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.
As imperialist crisis deepens, national liberation grows. The right
for national self-determination is gaining mainstream discussion with
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The imperialists are boycotting Russia to
support Ukraine, when they punished those boycotting I$rael for denying
the self-determination of Palestine. Meanwhile, here in occupied Aztlán
comrades are engaging the Chican@ movement on this topic, which has
forced the largest reformist parties to discuss national liberation in
the current political climate.
Before the next issue of Under Lock & Key comes out we
have two events that we are asking you to support. One is our second
annual Fourth of You-Lie fund drive. Thanks to all who donated already
this year, we are off to a good start rivaling last year’s steady
increase in donations. If you haven’t donated yet this year, we’re
asking every reader to send us 7 stamps or more by July 4th. We just
received notice that, like most things, printing costs will be
increasing this summer.
And more importantly, June 19th marks the boycott
Juneteenth Freedom Initiative. The campaign is centered in Texas,
where comrades are organizing a general strike in prisons across the
state. Different custody levels will be organizing different forms of
action leading up to and continuing after June 19th. We will be sending
updates to USW comrades in Texas over the next month. Campaign demands
include:
End Solitary Confinement!
End Restrictive Housing Units!
End Mass Incarceration!
Transform the prisons to cadre schools!
Transform ourselves into New People!
Speaking of transforming ourselves, we released the Revolutionary
12 Step program this winter as promised. USW leaders should have
that in their hands already. The Power to New Afrika pamphlet
is almost done, and should be out shortly after this ULK. The
new The Fundamental Political Line of the Maoist Internationalist
Ministry of Prisons however, is not on schedule and we do not know
when we will be able to complete that. For now our introductory study
program will continue using the old version. We are also very behind on
responding to comrades in the intro study program. As always, we need
more outside supporters to help with basic tasks like transcribing,
editing, lay out, and promoting prisoner-led campaigns. We just don’t
have enough comrades out here to keep up with everything comrades need
in there. Thank you to our newest supporters who helped with this issue,
we hope to have a long and revolutionary relationship!
I’m just writing to say hi and thank you. I got my latest issue of
Under Lock & Key no.76. I love your newspaper even though I
don’t agree with a lot of the stuff you say about Suboxone. I’m on it
myself and there’s nothing to do in prison, so a lot of people use
drugs.
I had overdosed 3 or 4 times, but always had a celly who brought me
back. Then, I had a celly I stabbed so I no longer could have a cell
mate. If I were to overdose again I’d probably die. They started giving
us Suboxone and I stopped using heroin – I no longer want or need heroin
or meth or anything else. My suboxone is perfect.
Over my 10-plus years in prison, most drugs enter the prisons through
the cops, C.O.s, nurses, and other free staff, not visiting. I always
had and sold drugs, then when I got a couple pen pals and my family came
back into my life I stopped. Even the Prison Legal News noticed
during the pandemic a
lot of drugs were still entering jails and prisons even though there
were NO in-person visiting in a lot of states. But anyways, I love
your newspaper: keep up the great work.(1)
I’m sending you 7 more stamps – I’ll send them whenever I can. I know
you guys are a non-profit and can use all the help you can get.
MIM(Prisons) responds: We thank this reader for this
perspective. In past
articles, and again in this
issue, we address the spreading use and abuse of Suboxone in
prisons, both state-authorized and not. This occurs despite Suboxone
being marketed as a tool to help with addiction. Our point is not to say
that people who have found Suboxone helpful are wrong to use it or wrong
that it can help. But like so many drugs under capitalism it is
overly-prescribed, and abused widely without prescriptions in the black
market. This serves a couple interests: the pharmaceutical companies
profit interests, and the oppressors’ interest in social control.
We promote bigger solutions to the problem of drug addiction. Whether
Suboxone is a tool some people need in today’s world we have not taken a
position on. But we can say that through revolutionary organizing and
liberation from imperialism we can overcome, and virtually eliminate
drug addiction without the use of drugs like Suboxone.(2) As this
comrade says, many people do drugs in prison because there is nothing to
do. And things that people might be engaged in that would keep them off
drugs are often discouraged or punished, such as political organizing.
The comrade also found that being able to have basic social interactions
with people that cared about em also got em to stop using drugs. This
supports our position that long-term isolation is torture.
Another thanks to this reader for sending 7 additional stamps. July
4th is our annual Fourth of You-Lie fundraising campaign, where we ask
all of our subscribers that are able, to send us 7 stamps for their
annual subscription to Under Lock & Key. To say we are a
“non-profit” is a bit misleading as non-profits generally have grant
money and paid staff and such. We have none of that. Our “staff” is our
comrades who also fund all our work from our pockets. So yes, we can use
the help. And small contributions from lots of supporters is the kind of
mass base we need to make our work sustainable.
Texas has been overtly operating a slave trade for decades. You may
be surprised to know that people still wrestle with distinguishing the
difference between being incarcerated and being enslaved. This is why
after the countrywide prison demonstrations of 9 September 2016, Bennu
Hannibal Ra Sun of the FREE ALABAMA MOVEMENT said that he noticed a
dragnet pattern after 15 to 20 interviews where they kept asking why we
refer to incarceration as slavery. From that point on he required media
to read the 13th Amendment before he would allow an interview.
Incarcerated, Imprisoned or
Enslaved?
To be clear, incarceration is the act or process of confining
someone; imprisonment. To imprison simply means to confine (a person) in
prison. So far, we haven’t delved into treatment that would call for the
loss of the right to vote, bear arms, live in certain communities, adopt
a child or be forced to provide free labor.
Both incarceration and imprisonment utilize confinement as a form of
punishment. Slavery, on the other hand, is 1) A situation in which one
person has absolute power over life, fortune and liberty of another; and
2) The practice of keeping individuals in such a state of bondage or
servitude.
