MIM(Prisons) is a cell of revolutionaries serving the oppressed masses inside U.$. prisons, guided by the communist ideology of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism.
www.prisoncensorship.info is a media institution run by the Maoist Internationalist Ministry of Prisons. Here we collect and publicize reports of conditions behind the bars in U.$. prisons. Information about these incidents rarely makes it out of the prison, and when it does it is extremely rare that the reports are taken seriously and published. This historical record is important for documenting patterns of abuse, and also for informing people on the streets about what goes on behind the bars.
I would like to comment on an article titled
United
in California that was printed in ULK40. I am also housed
on a Special Needs Yard (SNY), and it wasn’t until I dropped out of the
street gang that I was able to develop the spirit of resistance on
revolutionary principles. The general population deems everybody a
snitch on these yards, however, that is not always the case. I simply
made the choice to walk away and no longer participate. I am housed
around prisoners with some shady history but not everybody here falls in
that category.
As a Chicano I work to help men on the yard get sober and educate
themselves, and to go back to their communities and discourage their
family and friends from joining gangs or selling/using drugs. It wasn’t
until I started down this path that I realized the true meaning of the
term Chicano. It does not mean Mexican-American as the Webster’s
dictionary defines. It’s a political term used to redefine one’s
perspective historically, economically, politically, and most
importantly responsibility. A responsibility to the people!
I come from a place that produces warriors, so I don’t play into the
finger pointing that the system uses to divide us as a people - general
population vs. sensitive needs.
MIM(Prisons) adds: We stand with this comrade in the debate over
whether
SNY
prisoners can be trusted as revolutionary activists. We judge
individuals by the work they do and the political line they put forward.
We know there are a lot of people in SNY who have snitched. But we also
know there are plenty of people in GP who can’t be trusted. We don’t let
the pigs define who we trust by their housing categories, instead we
hold all people to the same standards and require everyone to
demonstrate their trustworthiness in practice.
Recently a new program was launched to further erode the self-esteem and
morale of captives within the bowels of neocolonial Colorado, “the
violence reduction program.” This program claims to target
lumpen-on-lumpen violence by “group punishment.” In essence, if violence
breaks out between individuals or groups, the prison can punish 5 known
associates of those who participated in the violence, even when those 5
had nothing to do with the incident. The administration says this will
help ease tension so all “offenders can live in a safe environment and
take advantage of what DOC has to offer.” Right, that’s bullshit.
Because of our tribal, religious, or political affiliations they will
hold us as a unit responsible for one another’s actions. Wouldn’t
isolation as a group only promote that much more strength of the group
anyway? If we as individuals came in alone and will ultimately go home
alone, why are the staff and administration telling us that we are
responsible for the actions of people we hang out with?
I know a lot of comrades in Colorado read this, so let’s get this
rolling. If they will do this to us it won’t be long until we all live
just like we already do in segregation (Ad-Seg). What more can they take
from us at all level IV places, maximum, etc.? We are only allowed two
hours out a day for showers and recreation. Two hours! With 22 hours of
isolation, we might as well be in Ad-Seg anyway.
I keep thinking of something I once read in MIM literature, that “people
will not live under oppression forever.” I can’t blame my comrades who
wish to resort to focoism, but we must remember violence and premature
acts of resistance will no doubt set us back. If you really care and
want to stop what’s happening, it’s time to bleed those pens. Unite –
fight back.
MIM(Prisons) responds: This practice of punishment of
“associates” is not unique to Colorado. In Washington a comrade sent in
a copy of a memo about the Group Violence Reduction Strategy policy from
Mike Obenland, Superintendent of Clallam Bay Corrections Center dated 22
October 2014. It states, in part,
“If a prohibited violent act occurs, restrictions are imposed on the
offender who committed the prohibited violent act (perpetrator) and the
offenders who interact with the perpetrator on a regular basis (close
associates). Information provided by staff teams is used to identify
perpetrators and close associates. This group of offenders is subjected
to a cell search and up to six of the following restrictions for
30-days: [list of restrictions].”
This comrade from Colorado raises a good point about the contradictions
inherent in the prison system and the repression against prisoners. On
the one hand this new policy gives the prison the opportunity to punish
and isolate anyone they want just by claiming they are affiliated with
someone who engaged in violence, even if they never broke any rules
themselves. But on the other hand, this repression will breed greater
resistance, both by solidifying the unity of organizations that are
punished as a group, and by incurring the righteous indignation of those
affected by this arbitrary punishment. We can use this repression to
build the revolutionary movement. As this writer says, we need to
educate and write about what’s going on, and we cannot be pushed into
premature actions that bring down more repression.
