The Voice of the Anti-Imperialist Movement from

Under Lock & Key

Got a keyboard? Help type articles, letters and study group discussions from prisoners. help out
[Rhymes/Poetry] [ULK Issue 50]
expand

Pride of the Panther

Can you see the pride in the panther
As he grows in splendor and grace
Toppling obstacles placed in the way
Of his progression to a better place.
Can you see the pride in the panther
As she nurtures her young all alone
The seed must grow regardless
Of it having been planted in stone.
Can you see the pride in the panther
As they unify as one
The flower blooms with brilliance,
And outshines the rays of the sun.

chain
[Gang Validation] [Control Units] [Utah State Prison] [Utah] [ULK Issue 31]
expand

Utah Maximum Security Prisoners Demand Basic Privileges

Revolutionary greetings to all who stand in opposition to the oppression being inflicted upon the people! I’m writing to you from within the depths of the Utah state prison where it’s business as usual for these oppressive devils. Here in the housing unit known as Uinta One, the vents are pumping out cold air and there’s nothing much that can be done, because if we go off and buck on the cops we will only gain a 48 hour strip cell. The situation is sickening, but only one of many!

I was placed in Uinta One at the beginning of December with no explanation other than that I was “under investigation.” I was already housed in maximum security gang housing under “Severe Threat Group” (STG) classification. I’ve been put under numerous investigations before this one and it usually involves my cell being tossed and all property being searched or seized, along with mail and phone calls being monitored. But now they choose to start the investigation by taking all my stuff and shipping me to the hole where it took over 35 days before I could even order a bar of soap or deodorant from commissary.

This has been done to many other prisoners who are housed in the so-called STG program. Most of the prisoners whose scheduled release from STG maximum security is close, or past due, do not get moved to less restrictive housing, and the ones who are at the forefront of fighting this injustice are often subject to more harassment, or in certain cases moved to “deeper” parts of the hole, aka Uinta One.

Most recently the prisoners of Uinta Two, both STG and non-STG, have been petitioning to change the privilege level system to one that treats all maximum security prisoners equally. They are demanding that we all be allowed to get 3 visits a month, unlimited phone calls while on recreation (out of cell time, which is one hour and 15 minutes every other day) and to be allowed the same spending limit on commissary. These privileges are provided to prisoners who are in maximum security but not classified as STG. What is the difference between a maximum security prisoner who is STG and one who’s not? Nothing other than how the oppressors have decided to classify us. Some members of LOs are considered STG and others are not, yet we live together in the STG unit regardless of a prisoner’s STG status, as long as our LOs are believed to get along with each other.

Prisoners’ first amendment rights are clearly violated by the STG policy and program here. They punish us by locking us in maximum security where we only recreate one cell at a time for an hour and 15 minutes every other day. We are given STG classification for tattoos or suspected gang affiliation without ever even having any write ups (disciplinary convictions) in this prison.

The oppression is real and thick here at the Utah State Prison, but we are fighting back.

I hope that all of the prisoners who are showing unity can continue to enlighten each other and others to the need for a united struggle! I know we have our differences, but we all are similarly oppressed. Stand tall, stand strong.


MIM(Prisons) adds: “Threat Group” classification is used by prisons across the country to target oppressed nation prisoners, specifically those who are politically active and organizing others to stand up for their rights. The classification system is arbitrary and allows use of things like holiday cards, or legal help, as evidence of association. Further, in many states the evidence is kept secret so prisoners can’t fight false classification. This status often gets prisoners locked in isolation units, where conditions like those described above eat away at physical and mental health. This is part of the systematic oppression of the criminal injustice system, serving imperialism by keeping the lumpen in check. As this prisoner wrote, unity is key to our fight against this system.

chain
[Rhymes/Poetry]
expand

The Girl from History


Like in a shroud of nopal she exists within the confines of the people,
To and from, history to the future lies her footprint for a better day.
A distant star propels her will and intrepid appeal soothes the oppressed in her path to freedom.
Dialectics remains her lantern which cuts deep canyons into the jungle of despair illuminating the mysterious and unseen.
I see her hand through the concrete pillars of occupation bathed in a glow of fluorescent light, leaking from the cuts it has endured from the miles of razor wire.
Her voice traveling from history defies the relations of production in its tone, it is a roar that discards any trace of bribery and which the chains of patriarchy have no chance.
Her demands have always been for justicia throughout history and continue to ignite this call into the future, a future where infant Brown fists rise out of the fields strapped on the backs of young mothers, of the youth pried out of the claws of criminalization.
Without her marching side by side the path becomes obscured and cold, and so we continue in sync with the boundaries of existence merely being a physical aspect of today’s social reality, a manifestation of occupation that the girl from history has seen rise and fall in her perpetual march through history.

chain
[Rhymes/Poetry] [Gender]
expand

Triple X


I’m a sick fuck
But so are you
Been trained like Pavlov’s dog
Getting off on watching you
Suffer
Have we had enough
Role playing hierarchy
Is this really the way you want it
Baby
Angry and violent
Scared and simpering
Playing the part like Pavlov’s dog
Bells and whistles – spittle buckets
Nooses, nines, suicides
Wiping up our messes
I want out your pornography
Show me the way out this insanity
I’m a sick fuck for wanting you
This way
Your sick smile
Why do we play
It’s not the way we want it
But it’s the way we get it
Patriarchal sex toys manipulated by playboy
Ignorant puppets pushing, pulling
Lipsticked lips quivering, smiling
Hiding the tears beneath our sweat
Mascara, muscle, gritted teeth, fingernails
Buried sickness in holy matrimony
You done yet

chain
[Rhymes/Poetry]
expand

No B.S.

