become politically educated. Independent institutions need to be created, which includes revolutionary publications. Those who are already politically conscious need to be harnessed so that they can be political instructors for those who do not yet grasp their political reality. Liberation schools need to be created, and better relations with others who are similarly situated and oppressed need to be coordinated.

Outside political institutions also need to be created which help link people outside prison walls with our imprisoned struggles for justice in these concentration camps. We can still hustle in prisons, but our hustles should not oppress others and our hustles should not be for our own come up, but for building our revolutionary movement.

At the end of the day the role of the imprisoned scientific leadership is to transform prisons, to revolutionize the prisons. Our aim is freedom. We cannot shy away from the very real contradictions that exist within the lumpen population. There is a lot of work to do, but things are changing and the imprisoned lumpen are becoming more and more conscious. This is reflected in many things, from more frequent prison uprisings, more imprisoned revolutionary organizations springing up, more prison theoreticians developing ideology, and most importantly more lumpen unity behind prison walls. All of this and more points to the imprisoned lumpen acquiring more scientific leadership. Imprisoned revolutionaries should help accelerate these developments because this is what all LOs originated for in the beginning, for their people to be free from oppression behind prison walls.

As early as October 2012, the administrators of California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) have relentlessly advocated to the public how the step-down program (SDP) is an improvement upon the gang validation policies/practices that previously existed. But history informs us that any mantra of change being presented by the powers that be means more of the same, literally.

On a day in March 2015, I was the sole prisoner transferred out of Corcoran SHU via special transportation, as the warden issued some type of "special order" for me to be housed at CCI Tehachapi SHU. I have yet to see this "special order." I'm not going to get into the litany of horrendous living conditions that exist here at this point and time, however, I've witnessed countless prisoners be issued bogus rule violation reports (CDC 115 RVRs) and then coerced to start over and repeat the step that they were just in. This subjects the prisoner to being interned to indefinite solitary confinement status once again, as there are no mechanisms in place that would prohibit and/or prevent this process from reoccurring. It's nothing more than the same old barbaric and dehumanizing gang validation policies and practices.

For example, the most prominent reason for prisoners being issued CDC 115 RVRs is because their name has been found in a "kite" that was written by another prisoner. Not only is this contrary to our primary 5 core demands from the mass hunger strikes, in relation to behavior-based "individual accountability," but it is also contrary to the new SDP policy. In particular, CDCR memorandum dated 9 August 2013 states in part on page 4:

"At times this information includes a list of names or other personal information being found in another offender's possession that has some nexus to STG activity or behavior. During the DRB reviews, the offender whose name is simply on the list (versus the individual being in actual possession of the list) will not be held accountable for the contents."

But wait, it gets even better my people. While at Corcoran, counter-intelligence officer S. Niehus searched my personal legal property in February 2015 and stole ("confiscated") my legal exhibits for active legal cases under the false premise of it being gang-related contraband. In my first level 602 appeal interview with Institutional Gang Investigator Sergeant Pierce, he told me:

"Corcoran's litigation office has confirmed [your] active legal cases and that the confiscated materials were indeed legal exhibits for said court cases, but he is going to retain possession of them, as CDCR has deemed the materials to be gang-related contraband per CCR Title 15 Section 3378."

It can't be both ways! Either they're legal exhibits or not. This type of subjective rationale makes it fundamentally impossible to challenge these bogus allegations of gang activity, because no sooner do we get evidence that refutes these ridiculous allegations, it is then stolen under the falsity of being gang-related. How is this not more of the same old policies and practices? But more importantly, how can we win under these circumstances? It is imperative that the people send letters and emails to M.D. Stainer, Susan Hubbard, Scott Kernan and others in CDCR's headquarters in Sacramento, California to voice your outrage on this contradiction.

MIM(Prisons) adds: In the meantime, we will also fight from the angle of publicizing these abuses via our independent media resources (Under Lock & Key and prisoncensorship.info). We also fight injustice by offering educational materials and study groups to raise the political understanding of anyone with an interest in putting a permanent end to false imprisonment, torture via inhumane long-term isolation, and an oppressive state and military which tries to bully the entire world. The more we understand our oppression, the better equipped we will be to fight against it effectively.

