Federal Prisons

Prisoners in America suffer at the hands of their captors; the only group of people who remain under the brutality of compelled work. Their master is the state. It is an evil and capricious master, whose goal is to break the spirit and reduce to an automaton (the better to be a wage-slave in society) a human being.

The 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution provides: "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime where of the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the united states, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."

The reality of this in prison, is that a prisoner will be assigned a job which will be institutional drudgery - the kitchen, laundry, farm labor, etc. He will then be made to perform his job under the gun - literally, in the case of outside work squads. Something about a correctional officer with a gun is very unsettling - these are very base people who couldn't get a job with the Sheriff's Department, and who don't have to pass a psychological exam or rigorous requirements to get this job.

Even if not under the gun, officers, and sometimes civilian employees, hold tremendous power over the prisoners in their custody, which they usually abuse. What's more, they expect a fully honest days work out of you like you owe them something. If they don't like the job you're doing, or just don't like you, they can send you to the box for 60 days and take all your gain time for refusing to work. Most people get gain time, so an officer has the power to hold a prisoner in prison several months longer at his whim and subject to no real oversight.

Needless to say, you are working at no benefit to yourself. I can speak from the experience of the kitchen, where myself and my fellow prisoners serve the disgusting state food, clean up, and attempt to look busy so as not to incur the ire of the man. After we serve, we are often fed a regular tray, getting only what the compound gets. And some staff like to threaten us with throwing away the rest of the food instead of serving it to us. Also they can legally make us work 70 hours a week.

A few days ago, I was threatened for my grievances about the boots they make us wear over our shoes and all the menu changes. I'm not worried about it, and actually feel good because they ended up on the warden's desk and I got the man's attention.

The boss made a remarkable statement today, in one of his daily speeches: "You're here by choice. I've got a family to feed." First of all, I'm here by force. Second, I didn't make him work in the prison system as a guard.

The supposed compassion of our boss man is overwhelming. I was told today by a friend that he personally witnessed the boss pepper spray two people. This was not for fighting or trying to attack him, but for trying to finish their meal after they were told to throw their tray away for some bogus disciplinary reason.

Prisoners who have medical conditions or are mentally ill are still pressed into labor, with no real way out except to go to the box. The box may look like a pleasing alternative sometimes, but it is not - sensory deprivation, no property or canteen, meager state meals. It's de facto physical and psychological torture, something that surprisingly still exists in this country. Plus there is so much that goes along with it, like a later release date and transfer to a worse unit in the same prison.

I find consolation in the packet of legal material I got from the Panama City Division of the U.S. District Court tonight. Soon I will be out and able to file my 42 U.S.C. §1983 lawsuit against an officer and a captain who fabricated disciplinary charges against me. I encourage every prisoner not to forget this time when he reaches freedom, but to speak up for our struggle and report their crimes against us. This can often include filing a lawsuit based on something that happened in prison, because every convict has a story and many have good cases. Know that most of the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA) does not apply to you as a released prisoner, so you do not have to show physical injury or have filed grievances (although you always should, it establishes a paper trail and potentially incriminating responses) before filing suit. Keep that same spirit alive that made you a stronger man when you get to the streets, whatever you do. That will make you an adversary worth fearing.

MIM(Prisons) responds: We agree with this comrade's assessment of the importance of organizing and fighting back both behind the bars and on the streets. And the message of continuing the battle once you hit the streets is particularly important. But we would not call this system of prisoner labor "slavery." As we explained in our article on the prison economy, prison labor does not produce a profit for the prisons, rather it is used to offset some (but not all) of the costs of imprisonment. Prisons are primarily used as a tool of social control, with the prisoner labor only a minor aspect of this. The term slavery refers to the system that captures humyn labor for the purpose of exploiting and profiting from it. This is not the case with the Amerikan prison system today. It is important to understand the real motivations of the oppressor if we hope to change this oppressive system.