I am currently housed in Georgia Department of Corrections’s (GDC) Tier
3 program. This is the only Tier 3 facility in the state at this time.
There are Tier 2 programs at every close-max facility in Georgia which
means there are about 10 of these units altogether. These programs are
sensory deprivation torture at its extreme.
There is no due process or even a set standard that GDC goes by to place
prisoners in these programs. If you file too many grievances, don’t get
along with the administration at a camp, or if snitches and rats give
information to staff about your activities that can’t even be proven,
Georgia will place you on the tier.
At Tier 3 there are “phases” to the program, but all prisoners for the
first 90 days are locked in a cell with only a shower, toilet, sink, and
bunk. All windows are covered with metal, and you are allowed no outside
recreation for at least 90 days. During this period you are allowed no
books, no magazines, none of your personal property except what legal
work the facility deems necessary. There is no store call except stamps
and paper (which are also limited), no phone calls, and no hygiene
except state issue.
In the whole state of Georgia we are fed only breakfast and dinner on
Friday, Saturday and Sunday. With no store call on the weekends, they
basically enforce starvation torture on us. If prisoners try to resist
in any way they are pepper sprayed or beaten. Guards slam prisoners’
arms and hands in heavy metal door flaps, curse at us, threaten to not
feed us, and then when they don’t feed us they say we refused our trays.
We have to fight this. I have filed three grievances so far in the 50
days I’ve been here, about the illegal classification and the
fictionalized classification standards. All have gone unanswered.
There are 200 prisoners all on Tier 3 at this facility. All over Georgia
there are probably 5,000 prisoners or more facing these oppressive
conditions. I am a white ghostface and I am introducing my organization
to the precepts of the United Front for Peace in Prisons. None of our
policies, laws, creeds, or codes go against what the front stands for,
nor does it go against what the MIM stands for or believes in.
MIM(Prisons) responds: Georgia’s tier system is being used to
target activists and anyone the prison wants to isolate. We have many
comrades now locked down in isolation. If anything, the torture is
breeding resistance and organization in Georgia. This comrade sets a
good example, looking to educate and organize others, including any
organizations that might join the
United Front
for Peace in Prisons. Coming together around the UFPP principle of
Unity we can build a movement to take on long-term isolation units like
they have in Georgia, as a part of the broader fight against the
criminal injustice system.
The Communist Necessity by J. Moufawad-Paul Kersplebedeb
2014 Available for $10 from AK Press, 674-A 23rd St, Oakland CA 94612
This new book from J. Moufawad-Paul provides a good argument against
reactionary trends in the First World activist movement over the past
few decades, specifically tearing down the misleading ideologies that
have moved away from communism and promote instead a mishmash of liberal
theories claiming to offer new improved solutions to oppression. It
comes mainly from an academic perspective, and as such takes on many
minor trends in political theory that are likely unknown to many
activist readers. But the main thrust, against what Moufawad-Paul calls
movementism, is correct and a valuable addition to the summary of the
recent past of political organizing and discussion of the way forward.
Unfortunately, in illuminating the need for communist theory and
scientific analysis Moufawad-Paul misses a crucial theoretical point on
the petty bourgeois status of the First World. As such, his conclusions
about the correct tasks for communists to take up are misleading.
Incorrect Line on the Labor Aristocracy
Moufawad-Paul does point out errors of those who have tried to take up
communist organizing within unions: “Instead, those of us who have
attempted to find our communist way within union spaces…. Bogged down by
collective agreements so that our activism becomes the management of
union survival; fighting for a union leadership that is only marginally
left in essence…”(p136) But then he goes on to uphold the demands of
unions without distinguishing between those representing the proletarian
workers and those representing the petty bourgeoisie: “Immediate
economic demands, of course, are not insignificant. We have to put food
on the table and pay the bills,; we want job security and benefits.
Solidarity amongst workers is laudable, and it would be a mistake to
oppose unions and union drives because they are not as revolutionary as
a communist party.”(p137) Readers of MIM(Prisons) literature know that
we have many books and articles detailing the calculations demonstrating
First World workers income putting them squarely in the group of
non-exploited owners of wealth who we call the petty bourgeoisie.
