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 am writing to inform about the tier II program Georgia has started at
all level 5 security institutions. This program is suppose to be a
disciplinary management program, but in reality it is a cover up to keep
prisoners on lock down.
There are 13 criteria that identify prisoners to be placed into the
program, but since they’ve started this program there are prisoners who
do not qualify but who have been placed into the Tier II program. The
real reason the program was started is to keep certain organizations on
lock down. The majority of prisoners in this program (90%) are African
Americans. The other 10% are ones who have rebelled agains their system
somehow so they were placed into the program.
You can be in the program up to two years at one camp and even if you
complete it at one camp they’ll send you to another camp that has the
Tier II program and place you back on lock down.
At Hays State Prison inmates constitutional rights are being violated,
they are refusing us recreation, our procedural due process has been
violated, they are not feeding us 2800 calories a day, and they serve us
cold food at all meals. Recently Hays State Prison guards have started
carrying tasers. The officers let a prisoner kill himself, and if you
piss one off they’ll neglect feeding you or put something in your food.
In addition, the grievance system they have is bogus. Even if you word
your grievance correctly and you have them dead to wrong, their reply
will always be ‘your grievance has been denied due to the fact upon
investigation of this matter such and such say or nothing was found to
be out of order.’ When really no investigation was run, because they
never talk to your listed witnesses or talked to you personally.
This is one institution that needs to be closed down. There is so much
going on. The only reason certain things don’t take place for now is
because of the tactical squad that’s running the institution, but when
they leave it’s back to beating on prisoners and other such cruel and
unusual punishment.
The prisoners here are filing lawsuits but it’s a process that takes
time. Hays State Prison is practically starving prisoners and they
violate constitutional rights as well as standard operating procedures
of the Georgia Department of Corrections.
MIM(Prisons) responds: It’s important that our comrades report on
new programs like this Tier II system in Georgia because this is the
sneaky way that states are now renaming long term solitary confinement.
Also known as
control
units this isolation in and of itself is very harmful to people. As
this comrade reports, Georgia is taking the repression further by
restricting food and carrying out other abuses, and then denying
prisoners the ability to grieve these violations of law. Georgia does
not yet have a
grievance
campaign, but we hope that one of the many active comrades in that
state will soon take up the challenge to create a grievance petition
specific to this state so that we can push that campaign as another tool
in our fight in Georgia.
On May 1, in the northern Alaska village of Tanana, two state troopers
were shot to death after being sent to the remote Alaska Native village
to arrest a resident for misdemeanor violations including driving
without a license and threatening a village public safety officer. The
man’s son shot the troopers as they entered into a physical altercation
to arrest him.
The issue has been sensationalized in the bourgeois press as an extreme
tragedy involving the deaths of the officers who were killed “in the
line of duty.” The young man who fired the shots is being vilified by
the media as a murderer and arch-villain guilty of killing two cops who
are painted as heroes and outstanding individuals. As droves of white
settlers attended the long procession of police cars carrying and
escorting the bodies of the troopers from the medical examiner to the
airport in Anchorage, hands over hearts and tears in eyes, nary a word
is to be heard in lament of the destruction of a young First Nation life
and family. Upon further, deeper examination however, a picture emerges
which places the emphasis on First Nation repression, police-state
tactics, and a long history of neglect by the white ruling class of its
oppressed, dependent and dominated rural native population.
It was not native or even just local law enforcement which came to
intervene and attempt to take into custody the alleged offender, it was
white outsiders who needed to be flown in from a far distant regional
hub in the tradition of the imperialist colonial model. These intruders
have no personal ties to such communities and they naturally are viewed
with resentment and suspicion. This sort of “law enforcement” is seen as
arbitrary, external, and illegitimate by many who are forced to
recognize its jurisdiction at the barrel of a gun. It is also
increasingly being challenged.(1)
At first glance, what would appear to have happened in this particular
situation is that a local individual who was transgressing some
relatively petty ordinances or laws (which, by the way, are mostly
foisted upon the First Nation people by white settlerism from far-off
white legislatures and courts) was confronted by what passes for law
enforcement in most rural villages - a VPSO, or “village public safety
officer.” The alleged offender did not want to cooperate with the VPSO
and threatened him. The VPSO then contacted state troopers. The troopers
were eventually flown in, attempted to arrest said individual and a
struggle ensued after the man resisted arrest. The man’s son, upon
witnessing this altercation, grabbed a firearm and shot the troopers in
defense of his father. The media is portraying the son as a “cowardly
and selfish” criminal who killed two of Alaska’s finest. But let’s now
dig more below the surface to understand the real elements behind this
unfortunate circumstance.
The father and son are connected with a group called the Athabascan
Nation (Athabascan being their particular native tribe). This group
denies the authority of the state over native lands. They have also
questioned and challenged the authority of the VPSOs.(2)
The position of VPSO was created by the state legislature. Instead of
allowing First Nation sovereignty, and also even allotting appropriate
funding for tribes to create their own, this was the state’s way of
providing a law enforcement presence in villages.