Por un preso de Tejas, diciembre 2010

Recientemente recibí el libro que les mande pedir, Agentes de Represión por Ward Churchill. Hombre, ese era uno de los libros más iluminados con respeto a los problemas inherentes del trabajo político que yo leído hasta este punto. Sí, no importa si ellos oficialmente desbandaron las operaciones COINTELPRO o no. Todavía continua, ellos aprendieron lo efectivo del programa hasta con que sean grupos de agentes pícaro, De todos modos continua, especialmente en la decadencia acrecentamiento de los EE.UU.

Ya lo he pasado el libro. Tratare de meterlo entre las manos (y las cabezas) de los más disidentes que sea posible cualquiera sea su raza o creencia política personal. Muchísima gente está descontenta con las acciones y las políticas del gobierno estadounidense, gente con la que sea posible que ustedes tengan intereses opuestos, todavía el estorbo lo más grande para la realización de los objetivos políticos de cualquier de estos grupos políticos varios es la siempre poderosa clase comerciante de los Estados Unidos.

Encuentro que muchísimos disidentes están completamente ignorante de la realidad de que en cuanto que empiezan a organizar, reclutar, agitar o de educar a la gente a una forma de pensar al contrario del statu quo se convierten en un blanco, si lo sepan o no, o le guste o no. Al fallar prepararse contra las contramedidas del sucio Tío Sam es desastroso.

Yo fui soltado en 2006 y di el brinco directamente dentro de actividades de orientación política. Alguna interferencia gubernativo era esperada y aun notado, como vigía, acosamiento y lo parecido. Muchas de las tácticas en el libro había sospechado fuertemente pero tenía poca o no prueba o que no estaba bastante seguro para tomar una acción irreversible.

En cualquier caso, para sumar lo todo, uno de nuestros miembros fue manipulado dentro de una posición que resultó en la muerte de dos de nuestros miembros. Luego una planta de alto nivel le tendieron una trampa para que lo arreste, pero resultó en la muerte de dos detectives más quienes trataron de aprehenderlo. El miembro murió en un granizo de balas, creo que eran 62.

Yo realizo que todo esto es extremamente contra-productivo y solamente sirvió como justificación para aumentar su gasto presupuesto infiltrador en nosotros. Yo he visto los mejores de estas plantas/informantes FBI (Buró de Investigaciones Federal). Conozco a uno que instiga, solicita, y hasta, a veces, ordena crímenes como su papel doble de disidente rango en la organización, después manda al sucio Tío Sam para que arresten los criminales, que solamente son criminales por virtud del dato que siguieron su dirección! Sí, he tenido esta planta tratar de asesinar a mi novia embarazada y solamente sucedió en causar la muerte del niño. Les puedo enseñar declaraciones donde esta misma planta del FBI está siendo delatado por otra rata que ni sabe que estuvo tendido por la planta del FBI, ni si quiera que es una planta del FBI. Aunque el explica en detalle como el planta de FBI está golpeando a mujeres embarazadas con bates, etc.

Yo sé que no cargos nunca serán registrados contra los de ellos, y personalmente, si yo pudiera recobrar mi libertad yo prefería que cargos nunca serian prensados. Yo ciertamente no testificaría. Lo veo como un gran contradicción a voltear al mismo sistema al que uno odia, al buscar ayuda en la disolución, para dar la vuelta y buscar la ayuda de ellos en la busca de justicia. Yo conseguirá mi propia justicia si alguna vez podría recobrar mi libertad temporaria.

MIM(Prisiones) responde: En las semanas pasadas han sido un numero de historias de jóvenes siendo arrestados con cargos del terrorismo después de siendo tendidos por agentes federales a cometer actos violentos. Sabiendo el arte de la guerra y comprendiendo la etapa de la lucha en la cual estamos son maneras de evitar muchos de los ataques usados por COINTELPRO. Camaradas verdaderos se prueban a través de trabajo duro constante y con dedicación, y no por actos de bravata.