Here, the word servitude comes into play and involuntary servitude
is: The condition of one forced into labor – for pay or not – for
another by coercion or imprisonment. This is where you see that the
imprisonment is a means to the labor.
Under the first definition of slavery provided above was the usage of
a word that most only know to refer to a human being. However, according
to Black’s Law Dictionary, an entity (such as a corporation) that is
recognized by law as having the rights and duties of a human being is
the second definition of person.
We now know that slavery can be a scenario in which one corporation
has absolute power over life, fortune and liberty of a human.
The word corporation would usually bring to mind Amazon or Walmart
but those are small fish in a bigger pond. A corporation is sort of a
person and a government is a sort of corporation. The city/county you
are from was incorporated into your state which was incorporated into
the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA through its Articles Of Incorporation. This
is why the corporation, which is the U.S. of A. has an office for the
president, vice president, secretaries and staff members etc., who are
members of the EXECUTIVE branch of our governments which are
corporations that have absolute power over life, fortune and liberty of
others via their institutions of slavery.
Felons Are The New Niggers
As the author and educator Claud Anderson, Ed. D. stated on page 66
of his book Black Labor, White Wealth:
“Black enslavement must be a constant reminder of the ramifications
of a lack of collective unity, strength and self-determination.
It is incumbent that you come to discern that those who are
economically challenged are subjected to prosecutions at a far higher
rate than the upper class, imperative for us to acknowledge that though
those subjects are predominantly Black, as a class, they are
multi-ethnic and as such, convicted felons of all backgrounds have
become the new Blacks; ones relegated to niggerdom.
For example, in Texas in the year 2000, Latinos were nearly twice as
likely as whites to be incarcerated,(1) but shocking is the fact that in
2002 Latinos were a larger portion of new prison arrivals than either
Blacks or whites (33.9% Latinos, 32.8% Blacks, 32.2% whites)(2) yet
sadly, a smaller portion of the releases. They were going in at a higher
rate but coming out at a lower one.
These numbers for Latinos are alarming in light of how bad Blacks
were treated during the period from 1986 to 2000 where spending only
increased 47% for Texas Higher Education but a whopping 346% for Texas
Corrections.(3) This maneuver caused Blacks to be sent to prison 7 times
more than whites for drug offenses, making Blacks 81% of the whole
state’s prison growth for drugs.(4)
Additionally, the number of Black youth imprisoned for drugs during
roughly the same period rose by 360%, however, for young whites
imprisonment for drug offenses declined by 9%.(5) With that knowledge it
becomes apparent that the 360% increase in Black bodies was the Return
On Investment for the 346% accretion in correctional spending.
The result was that in 2003, Black Texans were incarcerated 5 times
as much as whites.(6) Texas had managed to have 66,300 Black males in
prison and only 40,800 in the Texas Higher Education system.(7) This,
regardless of the fact that in 2002 whites and Blacks, according to the
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, reported to
be dependent on a substance at similar rates. (9.5% of Blacks and 9.3%
of whites).
I say that this is a result because the increase in Black bodies to
the plantations ensured a decrease in their eligibility to become any
part of the legislature that makes laws or police officers, prosecutors,
grand jurors, trial jurors, parole or probation officers, judges or
justices.
On the flipside of that, and just as significant, is that if the
Black man and the law collide, the institution has created a system to
where as he interacts within the criminal justice machination there is a
lesser likelihood that the police he may come into contact with is
Black. Or the prosecutor who decides to charge him or the grand juror
who decides to indict him or the judge who calls the shots in the
courtroom or the trial jurors who convict him or the appellate justices
or the parole/probation officers; the last three who are in the business
of ”keeping individuals in a state of bondage or servitude”.
We went from being either a free (white) or enslaved (Black) man in
the slave era to being either an upstanding citizen or a convicted
felon, ethnicity be damned. The poor white and Latino populations, who
are more likely to be convicted than their upper-to-middle-classes, are
subjected to the same societal pitfalls and social stratification.
Niggerdom.
This is what Claud Anderson meant in his warning about not forgetting
about the lack of unity and strength during Black enslavement, if we
don’t bind together to stop this institution, the system will chain us
together to feed it.
Monopoly Money (All Around
The Board)
For all the prison stockyards that overpopulated Texas in the 1990’s
there were mainly two styles: a maximum security template that holds
three to four thousand prisoners and a medium security template that
holds around two thousand. So, whereas these prisoners couldn’t vote,
they became a part of the hosting county’s population, a sure
gerrymandering and census incentive for when the federal government
doles out X amount of dollars to districts based on population.
These prisoners are paid nothing though they produce many goods that
are sold. They are paid nothing but they spend millions of their
families’ dollars on commissary. There is only one place for prisoners
to purchase hygiene, food, correspondence materials and a few articles
of clothing, all of which are produced by prison labor, like shorts,
shirts, thermals, socks and shower shoes and then sold back to them at
exorbitant prices.
Prisoners who want to make a phone call are not afforded the luxury
of choosing a carrier. They provide free labor and their family spends
millions accepting overpriced phone calls contracted with a corporation
called Securus.
These prisoners can also receive emails and funds from their families
who Spend millions to send both through a company called Jpay
who is owned behind the same corporate veil as Securus.
Imagine if Walmart could lock its customers in the store. To hell
with a discount, they could price gouge and be certain that those
suckers would fight each other to get on the phone to have their
families send millions for them to buy every item in the store. They
wouldn’t be able to keep anything on the shelves, no matter that most is
of poor quality.
There simply isn’t a more loyal consumer base or promising commodity
where the institution has created for itself a way to circumvent the
free market to monopolize on the misery of the involuntary but free
labor force.