Moufawad-Paul concludes: “To reject economism, to recognize that
trade-unions, particularly at the centres of capitalism, may not be our
primary spaces of organization should not produce a knee-jerk
anti-unionism, no different in practice than the conservative hatred of
unions; rather, it should cause us to recognize the necessity of
focusing our organizational energies elsewhere.”(p137) This is a rather
unscientific and wishy washy conclusion from an author who otherwise
upholds revolutionary science to tear down many other incorrect
theories. In fact it is only in the last pages of the book, in the
“Coda” that Moufawad-Paul even attempts to take on this question of a
“working class” in the First World and distinguish it from workers in
the Third World:
“From its very emergence, capitalism has waged war upon humanity and
the earth. The communist necessity radiates from this eternal war:
capitalism’s intrinsic brutality produces an understanding that its
limits must be transgressed, just as it produces its own grave-diggers.
How can we be its grave-diggers, though, when we refuse to recognize the
necessity of making communism concretely, deferring its arrival to the
distant future? One answer to this problem is that those of us at the
centres of capitalism are no longer the primary grave-diggers.
“The permanent war capitalism wages upon entire populations is a war
that is viscerally experienced by those who live at the global
peripheries. Lenin once argued that revolutions tend to erupt at the
‘weakest links,’ those over-exploited regions where the contradictions
of capitalism are clear. Thus, it should be no surprise that communism
remains a necessity in these spaces – it is at the peripheries we
discover people’s wars. Conversely, opportunism festers at the global
centres, these imperialist metropoles where large sections of the
working-class have been pacified, muting contradictions and preventing
entire populations from understanding the necessity of communism.
Capitalism is not as much of a nightmare, here; it is a delirium, a
fever dream.”(p158)
But even while recognizing the pacification of “large sections of
the working-class” in imperialist countries, Moufawad-Paul fails to
undertake any scientific analysis of how large these sections are, or
what exactly it means to be pacified. It sounds as though they still
need to be woken from their “fever dream” to fight for communism. But
these workers will be ardent anti-communists if we appeal to their
economic interests. They have not just been pacified, they have been
bought off with wealth stolen from the Third World, and as with the
fascist workers in Germany under Hitler, they will fight to the death to
defend their wealth and power over oppressed nations.
It is trade unions of these people benefiting from exploitation who
Moufawad-Paul extols the readers not to reject with “a knee-jerk
anti-unionism, no different in practice than the conservative hatred of
unions.” But in fact if he studied the economics of wealth with the same
scientific passion he brings to the topic of communist theory overall,
Moufawad-Paul would see that workers in imperialist countries have been
bought over to the petty bourgeois class, and opposing their unionism is
not knee-jerk at all.
Movementism and Fear of Communism
The bulk of this book is devoted to a critique of movementism: “the
assumption that specific social movements, sometimes divided along lines
of identity or interest, could reach a critical mass and together,
without any of that Leninist nonsense, end capitalism.”(p9)
This movementism is seen in protests that have been held up throughout
the First World activist circles as the way to defeat capitalism:
“Before this farce, the coordinating committee of the 2010
demonstrations would absurdly maintain, on multiple email list-serves,
that we were winning, and yet it could never explain what it meant by
‘we’ nor did its claim about ‘winning’ make very much sense when it was
patently clear that a victory against the G20 would have to be more than
a weekend of protests. Had we truly reached a point where victory was
nothing more than a successful demonstration, where we simply succeeded
in defending the liberal right to assembly?”(p9-10)
Further, the movementists, and other similar self-proclaimed leftists of
the recent past demonstrate an aversion to communism, though sometimes
shrouding themselves in communist rhetoric: “All of this new talk about
communism that avoids the necessity of actually bringing communism into
being demonstrates a fear of the very name communism.”(p29) He points
out that this is manifested in practice: “The Arab Spring, Occupy, the
next uprising: why do we look to these examples as expressions of
communism instead of looking to those movements organized militantly
under a communist ideology, that are making more coherent and
revolutionary demands?”(p30)
Moufawad-Paul correctly analyzes the roots of the support for
“insurrections” in the Third World rather than the actual communist
revolutions. Real revolutions can have setbacks and fail to seize state
power: “The lingering fascination with the EZLN, for example, is
telling: There is a reason that the Zapatistas have received sainthood
while the Sendero Luminoso has not. The latter’s aborted people’s war
placed it firmly in the realm of failure; the former, in refusing to
attempt a seizure of state power.”(p46)
In another correct critique of these activists that MIM has made for
years, Moufawad-Paul points out the problem with communists joining
non-communist organizations and attempting to take over leadership:
“…Occupied Wallstreet Journal refuses to communicate anything openly
communist and yet is being edited by known communists…”(p50) Essentially
these communists have to water down their own politics for the sake of
the group, and they are doing nothing to promote the correct line more
broadly.