Mail the petition to your loved ones and comrades in High Desert State Prison's Z-Unit (administrative segregation) who are experiencing brutality and cruel living conditions. Send them extra copies to share! For more information on this campaign, click here.

Prisoners should send a copy of the signed petition to each of the addresses below. Supporters should send letters on behalf of prisoners.

Prison Law Office
General Delivery
San Quentin, CA 94964

Internal Affairs CDCR
10111 Old Placerville Rd, Ste 200
Sacramento, CA 95872

CDCR Office of Ombudsman
1515 S Street, Room 540 N
Sacramento, CA 95811

U.S. Department of Justice - Civil Rights Division
Special Litigation Section
950 Pennsylvania Ave, NW, PHB
Washington DC 20530

Office of Inspector General
HOTLINE
PO Box 9778
Arlington, VA 22219

And send MIM(Prisons) copies of any responses you receive!

MIM(Prisons), USW
PO Box 40799
San Francisco, CA 94140

Mail the petition to your loved ones inside who are experiencing issues with the grievance procedure. Send them extra copies to share! For more info on this campaign, click here.

Prisoners should send a copy of the signed petition to each of the addresses below. Supporters should send letters on behalf of prisoners.

Warden
(specific to your facility)

Oklahoma State Jail Inspector, Don Garrison
1000 N.E. 10th St.,
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma 73117-1299

ODOC Office of Internal Affairs
Oklahoma City Office
3400 Martin Luther King Avenue
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma 73111-4298

Office of Inspector General
HOTLINE
P.O. Box 9778
Arlington, Virginia 22219

United States Department of Justice - Civil Rights Division
Special Litigation Section
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, PHB
Washington, D.C. 20530

Oklahoma Citizens United for Rehabilitation of Errants
(OK-CURE)
P.O. Box 9741
Tulsa, OK 74157-0741

And send MIM(Prisons) copies of any responses you receive!

MIM(Prisons), USW
PO Box 40799
San Francisco, CA 94140

*Petition updated July 2012, October 2017*

Mail the petition to your loved ones and comrades inside who are experiencing issues with the grievance procedure or censorship of music and literature. Send them extra copies to share! For more info on this campaign, click here.

Prisoners should send a copy of the signed petition to each of the addresses below. Supporters should send letters on behalf of prisoners.

Tom Clements, Director of Adult Institutions
P.O. Box 236
Jefferson City, MO 65101

Chris Pickering, Inspector General (MO DOC)
P.O. Box 236
Jefferson City, MO 65101

U.S. Department of Justice
PhB 950 Pennsylvania Ave, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20530

Marianne Atwell, Director of Offender Rehabilitative Services (Missouri)
P.O. Box 236
Jerrerson City, MO 65101

And send MIM(Prisons) copies of any responses you receive!

MIM(Prisons), USW
PO Box 40799
San Francisco, CA 94140

The Real Life of Alejandro Mayta
Mario Vargas Llosa
Aventura press, 1986

Peruvian author Mario Vargas Llosa won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2010. Widely known as an author who writes about political events in Peru, and takes a vocal position on politics throughout Latin America, this review only addresses one of the many books he has written. But it is a good example of the political views of Vargas Llosa whose politics have made him an enemy of the people for many years. Vargas Llosa claims that he supported revolutionary politics earlier in his life, but if true, he firmly and thoroughly changed that and works hard as a critic of people's movements and a supporter of imperialist so-called democracy. He has written many works of both fiction and non-fiction, and lost a bid for president of Peru in 1990, during the height of the Peruvian Communist Party's fight for liberation of the Peruvian people, to Alberto Fujimori.

After being named the Nobel winner, Vargas Llosa said, “It’s very difficult for a Latin American writer to avoid politics. Literature is an expression of life, and you cannot eradicate politics from life.”(1) We would agree with that statement, and as we demonstrate in this review, The Real Life of Alejandro Mayta is a good demonstration of Vargas Llosa's reactionary politics.