I am writing to add on to the article that you ran in the January/February 2015 edition of Under Lock & Key, titled "Texas Hides Grievance Manual." Frank Hoke also has it that once you sign in to the law library, we are not allowed to leave and go to the bathroom the entire session. If we do go, we have to put everything up, leave our legal material in the law library, go to the restroom, and when we come back we have to sit by the door doing nothing until count clears. We have not been able to find this in any directive and since we cannot find it or it is not listed in the new January 2015 edition of the Offender Orientation Handbook (of which I have the only copy on this unit, since my family printed it off the TDCJ website). We are going to fight it since this policy is denying us our access to the courts. Also in the new orientation handbook, it states that the law library is to be open for one session on Saturdays, and this does not happen. I am going to work on that since it denies us access to the courts.

Another issue that we have reported on over the years has been that of police brutality, and in particular police killings. In recent years, this too has emerged as a flashpoint issue. After many incidents that provoked local and ongoing responses, Ferguson took it to another level, and now Baltimore has further pushed the issue and begun to draw lines in the sand.

Just as the state attacked the anti-SHU movement for being a bunch of gangbangers just looking out for themselves, the question of oppressed nation unity across lumpen organizations has come to the forefront in Ferguson and Baltimore. In Baltimore, the Nation of Islam held a press conference with members of Blood and Crip organizations that led to a lot of press coverage. During the uprising, those organizations were on the streets protecting New Afrikan-owned businesses and community members. As they attempted to show their ability to do for their community what the police claimed but failed to do, the state tried to paint them as a bunch of cop killers in the media.

A controversial hypothesis that we have put forth is that we should look to the oppressed nation lumpen and lumpen organizations to find a mass base for revolutionary organizing in the United $tates. We see the social forces involved in the struggles against long-term isolation and police killing as providing evidence in support of this hypothesis. We have looked at this question in depth and think there is enough evidence to support this as a valid scientific theory. One source of confirmation we get from this is the support we get from the oppressed nation lumpen. One comrade from Baltimore wrote to us further illuminating the connection between our prison work and the anti-police movement today:

"I am a former eminent member of the 5-Deuce Hoover Crips in the Northeast region of Baltimore city. Currently, I am serving out a long prison sentence in Maryland. I am writing to you in regards to the riots and the looting and the unorganized protest that took place 27 April 2015. I can't say that I'm surprised, nor can I say I seen it coming; but you must know that if the melee on April 27 didn't happen when it did, it still would have taken place somewhere further down the line. Do I condone the actions of misled, poorly-educated youth and mindless adults during the date of Freddie Gray's burial? No, I do not!

"I knew Freddie personally so know his death is agonizing and he'll be missed. It is such a crying shame it took the misplaced anger and rage of Baltimore's youth to get the governor, mayor, city's councilpeople, etc. off their hindparts to 'work actively' with the protestors and conduct an investigation of Freddie Gray's death. Every big shot wants to say how good of a city Baltimore is, yet the justice system is corrupt, and our 'city leaders' are corrupt...

"There is good in Balti but those ghettos around the realm of the city are truculent. Not because there's direct destruction, but because right now it is the blind leading the blind. Those same misled youth who rioted April 27 will soon grow to be adults who will be misleading the next generation. Baltimore city needs help, in its ghettos and its prisons. In short, legislation has to make some changes with its shielding of police who break the law and violate the rights of the civilians."

Certainly there is much to be done in all areas where there is mass opposition to police brutality. And we do not see any possible solution from a state whose interests the police are serving. The struggle to transform spontaneous uprisings into long-term organizing is one that the movement has faced for decades. The increase in frequency and size of such uprisings is the quantitative change in this contradiction between the oppressed nations and the imperialist state. The transformation from spontaneous to organized, concerted movements is the qualitative change that must happen to keep the struggle advancing. And the lumpen organizations themselves must transform in order to play an effective leadership role in that process.

Some in the oppressed nations are frustrated with the slow pace of change. No doubt there have been a lot of peace treaties and calls from lumpen organizations to be forces for the community that have not always panned out to be all that we had hoped for. But just as there were countless uprisings to overthrow slavery before enough quantitative change had occurred in society to be successful, we are now in a stage where we see many efforts to form national unity in New Afrika and to politicize lumpen organizations. These efforts are part of the quantitative change that has not yet made a qualitative leap to a new stage of struggle. This is a process that faces setbacks from state interference, but also responds to state interference with further radicalization and mobilization.