We, the Texas Liberation Collective, are not lost on the fact that
Texas has the expense of feeding and housing its prisoners because all
slave owners have had to do the same. All livestock has to be alive to
produce, be sold or traded. we are more focused on the fact that the
prison population of Texas exists by design. As stated in Part One of
this series, there was not a crime wave in the decade of the state’s
prison boom to account for the expansion of the slave state itself.
What we endured was a bull market in the stock exchange and guess who
orchestrated it? We could say that politicians and corporations were
responsible but it would be saying the same thing as the two are
mutually inclusive. State Senator Ted Cruz (R) works to advance the
interests of the corporation he works for, it’s called Texas and its
enslaved Latino population is of no concern to him.
The Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) has a subsidiary of
sorts called Texas Correctional Industries (TCI) which the Lone Star
State created in 1963 during the Civil Rights era. TCI is governed by
the Texas Board Of Criminal Justice (TBCJ) and has nine members who are
appointed by the governor, five of whom are currently lawyers.
Based on the legislative language that created the TCI, the board is
endowed with the authority to determine prisoners’ pay for their labor,
though to date they have opted for NO PAY and involuntary servitude:
“The board may develop by rule and the department may administer an
incentive pay scale for work program participants…Prison industries may
be financed through contributions donated for this purpose by private
businesses contracting with the department. The department shall
apportion pay earned by a work program participant in the same manner as
is required by rules adopted by the board under section 497.0581.”
If you’ve been told that some prisoners do earn wages if they work
for private companies through the Prison Industry Enhancement
Certification Program(PIECP) please be aware that the conversation isn’t
held without an exaggerated depiction. Truthfully, in 2017 though TDCJ
had over 145,000 prisoners, according to Jason Clark, TDCJ’s Chief of
Staff in 2019, there were only about 80 prisoners who were allowed to
partake in the PIECP, a number that was well below a waning one percent
of the Texas prison population.
The TCI sweatshops are dispersed throughout 37 prison plantations and
its free labor force – or free labor by force, shall we say? –
manufactures a plethora of goods from wooden state signs, license
plates, police utility vests and bedding, steel kitchenware, up-to-date
ergonomically designed office furniture, park equipment, security
fixtures, food service equipment and they also refurbish school buses
and computers, grow crops and tend to over ten thousand head of
cattle.
In the spirit of Texas, TCI’s total sales for fiscal year 2014 were
valued at $88.9 million, FY 2017 it was $84 million. Outside of the
minute headcount of laborers in the PIECP, the state makes these
hundreds of millions from the blood, sweat and tears of a
forced-into-labor labor force who is subjected to some form of penal
castigation should they refuse to relinquish their labor upon
demand.
The punishment may be a combination of the following
restrictions:
No access to the phones, no access to the recreation yard, commissary
restriction, cell restriction, personal property restriction, loss of
good time and/or work time credit, loss of visitation privileges, loss
of custody level which can result in being removed from general
population and placed in 21 or 23 hour lock down housing. Receiving any
of this retribution could result in being denied educational programs
and most significantly, parole.
Juneteenth and Dale
Wainwright
How ironic, yet not surprising, that Texas is shamelessly known as
the last state to free the slaves —— a disgraceful fact that spawned the
celebration called Juneteenth, its own holiday - yet they still haven’t
freed the slaves, thus deeming Juneteenth and its celebrators a
farce.
Texas and its misled sympathizers have no justifiable reason in
acknowledging Juneteenth today in the same spirit that the slave negroes
of the Frederick Doug- lass era had no justifiable reason in
acknowledging Independence Day.
Here, we dare raise other ironies but how ironic is it that just as
millions of slaves parted Africa from a slave port called Goree Island,
many of us enslaved here after inception and diagnostics were shipped to
and through a slave port called Goree Unit? But even more.sickening and
insane is that just as some Africans sold their own into slavery, the
TBCJ at one point was chaired by (Wait! I refuse to call this man Black,
but he is definitely…) an African-American!
That’s right, you eased on down the red bricked road to peek behind
the corporate veil to see who whitey was that refused to pay the slaves
and when you raised the curtain there stood Dale Wainwright celebrating
Juneteenth with a fat slave- raised burger. He made Texas history by
becoming the first African-American elected to the Texas Supreme Court,
but he will go down in history for being the Supreme House Negro of the
twenty-first century.
He was managing partner in the Austin office of Bracewell &
Giuliani, the firm where former NYC mayor and Trump prop-man Rudy
Giuliani is a partner.
Another former member, Eric Gambrell, contributed to the campaign of
and was appointed by Governor Rick Perry. He’s a corporate lawyer and
partner at Akin Gump, a large lobbying and law firm whose clientele has
included big dogs like Amazon, Pfizer and even the slimy privatized
prison giant formally-known as Corrections Corporation of America.
Whether you make them or break them, law is big business in the Texas
organizational construct and some of the biggest
capitalists.are…lawyers.
In Part One of Exposing The Lone Star Chamber (Of
Enslavement) we detailed how district attorneys bypass and usurp
the authority of Texas grand juries to rubber-stamp what is purported to
be an indictment but fails to constitutionally vest a district trial
court with subject-matter jurisdiction. Thus, the lives that filled the
stockyards were kidnapped under the watchful eyes of congress and
company.
Here, we have hopefully assisted in helping you know slavery when you
see slavery in the same way that you would know that a pig with lipstick
on is still a pig.
In Part Three of this series, we will examine some intricate details
of the Texas slave trade and question how in the age of Black Lives
Matter, the age of Prison Lives Matter, and with all the professed
social and criminal justice warriors and reformists, the Lone Star
Chamber continues to broker these bodies shamelessly and
unchallenged.
Until now!
