Under Lock & Key
Nothing to lose but our chains! ITAL This was originally written as a letter addressed to other prisoners in Wisconsin. END
Revolutionary greetings with the hopes that this letter reaches all of you comrades in good health.
Another new year has begun and many out in the world brought in 2002 in grand style, celebrating their supposed freedoms in what they believe is the best country in the world. There was some celebration by some of us presently incarcerated too, but the beginning of a new year holds a totally different meaning for us if any at all. Some of us within these walls might have silently celebrated the fact that we are all a day closer to getting out or that we have one more year under our belts, but that's all that was celebrated because we have nothing else to celebrate!

[Prisoners] are behind some type of wall or fence with no choice but to stay behind that wall or fence. And, as if that was not enough, these beasts with the keys are doing their best to make life as miserable and hard as possible for each and every one of us.

So what should we be celebrating? Like that pig Jon Litscher should we send out a press release announcing what a success the supermax (one of the most restrictive and oppressive prisons in Amerika) has been? Or should we celebrate all the things we used to be able to have and do but no longer can? Unless you are the Correctional Officer in the mail room wondering if you should censor this letter or not, I can guarantee each of those questions received a negative response from you. With that said, there should only be one more question that needs to be answered, what are we in this United Struggle from Within (USW) going to do about these beasts constantly tightening these chains around our necks?

What we need to do is organize ourselves and the first step in doing that is to have somebody from every prison in Wisconsin step forward and assume the role of a leader for USW in their prison. We're not asking much, all you need to do is organize those already receiving MIM Notes and MIM Theory and those with similar views as us. Then we must pick our battles and decide what issues we're ready to go to war (legally of course) over. We need comrades to start submitting more stories to Under Lock and Key and comrades should be getting together into study groups to discuss the issues relevant to our struggles. There are a lot of folks in the Wisconsin Prison System already receiving MIM Notes and MIM Theory so a lot of us are conscious of what's really going on and know a change is necessary. All we need to do now is organize ourselves and be heard. Nobody else is doing anything so I feel we need to be the first to stand up and be accounted for.

In case you comrades were wondering what I did for New Years I'll let you know. I laid back on my bed here at SMCI and thought about all the books, magazines, cassettes, clothes and other stuff these beasts have kept from me in the past year. I also thought about all the young comrades who died inside the system because of the inadequate health services and the deliberate indifference of these pigs.

I believe it was Karl Marx who said over a hundred years ago that we "have nothing to lose but our chains." Nothing to lose but our chains!
-- USW Wisconsin Prisoner #1

Open letter to Oregon comrades

Our recent historical showing in MIM Notes/ULK and other participator letter writing activities reveals that we have both a revolutionary political base here in the Oregon gulag as well as a need for revolutionary solidification. In thinking over our situation I've been trying with the question "How can we be more effective." I would like to share some simple thought on this issue and I invite input from other USW comrades as well. I am thinking in terms of Oregon USW but there is no reason to believe that this discussion and this issue is not pertinent nationally.

The obvious answer to how to be more effective is to take advantage of what is available to us. What is available to us? The obvious answer is MIM and USW. I urge us all to be come team (party) players and strategists. This is one of the beauties of the revolutionary communist ideology, we help each other and, through democratic centralist principle, collectively we decide the paths to be taken.

Now, how can this collective principle make us more effective? The answer is easy. Where possible we should actively discuss proposed actions and activities between ourselves and MIM/USW. The old adage, "Two heads are better than one" has held true since time immemorial. Many is the time that I wished that I had had rational input as to many of my battles with oppressors before I began my action. Hindsight is often too late to be of assistance, this is particularly true in legal actions due to the rules of claim and issue preclusion. Let's face it, we are not lawyers. You may know something I do not, I may know something you do not. We can educate and organize each other so that we do not engage in dead-end activities or actions harmful to us. This tactic however, is universal and not limited to legal actions.

A good case in point is the recent hunger strike attempt here at the Oregon State Pen. The participatory comrades worked from valiant and righteous positions but their efforts quickly fell apart for unforeseen reasons. Perhaps discussion within MIM/USW could have better organized these efforts or determined a more effective path to achieve victory and goals.