In his acceptance speech for the Nobel prize, Vargas Llosa commented extensively on the "terrorists" in the world today who are the enemy of what he calls "liberal democracy" (capitalism). Spouting the best pro-imperialist rhetoric, Vargas Llosa makes the case for imperialist militarism with lies about the freedom and beauty of capitalist so-called democracy:

"Since every period has its horrors, ours is the age of fanatics, of suicide terrorists, an ancient species convinced that by killing they earn heaven, that the blood of innocents washes away collective affronts, corrects injustices, and imposes truth on false beliefs. Every day, all over the world, countless victims are sacrificed by those who feel they possess absolute truths. With the collapse of totalitarian empires, we believed that living together, peace, pluralism, and human rights would gain the ascendancy and the world would leave behind holocausts, genocides, invasions, and wars of extermination. None of that has occurred. New forms of barbarism flourish, incited by fanaticism, and with the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, we cannot overlook the fact that any small faction of crazed redeemers may one day provoke a nuclear cataclysm. We have to thwart them, confront them, and defeat them. There aren’t many, although the tumult of their crimes resounds all over the planet and the nightmares they provoke overwhelm us with dread. We should not allow ourselves to be intimidated by those who want to snatch away the freedom we have been acquiring over the long course of civilization. Let us defend the liberal democracy that, with all its limitations, continues to signify political pluralism, coexistence, tolerance, human rights, respect for criticism, legality, free elections, alternation in power, everything that has been taking us out of a savage life and bringing us closer – though we will never attain it – to the beautiful, perfect life literature devises, the one we can deserve only by inventing, writing, and reading it. By confronting homicidal fanatics we defend our right to dream and to make our dreams reality."

Vargas Llosa went on to talk about his political views:

"In my youth, like many writers of my generation, I was a Marxist and believed socialism would be the remedy for the exploitation and social injustices that were becoming more severe in my country, in Latin America, and in the rest of the Third World. My disillusion with statism and collectivism and my transition to the democrat and liberal that I am – that I try to be – was long and difficult and carried out slowly as a consequence of episodes like the conversion of the Cuban Revolution, about which I initially had been enthusiastic, to the authoritarian, vertical model of the Soviet Union; the testimony of dissidents who managed to slip past the barbed wire fences of the Gulag; the invasion of Czechoslovakia by the nations of the Warsaw Pact; and because of thinkers like Raymond Aron, Jean Francois Rével, Isaiah Berlin, and Karl Popper, to whom I owe my reevaluation of democratic culture and open societies. Those masters were an example of lucidity and gallant courage when the intelligentsia of the West, as a result of frivolity or opportunism, appeared to have succumbed to the spell of Soviet socialism or, even worse, to the bloody witches’ Sabbath of the Chinese Cultural Revolution."

Finally, Vargas Llosa made clear his support for the neocolonial governments in Latin America, pretending that they represent "functioning" democracy in the interests of the people and "supported by a broad popular consensus.":

"We are afflicted with fewer dictatorships than before, only Cuba and her named successor, Venezuela, and some pseudo populist, clownish democracies like those in Bolivia and Nicaragua. But in the rest of the continent democracy is functioning, supported by a broad popular consensus, and for the first time in our history, as in Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, Peru, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Mexico, and almost all of Central America, we have a left and a right that respect legality, the freedom to criticize, elections, and succession in power. That is the right road, and if it stays on it, combats insidious corruption, and continues to integrate with the world, Latin America will finally stop being the continent of the future and become the continent of the present."

This book is indicative of Vargas Llosa's work which does greater disservice to the revolutionary movement in Peru than those who write bourgeois fiction without pretending to have historical context or political purpose. The novel reviews the life of a fictional revolutionary activist in Peru in the 1950s who participated in a small focoist uprising before ending up in prison. The book describes revolutionary parties as all small marginalized groups wasting their time studying dead guys and debating theory. And it leaves the reader questioning the commitment of all who participate in revolutionary politics, assuming that everyone sells out somehow to pursue their own interests in the end. The peasants and workers are virtually ignored in the book, portrayed only as pawns in the work done by activists.