Most VPSOs are the equivalent of a native “Uncle Tom,” a puppet of the
“man.” Though it is only the equivalent of putting a band aid over a
gaping wound, many tribes in the south have been granted a form of
limited sovereignty under a set of laws incongruously titled “Indian
Country.” The Navajo Reservation in New Mexico is an example. However,
in Alaska, a clever piece of settler legislation called the Alaska
Native Claims Settlement Act killed “Indian Country” sovereignty in
Alaska and instead regional “corporations” were set up, which in turn
were given lucrative contracts on oil and mineral exploitation (most of
which is still dominated by Euro-Amerikan multinationals like BP and
Exxon anyway). These corporations make considerable amounts of money for
a relatively few shareholders while providing limited health care and
other services but little else. In other words, it was and is the
Euro-Amerikan exploiter class’s way of bribing a significant enough
portion of Alaska natives to be content with being an otherwise
plundered and oppressed colonial, subjected people. This has effectively
kept most pacified, while corporations appropriate natural resources,
including oil, gas, minerals, timber, fish, etc, worth billions of
dollars to the ruling class exploiters.
In order to maintain complete control over these lands, the white
plunderer ruling class has even imposed their own arbitrary laws and
regulations on the First Nation peoples’ way of life – their traditional
and time-honored means of subsistence. As an example, state fish and
game officers forcefully prevent indigenous peoples from harvesting food
resources that they have for thousands of years, in the name of
preserving stocks and preventing depletion (so that great white hunters
won’t run short on sport-hunting). They are then forced onto the rolls
of social welfare programs such as food stamps, thereby making them into
a totally dependent population. The social evils this has produced are
numerous and horrendous, including creating feelings of inadequacy and
worthlessness amongst a formerly proud and self-sustaining, independent
people and therefore contributing in large part to the extremely high
rates of suicide and drug/alcohol dependency and in effect inflicting
another indirect genocide on the First Nation peoples.
There is, of course, something patently obscene with a nation who have
historically been the biggest polluters and foulers of the earth
imaginable telling those engaged in indigenous practices that have
proved sustainable over generations what they can and can’t do on their
land. From over-fishing by commmercial fisheries, mines like Pebble
Copper and Usibelli Coal and, of course, fossil fuel extraction,
Amerikan dominance of the Alaskan territories has brought ecological
disaster. This March was the 25th anniversary of the Exxon Valdez oil
spill, which dumped 11 million gallons of crude oil into Prince William
Sound, killing hundreds of thousands of shorebirds. While bird
populations are recovering, others have not, including the local Orca
populations that have continued to decline since the spill.(3) And
that’s only beginning to scratch at the surface of the farcical nature
of white colonial rule.
Returning to the VPSO issue, it can be seen they are only a quisling
representative of white colonial rule and are additionally so powerless
that they all are even unarmed, making them completely dependent on
state enforcement. Tribal councils themselves are little more than
puppet shows. Tribal authorities rarely challenge state rule or push for
sovereignty because they are, for the most part, bought-off. They don’t
want to lose state funding and corporate backing or jeopardize their own
salaries and positions. Members of the Athabascan Nation and other
similar groups recognize this and fight against their treachery and
hypocrisy. Unfortunately, the latest action against the troopers by an
over-idealistic and perhaps protective young man amounts to focoism that
has destroyed his life, but this has shed a lot more light on the need
for natives to assert far more control and autonomy over their own
affairs separate from state interference.
Showing their complete disregard for their own and their status as
lapdogs of state authority, the tribal council of Tanana moved to banish
the man troopers came to arrest as well as another “aggressive” member
of the Athabascan Nation, calling them “intolerant.” Why not also banish
outside, militant and aggressive officers of an oppressive regime bent
on stealing and keeping your land? They’d rather banish two of their
own? This speaks volumes.
In contrast, even the young man who is accused of shooting the cops
seems to have had a better grip on who his real friends and enemies
were, as, even though he also drew a bead on the native VPSO who was
present, he lowered his gun and declined to harm him. This in itself
speaks loudly for the need for tribes to govern and police themselves.
It is far harder to harm someone you identify with or know, than it is
someone you have had no interaction with and view as a foreign
aggressor. It is also interesting that after the shootings, the local
VPSO was able to take the young man into custody with the help of a few
community members without further incident. So clearly, this was not,
contrary to most media reports, a case of an out-of-control, criminally
minded and dangerous coward, but a young First Nation man coming to the
defense of his father who was being accosted and assaulted without due
cause by an aggressive, militant and foreign force he did not recognize
and rightfully viewed with hostility and distrust.
Not very surprisingly, even reformist measures such as the concept of
“Indian Country” are vehemently opposed by the state government. If
enacted, this would take away state authority and create a dual-legal
system on the small amount of tribal (vs. corporate) lands that would
become “Indian country.”(4) In other words, the white settler state
might lose its ability to fully plunder and loot the First Nation people
and their land, and lose its ability to legally impose its will on the
people by force.
We must fight for the national self-determination of First Nations. The
imperialists must be forced to end their absolute hegemony and
domination over the indigenous populations and the vast wealth of their
country. The First Nation people must not be subjected to a cruel,
indirect genocide and forced assimilation into white Euro-Amerikan
“culture,” with all its comparatively decadent values, fetishization of
money, and inherent corruption.