Ultimately Moufawad-Paul sums up the anti-commnunism: “Even before this
collapse it was often the hallmark of supposedly ‘critical’ marxism in
the first world, perhaps due to the influence of trotskyism, to denounce
every real world socialism as stalinist, authoritarian, totalitarian.
Since the reification of anti-communist triumphalism this denunciation
has achieved hegemony; it is the position to which would-be marxist
academics gravitate and accept as common sense, an unquestioned dogma.
Hence, we are presented with a constellation of attempts to reboot
communism by calling it something different, by making its past either
taboo or meaningless…”(p69)
And he cautions us that while some are now returning to communism in
name, they are still lacking a materialist analysis of communist
practice that is needed to bring about revolution: “Despite the return
to the name of communism, this new utopianism, due to its emergence in
the heart of left-wing academia and petty-bourgeois student movements,
has absorbed the post-modern fear of those who speak of a communist
necessity – the fear of that which is totalizing and thus totalitarian.
The failure to develop any concrete strategy of overthrowing capitalism,
instead of being treated as a serious deficiency, is apprehended as a
strength: the movement can be all things for all people, everything for
everyone, everywhere and nowhere…”(p151)
Moufawad-Paul correctly notes that for many academics and other petty
bourgeois advocates of these new theories, the fear of communism is
actually based in a fear of their own material position being
challenged: “Here is a terrible notion, one that we avoid whenever we
embrace those theories that justify our class privilege: we will more
than likely be sent down to the countryside, whatever this figurative
‘countryside’ happens to be; we too will have to be reeducated. Most of
us are terrified by this possibility, disgusted by the necessity of
rectification, of being dragged down.”(p96)
Sectarianism vs. Principled Differences
Moufawad-Paul includes some good discussion of the failure of
movementist doctrine around so-called anti-sectarianism: “But the charge
of sectarianism is leveled at every and any organization that dares to
question the fundamental movementist doctrine.”(p53) As he explains,
“But principled political difference by itself does not amount to
sectarianism, though it is often treated as such by those who would
judge any moment of principled difference as sectarian
heresy….Maintaining a principled political difference is itself a
necessity, part of developing a movement capable of drawing demarcating
lines, and even those who would endorse movementism have to do so if
they are to also maintain their anti-capitalism.”(p55)
The failure of coalition politics is summed up well: “When a variety of
organizations with competing ideologies and strategies are gathered
together under one banner, the only theoretical unity that can be
achieved is the most vague anti-capitalism. Since revolutionary strategy
is derived from revolutionary unity, the vagueness of theory produces a
vagueness in practice: tailism, neo-reformism, nebulous
movementism.”(p129) This underscores why MIM(Prisons) promotes the
United Front over coalition politics. In the United Front we have clear
proletarian leadership but we do not ask organizations to compromise
their own political line for that of the UF. A principled UF comes
together around clear and concise points of unity while maintaining
their independence in other areas. A good example of this is the
United Front
for Peace in Prisons.
The Need for Communism
Moufawad-Paul includes a good discussion of the need for real communist
ideology, rooted in historical materialism and focused on what we need
to do today rather than just building academic careers by talking about
theories. “If anything, these movements, whatever their short-comings,
should remind us of the importance of communism and its necessity; we
should not hide from these failures, attempt to side-step them by a
vague rearticulation of the terminology, or refuse to grasp that they
were also successes. If we are to learn from the past through the lens
of the necessity of making revolution, then we need to do so with an
honesty that treats the practice of making communism as an historical
argument.”(p29)
He encourages the readers: “To speak of communism as a necessity, then,
is to focus on the concrete world and ask what steps are necessary to
make it a reality.”(p31) And the way to figure out what steps are
necessary is revolutionary science:
“Why then is historical materialism a revolutionary science? Because
the historical/social explanation of historical/social phenomena is the
very mechanism of class struggle, of revolution. And this scientific
hypothesis is that which is capable of demystifying the whole of history
and myriad societies, a way in which to gauge any and every social
struggle capable of producing historical change.