This novel focuses on a small Trotskyist party, the product of several splits in previous Trotskyist groups, and specifically on one of the party members, Alejandro Mayta. Interestingly, in a brief description of how Mayta ended up in this party, Vargas Llosa describes his movement from group to group, each time rejecting the previous one as not correct enough politically, until he ended up with the Trotskyists as the most pure political line he could find. MIM(Prisons) has some agreement with this description in that Trotskyism is pure idealism and it appeals to those who don't like to get their hands dirty with the realities of revolutionary politics.

Eventually Mayta deserts the Trotskyists to join up with a focoist movement in the mountains that is going to take armed action. He is galvanized by the idea of real action rather than the talk that his Trotskyist group has been engaging in for years. He is kicked out of his party, who consider the action premature, and also because Mayta has approached the Stalinists to participate in and support the focoist action.

Focoists believe that the armed actions of a small group of people will spark the masses to join the revolution. This is an incorrect view of revolutionary strategy. History has demonstrated that small groups of insurgents are not sufficient to bring about revolution; successful revolutions have come through the hard work of organizing the masses. As inspiration, many focoists look to the Cuban revolution, and Castro is mentioned repeatedly in the book. But the Cuban revolution is the only example focoists have of anything resembling success, and while that revolution did deliver a blow to U.$. imperialism, it created a state-capitalist country dependent on the Soviet Union.(2) Like other focoist actions, Mayta's small group is captured during their armed insurrection. And there is much debate about whether desertion, betrayal, or just poor planning led to their failure.

A recurring theme in this book is the claim by the narrator that the truth of history is impossible to determine. In interviewing people about the life of Mayta the narrator gets conflicting stories from everyone he talks to, and is unable to figure out exactly what happened. This nihilist position encourages people to just give up rather than seeking to understand and interpret history to help forward progress in the future. Ironically Vargas Llosa thinks he knows the definitive truth about the history of politics in many countries as he interprets history through the lens of the imperialists.

Through this fictional novel, Vargas Llosa manages to attack a vast range of revolutionary theories and practices, and leave the reader disillusioned and without hope for a better future for the people of Peru. He does not try to hide the poverty and despair that is the everyday reality of life for the Peruvian people, but condemns revolutionaries, politicians, and everyone else to failure in a maze of corruption, collaboration and irrelevant theories. There is no redeeming political value to this book which could depress even the most militant of activists.

I went from rice and deer meat
To bologna and carrots
Four wheelers and Honda XR motorcycles
To a stinky Bob Barker mattress
Grew up chasing girls and a good time
Still growing up - still doing time
Mama don't let your babies grow up to be cowboys
To the abolition of classes, the abolition of state power
country music to a dead solitary silence
promising amerikkkan middle class future
To a socialist, communist, bourgeois hater
From a needle to knowledge
Knucklehead to 'never again'
Sally forth from juvenile detentions, prisons, boot camps
only to come back again. and again. and again.
Used to pine away - love sick puppy
over my ex-girls
Now seeking a socialist revolution
and a non-patriarchy, non-sexist world
Faith in God - Gone - turned atheist
Trust in my country - lost - I hate it!
Belief in the people - found - turned non-escapist
A cause worth dying, for - became - most hated
I stand alone now with a couple of friends
Solitary insane, I'll not pretend
Basically I'm just a man now with minimal needs
Mouth silent, eyes bloodshot
The sun sets and rises as my tired soul bleeds

For
the alleged
criminally insane
obsessed, possessed
and repressed
so-called
most "incorrigible"
inmates
protective custody
security risks
where
death awaits
all
those whose warrants
have been signed
if not stayed...
Where
ole' sparky
(the electric chair)
resides
where men
resist
are brutalized
refuse
to be dehumanized
or
give up control
of their minds
where their
dignity and perspective
in some cases
is relegated
or impaired
to an extreme
appreciation
or acceptance
of the unjust
where some
men are broken
commit suicide
take overdoses
hang themselves

Therefore, as any good communist should know the heart of social change, the very meat and marrow of it all within U.$. borders rests with the lumpen. And so in knowing all this there is still a question to be begged. Why is it so damn hard?!