The only solution is the revolutionary one - to support and accept
nothing less than full First Nation sovereignty for all indigenous
peoples.
In early June of this year, MIM Distributors received a letter from
Assistant Director Cynthia Bostic of the North Carolina Department of
Public Safety (NCDPS) upholding the censorship of Under Lock &
Key No. 37 (March/April 2014). Bostic censored ULK 37
because it mentions the options legally available to prisoners, to not
buy from commissary, not order packages through the prison’s vendor, and
to file civil action suits. None of these activities are illegal, or
even against NCDPS’s own policies. Since the newsletter talks about
activities which prisoners are legally allowed to engage in, but which
give the prisoners a tiny notion of agency and self-determination, it is
not permitted in the state.
MIM Distributors has written multiple letters to NCDPS administrators in
an effort to defend the rights of prisoners to read our newsletter, and
to exercise our right to free speech. One of these letters helped
convince Bostic to approve the delivery of Under Lock & Key
No. 36 (January/February 2014). According to Section D.0105(d) of
NCDPS’s Policies and Procedures, upon approval, the Publication Review
Committee and Wardens are supposed to work together to deliver the
previously censored issues of Under Lock & Key to their
intended recipients. In Bostic’s letter, she “permits” MIM Distributors
to resend ULK 36 at our own expense. We recently checked in
with our subscribers in North Carolina to see if this issue was
delivered to them via the channels outlined in NCDPS Policies and
Procedures. If you were a subscriber in January 2014, you should have
received issue 36 from your Warden. Let us know if you haven’t!
I’ve been slapped in the face with a crazy example of how this country
uses its criminal system as social control.
In 1997 I was locked up for 1st degree murder for a robbery that
happened when I was a kid just 17 years old. I didn’t get to try the 1st
Degree Murder Charge in court, only the robbery. This is due to the
“Felony Murder Rule” (Cal P.C. 190.5) which says basically: all deaths
that occur during the preparation, the act itself, or in fleeing of any
serious felony are 1st Degree Murder. I didn’t kill anyone or want
anyone to die, but, because I wouldn’t testify against anyone I became
an adult murderer, even though I was neither.
The felony Murder Rule theory says since all adults should anticipate
all potential outcomes of every act, they’re responsible for anything
that happens should they not alter their behavior based on the potential
worst case scenario. So one becomes morally culpable for the acts of
everyone involved. Disregarding the supposed pillars of our “justice”
system: act and intent.
In 2012, Miller v. Alabama (S.67 U.S_,,) applied the
primary theory in Graham v. Florida ((2010) 560 U.S. 48) to
murder cases, which says “juveniles who don’t kill or intend to kill
have a twice diminished moral culpability when compared to adult
murderers.” This obviously eliminates the only “evidence” used to
convict me of 1st Degree Murder. I was automatically an “adult” because
of the serious felony charge. I was automatically a “murderer” because I
caught the robbery. But the principal that invalidates my conviction
can’t be automatically applied. Nope. The Antiterrorism and Effective
Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) laws that restrict collateral reviews through
my only recourse - Habeas Corpus petitions - are so complicated
judges write books on their unconstitutionality. I had a 1% chance of
being heard by the court.
Even the blood thirsty citizenry of this country balked at the insane
application of this felony-murder rule on Dr. Phil when discussing the
Elkhart 4 in Indiana, where 5 kids burglarized a house thinking no one
was home. The owner shot and killed one and injured another. The 4
living kids got 50 years to life! Guilty of burglary, automatically
adult murderers.
In California they tried to mitigate the effects by enacting P.C. 3051
which makes it easier for juveniles to parole after 25 years. So, I was
found guilty of murder I didn’t do, couldn’t try in court, that your own
law says I’m no longer guilty of but, I’ll only have to do 25 years?
Wow.
Could you imagine if the CEO of GM was charged with murder for approving
the continued use of the faulty ignitions that led to the 13 deaths from
their use? If the general who ran the VA was charged with murder for the
40 deaths they found so far that resulted from the faulty list waiting
times? If wardens were charged with murder for every death by prisoner
suicides? All these people committed crimes that led to peoples’ deaths.
But these businesses are protected from culpability using U.S. v
U.S. Gypsum Co. citing Morissette v. U.S. where the
Supreme Court expressly articulated the importance of “mens rea”
(act/intent) to “our” system of criminal law.
That’s their system of criminal law. Poor minorities get Rockefeller, 3
strikes, felony-murder and AEDPA laws. A ton of other laws I’m sure.
I was a kid, unarmed, who wanted money. I got life in prison for a
murder I didn’t do, without a trial. There are thousands of us in U.S.
prisons.
They get ’em young. But we’re gonna put up our anti-felony-murder rule
use on juveniles legal argument in light of Miller v. Alabama
on the internet for those who choose to push that pen. One of us will
get them.
MIM(Prisons) adds: This is a very good example of the Amerikan
Criminal Injustice System. And the parallels this comrade draws to the
CEO of GM and other corporate executives are right on target. When
people criticize socialist China under Mao for “persecuting” landlords,
imperialist spies, and capitalists they purposely ignore the murders,
rape and brutality that these people enabled, in many cases directly
perpetrating. A landlord who demands from a peasant payment of his
entire crop in a drought year means inevitable starvation for that
peasant’s family. This leads to deaths easily foreseen by the landlord.