“Hence, without a scientific understanding of social struggle we are
incapable of recognizing when and where failed theories manifest. The
physicist has no problem banning Newtonian speculation to the past where
it belongs; s/he possesses a method of assessment based on the
development of a specific scientific terrain. If we resist a similar
scientific engagement with social struggle we have no method of making
sense of the ways in which revolutionary hypotheses have been dis-proven
in the historical crucible due to historical ‘experiments’ of class
struggle.”(p43)
Overall The Communist Necessity adds some much needed revolutionary
scientific analysis to “leftist” activism and theories of the recent
past. It is unfortunate that Moufawad-Paul did not apply this same
scientific rigor to his analysis of classes. Only with both elements
firmly understood will we be prepared to do our part to support the
communist struggles of the oppressed world wide.
It is true the heat here is unbearable. In July of this year we had a
prisoner die from the heat, shortly after coming from recreation. The
guards said it was because he was old but everyone knew it was because
of the heat. Sometimes temperatures reach 107 degrees inside. To punish
us if we don’t rack up or if we’re talking shit or maybe if we don’t got
our shirts on, the guards turn off the fans in the dayroom and they
don’t unlock the igloos so we can put water in them, just so they can
hit us where it hurts.
We file grievances on them and nothing is ever done. As of right now we
still don’t have normal recreation since summer just because someone
died, but that still doesn’t stop people from falling out inside the
dorm. I alone have seen at least three people hospitalized because of
the heat, who knows how many in total here at Lopez.
MIM(Prisons) adds: We’ve been hearing from across the state of
Texas that the heat is killing and injuring prisoners and the prisons
are doing nothing to address the danger. We can expect relief from the
heat as the weather moves towards winter, but this will only provide a
temporary change to new problems, and the heat will come back next
summer. For those fighting these and other dangerous conditions in
Texas, write to request our
grievance
pack to help demand that our grievances be addressed.
I write this in support and in reply to the couple articles regarding
Support
for the People of Palestine I recently read within ULK’s
September/October 2014 issue #40.
A little over a month ago, I awoke to a PBS early morning segment
concerning the struggle of the Palestinian people to liberate themselves
and their land from Israeli occupation and oppression. In this
documentary I witnessed personnel of the Israeli military serve eviction
notices to Palestinian people in Palestinian housing on Palestinian
land, claiming to be taking control of the housing under the authority
of the state of Israel. I also witnessed the recently built Israeli
settlements being moved into by Israeli civilians as flustered
Palestinian fathers, seemingly not 100 yards away on the opposite side
of some sort of security fencing, had to attempt to explain to their
children how it was no longer their (Palestinian) land, one even
pointing to where his store used to be. Imagine trying to explain
imperialism to a child who is barely old enough to tie his own shoes.
The United States and Israel, the Middle East’s neighborhood bullies,
seem to think it acceptable to propose ‘peace’ and ‘tolerance’ while
they exploit a people and their land. They seem to think the victims
should ‘get over’ the loss of their lands and the heartless slaughter
and oppression of their people. When the victims wage armed struggle the
oppressors scream “foul/self-defense” as if to say “why do you hate us
so?” And in keeping with the bully analogy, of course, when a bully has
historically, and is continuously oppressing a people, the bully always
has to worry about retaliation. Israel has no moral ground in this
scenario, at all. You stole their land and oppress their people,
therefore the Palestinian people reserve the moral right to liberate
themselves when and how they see fit. Trip off of this: while the U.S.
feeds Israel arms as Israel takes Palestinian land, the U.S. condemns
Russia for absorbing Crimea. On behalf of New Afrikans, I declare
solidarity with the righteous Palestinian people!
And, of course, some Zionist Jews shall read this and cry
“anti-Semitic,” because to them such a claim trumps truth. Well, let me
remind them ahead of them proclaiming such a factoid, the Palestinians
are semites too! The definition of semite is “a member of any group of
peoples (as the Hebrews or Arabs) of Southwestern Asia.”
The hard line confederacy (Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina,
Texas, Virginia) attack on prisoner’s religious rights to hair and
beards while incarcerated has led to a blatant case of perjury in the
State of Arkansas, in an attempt to justify this religious repression.