The lumpen as a class is the direct product of the capitalist mode of production and has its ideology rooted and embedded in the bourgeois philosophy of "me, myself and I." It is this backward bourgeois thinking which we must first focus on defeating. Victory on the ideological front should be our first real goal. The more people we win over on the ideological front, the more successful we'll be in accomplishing all other tasks. This is the principal contradiction that needs to be resolved with respect to organizing the lumpen.

ULK as an ideological weapon is a good tool in helping us to win over the prisoner population in a conscious way to not only their own class based cause, but more importantly to that of the truly oppressed and exploited, the international proletariat and peasantry, i.e. the Third World masses.

ULK and now USW, with the direct ideological assistance provided by our Maoist teachers at MIM(Prisons), are currently spreading Maoist thought amongst and throughout the prisoner population. With all this said and being done therefore it should be relatively easier to organize the imprisoned population.

So why is it still so damn hard?

The answer once again to the aforementioned and repeatedly asked question is: ideology.

Case in point, take the California Department of Corruption for example, the biggest warehouse of people in all of the United $tates. The imprisoned lumpen within this golden gulag might very well be one of the toughest nuts to crack for USW and so it should serve as a case study for MIM(Prisons).

The CA Dept. of Corruptions is the very focus of many of the internal contradictions of Amerikkkan imperialism peculiarly personified in national oppression and class warfare. For that matter just about any Amerikkkan prison is a perpetrator of these superstructurally demanded operations. Killa'fornia however differs from most other states in the way in which the lumpen organizes itself. It's not merely a matter of organizational differences as compared to other LOs, in other states rather a difference in ideology of each nation-based LO. Perhaps this is why state repression is so intense, as well as carried out over and beyond the call of duty by prison administrators here.

Just as your average Amerikan foot soldier believes that fighting Islamic anti-imperialists is their number one job as "freedom loving Amerikans," so does your average pig on the street, as well as those working the prisons, believe that the biggest threat to internal security and class interests inside "the homeland" is the lumpen.

While on the California "mainline" it is easy for a USW comrade to bang their head on the ideological brick wall of backward-bourgeois-individualistic thinking when attempting to organize the lumpen for their own interests. Failed attempts to facilitate peace treaties between LOs or failed attempts to organize peaceful protests over real issues doesn't say much about a comrade's effectiveness while working within these conditions. Being that prison is only a microcosm of its given society, and knowing that the contradictions of the former are only equal or greater, for the most part in the most extreme sense, than that of the latter, deems that that principal contradiction that needs to be resolved in order for us to begin successfully organizing the lumpen is that of ideology. The difficult thing here is to persuade the prisoner population to become class conscious; the rest is relatively easy.

"The correctness or otherwise of the ideological line and political line decides everything. When the party has no followers, then it can have followers; if it has no guns then it can have guns; if it has no political power then it can have political power." - Mao Zedong

What applies to parties can usually be applied to individuals.

Some comrades in USW and MIM(Prisons) might believe that the important thing here when building class consciousness throughout the imprisoned populations is in getting lumpen organizations to adopt a proletarian worldview. If we do this however, all we're really getting is a revisionism of sorts because individuals won't really bother to struggle politically with themselves, they'll just "toll the bell" so to speak. Of course we'll always try to attract as many followers as we can, but only if they're all able and willing to lead.