And so under socialism landlords are convicted of these crimes. The same
people who decry these socialist actions as “unjust” stand by while
people like this writer are locked up for deaths they did not cause and
could not have anticipated. This is the double standard of the
capitalists.
In our
review
of Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011), we drew parallels to the
Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (1972) from the original
series. The final episode (Battle for the Planet of the Apes
(1973)) of the original series takes place hundreds of years after apes
have risen to power and gives an interesting take on the dictatorship of
the proletariat as apes rule benevolently over humyns and strive for a
peaceful society. The latest, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
(2014) is more of a Conquest part two in terms of the timeline,
but takes on many of the themes of Battle.
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes takes place a mere ten years
after Rise, featuring many of the same ape characters. In those
ten years, humyns had been virtually wiped out by a virus that was a
product of testing done on the apes and infighting that resulted from
the crisis. In the meantime, the apes that fled to Marin, California
have built a home there, and other species have made a miraculous
recovery in the absence of humyns.
The theme that Dawn shares with Battle is the apes
realizing they are no better than humyns when it comes to war and
violence. This is a positive lesson in historical materialism that looks
at the social causes of war, conflict and change in general. It makes
sense that as apes develop a more advanced society with language,
buildings, fire and larger populations, that similar social phenomenon
will come into play as we have in humyn society.
In Battle this was a nice lesson as it came after hundreds of
years of dictatorship of apes over humyns, at which point one would
expect a sense of commonality (internationalism if you will) to have
developed. What is less believable in that movie is that after all that
time there would be a vengeful element, which is played off as an almost
genetic/racial thing particular to the gorillas. In the most recent
movie we would expect much desire for vengeance against humyns, as these
were the very same apes that were raised in prisons and experimented on
by humyns before the revolution in which they freed themselves.
The new series has not yet reached the point of dictatorship of ape over
humyn, only separate settlements that are now engaging in war with each
other. Both sides have their militarists. The ape is motivated by
vengeance from the torture he endured, while the humyn has a sense of
purpose in returning humyns to their rightful place as dominant. A
looming oppressor consciousness persists among the humyns despite their
fall from grace. Though the main material force pushing them into
conflict in the first place is the need for the hydro power that is
within ape territory. No doubt, the justification of genocide for
natural resources is still deep in these Amerikans’ way of thinking.
Dawn does offer us some underlying political lessons. Caesar,
who led the revolution in the previous movie as the only ape who knew
how to speak, is now the established leader. All apes have developed
some ability to speak (and at least the younger ones are learning to
write), and they are able to communicate even more complex ideas through
sign language. The mantra “ape shall not kill ape” is a direct throwback
to Battle, that is repeated throughout this latest movie. This
format is similar to short sayings from Mao that the Communist Party of
China promoted under socialism to imbue the people with a new collective
consciousness. It was necessary in a society with very limited literacy.
Like Mao, Caesar is reified. At the same time, as Caesar disappears from
the scene, it is clear that there is a core of apes who followed
Caesar’s ideas, and not just him as an individual. And there is a sense
that the whole population has some grasp of these ideas, again similar
to socialist China. But when a usurper seizes power, the masses follow
him with little resistance. Like the Gang of Four in China, those
perceived to be loyal to Caesar’s ideas are imprisoned.
There is a strong theme of the nuclear family in this movie, at times
saying that family is more important than the greater people. While
Caesar learns to not idealistically trust all apes, he thankfully does
not turn inward to his nuclear family as many do when they feel betrayed
by larger organizations or society as a whole. Family is the hideaway of
the coward, often the patriarch, who feels they can have greater control
there. But revolutionaries strive to transform society by the power of
scientific understanding. Like the last movie, the apes show heroic
revolutionary sacrifice in their struggle for the greater good for all
apes and the society that they have built. While they face internal
contradictions based on the harm that oppression has stamped on their
psyches, they have done much to build a promising society.
In our review of the previous movie we talked much about the integration
struggle, with the apes rejecting that road. The ending of this movie
leaves the protagonists from each species hoping for a collaborative
effort, but seeing that it is impossible at this time. Caesar in
particular seems keen at recognizing the material forces at play and the
impossibility of collaboration with the humyns as a whole despite the
friends he has among them. Similarly in our world, while there are
certainly genuine revolutionary forces among the oppressor nations, we
should not be fooled into interpreting that to mean that the oppressor
nations as groups are ready for peaceful coexistence.
It is the contradictions that humyns face between their weakened state
and their desire to have the material benefits of the past that is the
biggest threat to the apes in this movie, and seemingly in the next one
to come. We hope that the apes learned valuable lessons from this latest
struggle that they can consciously consolidate into their ideology as a
society as they move forward in their struggle against oppression and to
end war.
Community Bulletin from the Pelican Bay Human Rights Movement - First
Amendment Campaign
This bulletin is to alert and update the community on the current
fascist offensive that is being waged by one sadistic pig named S.