MIM(Prisons) responds: We welcome comrade Ice
Immortal Askari to the pages of Under Lock & Key. This
well-researched piece touches on some recurring themes in our
newsletter. The first is the interplay of class and nation in the U.$.
prison context. As our comrade points out the disproportionate
targetting of New Afrikans and Raza, as well as First Nations, by the
injustice system, ey sees prisoners of all nationalities in the same
boat. This is generally our line as well, we must unite the imprisoned
lumpen class across boundaries. But we also must recognize the
particularities of different nationalities in this country, and
recognize the importances of national liberation struggles in the
dismantling of U.$. imperialism.
The author defines slavery as:
“1) A situation in which one person has absolute power over life,
fortune and liberty of another; and 2) The practice of keeping
individuals in such a state of bondage or servitude.”
The author attempts to distinguish slavery from imprisonment. But we
find this distinction not useful as the expressed purpose of
imprisonment is to impose state control over the lives of individuals
deemed to have committed a crime. The American Heritage Dictionary
provides one definition of slavery as, “A mode of production in which
slaves constitute the principal work force.” This is a simple summation
of the Marxist definition. We’ve written extensively on this question of
prison slavery in the past. And a new summary of our research on prison
labor and economics will be available in the next edition of The
Fundamental Political Line of the Maoist Internationalist Ministry of
Prisons. In short, the motivation for imprisonment is not profiting
off of prison labor as was the motivation for slavery in this country or
any other country in the world.
The realm of prison labor is a realm where tactical action and
organizing can occur. We agree that it is important to the running of
these institutions and as such can be used as a means of exerting
political pressure.
Telling people they must cook or clean to help maintain the facility
they are living in is not an injustice. Having people do productive
labor as part of the punishment for a crime against the people is not an
injustice. The injustice is who is being put in prison, and for what
reasons, and how they are being treated in there.
Amerikans oppose prison labor for the same reason they oppose
migration, they don’t want to dilute their inflated wages. So we caution
those in the prison movement who try to unite with the labor aristocracy
on this issue, when they have consistently stood with the cops and the
prison unions throughout history. As we unite along common class
interests in prison, we must recognize that our support base on the
streets is in the national liberation struggles of the oppressed.
Notes: 1. Coyle, Michael J. Latinos and_the Texas
Criminal Justice System: NCLR Research Brief. (2003) Washington, D.C. :
National Council of La Raza 2. Findings Of The National Council Of
La Raza – (NCLR) 2003: Racial And Ethnic Minorities Over-represented in
the Criminal Justice System 3. Cellblocks or Classrooms, The Justice
Policy Institute (2002) 4. Findings Of The Justice Policy Institute
– Analysis of the National Corrections Reporting Program on Race and
Drug Admissions in Texas (2003) 5. Findings of the Steward Research
Groups – Commissioned by the NAACP Texas State Conference and NAACP
voter Fund 6. Findings of the Justice Policy Institute – Analysis of
the National Corrections Reporting Program on Race and Drug Admissions
in Texas. 7. ibid
There’s been a shortage of staff on super-max. One reason being too
many prisoners are in S.I.B. (self injury behavior) watch and must be
monitored. Once observation and receiving cells are filled to capacity
then guards must (individually) sit outside the housing cells of any
other prisoner on S.I.B.
Phone Zap
From experience in what may have been S. White’s 1st successful
protest in 2019 Oct, outside support via phone zap was effective. All
morning this tied up the prison’s phone line until the prison took the
phone off the hook. The outside supporters then phone zapped Raleigh. So
Raleigh called the prison asking why the phones were off the hook.
There was 9 to 16 comrades in the prison on hunger strike and
multiple people on S.I.B. By lunch 5 comrades were called by Captain
Henderson to receiving and asked what they wanted. All of us already had
grievances being processed about other things. S. White also sent copies
of an anonymous missive to the administration with the policies that
were being breached.
Juneteenth
For the memorial celebration of the Juneteenth we are participating
in the traditional fast (meal refusal) for breakfast and lunch; and
10-20 S.I.B.s.
At North Carolina’s HCAU we want phone calls (iPad), TV news (iPad),
spider-free outside recreation cages built large enough for more than
one person, more food, real hygiene, heater fixed for winter, sally-port
swept and mopped at least once a month, lights off in the day time, and
case workers and fee recommendations for release from HCON on or after
the second 6 month term (infraction free). Feel free to add to the list
(every grievance will differ reflecting the demands of each
comrade).
We’ll like to have outside support phone zap at this institution.
Write MIM to stay updated. We do not expect any assistance from any
boot-licking reactionaries satisfied with the man and any conditions of
solitary confinement. Shall your days be numbered.
17 January 2022 – I am contacting you to update you on the BP-3.91
sexually explicit photos etc.
Here on the C.T. Terrell Unit (AKA Ramsey 3) several prisoners just
recently received photos in the mail – bikini shots. However, several
people have had theirs confiscated by correctional officers. Not many
people got rid of theirs. This new law really sucked to say the least.
Two lawsuits
have been filed by offenders here on this level I. I have read it
too.
Here’s the thing, TDCJ currently pays for hormone treatment
injections for gender dysphoric offenders. We still shower 50 or more
deep in the shower. Transgender prisoners are allowed their breasts,
tight pants, etc. However, we are told we can’t receive photos of our
own girlfriends wearing thongs. What kind of sense does this make?
Placing restrictions on prisoners’ mail, photos, newspapers,
magazines, is a significant interference with prisoners’ rights. This is
a blunt response to a problem that is much more nuanced than K2,
cellphones, etc. Common sense should dictate that the TDCJ should focus
on the bigger problem that they are creating introduction of contraband
through the front door.
