Federal Prisons

Prison organizations today have the tendency to bang on other orgs more than they do on the pigs, Corrections Officers (COs) and the system. Raw fear is so deep in us and we’ve placed the oppressors on such a pedestal, thinking the pigs are “godly,” invincible and “in-the-right,” that we’ve become stuck. Shaking in our boots or peeking out the blinds shuddering. The pigs want us believing we are degenerates or mentally ill rejects and to trust boldly that the pigs are only trying to help us. One comrade voiced concern over seeing ruthlessness so deep between lumpen orgs in his gulag that captives cheer suicides and mental breakdowns in fellow captives but want to know how “snouty sir’s” vacation went. It’s a sad situation.

“Earning stripes” and “putting it down for the cause” is telling when it is fellow captives being lifeflighted and body-bagged as the man with the keys giggles. Putting it down for whom? MIM(Prisons) and USW don’t promote violence. But there are lesser and higher levels of incorrectness when the man pushes us in the corner in the use of self-defense. Viciousness and brutality against our own is unforgivable. Period.

Watered-down versions of the various struggles that came before are served up steaming before our hungry, bloodshot eyes. Organizing our people to realize our destiny takes theory and analysis of past and present conditions. Marxism-Leninism-Maoism is the meat we must partake of. Throw that watered down soup kitchen fare into snouty’s face. The actual methods on how to organize and take control of our destiny is what’s for dinner, comrades. Educating, agitating, theorizing, study groups, unity and books challenge bullshit and backward ideas. Knowledge of history and our present reality is what we lack. We must recoup from the losses we’ve experienced after all these years. Muscle has memory, believe that! We are only doomed to that failure if we remain asleep. Will we?

Independent nationhood isn’t in the forefront of most lumpen minds when Seinfield sitcoms and chick-o-sticks occupy our perception. Progressives of all stripes must rip the amerikkkan flags out of our faces and walk over the motherfucker. Parasites In Gangsters clothing, CIA. Sheep infiltrating LOs mainstream gangster rap or pig induced crap? Occupy wall street or spitting on Third World’s feet? Stand in our fork in the road. We are at the historical juncture where the hustling game [dope, pimpin etc.] as our only “come up” must be shot to shit as the game plan. The dope game’s insanity. There is a more practical revolutionary way to control our destinies and obtain independence. Getting ourselves out the imperialist crosshairs must be our goal. Not protecting street corners and crack, meth or herb market shares. Just look at the Mexican cartels doing it big time as their people in the base areas remain hungry, shoeless and without basic necessities. The sad aspect is we leave our families in the same boat. We must overcome this.

We must remember, though, that the oppressor will always let one or two big shots come up. Some cartels’ base areas in Mexico do gain better living conditions to pacify unrest and garner support from the people. Is drug dealing, guns and stickups too entrenched in the lumpen’s economic life that survival, even survival at such low levels, would be impossible without them? This is the ideological crossroads we stand at.

What is preventing oppressed nation people from coming together and bucking this system? If the drug trade doesn’t act as a sleeping gas, in that we benefit from it, but as a poison which hurts us, then why do we continue in it? Drug culture and popular culture seem to contribute to this deviation. The use and sale of drugs is addictive. But so is the culture that comes with it. The street/dope world envelops an individual in non-political thinking. Like a cancer, few survive. Some do manage to feed their children and make ends meet slanging but only so long. And at a high price (prison, death, addicted sons and daughters, brain damage, disease etc.).

The media mind washes us into believing the oppressor pigs are “all mighty” and McDonald’s workers are slow and slimy. This puts us in the trap of spending our whole lives trying to prove to each other we aren’t slow and slimy. But why don’t we prove this to the oppressor? Consumerism, amerikkkanism and patriotism stand toe to toe with mass revolutionary politics. And we ain’t getting nowhere until the referee drags out the bleeding corpse of “grams, hundreds and eight balls” lying at our feet. Drug culture down. Revolutionary culture up. Drug culture is used as a sort of net to catch rebels before they truly do turn revolutionary. And by the time the drugs spit us out on the cement floor of a solitary cell, collapsed vein and hollow brain, psychotropic culture steps in with a great big smile. Know your enemy.