Another sign that the movement is advancing is that lines are being drawn between enemies and friends. It is becoming clear that many who claim to oppose racism and police brutality actually care more about private property and business as usual. So the progressive facade of these forces is being torn off as they come face-to-face with the unrefined reality of mass uprisings. But just as those false friends become alienated from the struggle against police killings, the masses who have a real interest in change will become energized by a movement as it becomes more real and relatable.

Becoming more real requires having an analysis of the situation that is based in materialism; that is real. The more our analysis reflects reality and is able to harness the forces of change that are present, the more support we will gain from those forces of change. Many people are still stuck in metaphysical ways of thinking. They think this is just the way things are and they will never change. Such people conclude that the best thing to do is to try to avoid conflict with the oppressor, keep your head down and just try to get by.

The dominant Amerikan analysis is also metaphysical and misleads the masses who might otherwise be supportive of dialectical materialist analysis. Racism is a metaphysical view of sociology. Using an individualist approach to sociological questions, or replacing psychology for sociology, is also metaphysical. Sociology studies groups of humyns and can be used to predict how they will behave; psychology studies individual humyns and attempts to predict how they will behave. The metaphysical line goes that there are bad cops and there are bad people who go to the protests. These bad people must be rooted out and punished. As sociologists, we disagree, as this does not address the source of the conflict.

The racist version is that these looters are thugs who have nothing to do with Gray. If we look at history, these types of occurrences in similar communities in the United $tates are almost always in the response to the killing of New Afrikans by the U.$. state. This would lead the scientific mind to develop a hypothesis that there is some connection between the two. To test this hypothesis we could search history for incidents when large groups of people loot stores when there wasn't a New Afrikan killed. If we find few-to-no examples of this, and find many examples of the first situation, we might raise our hypothesis to a theory, that can be used as a predictive tool.

In contrast, Amerikans say the people in Baltimore who looted stores are opportunists, using the protests as an excuse to act out their real goals. Like getting some free Doritos is a higher priority for them than getting justice for the countless New Afrikans who have faced abuse and murder under Amerikan occupation. Such a nihilistic view is almost laughable. But let's entertain it a little further. If we are to oppose this position, we should propose a better explanation for the behavior of many of the youth in Baltimore recently. As our comrade wrote, it is a blind leading the blind problem, but why is that? Are New Afrikans just not smart enough to figure out how to respond effectively? He further wrote:

"I am a 25 year old Black man who taught myself how to read while incarcerated. After being sent to prison a third time I learned my true calling. There's so much more to life, I am trying my hardest to be an activist behind the prison walls and when I make it out on the streets. I know first hand how it feels to be those Black children who've been mis-educated and unheard, so the only way to express your emotions is through lashing out because you don't know any other way. The police used to beat and harass me every single day because of my position in the Crips, because I wasn't properly educated, and because they had the power. I'm no saint, but a lot of things I went through and/or other Black children endured with police brutality often times was uncalled for.

"If the shoe was on the other foot and someone killed a police officer, there wouldn't be a waiting period or an investigation to lock the person up. The police might even go as far as persecution (execution style) of the person themselves. The video clips taken during the occurrence of Freddie Gray's death should render enough information for all of those cops involved to be taken into custody (without bail) until a trial date is arranged."

Let's analyze this a little further. We live in a capitalist society, where the primary motivator that keeps things moving is profit. Our country is an imperialist country, that has always used force to kill and steal from people to increase its wealth. When New Afrikans walk around with $ signs hanging from their necks, and big portraits of Benjamin Franklin on the back of their jeans, is there any doubt that they are reflecting the dominant ideology of capitalism? On the other hand, whenever a New Afrikan movement has arisen that promotes socialism, communism, cooperative economics or anything of the sort, they have faced repression. People who led New Afrikan youth against capitalism have been imprisoned and killed. Could these be explanations of why New Afrikan youth today are often caught up in fetishizing money and wealth? Because they've been terrorized into it? The individualist will pretend these things don't matter and that it's up to the individual to make the right decisions, even when the individual does not have all the information or knowledge they would need to do so because that information has been purposely and systematically kept from them. It amounts to blaming the victim.