MIM(Prisons) responds: We agree that BP-3.91 is a
blunt tool, and like mail policies across the country, it is being used
arbitrarily and to censor political materials and much-needed social
interaction with friends and family on the outside. Our line is that we
are against porn being used as an opiate of the prison masses;
tactics-wise we’re against TDCJ (and bourgeois prisons in general)
exploiting the reformist demands of friends/families of prisoners to
further censorship and control what gets into the hands of
prisoners.
A point this prisoner brings up is the fact that transgender wimmin
are allowed to wear tight clothes and even shower with the men in the
men’s prisons, despite the reason for this new censorship rule being to
take away sources of arousal. The same argument has been made regarding
female staff and how they dress and by the comrade who posed some strategic
guidance for next steps in this campaign. The point is, that the
TDCJ’s stated goal is asinine and unachievable. As another
comrade points out, there seem to be some assumptions about only
female bodies being able to sexually arouse.
Maoists understand that eliminating rape in our society doesn’t start
with the individual: the material conditions that give rise to rape in
the first place must first be gotten rid of and then the chance for a
mass campaign against anti-people sex crimes will be possible. While
individuals will certainly reform under patriarchy, the problem will
continue until patriarchy is overthrown.
The TDCJ and the state of Texas claims that this law is promoted to
give an environment for sex offenders to rehabilitate, yet they fully
know that the rape culture of Amerikan prisons won’t disappear. We see
that in this case the role of the TDCJ and the state of Texas is to
govern the said material conditions for rape with security for the
bourgeois dictatorship as priority; and that there will be no
rehabilitation of anti-people sex offenders but more risk and danger for
the already vulnerable group of transgender prisoners and LGBTQ+
prisoner in general. For this contradiction among the masses, we tell
our prisoner comrades to build unity and solidarity with LGBTQ+
prisoners and promote independent power against the bourgeois state’s
arbitrary use of reformist demands from the outside as a tool of
censorship.
As revolutionary class-conscious partisans within the epicenter of
global capitalist-imperialism, our daily struggles consist of a
multitude of factors, such as a societal inundation of bourgeois
ideology that is close to total. This means that every time your
television is turned on or your radio is playing the chances of some
reactionary foolishness reaching your senses is greater than the
likelihood of a white male becoming the next amerikan president.
Before most people turn-in for the night they tune in for another
dose of the corporate state’s media misinformation (most begin their day
like this as well!). The talking points are simple and easy to follow
and the repetition of the message increases the likelihood of
remembrance. Under these conditions what becomes of the formation of
independent thought development?
Marx taught us to subject everything in existence to relentless
criticism, our sources of information gathering down to the way we
choose to utilize technology controlled by multi-national (corporations)
we must assess and re-assess our own patterns and those of others among
us to conform to the material conditions of our struggle as to devise
methods which will allow us to intensify our efforts hence moving closer
and closer to ultimately overthrowing this reactionary order.
As Maoists, we cannot differentiate between the working-class masses
of Russia and Ukraine. Not only do they share a common culture and
historical background, but the fact that we as laboring masses have no
country proves true in the current context. The so-called “socialist”
international chose nationalism over socialism, reform over revolution,
and we walk that same path by choosing sides in a conflict where the
people are regarded as bystanders. In the world of Clausewitz this may
make sense, but as Marxist-Leninist-Maoists (or Maoists) we understand
that the people make their own history.
MIM(Prisons) adds: We saw anti-Russian propaganda ramp
up quickly in the last couple months. As the mainstream media continues
to villianize Russian imperialism for the same atrocities the Amerikans
have committed much more regularly, we aim to serve the majority of the
world who has no allegiance to imperialism. Unfortunately, most in this
country recognize that they benefit from the imperialist exploitation
and ally with the militarist rhetoric.
Dear Comrades, I have read updates, in the ULK winter 2021,
No. 75, and feel the need to clarify things. The nomenclature used
in BP-03.91, and the definitions provided within it, are being bent and
ambiguously used by both prisoner and TDCJ staff alike. The policy
itself is so ambiguous, one would have to guess at how to
uniformally enforce it.
The only difference made in the new policy is how ‘sexually explicit’
is defined. I am enclosing a verbatim copy of BP 03.91 as it is
currently worded on this date. I witnessed an arbitrary enforcement of
this policy on the Michael Unit and have even heard improper incorrect
references, by mail staff on the Coffield Unit of what was ‘sexually
explicit’. This shows me that even TDCJ staff are ill-informed about
what the policy is and its purpose. I had written the Texas
Board of Criminal Justice a few months back and they referred my letter
to the, now in-house, Ombudsman office. I would encourage all ‘brothers
in white’ to familiarize themselves with the policy by reading it
themselves in the unit Law Library. (as well as reading ALL of the
policies that are currently in place. Simply request the ‘Index of
current TDJC policies’).
The injunctions that I have knowledge of, filed against the BP-03.91,
argued on the ambiguous nature and verbage of the policy. Images that
cause ‘sexual arousal’ are inherently broad. (Hell, I had caught a
girlfriend of mine, masturbating to Metalacolypse!)
While arguing the ambiguity of the policy is one undeniable argument,
I suggested to a team of litigants to also attack the apparent objective
of the policy. To curb anything that ‘sexually arouses’, well, anyone!
Banning officers from ‘outrageous’ or ‘extreme’ hairdos, make-up,
jewelry, etc. tight pants, or even suggesting that female officers not
work in male prisons (no male officers in the female prisons) but even
then you would not be able to curb even same sex arousal. It is in
applying this argument that we see just how illogical it is to curb
‘sexual arousal’. Exacerbating the ridiculousness of the argument will
force them to define and refine the definition of the policy and there
is no way that you would be able to legally define ‘cleavage’ as
censorable under the First Amendment.