Most people in the U.$. have an idealistic philosophical view of socioeconomic and political structure so that they support reformist political movements before they do revolutionary movements. Spending time voting for the richest man or writing your governor are almost laughable when one discerns 98% of amerikkka is enemy. Class consciousness in the labor aristocracy and bourgeoisie is high while in the lumpen it is low. Privileges, false-consciousness and “the amerikkkan dream” got us hook, line and sinker chasing the carrot. The pigs, the imperialists, keep us out of legal employment with the opportunity of upward mobility being impossible. So we chase the illusion of the amerikkkan dream in the drug game. To chase ideals taught in elementary and high school right into our caskets. It is this juvenile ass scenario preventing our peoples from unity and throwing off this system like a bad habit.

When the drug trade ceases, and excuses for policing and imprisonment have no grounds to stand on, the government would have to backpedal the drug war into their garage. Most of us don’t realize that the more violence we contribute to, in and out of prison, the more excuses for SHUs and SWAT team type scenarios pop up. Can you imagine the power in directing the crack fiend’s intelligence, cunning and commitment into politics?! Imperialism fears such scenarios. This is why they keep the drug trade on and popping. Prison guards, street cops, prison administrators, food-telephone-parole-commisary, etc., services would be jobless if we put down the pipe, the drug war’s an illusion and smokescreen hiding the wizard of oz behind its fancy tapestry.

Mexican cartels make billions off the drug trade. This money they funnel into amerikkkan banks. The $20 dope fiend gets one to fifteen yeas as the 2 billion dollar dealers get free checking. The sad part in all this is the money in these banks, made from Latino cartels, goes to oppose revolutions in Nicaragua, Paraguay, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. The more Third World countries Amerikkka has under its thumb the more goods oppressor nation labor aristocrats can siphon. Third World countries like Mexico act as prime markets for amerikkkan products and prime hot spots for factories that employ oppressed wimmin and children on 60 times less money than amerikkkans make.

These Mexican cartels are not the principal enemy. But even though they are fighting against the oppressed nations’ interest worldwide, they are still oppressed nation national bourgeois and minority compradors. We take Mao’s example in China when he united with Chaing Kai Shek, an oppressor, to defeat Japanese imperialism, the bigger oppressor. Mao’s tactic worked. We must employ such means, when necessary, if we want to succeed in bringing imperialism to its knees. One divides into two and some of these cartels will side with revolution and some with imperialism. To label all as enemy would in effect shoot ourselves in the feet. Some of the money cartels make goes to the revolution, here and abroad, that’s almost assured. So the drug trade is internationalist in some of its practice. We must avoid the trap of big nation chauvinism and see that 80% of the world is Third World.

Most lumpen orgs will not transform into revolutionary orgs as long as they can benefit materially from working in cahoots with the imperialists, i.e. pushing dope and other hustles. Most youth these days haven’t even heard of their set’s infancy. Lumpen orgs were originally created to fight oppression in the hood. But the pigs infiltrated these orgs and turned them into oppressive groups. Like a vampire. What better way for a vampire oppressor to sleep easy than making sure everyone from sea to shining sea are themselves vampire oppressors!? Just lock up behind razor wire those whose necks they can get at and it’s sweet dreams for dracula.

Today’s youth’s mission is realizing protracted struggle is necessary in smashing oppression. We must understand that a concerted effort, that may take many years, is ahead of us. But it’s also winnable. China and Russia succeeded in defeating backwards systems. We can too. Most comrades get discouraged after so many years of struggling. To struggle isn’t easy but it’s capable of giving extreme satisfaction when one looks back at the progression one accomplishes over the years. WE have been misled and under-educated by design. All in an effort at halting our progression and the resolution of the imperialist contradiction. Our Humanity has been stolen. We have no empathy for war or starvation. How sick is that?

Back in the day Jim Crow laws made people rise up against oppression. Then it fizzled out until the Vietnam War made people revolt. Nowadays mass incarceration, the new Jim Crow, and Afghanistan are our hot spots of agitation. But the sad part is most lumpen embrace prison and war. Most of us believe we belong in chains and the Middle East is full of “terrorists.” It’s a mind wash. It is amerikkka who is terrorist. And the Middle East are our people. We know deep down that shit’s not right. One comrade in the study group spoke about the suicide rate, and even his very own suicidal tendencies before politics, as being exponential. USW wants to begin to show how change is possible. We will attempt to provide the roadmap but it is on you to start your cars. Let’s discover our humanity and start questioning things around us. War and starvation are a preventable. Let us challenge each other to grow and create a better way for ourselves and the future.