Our strength and resolve is in our comradeship and ideology. Let's present future efforts to MIM/USW for comment and discussion before action is undertaken. I know that I welcome the interaction as should any communist.

-- Prisoner X, Oregon USW

MIM clarifies: We agree with this call by Prisoner X for greater coordination and discussion with in USW so that our battles will be more successful. USW, as well as RAIL, SLALA and MSG are all organizations within the united front led by MIM. Although this prisoner is a communist, we want to be clear that members in these mass organizations led by MIM do not have to follow the same discipline or agree with MIM line like members of MIM do. To clarify, mass organizations within the United Front are not communist parties with democratic centralism.

USW leader comments on point programs

While I support the "point programs" concept, I think some careful discussion and consideration should be given this type of approach. [See for example Oregon USW prisoner #1 in MIM Notes 245. -- MIM] Point programs make fine "constitution" type definitive articles but are defeatist when submitted as a package demand. When submitting demands to prison officials it should be done on a point by point basis. This guards against one "hung" point defeating its fellow riders by association. The old military "divide and conquer" tactic is applicable to USW demands, is guerilla in nature for USW purposes, and is tailored to the 2001 political climate. The Attica 1971 list of demands is useless and defeatist today. Public opinion circa 1971 is not public opinion today. This is one of the greater communists tasks of the day -- the public opinion. Anyway, we can drive the issues home singularly through the fascist court system that it hides behind.

Let's start coordinating. I think goals can be cumulative and should be. Battles should be carefully analyzed as to issues, content and approach.
--USW leader #2 in Oregon

MIM responds: This USW leader makes a good point about lists of demands sometimes being defeated as a whole when individual demands might be won. This is what MIM means when we talk about fighting winnable battles. But rather than follow a blanket rule about lists of demands we need to formulate demands on a case by case basis, keeping in mind that we should be fighting winnable battles whenever possible.

Open Letter to United Struggle from Within

I have accepted leadership of USW. I am not alone. If you consider yourself affiliated with USW in any manner of your own choosing you, too, have accepted leadership of USW. We share common goals. We honor fraternity. We honor equality. We honor humanism. We recognize and hold inviolate the tenants of communism. We seek to understand and to apply the teachings of our great founding philosophers, Karl Marx, Frederick Engels, V. I. Lenin, Mao Zedong, and others. We understand and seek to further understand, the infallibility of historical and dialectical materialism. We know that democratic centralism is the ark of our covenant, the path to power, the vehicle of truth to aberrant power, the means of triumph of good over evil for all. For all. Not just for those born to wealth. Not just to particular nations. Not just to particular gender. For all.

We are all leaders of USW. My self-appointed task is to coordinate. I must have your input to coordinate. I do not seek to, nor will I ever, seek to impose my own will. Democratic centralism requires your input. What do you ask of USW? What can you offer USW? We need to share each other's visions. At this point I am asking for your input. What do you want, need, expect and desire from USW - Oregon State Penitentiary - Salem Oregon, from Oregon USW as a whole, from national and international USW and MIM? I want to hear from you. Your input to me will be presented to members and interested parties for discussion and potential action. Confidentiality of identity will be protected unless individuals seek each other out.

Comrades at the Snake River Correctional Institution have stepped forward with a point program and have filed a class action law suit. I ask that all USW comrades support these points and this suit. I call for dialogue on both these points and this lawsuit. In the belly of the beat a well directed valid lawsuit is an Achilles heel of the bourgeois constitutional system. Congratulations to the Snake River Comrades. I have a legal background and offer assistance if needed. I recognize that the members of the Oregon and Federal Bars practice law without license.

My personal platforms of choice revolve around censorship issues, psychological distress (torture) imposed upon inmates by Oregon Department of Corrections staff, and the free association of study groups. You need not be limited to or by my positions/desires. Many issues can be effectively pursued in Oregon state habeas corpus actions and/or federal 42 USC 1983 civil rights actions. Two federal suits have recently won challenging the Oregon Department of Corrections mail rule ban on 3rd and 4th class mail. The state is currently seeking "reconsideration." There should be a hard and fast ruling on these subjects within the next 90 days or so. Oregon has historically interfered with prisoner's ability to receive books and publications because many publishers will not ship 1st class mail. I personally would like to attack the ban on used books being sent to prisoners and I envision this as an upcoming battle -- one that will be difficult because ODOC will try to hide behind "security concerns."