While these are my own thoughts and opinions, I do hope to help as
many comrades in their legal efforts. This isn’t something that a phone
call will fix but we can change things with well-thought-out litigation.
It takes time, but most of us have nothing but time. Intellectuals fight
with their words. Learn to use them and wield them with effective
effort.
At the current moment i am not involved in any active litigation as
my time and energy is currently invested in criminal matters, however, I
try to keep up with what is going on to know our environment. I want to
thank ALL of you who keep us connected through organization,
correspondence, etc. Without you we would most likely be more lost to
the cause than anyone could imagine. The support you provide is
priceless.
Nothing worth fighting for is ever easily won. Policies are a
fraction of the fight. Laws are another. But the biggest fight we face
is ignorance. Our own and of the population. This is readily apparent in
the policies and laws we find ourselves fighting against. It is a reason
for the mission of MIM.
Things here in Connecticut remain same as last communique: regressive
and stifling! Oh! I do have intel which you comrades may find
interesting?!
In January I went to R.H.U. and initiated a hungerstrike. My
objective(s) were:
to get my rehab appointments from month’s ago
rescheduled;
to see the quack masquerading as a doctor!
After thirteen days, my tactic was successful! Now, the issue came
when a unit manager calls R.H.U. (at behest of my associates in unit) to
check on my health.
The R.H.U. Lieutenant “bad jackets” me & says, “[name of author]
has nothing coming as he is a child molester”. This blatant lie was
manufactured in response to my chastisement of this R.H.U. Lieutenant
for his managing conduct (lol)! In his quest to “get me” he locates a
child molester with my 1st & last name (sans middle name obviously)
and goes on to spread the falsehood to his subordinates, who in turn
spread it to captives in various pseudo-leadership roles within their
lumpen entities. Now, as I am from another state, the killers believed
that their smear campaign would work, ie. I am unknown here! However, as
a New Afrikan! one’s day-to-day stride coupled with fact, that I’ve
striven to build quality captives since my arrival! negated the pigs’
ploy. “Real recognizes real.” But, as many of Connecticut’s captives are
ideologically backwards and overtly pig acolytes, I may have to spit
fire at some point! Enough said.
MIM(Prisons) responds: We want to commend the people,
the L.O. leaders, in this Connecticut prison for not being taken in by
the pigs’ lies and judging people by facts and action. This is the second
principle of the United Front for Peace in Prisons –
Unity – in action!
We must not let state paperwork determine who we trust and who we do
not. What this comrade faced is an old trick. And we commend this
comrade for eir righteous behavior in a new environment. It goes to show
how righteous, revolutionary action helps build peace in prisons, even
when it seems like the environment is in a backwards state of affairs.
The Republic of Aztlan extends our arms in solidarity with the
Palestinian people. Why should the liberation of Palestinian people be
so important to us Chicanos? It is because we share the legacy of
colonialism; a struggle for national liberation; a common destiny when
it came to empire-building of white nations; we share the common
experience of forced expulsion from our homelands; and we share the same
oppressor – world imperialism.
We will examine the five reasons that the Chicano nation should find
solidarity with our oppressed nation brothers and sisters in
Palestine:
We share a common thread of 100+ years of colonization;
We share a common thread of a struggle for national liberation;
The commonality in our histories is that both Palestinians and
Chicanos share a common destiny and historical role when it comes to
world imperialism. In the U.$. the doctrine of manifest destiny
justified land theft and genocide as a divine right of a specific
nation’s people. In the U.$. those people were the Euro-Amerikan
settlers. In Palestine, the Arabs face land theft and genocide which is
based on a belief that I$raelis have the religious right to said land
and therefore exterminating Palestinians and taking their land is an
unfortunate necessity in creating a supposed Jewish state.
With this idealist religious justification, forced expulsion has been
unleashed on the Palestinian people. We recall that in the 1950s,
Operation Wetback expelled 1-2 or more million Mexican people whether
they were born in the U.$. or Mexico didn’t matter.
Our oppressors are the same - world imperialism. At this point, the
primary contradiction in the world is with imperialism and the oppressed
nations. This is how Chicano liberation is inextricably linked to
Palestinian liberation.
The I$raeli-Palestinian conflict is not the product of ancient ethnic
nor religious hatred, nor is it about modern religious hatred either. It
is the tragic clash between two peoples with claims to the same land –
one claim being idealist and the other being historical materialist. It
is the outcome of a 100-year-old colonial occupation by Zionists and
later I$rael, backed by the British, the United States, and other major
imperial powers. This project is about the national bourgeoisie of a
persecuted religious minority in Europe speaking for all Jews in every
corner of the world (from Russia, Iraq, Ethiopia, Spain, the United
$tates, etc.) into building a powerful homeland granting them protection
which will be gained through eradication of an indigenous population. It
is about the rendering of the Palestinians as non-people, writing them
out of the historical narrative as if they never existed and denying
them basic human rights. It depends on the metaphysical idea that all
Jewish groups from all around the world all with different history,
language, culture, territory, and psychological make up all belong to
one nation because of religion. It feeds off of the anti-semitic idea
that Jews are outsiders in the various respective countries they reside.
Yet to state these incontrovertible facts of European colonization —
supported by innumerable official reports and public and private
communiques and statements, along with historical records and events —
sees I$rael’s defenders level charges of anti-Semitism and racism. We
ask the question: what is more anti-semitic? The claim that says zionism
requires an ethnic cleansing and assimilation of various historically
Jewish communities around the planet into the model European Jewish
groups? Or the claim that says Jews don’t belong in our country and they
should live in their own place where no one has to deal with them?