Mainstream hip hop and drugs are killing us. Oppressed nation lumpen eat that shit up like rat poison. “The amerikan dream” a.k.a. “rat poison.” If the amerikkkan dream is to starve and create war so I can have an x-box and cheap gasoline it’s not worth it. Not to USW. You? Dirtying the names of groups like the Black Panther Party, MIM(Prisons) and USW is a tactic used to revise history and throw a wrench in the revolution. People seem to either embrace us or spit on us, and from what we’ve experienced there’s seldom middle ground. But it says more about the spitter than anything else. We must learn to uphold the standards we promote and avoid straddling the fence or deviating from issues. Practice is principal. Is our work focused on anti-community or pro-community work? The people will recognize which pole we are on, that’s assured. We must rest easy in the knowledge that the pigs’ truth ain’t ours. There is no truth in common between the oppressor and the oppressed. Because the aims, efforts and goals we push are seen as a threat to their wealth and leisure time privileges. USW looks up to the Panther legacy for these reasons above, and many others. We invite thorough study of the rich revolutionary heritage of our forebearers with the black berets. Power to all oppressed people.

Recently an exposé of the private prison Winn Correctional Center in Winnfield, Lousiana, run by Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), was published in Mother Jones.(1) The article explains conditions which are completely inhumane, and many of the atrocities are linked to the CCA’s drive for profit.

In the section about the mailroom, the author Shane Bauer mentions Under Lock & Key:

“Around the mail room, there are bulletins posted of things to look out for: an anti-imperialist newsletter called Under Lock and Key, an issue of Forbes that comes with a miniature wireless internet router, a CD from a Chicano gangster rapper with a track titled ‘Death on a CO.’”

Curiously, Winn mailroom staff consider political education just as dangerous to the prison environment as electronics and death threats. This blatant censorship is not unique to this facility, and is not unique to private prisons. There are many state-run facilities all across the country where we know our mail is censored in a similar manner. Unfortunately we don’t have an investigative reporter inside, and, only being able to communicate with our comrades through the mail, we are not able to combat this censorship or expose it. We post known censorship incidents on our website, but the reality is that we will never know what happens to approximately two-thirds of the mail we send in.

In reading the exposé, one might start to believe this private prison is different from public prisons. That’s one of the major downsides of this piece: it leaves the reader wondering, assuming that state-run facilities are inherently better. Yet we post many articles from our correspondents inside showing that state-run facilities can be just as bad as Winn Correctional Center: lack of appropriate medical care leading to long-term health problems, lack of programming, arbitrary lockdowns, excessive use of force, lack of discretion in hiring personnel, and the list goes on.

To campaign against private prisons is to assert that state-run prisons are acceptable. It legitimizes the United $tates government as an impartial arbiter. It says that it isn’t the prison that’s bad, but instead just the aspect of private ownership. Yet MIM(Prisons) sees the prison struggle in the United $tates as one against social control generally – whether private or state-run.

We thank Shane Bauer for writing this horrific piece for the benefit of our fight against inhumane prison conditions. And we must look at the bigger picture, how state-run facilities fit in, and how the prison reform movement interacts with the struggle for self-determination of the internal semi-colonies and the liberation of the Third World from imperialism’s death grip. Certainly imprisonment for profit must be abolished. But this phenomena could only develop inside a capitalist economy. If not this atrocity of capitalism, then there will be another one, and there certainly are. If our struggle is limited to simply abolishing private ownership of prisons, we will have wasted much time and energy that could have been spent on a broader struggle.(2)

I’ve been in solitary confinement here at Louisiana’s Prison for 2 years now. David Wade Correctional Institution is a DOC facility. A disciplinary, concentration camp. Louisiana’s most repressive prison. Everywhere you move you have to be shackled and handcuffed. Even to the shower if it’s a few feet from your cell. You use the phone once a month, for 10 minutes. Our yard time is only 5 days out the week for 1 hour, inside of a chicken wired cage almost the same size as your cell. The prison is designed to break the mind, body and soul.