Burris of the Pelican Bay State Prison - Prison Intelligence Unit (aka
IGI). Officer S. Burris is going through some very drastic measures to
try and criminalize the W.L. Nolen Mentorship Program (WLNMP). This is
typical of any fascist!
For example, within the WLNMP’s Mission Statement, it states that our
objective is to provide the community with alternatives to joining
gangs, along with tools of violence prevention and intervention. Only a
complete idiot would insist that this constitutes gang activity!
Officer S. Burris is attacking the WLNMP, not because we’re involved in
criminal activities, no! The WLNMP has been placed under attack because
it possesses the potential of educating and unifying the oppressed
masses to their real purpose in life. And this truth makes the WLNMP a
viable threat to the prescribed social order of U.$. capitalism.
I have provided the community with factual evidence, wherein the courts
have determined that George Jackson and W.L. Nolen were not Black
Guerilla Family “prison gang members.” They were actually members of the
Black Liberation Movement. To receive a copy of this documentation,
write to the below address and ask for the Request for Judicial Notice
dated February 24, 2014 in the legal case of Marcus L. Harrison v.
S. Burris, et al. - Case No: C-13-2506.
Attn: Central Texas ABC c/o John S. Dolley PO Box 7187 Austin,
TX 78713
In the month of April 2014, I was issued four Stopped Mail Notices
and one CDC 115 Rules Violation Report for communications relating to
the WLNMP. For example, a comrade of the Maoist Internationalist
Movement has contributed to the WLNMP by typing some of our study
documents. I personally wrote these study documents and sent it to our
MIM comrade via regular mail, but when s/he attempted to send me a copy
it was disallowed on the grounds that W.L. Nolen and George Jackson are
“prison gang members.”
In conclusion, it must be noted that this contradiction is a continued
manifestation of the Dred Scott court decision from 1857, wherein the
U.$. Congress announced to the world:
“The negro lies so far below whites on the scale of created beings that
they have no rights that whites are bound to respect.”
We New Afrikans have committed to absolving ourselves from this
contradiction via our collective efforts to restore and protect our
human rights with the creation of the Pelican Bay Human Rights Movement
- First Amendment Campaign. We urge the community to get involved and
check out
our
mission statement in the SF Bayview.
Revolutionary Ecology (RE) is a new website that appeared in 2014.
We welcome its appearance as the Maoist movement is in great need of a
dedicated cell to address our current ecological crisis. We promote a
cell structure for the Maoist movement in the First World, with cells
focused on specific projects or localities. MIM(Prisons) is a cell
focused on the U.$. prison system. We need a cell (or cells) that are
focused on the struggle against the destruction of our environment just
as badly. As the RE comrades point out in many articles, these are
problems of dire urgency. They are also problems that threaten First
World youth directly, potentially connecting them to the interests of
the majority of humynity. This website is a good addition to the arsenal
of educational tools for communists working to build a movement to
overthrow imperialism.
The organizers of RE describe it as “a collaborative project that seeks
to popularize Marxism within the environmentalist and animal liberation
movements.” They go on to explain: “We are quite literally faced with
two options: Communism or annihilation.” In the article,
“What
Would Socialism Mean for the Environment”, this is further
explained: “Whereas capitalism involves productive relations of
exploitation sustained toward the circular end of profit, socialism
involves the democratic control over the means of production as part of
the rational and increasingly egalitarian satisfaction of people’s wants
and needs. Implied in such rational and democratic production is the
inclusion of ecological regeneration and co-dependence as regulative
economic principles.” In other words, instead of relying on the almighty
invisible hand, socialism is about humynity taking conscious control of
our collective destiny and organizing ourselves in a way to best serve
the interests of all humynity. As should be obvious by now, these
interests overlap greatly with preserving the natural systems that we
live in and depend on.
The article “Capitalism’s Steady March Towards Irreversible Ecological
Tipping Points” describes how capitalism is moving humynity rapidly
towards tipping points that will be devastating for the Earth, including
the deforestation of the Amazon, while discussing the inability of
single issue groups and government regulations to stop this process.
Much of the website’s content brings Marxist analysis into the
ecological discussion, as with the article “Lake Michigan Oil Spill:
Capitalism and Nature” which explains the role of commodities and money
in the context of humyn’s relations with nature. And we are reminded of
the importance of internationalism in the revolutionary ecology struggle
through articles about South African trade unions and First Nations,
among others.
In response to the Deep Ecology platform, one article proposes a
Revolutionary Ecology Platform:
The well-being and flourishing of human and non-human life are
intimately related. The flourishing of non-human life is generally of
direct and indirect utility to humans, and vice versa.
Richness and diversity of non-human life can contribute to utility for
humanity at large. Thus, it should be promoted as such.
Real wealth is utility or the ability to satisfy human wants and needs.
The source of all wealth is two-fold: nature and human labor. It is in
the long-term interest of a majority of humanity to steward biodiversity
and ecological well-being (along with other elements of nature).
Alienation from and the subjugation of nature is in the vital interest
of a small proportion of humanity: the ruling classes. Increasingly
under capitalist-imperialism, less real wealth (i.e., human utility) is
produced in proportion to overall economic activity and at greater cost
to human and non-human life.