Edward Said, a Palestinian intellectual of the famous book
“Orientalism” who grew up in British occupied Palestine summarized:
“This is a unique colonialism that we’ve been subjected to where they
have no use for us. The best Palestinian for them is either dead or
gone. It’s not that they want to exploit us.”
Zionism was birthed from the evils of anti-Semitism. It was a
reaction to the discrimination and violence inflicted on Jews,
especially during the savage pogroms in Russia and Eastern Europe in the
late 19th century and early 20th century that left thousands dead. The
Zionist leader Theodor Herzl in 1896 published “Der Judenstaat,” or “The
Jewish State,” in which he warned that Jews were not safe in Europe, a
warning that within a few decades proved terrifyingly prescient with the
rise of German fascism.
Britain’s support of a Jewish homeland was always colored by
anti-Semitism. The 1917 decision by the British Cabinet, as stated in
the Balfour Declaration, to support “the establishment in Palestine of a
national home for the Jewish people” was a principal part of a misguided
endeavor based on anti-Semitic tropes. The British elites, including
Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour, also believed that Jews could never be
assimilated in British society and it was better for them to emigrate.
It is telling that the only Jewish member of Prime Minister David Lloyd
George’s government, Edwin Montagu, vehemently opposed the Balfour
Declaration. He argued that it would encourage states to expel its Jews.
“Palestine will become the world’s ghetto,” Balfour warned.
This partially turned out to be the case after World War II when
hundreds of thousands of Jewish refugees, many rendered stateless, had
nowhere to go but Palestine. Often, their communities had been destroyed
during the war or their homes and land had been confiscated through
fascist brutality. Those Jews who returned to countries like Poland
found they had nowhere to live and were often victims of discrimination
as well as postwar anti-Semitic attacks and even massacres.
These first Jewish settlers knew they needed an imperial patron to
succeed and survive just like the early Euro-Amerikan settlers needed
sponsors from their old countries. Their first patron was Britain, which
sent 100,000 troops to crush the Palestinian revolt of the 1930s and
armed and trained Jewish militias known as the Haganah. The savage
repression of that revolt included wholesale executions and aerial
bombardment and left 10% of the adult male Arab population killed,
wounded, imprisoned or exiled. After the British left after the
contradiction between the settlers and the British became antagonstic,
the Zionists’ second patron became the United States, which now,
generations later, provides more than $3 billion a year to I$rael.
I$rael, despite the myth of self-reliance it peddles about itself, would
not be able to maintain its Palestinian colonies without its imperial
benefactors. This is why the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement
historically frightened I$rael. It is also why Chicanos should support
the economic boycott of I$rael as well.
The early Zionists bought up huge tracts of fertile Palestinian land
and drove out the indigenous inhabitants. They subsidized European
Jewish settlers sent to Palestine, where 94% of the inhabitants were
Arabs but once colonialism began to look bad in the post-World War II
era of decolonization, the colonial origins and practice of Zionism and
I$rael were whitewashed and conveniently forgotten in I$rael and the
West. In fact, Zionism — for two decades the coddled step-child of
British colonialism — re-branded itself as an anti-colonial
movement.”
“Today, the conflict that was engendered by this classic
nineteenth-century European colonial venture in a non-European land,
supported from 1917 onward by the greatest Western imperial power of its
age, is rarely described in such unvarnished terms,” Khalidi writes.
“Indeed, those who analyze not only I$raeli settlement efforts in
Jerusalem, the West Bank, and the occupied Syrian Golan Heights but the
entire Zionist enterprise from the perspective of its colonial-settler
origins and nature are often vilified. Many cannot accept the
contradiction inherent in the idea that although Zionism undoubtedly
succeeded in creating a thriving national entity in I$rael, its roots
are as a colonial settler project (as are those of other modern
countries: the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand). Nor
can they accept that it would not have succeeded but for the support of
the great imperial powers, Britain and later the United States. Zionism,
therefore, could be and was both a national and a colonial settler
movement at one and the same time.”
Much like the United $tates, I$rael too was started by the outcasts
of the old world who were more useful in the new world (North America
and Palestine respectively) than the old (Europe). Through venturing
through North America old colonialism was able to gain a major section
of primitive accumulation (land conquest and enslavement of our First
Nation and New Afrikan brothers), and transform itself into modern
imperialism; and through the outpost that is I$rael, modern imperialism
was able to export its finance capital safe and sound into middle east
proper.
One of the central tenets of the Zionist and I$raeli colonization is
the denial of an authentic, independent Palestinian identity. During the
British control of Palestine, the population was officially divided
between Jews and “non-Jews.” One time I$raeli Prime Minister Gold Meir
said:
“There was no such thing as Palestinians … they did not exist.”
This erasure, which requires an egregious act of historical amnesia,
is what the I$raeli sociologist Baruch Kimmerling called the
“politicide” of the Palestinian people. Khalidi writes, “The surest way
to eradicate a people’s right to their land is to deny their historical
connection to it.” Chicanos have been subjected to the same name erasure
by the U.$. government’s push to call us Hispanics, Latinos, or Mexicans
and erase our Chicano name which is fundamentally based on national
identity.
The creation of the state of I$rael on May 15, 1948, was achieved by
the Haganah and other Jewish groups through the ethnic cleansing of the
Palestinians and massacres that spread terror among the Palestinian
population. The Haganah, trained and armed by the British, swiftly
seized most of Palestine. It emptied West Jerusalem and cities such as
Haifa and Jaffa, along with numerous towns and villages, of their Arab
inhabitants. Palestinians call this moment in their history the Nakba or
the Catastrophe.
Since 1948, Palestinians have heroically mounted one resistance
effort after another, all unleashing disproportionate I$raeli reprisals
and demonization of the Palestinians as terrorists. But this resistance
has also forced the world to recognize the presence of Palestinians,
despite the feverish efforts of I$rael, the United States, and many Arab
regimes to remove them from historical consciousness. The repeated
revolts, as Said noted, gave the Palestinians the right to tell their
own story, the “permission to narrate.”