Incarcerated individuals here are living in inhumanity in its purest form. I met some guys who have been here on extended lockdown (solitary confinement) for six, seven, eight years straight. Our superiors are antagonists that despise the strong. Their job is to introduce us to the elements of repression. Their goal is to break you… by any means necessary.

It’s the heart of the summer and it gets really hot on these cell blocks. We’re the only prison in the state of Louisiana that only has one fan on each tier. Its nearly 100 degrees! On top of that, there’s no water and we’re not allowed ice on the tier. The only water that we’re allowed to drink is out of our sink. And sometimes our pipes are backed up, or there’s a boil-water warning on the news. If we want water, our only option is to drink contaminated water out our sinks, which is cruel and unusual punishment. Inhumanity. Not to mention that we’re only allowed books and newspapers. We have no access to any television or radio. The papers is how we find out about the boil water warnings, and sometimes the newspapers come too late because of slow mail.

They want you to put your jump suit all the way on, while you’re in your cell all during the day while it’s nearly 100 degrees. This is only a tactic to make you as uncomfortable as possible. You see, every day in these cells is war. They take you to war every single day. Psychological warfare.

A lot of the guys here can’t endure the delinquency of the officers, nor could they endure these extreme circumstances of dehumanization. I watch guys break right before my eyes all the time. The mind is very elusive… Hold it tight. One minute you’ll be talking to a guy and the next minute they just snap, right before your very eyes, as if their mind was an egg that slipped out of their hand, and splattered across the hard rough pavement.

These situations are so frequent that a lot of the individuals here have gotten used to it. They have so adjusted to where they believe that these abnormal situations are normal. Just a couple of weeks ago a guy hung himself in his cell. His body dangled for a couple of hours before anyone even noticed. He was then rolled off the tier, and it was as if nothing had happen.

Guys use to be killed here by guards all the time. That was until word started to leak outside of these walls and into the free world. But that still wasn’t enough to mentally liberate us. We need outside help… recognition… the voice of society… we need revolution!

I’m fortunate enough to be one of the few to be spiritually emancipated. Subsequently I have become a revolutionist. The change has already begun. And unity is a very fundamental principle.

We’re dying to live….but we’re living to die.

There’s about 11 of us total who have been on hunger strike. Today makes my 4 1/2 day without food [11 July 2016]. About 8 or 9 other guys have reached their 7 day mark. But this is only the beginning. We would probably have to go a couple of weeks on hunger strike for them to even take us seriously, which is hard work without the outside help, or support. Also the oppressor refuses to stand down without opposition. Their tactics are vital. You could be on hunger strike for 4 or 5 days and they wouldn’t even document it. That way they won’t have to report so many to D.O.C headquarters. But also subsequently you wouldn’t receive mandatory medical treatment, which is protocol after a prisoner misses 9 meals.

You’re declared to be suicidal. By refusing to follow their protocol they violate our constitutional rights. But we’re willing to go however long it takes. We also have multiple comrades who have made it to the courts system to push even further after they have successfully exhausted the grievance process. Our fundamental goal is for change… Better circumstances. We want the same thing that the “Pledge of Allegiance” taught us. We want Liberty and Justice for all.

MIM(Prisons) responds: We stand with this writer and the comrades in Louisiana fighting back against the dangerous and inhumane conditions at David Wade Correctional Center. This comrade is right that actions behind bars need outside support. It is also important to have some clear demands when we undertake big protests like a hunger strike. This will help focus the response, and ensure that we know when we have won. Fighting for general liberty and justice is definitely our goal as communists, but we know we will never achieve that under capitalism, and so our actions should be focused on winnable battles today while we build for liberation for all through revolution.

I have a pending lawsuit against the law librarian Arno Nappi, who is only allowing me access to the law library once a month. I’m not Ad-Seg, SHU, etc. I’m confined to my cell 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, for non-disciplinary reasons.

I’m not the only one. There are five of us and we are medical patients in a medical unit.

I am an EOP (Enhanced Outpatient Program) prisoner, I live in a pod/building with all types of other inmates, levels I, II, III, IV. I leave the building and go to groups to learn how to cope with my mental health symptoms every day.