Ecologically unsustainable economic activity is inherent to
capitalist-imperialism, whereby economic activity must expand even as
much of it is tertiary and adds no real wealth in terms of the
satisfying basic wants and needs.[sic] Abolishing such parasitic
economic activity and reassigning it to restoring the natural element of
wealth would aid in re-establishing the basic link between human and
non-human life and provide for the flourishing of both.
The whole structure of society needs to be changed. Only revolution –
the seizure of power away from one set of classes by another – can
create the necessary conditions for such a transformation. Any such
revolution, if it is to be successful, must advance the interests of the
most exploited and oppressed sections of humanity, not merely the
privileged subjects of neo-colonial imperialism.
A total ideological change of reconnection between human and non-human
life will not fully take place until the basic structure of society
(i.e. the mode of production) has been transformed into one of
democratically producing long-term utility instead of profit.
Nonetheless, the ideological sphere and subjective forces are a leading
variable component where class struggle is carried out.
Those who adhere to the above points must get organized to make
revolution possible.
Point 5 is of particular importance for drawing the logical connections
between Maoism and ecology. Many in the First World who are concerned
about ecology are disgusted by the over-consumption of their peers. One
example of the extremes this takes in rich countries has been
circulating on the internet recently, exposing Amerikans in rural areas
who are customizing their big diesel trucks to be less fuel efficient
and spew out more pollution, while these excessive polluters are
explicitly ridiculing and targeting people who drive more fuel efficient
cars. While this is one example of the labor aristocracy taking
capitalist values to ridiculous extremes, it is not the individual
decisions of the consumer class that fuel the destruction of the natural
world. Car culture was built by capitalist planners who developed and
marketed suburbs and lobbied for state-sponsored roads. The focus on
GDP, the stock market, and other economic indicators are an obsession in
the First World that the majority have joined in on, with no thought to
the fact that consumption must be reduced in First World countries in
the creation of an ecologically sustainable system. But it is not the
rural truck drivers who are the biggest obstacle to change, it is the
very logic of capitalism itself, which requires ever-expanding
production, markets and circulation. This system is backed up by the
biggest, most ruthless militaries in the world today.
Nikolai Brown touches on over-production within capitalism in
h
article on e-waste, “Not only does the inherent focus on the
realization of surplus value engender ‘planned obsolescence,’ a global
division of labor enables the flow of resources necessary for the
propagation of disposable electronics. True to the fashion of
capitalism, by producing toxic e-waste on such a widespread basis, its
two requisites, labor-power and the natural environment, are
increasingly degraded.”(1) This article introduces us to the concept of
ecological unequal exchange: “the transfer of natural resources
to the First World from the Third World, and the return of pollution and
waste to Third from the First World.” As ecological crises advance, this
is a concept that deserves much attention in connection to the economic
unequal exchange that occurs under imperialism.
While we don’t
have any fundamental disagreements with the principles proposed by RE
above, we find their discussion of Deep Ecology idealist in its critique
of Maoism’s (and other socialist countries’) environmental history. The
article “Deep Green Maoism?” criticizes the history of socialism for its
record on “environmental degradation and species destruction” without
offering concrete facts on what is being critiqued. No doubt all
socialist societies to date, including the Maoist countries, had much
room for improvement around environmental protection. But we should not
issue blanket critiques from a position of hindsight and idealism. For
their day the Maoists advanced the environmental movement further than
any previous struggle by overthrowing imperialism and building a society
that aimed to put an end to oppression of people. In the process they
set the masses free to solve farming sustainability problems creatively,
and develop both farming and industry to more efficiently meet the needs
of the people. These are critical first steps towards living
harmoniously with the environment. And we can assume that as dialectical
materialists, these socialists would have continued to improve and build
an understanding and practice regarding the importance of environmental
preservation, had those societies not been taken over by bourgeois
elements from within the party.
One of the first things we try to teach to new comrades is the
difference between idealism and materialism, and that materialism means
comparing actual practices. When we compare Chinese socialism to the
Soviet Union we see improvements in the overall political approach,
which translated into better science and ecology. And when we compare
both socialist countries to the capitalist countries, the socialists
were industrializing in ways that were much friendlier to humyn workers
and the rest of the environment. While we cannot make a comprehensive
comparison here, we will provide some large-scale examples that indicate
the advances of these real world examples of socialism over what was
happening in capitalist countries at the time (and even today).