I$rael is an apartheid state that rivals and often surpasses the
onetime savagery and racism of apartheid South Africa. Modern I$raeli
society is infested with metaphysical racial chauvinism with “Death to
Arabs” being a common popular chant at I$raeli soccer matches. I$raeli
mobs and vigilantes, including thugs from right-wing youth groups such
as Im Tirtzu, carry out indiscriminate acts of vandalism and violence
against dissidents, Palestinians, I$raeli Arabs. The government of
I$rael has promulgated a series of discriminatory laws against non-Jews
that eerily resemble the racist Nuremberg Laws that disenfranchised Jews
in Nazi Germany. The I$raeli educational system, starting in primary
school, is an indoctrination machine for the military. The I$raeli army
periodically unleashes massive assaults with its air force, artillery
and mechanized units on the largely defenseless 1.85 million
Palestinians in Gaza, resulting in thousands of Palestinian dead or
wounded.
The Zionists could never have colonized the Palestinians without the
backing of Western imperial powers whose motives were driven by
anti-Semitism. Many of the Jews who fled to I$rael would not have done
so but for the virulent European anti-Semitism, that by the end of World
War II saw 6 million Jews murdered. I$rael was all that many
impoverished and stateless survivors, robbed of their national rights,
communities, homes, and often most of their relatives, had left. It
became the tragic fate of the Palestinians, who had no influence in the
European pogroms or the Holocaust, to be sacrificed on the altar of
hate.
Don’t forget that the Obama administration resupplied I$rael in the
middle of their slaughter of innocents in Gaza in 2014. Obama, Biden,
Trump the democrats and racist corporate media are all complicit with
the war crimes against humanity that I$rael is committing. On top of
this, the various police forces of Amerikkka utilizes exchange programs
with the state of I$rael to trade intelligence and train in I$raeli
tactics of suppressing Palestinian resistance in the urban areas. Those
same tactics will be implemented on the ghettos, barrios, and
reservations to discipline entire communities of oppressed nations. Back
in the George Floyd uprisings, the streets were littered with gas
canisters which claimed “Made in I$rael.” It got to a point Palestinian
activists were sharing counter-police tactics online for us in how to
deal with those tear gas and police tactics.
As revolutionary nationalists, we highlight the necessity for
solidarities for not only our nations but for all oppressed nations to
gain their self-determination. We also call to combat anti-semitism and
metaphysical views of what nations are which give to movements like
Zionism in the first place. For these reasons, the Republic of Aztlan
and the Chicano Nation finds solidarity with Palestine. From the river
to the sea, Aztlan and Palestine will be free!
This month we seen police in Minneapolis break into Amir Locke’s home
and murder him. This came after the public was placated by the
conviction of former pig Derek Chauvin for killing George Floyd.
Most of the protest we seen for ‘defund the police’ ended after the
George Floyd incident. It is uncertain if the reason for that is that
the public think they won a victory just because the injustice system
sacrificed one of their own in convicting Derek Chauvin or if the arrest
of John Johnson, the leader of NFAC, played its part in the end of
protests.
What is certain is that police can not be reformed because police are
the problem in america. More likely than not the evil injustice system
will release Derek Chauvin on appeal when everyone has forgot and the
spotlight is off. We seen Kim Potter get sentenced for 2 years this week
because some of the public pressure is off against the police. While the
Kim Potter incident seemed accidental and she showed some remorse for
her murder two things were never mentioned.
1st that police murder would have never happened if the pigs were not
stopping someone and harassing him in the first place, therefore the
police were the problem that led to Kim Potter killing an innocent
man.
2nd if anyone of us did this accidental shooting and showed real
remorse we would get life in prison and denied any chance of justice in
appeals court no matter how competent a defense we receive in trial from
our public defender (pretender).
Now the protest in the streets are silent and the evil police are
back to their same old tricks. Falsifying crime statistics to scare the
public into giving them more money. Money that should be going to
schools, and infrastructure, housing, community building rather than to
evil pigs that only scare people with false crime needs and incarcerate
our fathers, our kids. Police are a plague on society and the ONLY way
to fix what is wrong in this country is to defund the police and close
our prisons. Such a radical reversal is hard to comprehend, it takes
actual work and sacrifice.
We all know disgusting people that we do not want around. It is easy
to use police to get rid of disgusting people, thus creating the monster
of incarceration that we have now. To build community and healing takes
work and sacrifice. To really create lasting change requires independent
institutions of, by, and for the proletariat. We must unite together
against disgusting people who have lost their way and show them a better
way. At all cost the police can not be used as a remedy. The trail
blazers of community building most likely will have to operate at a
deficit initially until results can be proven, but rest assured any
result is better than the ineffectual prisons we have now.
We need to form real community based volunteer groups to patrol our
streets and intervene with ill behavior. Punishment is never the answer.
We can appropriate public spaces as necessary because public property
does NOT belong to the government, it rightfully belongs to the People.
To truly fix America we have to defund the police at all cost. Stop
being afraid of crime. Solutions to problems will arise naturally. One
thing is clear, the government we have now is not for the people, By the
people, or of the people. Police have become an elite ruling class they
do whatever, whenever they want. That is why reform will never work.
In Solidarity
MIM(Prisons) responds: We agree with this comrades
conclusion that reform will not work. And echo the need for a strategy
of building proletarian-led institutions of the oppressed instead. The
“defund” rhetoric seems very closely aligned to this mission, yet in
practice seems to have led to more discussions about budgets,
i.e. reformism. And of course, President Biden, has just taken it to
call for more funding for police.