Recently I talked to my clinician/psychologist about bringing up in some of our groups the simple, but powerful subject of name-calling.

I see people every week leave my building (B-3) with suicidal ideations, cut wrists, head wounds from banging on the wall, because other inmates (EOP/Not-EOP) in the height of these peoples’ distress, will yell, whoop and promote that person’s self-harm, loudly onto the tier thus driving these guys insane, sometimes bleeding, and taken out in handcuffs.

Currently, I am the one being picked on daily. It is unbearable, yet I easily find peace in knowing that the people doing it, spend their time very unwisely, whereas I am writing to colleges, Buddhist Sanghas, and political organizations, educating myself and standing up for the rights of those of us that are locked down.

It is not right, to continually torment people, especially the mentally ill, from morning until night or at any time of the day.

And it is absolutely sickening because these little cliques of inmates all say “god bless you” to each other join the prayer circles, then come back and treat sick people unkindly, and antagonistically.

Right now, because of this I am getting together a letter to send to major bible publishers, urging them to save a section preferably in the front pages, addressing the type of conduct a person should have when dealing with and encountering all types of people daily in life. I know it explains this in the bible, but people be getting lost in the scriptures and stories, thinking they’re doing righteous tasks when in actuality the way of life they lead is neither noble, nor righteous.

MIM(prisons) thank you for being my positive outlet.

MIM(Prisons) responds: We commend this comrade for taking a righteous and positive approach to these negative conditions. It is by leaders like em standing up to make a change that we can put an end to oppression in all its forms.

This week U.$. military officials announced that transgender people are welcome to serve openly as warriors for imperialism and Amerikkkan world domination. They made a plan that will roll out over the next year, including financial support for medical treatment such as surgeries, therapy, and hormones.

Some trans activists, who recognize why this announcement is “problematic” for people in the oppressed nations, will assert that “they’ll co-opt anything.” Which is true, to an extent. The U.$. government in all its forms will try to control any aspect of our society that can be controlled. Which underlines the point that identity politics is not threatening to U.$. militarism and world domination, because it can be controlled just by mere acceptance. Does the struggle for transgender acceptance (or any gender struggle), distinct from revolutionary organizing, undermine capitalism itself? No. And this announcement proves it.

The U.$. government can’t co-opt genuine anti-imperialist organizing, try as it might with front organizations and rewriting of history. It can’t actually integrate the self-determination of nations into colonialism, because they are opposite aspects of a worldwide contradiction. They can’t resolve the oppression and desperation of people in the Third World, because they depend on that oppression for its base function of exploitation, to keep people in the United $tates wealthy and happy.

If your struggle can be integrated into the U.$. military, then it shows which side your struggle is truly on. Are you a revolutionary internationalist? Or just hoping for a better life here in Amerikkka? Everyone who opposes gender oppression, militarism, and genocide, should do everything in their power to organize against the U.$. military, and against capitalism, as that’s the only way we’re going to get to a world without gender oppression for everyone.

On July 2nd, 2016 my wife came from Texarkana to the Wynne Unit in Huntsville, Texas. What happened after our four hour contact visit is as follows:

Pam (wife) was leaving the unit. She had her car searched by a male TDCJ guard who accidentally pushed the lock button and closed the door (with the keys inside). “Pam is mentally disabled” and became sick from the heat after standing by her locked car for over an hour while someone looked for a clothes hanger. The guards allowed her to cool off inside.

The unit warden - Warden Strong - has been called. She questions Pam on who she came to see. The warden’s harassment starts the moment Pam says my name. Bad mouthing me to Pam, she then takes Pam to a building to use the phone. The warden instructs her to call my mother. Warden Strong is on the phone with my mother bad mouthing me. When she sees the call is not to her advantage she hangs up on her, turns to Pam and says “She is a b***h isn’t she?” Disagreement cost her a ride back to her car. The warden made her walk back.

Back at the car Warden Strong is telling several TDCJ guards that what happened or happens next is not TDCJ responsibility. The warden tells Pam that she needs to break a window, if not she will, or call the Fire Department, or a tow truck to get the car off TDCJ property. With all of this unprovoked harassment/bullying Pam finds a rock, strikes the window several times and when it shatters Pam cuts her hand. At no time during Pam getting sick from the heat, to cutting her hand on the window did Warden Strong allow first aid or provide it. Not even a band-aid.