Some might think that if you remove the barrier of lumpen organizational structure, i.e. the LO itself, that this act in itself will automatically gain us troops to the tenth degree because the lumpen will then be that much more progressive.

True, some individuals who either willingly leave their LO or are forcibly removed from their car do indeed become progressive in one way or another. Some delve into mysticism wishing for forgiveness and a better tomorrow, others become class conscious and take up the struggle of ending oppression in all its forms. For the most part however they just keep on doing the same old shit. "Same shit, different day," as they like to say.

Just as we can only build socialism one country at a time, we can only revolutionize the prison population one persyn at a time; and just as the theory of simultaneous world revolution is an incorrect one, so is it incorrect to think that we can revolutionize whole LOs all at once or anything close to that.

I say all this to make the point that the one organizational barrier for the most part isn't the end all be all when it comes to preventing the prison population's revolutionization process. Some comrades might know what I'm talking about if you're housed in an environment where there are no real prison politics to speak of, that is to say you don't have to worry about another prisoner trying to pressure you to conform to socially accepted and required norms.

A PC yard shows you this when you see people who have left one LO on the mainline only to join another one on a SNY, playing the same games and reconstructing the same old hierarchy and policies that got 'em to a PC yard to begin with.

It's almost as if the prison population must be shocked out of their zombie-like state of existence before they can exhibit some type of real progressiveness. Feeling this way can surely discourage some comrades from doing the necessary work which the USW has been tasked with. Unfortunately we are forced to work with what capitalism has bequeathed us.

The battle to push people towards scientific-socialism is a most ruthless war waged by the class-conscious and is fought against not only backward individuals but against an entire network of ideas (superstructure). This is exactly why the Chinese Communists had themselves a "Cultural Revolution," because they knew full well that organizing the prison population in this or that direction would never be enough. You have to teach the prison population not only what has to be done but why it needs to be done. For this we must all bear responsibilities!

I would like to tell you a little about how these pigs treat us here at California Correctional Center - Susanville. To begin with, the pigs here are constantly disrespecting us and some pigs even get racial with some prisoners.

The following is about something these pigs did to my celly a while back. He had to go to the program office for a disciplinary hearing. Upon being found guilty he asked for an appeal form from a sergeant. When he got it my celly mumbled under his breath "what a joke" and the sergeant thought my celly called the hearing officer a jerk. The sergeant then grabbed him and slammed him into some filing cabinets. The sergeant pinned him with his lower body and started screaming in his ear cussing and threatening his family and friends.

A few days later a couple pigs came to the cell and took my cellmate's address book and told him that he was under investigation for a possible felony. They kept coming two to three times a week to search the house trying to intimidate him. A few days later my celly put in a citizen's complaint to the warden. After about 2 months of them hitting the house, my celly felt he had to retract his complaint due to the pigs intimidation. So he went to the program office to speak to the captain. On video camera they had him retract his complaint and after that they stopped the continuous searches.

This is one of many stories about our rights being violated here at Susanville. Most prisoners are worried that if they file and appeal on a pig then retaliation is gonna follow. These pigs here are known to trump up bogus charges on prisoners. Is there any way we can beat this? If this was to happen to me, there is a good chance I would end up getting a life sentence because I myself have two strikes. If you can give me a little bit of info on how I can protect my rights it would be appreciated. As for doing my part in trying to convert others in to joining us, it is in the process. Thank you comrades for your time and your efforts in helping all of us prisoners in our fight.

MIM(Prisons) responds: We know that retaliation is all too often the response to prisoners taking on the legal battles for their rights. In most prisons the first step is filing a grievance and these grievances are often ignored. We have initiated a campaign to demand our grievances be addressed. And through this campaign we have seen some positive results in California's High Desert State Prison. We encourage California prisoners, and prisoners in other states, to request copies of the grievance petition and help spread this campaign. Retaliation is still a danger, but the more people who speak out the harder it will be to repress our voices. There are no easy ways out of this oppressive system.