In an effort to deny a prisoner his right to a beard as a Muslim,
magistrate Judge Joe J. Volpe, U.S. District Court, ruled that while a
prisoner has a right to his religious practices under the Religious Land
Use/Institutionalized Person Act (R.L.U.I.P.A., 42 U.S. Code § 2000cc)
the prison could overwhelm his constitutional rights if there was a
credible, reasonable ‘security penological necessity’ to trample those
rights.
In quick order, the District Judge rubber stamped this, once Ray Hobbs,
the director of the State of Arkansas Department of Prisons, stated in a
sworn deposition that he personally was aware of one single example of
one type of dangerous contraband being smuggled, concealed in a
prisoner’s beard. (A long laundry list of horrors, which the state
claimed ‘may’ be hidden in a quarter inch beard but not, presumably,
elsewhere on the body, included cell phone SIM cards, knives, drugs, and
homemade darts).
The U.S. Supreme Court will now take up this case. Last term, this court
ruled (by the five right wingers) that corporations have religious
rights that trump women’s civil rights. (“Hobby lobby” case). Now, the
same lawyers who argued for the corporation in that case, to create
civil rights for non-living corporations, will press the prison’s case
to deny religious rights. The lawyers are specially appointed by the
court that will hear the case. No one dares complain, after all, since
to do so would be to attack the judges you hope will rule in your favor,
as “biased.”
In a bizarre twist discovered after the lower courts ruled based upon
the sole example of a dangerous, and in this example deadly, razor blade
smuggled in a prisoner’s beard, perjury most foul was exposed. And it
was dripping off the lips of none other than director Roy Hobbs, top
good ol’ boy in the Arkansas department of corruption.
Roy Hobbs swore that a prisoner named Steven Oldham smuggled a razor
blade within his beard, and when the opportunity arose, he proceeded to
commit suicide with that very razor blade. My goodness. How simply
awful, and of course, how clear it is that beards are a deadly threat to
security.
The magistrate, district and circuit judges all agreed.
Let’s peek behind the perjury veil.
As was well known to Roy Hobbs, prior to and during his part in the
conspiracy to defraud the courts, the razor that dealt the lethal wound
was a bright orange plastic single blade item purchased by Arkansas
Dept. of Corruption. This molded plastic unit with a steel blade encased
within it was not ever suspected of being smuggled, hidden, or illicitly
possessed. It was handed to the prisoner by prison staff, with orders to
shave off his beard.
The lying director, desperate to manufacture even one tiny example of
any kind of ‘beard smuggling’ to justify his blatantly racist attack on
the religious rights of persons who, in the southern states, face a lot
of this special treatment in prisons, had knowingly concocted this
‘boogie man’. It worked. Only if the razor had been used against a guard
would the fantasy incident have carried more weight with the tsk tsking
judges all the way to the country’s supreme court.
Roy Hobbs did the usual finger-pointing maneuver when caught red handed
committing perjury, he blames everyone in the world for misleading him
into stating he knows for a fact that which any cursory investigation
reveals as false. In California, where I reside on death row, penal code
§125 declares that when a person states under oath that which he does
not know to be a fact, that is identical to knowingly lying. Even if the
‘fact’ happens to be true. That means, in this state at least, Roy Hobbs
was guilty of perjury for stating as fact this ‘razorblade in the beard’
lie, even had it been true. Which of course, it was obviously not.
The country’s highest court is now reviewing whether the ‘security
claim’ by the prison director is sufficient to overcome a prisoner’s
religious rights. Even when the single faked security claim was
blazingly criminal perjury. This should be an opportunity for the high
court to write the rules about what level of proof of flat out
corruption prisoners may use to destroy the court’s own rule about how
prison officials get deference when they shriek “security!”
Let’s see what pretzeled logic and tortured theories the rat pack at the
supreme court come out with. The only evidence of any security risk was
conspired criminal perjury. Roy Hobbs keeps directing Arkansas’ prisons,
rather than occupying a cell in a federal penitentiary.
MIM(Prisons) adds: The entire criminal injustice system, from
police to prisons, is set up to serve the interests of the imperialists
running the government. So it’s no surprise that false evidence is
sufficient to deny prisoner’s rights. This case is unique in that the
perjury was actually exposed. Unfortunately, the courts don’t serve up
justice, and so we can expect little from them in defending the rights
of the oppressed. The imperialist courts will never lead to liberation
for the oppressed. We must continue to expose these cases to educate
people about the systematic nature of injustice as we build an
anti-imperialist movement that can overthrow the system that relies on
injustice for its very survival.