One Amerikan correspondent in the Soviet Union wrote in 1942, “Moscow
has also the most scientific garbage disposal in the world. All the
waste of this great city of more than 4,000,000 people is first used in
‘biothermal processes’ which heat large ‘greenhouse farms’ from
underground. When the garbage and sewage is thoroughly rotted in this
quite odorless manner, it is then used as a fertilizer for ordinary
farming. This amazing development got no advertising whatever. I merely
chanced upon it when I visited a farm.”(2) Decades later in northern
China, “cadres, peasants, workers, and technicians experimented for ten
years with utilizing industrial waste waters. Now the city’s daily
400,000 tons of sewage is processed to fertilize and irrigate 12,930
hectares of farmland. … Reciprocally, agricultural wastes such as
cottonseed shells, corncobs, sugar-cane residue, and animal viscera
become raw materials for developing commune-owned industries. …
Decentralization and multipurpose use of wastes have, besides
integrating industry and agriculture, been used to control industrial
pollution. Like the relocation of factories, pollution control is
generally coordinated on the local level.”(3)
Local, self-sufficient agricultural production was a key to successful
socialist development in Mao’s opinion. This had more to do with class
and economics, but reinforced and enabled ecologically sustainable
practices. In discussing the balance between the foreign and native and
the large, medium and small scale production, Mao wrote, “At the present
time we have not proposed chemicalization of agriculture. One reason is
that we do not expect to be able to produce much fertilizer in the next
however many years. (And the little we have is concentrated on our
industrial crops.) Another reason is that if the turn to chemicals is
proposed everybody will focus on that and neglect pig breeding.
Inorganic fertilizers are also needed but they have to be combined with
organic; alone they harden the soil.” (4) Aside from pigs, humanure (or
“night soil” as they called it) was a major source of organic fertilizer
that utilized local resources on hand while simultaneously dealing with
the problem of humyn “waste” similar to the Soviet example above. The
safe and efficient use of humanure was greatly accelerated under
socialism. Under capitalism, in 2014, this resource is disposed of as a
waste, and the movement away from synthetic fertilizers and pesticides
is still very small.(5)
Guided by the popularization of the scientific method to serve
production, the Chinese also developed bacterial fertilizers at the
local level. This is something that has gained a lot of attention in
India in recent decades as the problems of over-dependence on synthetic
fertilizers are becoming more pronounced. A report by Science for the
People from 1974 describes the process of culturing the fertilizer,
which is “reported to help crops absorb nitrogen, to protect them
against more than thirty-two bacterial diseases, and to promote speedier
seed germination and a shorter growing period.” The report states that,
“Such small factories producing microbial products seem now to be common
in the Chinese countryside.” They report on the process by which this
commune studied bacterial fertilizers and has since taught it to about
20 other communes. “Similar processes of face-to-face contact and
exchange appear to be exceedingly important in the transmission and
popularization of science in China. Because such exchange generates
little or no printed material, western observers, who tend to believe
that all scientific communication of any note eventually reaches print,
are likely to overlook what appears to be a vast network of informal
scientific exchange in the Chinese countryside.”(6)
An author on revolutionaryecology.com argues that “…the environmental
problems associated with the first world-wide wave of socialism were due
to a lack of foresight and scientific knowledge about ecology, holdover
culture from capitalism and semi-feudalism, and the partial impact of
the theory of the productive forces.” The socialists of the 1900s had
only as much foresight and scientific knowledge as existed at that time,
and holding them to the standards of knowledge available today is
idealism. Further, we know that the Maoists aggressively attacked the
theory of productive forces and undertook the Cultural Revolution to
fight capitalist culture. Sure, once these battles were won the
revolution in all aspects would advance further, but this is not a basis
for a 20/20 hindsight critique of the Maoist environmental practice in
the socialist countries of the mid-1900s. We know that some practices in
Maoist China would not be undertaken today, with the current state of
the environment and the knowledge we have of effects of these practices.
But that does not constitute reason for this critique any more than we
would criticize China for failing to use computers to advance socialism
before computers were available.
The article argues further “…it is this same understanding on the unity
between people and nature which was either missing or gravely misapplied
during the socialism of the last century.” Socialism “neglected to treat
nature as part of and necessary to people. That is not to say that
socialism treated the natural world and other species in terms other
than of humyn utility, but that it did so in an often ill-conceived and
short-sighted manner.” Here again we ask for concrete examples of
socialism’s failure in this regard, which should have been corrected
based on information available at the time. In farming areas the
communes in China were acutely aware of their dependence on nature as
essential for survival.
The article goes on to say: “In short,
an ecologically informed Maoism offers the chance to build a ‘socialism
of a new type’ for the 21st century which seeks to resolve the
contradiction between people and their natural environment as much as
the contradictions between people themselves.” As humynity’s ecological
understanding expands, socialism will utilize this knowledge and it will
do so without the barriers presented by capitalism. Humyn knowledge and
scientific understanding is constantly expanding. We find it misleading
to say that “a new type” of socialism is needed to address ecological
problems.
Aside from these Revolutionary Ecology Platform issues, we have a few
smaller disagreements with the website. First there is a question of
setting a bad security example by including a Facebook plugin so that
people can “like” the website via their persynal Facebook accounts. This
means the website is pushing people to expose themselves publicly as
supporting RE. Unfortunately, this is information now available to the
state, and individuals who may be new to activism (plus some blissfully
ignorant experienced folks) will think they are helping the movement by
“liking” the website only to expose themselves as targets for state
repression just as they deepen their political line and involvement.
Even at the level of random readers, we should always promote good
security practices, both as a point of keeping our comrades safe and as
an educational point about the repression the so-called democratic state
of Amerika will unleash against those who threaten the imperialist
system.
RE does not provide much information for readers on how to get involved.