Pam’s treatment by Warden Strong had Pam so upset that she almost ended up in Dallas. Upon her getting on the proper highway she got a ticket for excessive speeding. “Thank God it wasn’t worse.” At first Pam was afraid to go forward with this. Now she isn’t. She is concerned about retaliation to her, our families, or myself.

Yo soy un joven que ha dedicado su vida a la revolución. A lo primero yo no entendía porque la necesidad de la revolución. Ahora me encuentro preso y los Latinos y Boricuas me enseñaron a educarme en quien soy yo. Para ser revolucionario tienes que entender de la opresión sobre tu gente - y con el mundo. Cómo Amerikkka está oprimiendo a nuestra gente con el capitalismo, la injusticia, y con el imperialismo, que es el enemigo numero uno. Estando preso yo he visto como muchos de estos guardias racistas nos tratan por el color de nuestra piel, nuestro lenguaje, y más por nuestra unidad. Para ver y hacer un cambio tiene que haber unidad! Como nosotros como Latinos podemos ayudar a otros, si a veces ni nosotros mismos nos ayudamos? Tenemos que unirnos y educarnos, porque educación, sabiduría, disciplina, e inteligencia es poder! Educación es el poder a la revolución.

Nosotros con la mente maestra de la revolución estando presos, tenemos que coger el tiempo y educar a la juventud que esta entrando a las prisiones. Enseñarles que ser gangero o tenerle odio a otra persona por el color de su piel no es el camino correcto de caminar. Que coger un puñal o una navaja para guerrear por una calle o ciudad no hay ganancia. Sino que, cogiendo un libro revolucionario, de educación, y educándote y ayudando a otros, ahí hay ganancia y beneficio. Yo como revolucionario estoy dispuesto a pelear con el sistema corrupto, la injusticia, y por la independencia de mi raza, con el poder de la educación. La violencia no resuelve nuestros problemas. Si nos unimos de corazón, con una unidad verdadera, y usamos nuestra inteligencia para desenmascarar al sistema y sus pocas vergüenzas, seremos vencedores.

Por eso cojo tiempo. Pero siempre ten en mente que nuestro trabajo para la revolución viene con ganancia. Ser guerreros para la revolución, hoy, mañana, y siempre.

Una camarada de USW responde: Siempre es un gusto escuchar que hay camaradas dispuestos a dedicarse a la lucha revolucionaria. Queda mencionar que la educación revolucionaria correcta es el Marxismo-Leninismo-Maoismo, que es el análisis y la acción materialista más avanzada que se ha desarrollado. Animamos a este camarada y a todos los lectores a que formen grupos de estudio, ya que como dice este camarada, la educación es poder, poder para derrumbar al imperialismo y capitalismo que son los creadores de la opresión. MIM(Prisiones) puede brindar material educativo a aquellos que lo pidan. Si no tiene dinero puede hacer trabajo para pagar.

I am an ex-officer for TDCJ (as in very recently.) I can probably answer questions you may have about the training that is given and other insider information. Being on both sides of the fence has opened my eyes to a lot.

For instance, you are correct as to the corruption of the discipline courts. I myself have been ordered to lie about them and at court hearings of inmates. A flat-out lie that cost some inmates good time and classification levels. All done in fear for my own job and the rank higher than me.

I can also say now after being incarcerated for approximately 10 months that I have found that it’s the system itself that makes the offenders act the way they do. I am here just to do my time and get out but the officers are the ones who make it so I can’t.

The TDCJ system is corrupt and needs to be cleaned up. The offenders would be happier ans the officers would also do better.

I would like to receive the latest Texas Activist Pack. My main concern here is the petition to ensure our grievances are addressed. I personally have about twenty-five grievances that have been blatantly ignored and unlawfully answered pertaining to theft of mail, theft of personal property, denial of access to the law library, unlawful disciplinary procedures, and constitutional violations.

I have contacted the Postal Inspector seeking to file criminal charges for mail fraud, and theft of mail. I am awaiting a personal interview. I had began a campaign to file a Federal civil action for theft, redress of grievances, and unlawful acts. Yet while doing investigating work in the law library I was suddenly denied access to the law library about four months ago by only being scheduled during required programatic activities.