This is a comment on the
United
in California article from ULK40. It is crucial
MIM(Prisons) recognizes SNYs work or have worked with the prison
administration against other prisoners. While as Maoists we know no
oppression is overcome until all oppression is overcome, we can’t
possibly ask anyone affected by their actions to turn around and work
with them. Would Mao have worked with Deng Xiaoping? I don’t know Saif
[the author] but the idea that there are “some good strong comrades” on
SNY is not a convincing argument to administer against the overwhelming
evidence of SNYs helping pigs at every opportunity. Even if it’s by his
exposing himself as a “leader.” You’re a man not a “leaf” if you can’t
hold on to the branch and fall, I can accept that, but we’ll keep
climbing without you.
While I don’t promote violence against SNYs and in fact wish them well
in any anti-imperialist work. I would strongly advise anyone against
incorporating any SNY inmate into any work that may lead to repression
from any government entity.
SNYs should keep using MIM(Prisons) as a guide in their work. But in
promoting unification of SNY and “mainline” convicts in general terms
MIM(prisons) blurs a crucial line. SNYs can challenge their SNY status
administratively. I am a General Population inmate. Do you have
“sensitive needs?” I don’t. I can be housed around anyone, accept people
who don’t want to be around me, i.e. people with “sensitive needs.”
Being scientific in our assessments of individuals involves being
honest. SNYs work to reinforce the stigma that all GP convicts are
inherently violent by allowing the administration to use them to say “if
this inmate is housed on a GP line it may jeopardize institutional
security.” This stigma in turn imposes harsher restrictions on GP
inmates and SNY inmates reap the benefits of the distinction….jobs,
rehab programs, vocation, education, conjugal visits, etc. are given
priority on SNYs, especially on the level IV yards.
MIM(Prisons) should analyze the SNY/mainline distinction in the same
manner as oppressed nations within the U.$. It is my personal assessment
that SNYs chose to work with the administration against other prisoners.
They get to the SN Yards and realize that “no, the administration is not
your friend” and then want to whine about it. Their issues are distinct
from ours and while there are issues with the administration that are
shared on both sides, I would not risk my standing with other GP
prisoners by helping someone who is likely to have hurt them.
SNY/GP unity is not possible. The promotion of this idea undermines
MIM(Prisons) credibility on GP yards. UFPP doesn’t rely on this theory
because SNYs chose to not be housed with us. So theoretically they can
continue to uphold the principals on those yards, while we do ours.
MIM(Prisons) responds: For those new to ULK, we have
explained
our
line on SNY in the movement in more depth elsewhere. We completely
understand the reactions that many have to our position on working with
those in SNY after the torture that so many people in California have
gone through at the hands of the state prison system, with the
complicity of many who went to SNY. Yet, practice seems to be proving
our line correct both in terms of the contributions that SNY comrades
make to building USW, and the direction that the CA prisons system is
going overall. We do not take this question lightly, nor does working
with SNY comrades mean we take security lightly. If this issue is
important to you, please write to us to get a more extensive discussion
of this topic.
The above comrade’s contribution to this long-stading debate over the
role of SNY status in the pages of Under Lock & Key is a
unique perspective because unlike most anti-SNY writers, s/he advocates
that SNY prisoners can do good anti-imperialist work, as long as they do
it separately. The argument that SNY prisoners cannot be trusted or
united with is based in the idea that all SNY prisoners have debriefed
and sold out comrades on GP. But we know that
debriefing
is not required to get SNY status. This writer is correct that the
administration plays SNY against GP, but we can’t let them dictate who
we work with. We must make that decision ourselves based on each
individual’s work and political line.
The author asks if Mao would have worked with Deng Xiaoping, as an
example of working with enemies. And Mao already answered this question:
yes. Deng was kicked out of the Communist Party of China and readmitted
under Mao’s watch. Communist China’s prison system was focused on
re-education, not punishment and ostracization. People who betrayed the
revolution or took actions that harmed others were locked up to study
and learn from their mistakes. This is a revolutionary model that we
should emulate, even while we don’t hold power.