They do solicit participation of writers for the website, and the site
links to other websites that are generally anti-imperialist and/or
Maoist, or have good resources for Maoists (Kersplebedeb), and some of
these other websites provide a forum for broader activism. But as a
friendly suggestion we’d encourage the organizers of RE to make it
easier for newly interested readers to take some anti-imperialist action
if they don’t want to become writers for the site. Ecology is an
appealing topic for white youth, and more must be done to pull those
serious about real solutions to environmental destruction into the
revolutionary movement. We look forward to more ecologists stepping up
to build a powerful and active revolutionary ecology organization.
Since I arrived here in Salinas Valley State Prison (SVSP), I have
personally observed officers oppress prisoners. One prisoner who is
disabled was jumped on by these officers, and these officers falsified
reports to cover up their use of unnecessary force. Well, he filed 602
(grievance) after 602 on these officers, and he has not allowed the
tricks and oppressive tactics to stop him. They placed him in the hole
and he managed to get out in 3 days. And now these same officers realize
that he is not going to stop, and have turned to getting at other
prisoners to get him off the yard, all because of his 602 filing and the
direction he is taking against them.
Other prisoners have mentioned how this person always has the officers
around him, as to feed into the officers agenda, but that’s just not
true. This prisoner would be minding his own business, and they start
provoking him, so he turns around and uses law back at them. One time
officers told him he was a “rat for 602ing all the officers,” and he
told the officers he would 602 them if they violate him. They responded
that they are not afraid of the 602, but when he asked them if they are
afraid of “the grand jury” they changed their tune, and demeanor.
I have never seen anyone who was not afraid of the officers, despite
what they have already done to him. The amazing thing is he stays to
himself and is laid back and shares law with others. I never once seen
him involved in any altercations, verbal or physical, with other
prisoners. Some officers don’t want to even touch him during searches,
and I overheard one say this is because he loves his money and job.
This is inspiring to me, because I have watched the officers throw
everything at this prisoner and he is still not dissuaded. And now the
divide and conquer tactic of paying another prisoner to take care of
their problem is what they have resorted to.
I hope MIM(Prisons) is able to convey what I am saying, because I see
the teaching from the
United
Front for Peace in Prisons statement of principles in his walk, and
just some of the fruits of these principles that he is reaping, too. I
know the officers hate him because I personally hear them talking bad
about him.
MIM(Prisons) adds: This is a great portrait of a prisoner
fighting his own battles in prison and through this fight inspiring
others. He exemplifies the Peace principle of the UFPP: “We organize to
end the needless conflicts and violence within the U.$. prison
environment. The oppressors use divide and conquer strategies so that we
fight each other instead of them. We will stand together and defend
ourselves from oppression.” Drawing the hatred of the prison officers is
a good sign of success, though of course we always want to minimize the
suffering of our comrades and help them gain as much room to organize
and survive behind bars as possible.
Grade A to the East Block from S.W.A.C. Struggling with all my
might No official record of a 10 30 Nobody has flown a kite
I’m back in the SHU II D.R. I’m talkin bout CDCR noise Back in the
SHU II D.R.
Been away so long they hardly knew my face No parade or welcome
home Bought a good guitar could not afford clear-case T.V. coming
on state loan
[Chorus 2:] I’m back in the SHU II D.R. No sun on the out alone
yard, boyz Not in the SHU II I’m in the SHU too Back in the SHU
II D.R.
[Verse 3] Now the Ukraine psych doctor Anderchuck She brings me
peace of mind No psycho pills make me scream and shout But
Jasmine’s always on my mi mi mi mi mi mi mind [so it’s on!]
I began a hunger strike here at the federal supermax 16 days ago with
several peers. My body is weak but my indignation is as powerful as ever
and fuels my determination to not give up. The federal prison system
controls us by giving us email, MP3 players, and huge meals daily. But
under all of this we are not free and we must not ever trade our freedom
and dignity for entertaining distractions and sugary snacks.
As many states slowly begin to close prisons, the federal government now
seeks to use illegal immigration as an excuse to incarcerate thousands
of poor migrants en masse. Only a corrupt, cold, capitalist society
would justify incarcerating children simply because they were brought to
America seeking food, shelter and a better life. Wall Street crooks
haven’t spent one day in a jail cell yet thousands of migrant children
sit piled into cells so tightly there is no room to walk.
We must not become fat, lazy, complacent and compliant in the
destruction of the social and moral fabric of our society (any more than
it already is). We must all resist oppression for as Frederick Douglass
once said, “The limits of tyrants are proscribed by the endurance of
those whom they oppress.”
MIM(Prisons) responds: We agree wholeheartedly with this
prisoner’s sentiments about prisons, immigration and capitalism. And we
join his call to all to resist oppression and complacency. We do,
however, have some concerns about people initiating hunger strikes
without clear demands and goals as this can lead to the weakening and
even death of comrades who still have much to contribute to the
struggle. This is a question of strategy and ensuring that we carefully
plan actions so to maximize our energies and efforts, rather than
bringing down repression without any gains. Sometimes we do take on
losing battles, but in the course of these fights we are able to use the
struggle to educate many and gain new supporters. We do not have more
details on this comrade’s hunger strike so we offer these cautionary
words without judging h particular situation.