Michigan prisoner to college and high school students:

"Support and join MIM Serve the People Programs" 

ITAL The following article was written by a Michigan prisoner 
whose contact with MIM and the rest of the outside world has been 
severely limited by extended segregation. MIM asked this prisoner 
and others to submit their own articles "about why people on the 
outside should support the Free Books for Prisoners program with 
their money and books." We asked prisoners to address the 
following questions and more in their writing: "what is a Serve 
the People program? why do Communists preach self-sufficient 
organizing? what is the role of the youth in making revolution? 
what is the role of education in revolutionary politics?" 
Following Mao's instruction to organize the oppressed to meet 
their own basic needs, we asked prisoners to help us recruit 
people on the outside to do work in this program that helps them 
gain a political education.

The Revolutionary Anti-Imperialist League (RAIL) that this comrade 
refers to is an organization of the MIM-led united front and so 
RAIL members do work to support MIM's Serve the People programs. 
RAIL is an organization for people who are not in prison. United 
Struggle from Within (USW) is another organization of the united 
front; it is an organization of anti-imperialist prisoners. END

I am incarcerated at a maximum security prison in Michigan. MIM 
and RAIL provide advocacy, education, books, and support to 
prisoners contained throughout this country's prisons. I'm writing 
today asking that college and high school students please get 
involved with MIM or RAIL action programs through membership or 
collecting books and contributions for the programs. There is work 
to be done educating prisoners within correctional facilities 
through MIM's Serve the People Free Books for Prisoners program. 
MIM can also assist anyone who wishes to set up independent 
programs to support prisoner struggles in their own communities. 

Both men and women from various cultural backgrounds and those who 
have spent time in jail or prison are all welcomed with pleasure. 
MIM, RAIL and USW work to bring change throughout prisons. We take 
risks in our work. We take unpopular stands. We write encouraging 
letters. We work for all prisoners against all forms of 
discrimination and oppression. We recognize that we cannot work to 
ensure the fundamental rights and dignity of prisoners unless we 
also work together against racism, classism, sexism, ageism, 
ableism, and anti-Semitism. 

We believe that committed people working together can make a 
significant change in the quality of life for all prisoners. 
Change the mindset of the poor, educate them, and a change can be 
achieved. We must be prisoners' rights activists and have basic 
principles on which we base our work. We must be vigilant in 
maintaining a broader political understanding of the prison system 
and its effects on prisoners and society so our goals do not end 
up confused and ultimately lost within the "illogic" of the prison 
system itself. 

For example, as prisoners' rights activists, we must always fight 
to improve the conditions for people living in prison, because we 
know prison is the worst possible place for anyone to live and 
maintain their health. At the same time, we must fight to obtain 
compassionate sentencing and release for people living/surviving 
in prison. 

If we do not maintain a critical focus on the injustice of the 
prison system itself, we become complicit in keeping people locked 
up rather than helping them get out. Therefore, the more 
comprehensive our political agenda around prisoners' rights, the 
more clearly we can articulate our positions and the more 
effective our programs will be. One way of keeping that broader 
focus is to make links and work in harmony with each other, and 
any anti-prison groups in our communities, and with community 
groups that are fighting against police racism, against violence, 
for the rights of the righteous people, and against violence 
against women. 

Financial support is important and any donation would be deeply 
appreciated. 

In conclusion, let me say that the Michigan Department of 
Corruptions, MDOC, is a dictatorship that thinks it doesn't have 
to answer to anybody. We would like to hear from all young people 
who understand our agenda and who would like to unite and get 
involved. Thank you! 

-- a Michigan Prisoner, December 1999 

MIM responds: We are proud to put forward this prisoner's 
opposition to the u.$. criminal INjustice system together with our 
own. MIM sees the prisons system in this country as an arm of one 
of the three main strands of oppression -- nation, class and 
gender. Prisons in Amerika exist to perpetrate national oppression 
of the internal semi-colonies of this country -- the Black Nation, 
the First Nations and Latino Nations. 

Through independent institutions of the oppressed, we build public 
opinion in favor of the just struggles of the oppressed. In MIM 
Notes, we publish the Under Lock & Key pages which carry news from 
prisoners about the conditions in which they live. Through our 
Serve the People Free Books for Prisoners Program we organize 
students to donate their books so that prisoners may learn from 
them, and to give of their time and money to get these precious 
educational resources to the prisoners. Prisoners in turn educate 
themselves and each other to be more effective speakers on their 
own conditions and the political economy of their oppression.

The struggle against injustice in prisons is of special importance 
to anti-imperialists and anti-militarists working within u.$. 
borders. Just as the Yankee military straddles the Philippines, 
Peru, Puerto Rico, Indonesia, Turkey with its military presence; 
it operates militarist containment of two million humyns within 
the cages it calls "correctional facilities" -- prisons. We call 
on all activists and those considering activism to learn about the 
significance of organizing independently. We do not need to lobby 
and wait for state run programs. The Black Panther Party wrote: 
"we cannot depend upon the present government to fulfill our wants 
and needs." ("Serving the People" from The Black Panther 6 April, 
1969 http://www.prisoncensorship.info/archive/etext/bpp/bpp060469.htm) But we 
can fill these needs ourselves with organization and the correct 
theory and practice. Join us in Serving the People.