Of course, a real Amerikan patriot supports the First Amendment, so they will say "I support the protesters, but I oppose the looters." The petty bourgeois class interest is not hard to see in this dominant narrative. People are literally putting more weight on private property than a New Afrikan's life. They might respond, that to put it such a way is a false dichotomy, because it was not a situation where we either break some windows and save Gray's life or let Gray die at the hands of police. But this again is based on their individualist worldview. In their view, each incident is unique and isolated between the individuals involved and must be assessed as such. There is no consideration of the possibility of the mass uprising in Baltimore leading to a surge in organizing, that then contributes to a new revolutionary movement that 30 years from now has put an end to imperialism in this country so that New Afrikans' lives are no longer threatened by police.

The more we look at the big picture, the worse things are for the defenders of capitalism. When we look at the big picture we see things like 80% of the world's people have a material interest opposed to capitalism because their basic needs are not being met. And that capitalism has only been around for a few hundred years, a blip on the timeline of humyn history. And that all systems change, all empires fall. This constant change is a part of the dialectical worldview.

We commend our comrade from Baltimore for taking the journey of teaching himself to become an activist to serve the people. But how does one go about learning in an effective way? There is so much information out there, so many books and groups and so little time. Making effective use of the collective knowledge of humynkind requires using the correct scientific methods, and comparing different practices to see which ones have worked. We hope this issue of ULK gives our readers some guidance in this process of judging truth and knowledge. As always, we have study materials that go more deeply into this than we can here in ULK where we try to focus on news and agitation. Issue 45 of ULK will focus on the practical side of how to organize study groups in prison, and the question of how do we teach basic skills like literacy. We hope those of you with experience will contribute to that issue and help build the quantitative change that must come from the oppressed masses themselves for any systematic change to take place.

My strive is to liberate
So with my scribe I demonstrate
Teaching those education who seek to be free
So with their own two eyes, the truth they will see
Oppressors abuse their authority with fallacious tendencies
To whom do officers rehabilitate, it ain't you or me
If I could liberate just one, maybe two, or even three
They will know the cause of a revolutionary
Realizing that one can make a difference
Look at Malcolm X or Nat Turner for instance
Each with their own position in the cause
So this is why I strive to perfect my flaws
For their descendants is why my ancestors died
So regardless if I fail at least I tried

I'm currently incarcerated in a town I've never heard of called Smyrna, Delaware. I've been locked down in the Security Housing Unit (SHU) for 7 out of 9 years. The SHU torture here is something unheard of in regards to humanity. In my 7 years in the SHU I have received only 135 minutes of recreation a week and 45 minutes a week for showers. This totals to just 144 hours a year out of my cell, which is less than Gitmo, ADX, and Pelikkkan Bay.

We are not able to buy food on level 1. This means you come from the hole for 90 days only to do another 90 days in another building or tier. After 90 days if you don't catch a bogus write up for salt and pepper, reckless eye balling, not making your bed, or a fishing line, then you move to level 2. The reason the food buying is so critical is because they have us on an unwilling SHU diet - half portions of what the rest of the prisoners get outside.

Many guys like me have maxout dates, some are in the SHU with life for possession of marijuana under a bogus third strike. There are also misdemeanor convictions, parole violations, and probation violation. One more recently killed himself while waiting on a bed at the half way house.

They attempt to demoralize, dehumanize and ostracize us with their every move, and every rule newly created is another quadruple jeopardy.

MIM(Prisons) responds: This comrade exposes more evidence of the unjust torture that are long-term control units. These exist in prisons across the country, and are the target of our campaign to shut down prison control units. There is no possible justification for the use of this extreme isolation, starvation diets, and inhumyn conditions. These units are tools of social control, primarily targetting prison activists, oppressed nations and others deemed a threat to the Amerikan criminal injustice system.

Placed in this prison
Under a false pretense
Forced to work each day
Or face consequence

I have to follow their rules
And all their regulations
If you are politically aware
You end up in bad situations

They try to keep you down
Under their boot heel
Trying to make you bend
On the ground, you won't kneel

In this imperialist world
Where it's sink or swim
You have to fight the man
Stand proudly against him

On a United front
Where we Struggle and fight
Doing anything and everything
That's Within our might!