After being transferred here to Northwest Florida Reception Center -
Annex, I have been faced with a number of confinement injustices. First
of all I have written a number of grievance to the warden about food
service. We have received breakfast trays with roaches crawling in them.
If you report it to these pigs they don’t do anything about it. In
confinement with no food items we are left with no choice but to eat the
three trays that they give us even if they are infested with roaches.
That’s just one small example of the conditions here.
And recently we had a peaceful sit down. No one posed a threat to
security, and no one was injured. It happened after Ramadan, a month of
fasting for the Muslims. It all started when we were going to the chow
hall to eat lunch. The pig called out one brother for talking in line.
That’s when all the brothers were getting disruptive, and as Imam
(Islamic leader) my job is to calm them down. So, as I was calming them
down, the pig called me out of line for talking. Once I stepped out of
line 22 other comrades set out of line, along with me, which led to the
situation I am in confinement for. The pig saw the other 22 comrades
join me and he panicked. They saw that I had influence where comrades
move on my move. And they don’t like that.
Previously I had to speak to the Assistant Warden, because someone
snitched to the pigs about my leadership. And he told me that “no inmate
runs this prison”, and that if my name came up again he was “going to
get rid of us” referring to the Muslims. And that’s exactly what
happened. I am going to close management with no prior disciplinary
reports. The prison administration says that I don’t deserve to be in
general population because I am disruptive to security.
MIM(Prisons) adds: Control units are often used to isolate
leaders in prison, even when those leaders are involved in keeping the
peace. This is because the prisoncrats don’t actually want peace. The
prisoncrats frequently encourage violence between prisoners, because
that provides an excuse to lock more prisoners on higher security units,
and because it prevents leaders from organizing unity against the
criminal injustice system. So when they see an Imam with influence the
prison moves to isolate him. This use of close management in Florida
mirrors the use of control units for social control throughout the
Amerikan prison system. Our best weapon is our unity. We need many
leaders so that the isolation of one will not cut off our work.
La propaganda de conflicto esta a niveles altos en los Estados Unidos,
aparentemente no se ha tomado ninguna lección positiva del 11 Septiembre
2001. Se tomó por lo menos una década para que los Amerikanos perdieran
interés en la Ocupación de Afganistán e Iraq por el EE UU Esto
contribuyo a que casi dos-tercios de Amerikanos estuvieran opuestos al
empuje de Obama para invadir Siria hace menos de un año. Ahora, por lo
menos dos-tercios de la población esta de acuerdo con Obama en controlar
el gobierno de Siria más bien que las Cabezas de periodistas Amerikanos
se mantengan pegadas a sus cuerpos.
El militarismo se conduce con un sistema económico que esta construido
alrededor de la producción de armas y requiere guerra para mantener su
demanda. Embarques de armas han incrementado recientemente para I$rael,
Ucrania, Siria, e Iraq en donde EE UU ha reasumido campañas de bombardeo
que están destruyendo cientos de millones de dolares en valor de equipo
militar Amerikano ahora en las manos del Estado Islámico. Cada golpe que
se hace de cualquier lado en esa guerra es un dar para negocios
Amerikanos.
Entretanto, Russia ha sido muy claro que no va a permitir que Ucrania se
una a la Organización del Tratado del Atlántico Norte (OTAN - North
Atlantic Treaty Organization, NATO). Los Estados Unidos y Russia son los
poderes nucleares mas grandes del mundo. Aún así Obama esta empujando a
Ucrania para que se una a la NATO, y el sentimiento Amerikano anti-Russo
esta aumentando apoyándolo. Conflicto abierto con Russia solo
incrementaría enormemente el ya inaceptablemente riesgo de un catástrofe
nuclear debido al militarismo.
Los últimos 15 años han probado que el militarismo del EE UU no se puede
parar con el movimiento Amerikano anti-guerra. Mejor dicho,
revolucionarios en los Estados Unidos se deberían de enfocar en empujar
la lucha por la liberación nacional de las semi-colonias internas en
solidaridad con el Tercer Mundo. Campañas como la que apoya a Palestina
por prisioneros de California son positivo para construir
anti-militarismo en los Estados Unidos.
Actualmente los medios y políticos del Occidente promueven la linea de
que el Estado Islámico es la amenaza más grande hacia la paz mundial.
Están lejos de la marca. Ese papel siempre se ha mantenido en las manos
de los Estados Unidos y su industria militar.