Here at OSP there is a "call out" fiction library system, where books are "ordered" from a list. This is absolutely non-conducive to political and social education. There is a "research library" that does not allow for checking out books, to date this library has ignored my inquiries so I can not report on its contents. I do personally own a few classics that are available for loan or for study group purposes. These volumes include:

The communist Manifesto - Karl Marx, Frederick Engels
Wage Labour and Capital/ Value, Price and Profit - Karl Marx
Pre-Capitalist Economic Formations - Karl Marx, Eric Hobsbaum
The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State - Frederick Engels
Socialism: Utopian and Scientific/ The Mark - Frederick Engels
Left Wing Communism, An Infantile Disorder - V. I. Lenin
Imperialism - V. I. Lenin
MIM Theory #6 - The Stalin Issue
MIM Theory #12 - Environment, Society, Revolution
A People's History of the United States - Howard Zinn

Anyone wishing to contact me for the use of these texts, for study group purposes for personal enrichment should contact me through MIM or another comrade.

At this point I have rambled for too long. In closing I would like to state that we are not a "gang" or an "illegal organization." Communism is already acknowledged by all powers to be itself a power. In proletarian national struggles communists point out and bring to the front the common interests of the entire proletariat independently of all nationality. In keeping with the interests of the entire proletariat we do not advocate that all prisoners go free today. We do believe some prisoners should and will work on self-criticism under a future dictatorship of the proletariat and that such self-criticism can and should occur now.

Welcome to the revolution. Let's hear from you. You're singular voice is our cornerstone. --Prisoner X, Oregon

MIM clarifies: The basis for unity for USW is revolutionary anti-imperialism. Not all members agree with MIM to the same extent or hold communist ideologies. MIM works with USW to ensure that USW is proletarian-led and genuinely supporting the struggles of the international proletariat.

New Jersey repression

Dear MIM:
I am in prison here in the state of New Jersey and now I am going through hard times. I am a diabetic and some times I have a hard time getting my insulin. I am supposed to get it early, before we eat, but sometimes we get it late after we eat and that goes on during all three shifts. We also get served bad food here and for our diabetic snacks they mostly serve us cheese sandwiches which are not good for us. The medical condition is bad here too. They have nurses on the first and second shifts, but they don't have a nurse on the third shift. If someone gets sick on the third shift they have to call over to the main hospital and it takes an hour for them to come over and a person could be dead by then. In fact it has happened before and we would like to have a nurse on third shift just like the other shifts.

There is also a lot of other stuff that goes on in this prison that you should know about. A lot of brutality by the prison guards on prisoners. Males and females. Prisoners are set up on false charges, racial profiling goes on in here just like out there. It is hard for us to get a roll of toilet paper or a bar of soap. They play games with our money and canteen.

Please write to Mr. Al Faro Ortiz jr., Admin. Supt. or Mr. Russell Henry, Assistant Admin. Supt, at NSP, 168 Frontage Rd. PO Box 2300, Newark, NJ 07114. Or call 973-578-2200 or 973-465-0068.

Let them know how your feel and demand that some changes be made. I have put in complaint forms and nothing happens. We even put in a class action civil law suit and nothing happened. So the inside is not doing any good. We need the outside. -- a prisoner in New Jersey December 2001

Dear MIM,
Here in the Trenton Reception Facility this place is all messed up. They don't feed us well and they talk very bad to us in many disrespectful ways and they expect us not to disrespect them or say anything back. And when we do stand up and come as one to get what we should, they use their power to overrule us and separate us and label us as a gang or something.

When we go outside in the winter time they don't give us our coats so we could get sick and cold. When we beg them to let us in then they leave us out there longer. We are on lock down 23 hours a day. They use their power to back us away, strip search us to get off in their own ways, and try to break us down in many ways. But it don't matter what they do, my brain won't die. All I can do is try to die for a cause, for what's in my heart.

- A prisoner in New Jersey, January, 2002