As crazy as this may seem,
Don’t nothing come to a sleeper but a dream.
Fighting against the oppressor,
Has gotten the capitalist wanting to scream.

Hurray! I say unto you.
My Comrades are my pride and joy.
Together in this struggle,
Like an army ready to deploy.

With every difficulty there is ease,
So we must continue demanding more.
While oppressors continue squirming in their chairs,
I’m trying to keep their asses sore.

chain
[Rhymes/Poetry]
expand

We Will Never Stop

They break the law to punish lawbreakers
Unconstitutional conditions and censorship policy
They give us four envelopes a month
Expecting our return to society be successful with no one
They create these dungeons, punishing revolutionary behavior
Been alone so long with no telephone, mind and family gone
They believe they are gods chosen and we are Satan’s spawn
Going home to beat wives, child porn and manicured lawns
They mourn 9-11 like we didn’t deserve it
Sending sons and daughters off terrorists hunting patriots
They hate prisoners, Blacks, Latinos and First Nations
White dark night killer deserving of understanding and forgiveness
They wonder why the world hates them beyond words
Military bases spread like cancer the earth over
They seem so pretty, smart, happy and photogenic
Just the rich man’s puppets on Broadway, Hollywood, Pennsylvania Ave
Dropping bombs on Nagasaki, Hiroshima, unmanned drone celebrations
They could come in the morning and shoot me like a dog
But it’s not going to save them, we will never stop

chain
[Abuse]
expand

Resistance to Staff Manipulating Prisoners Against Each Other

My security level was recently lowered and I was immediately assigned as an inmate orderly, to my chagrin. It is like a trustee who works on an assigned cell block, and I know of all the pigs’ malicious intent of using certain prisoner orderlies as tools. Tools used to hurt other prisoners.

I got my block assignment and was given the usual lecture about all the things I could not do – basically anything that would ease my fellow prisoners plight/suffering. I politely related to this sergeant, while maintaining every intent to help those confined on this segregated cell block. I was not too long ago confined behind the door, so it was an obvious obligation to do so.

Anyway, that was Wednesday. By Sunday, another shift tried to enlist me as a complicit to starve an individual prisoner, to which I declined. But, the other orderly slaving with me agreed to help. Through intimidation I was able to persuade this orderly to do otherwise.

I warned the target of the pig’s intent and, days later, the other prisoner about the plot against them. Well, this orderly informed the pigs that I was alerting all targeted prisoners. So the pigs tried, through aggressive body language, to scare me. The pigs claimed that I wasn’t playing with the team, blah, blah. Took all my property and locked me down pending trumped up disciplinary charges.

A few days later, the other punk ass orderly gives another inmate an empty food tray. This prisoner did not take it lightly. The target became disorderly – and rightly so. This led to the individual being administered chemical agents. And he refused to tap out after several rounds of being gassed. Dude forced the pigs to run the cell extraction team, which beat this man stupid. Eight on one.

All because of a stool pigeon.
Shit crazy.

Even more crazy, I receive a kite from someone who was my neighbor before classification made me an orderly. The kite informed that the day after I left the cell block, a white shirt and four officers popped up at the cell with a minicam. Long story short, the pigs were coming with the intent to inflict bodily harm. The veracity of the event was confirmed by an affiliate.

They missed me by one day!

My belief is this was planned because I was part of a core group which gave voice to the rampant pig violence towards prisoners.

chain
[Rhymes/Poetry]
expand

Suit Up n Boot Up

When the horn is blown
who will answer the call?
Will all the crips n bloods
unite and stand tall?

It’s the love for the people
is the reason we strive!
And for freedom and liberation
is a good reason to die.

But come at your own risk
and start to fill in these ranks.
Just to let you know we’re up against
missiles, bullets, and tanks.

So all the brave will stand firm
and all the cowards will flee!
To all who talk that gangsta shit
and claim to be a G,

Gang banging is genocide.
Picture Cain and Abel.
Killing your brother for nothing more
than scraps from the master’s table.

I come to put the wheels in motion,
revolution means change.

A message to you all,
the ghetto children I call.
United we stand, divided we fall.

When the horn is blown
to rally the troops
who will answer the call?

chain
[Organizing] [Education] [ULK Issue 30]
expand

Maintaining Our Strategical Advantage: Study Maoism Seriously

hammer and sickle red
“MIM had come to the conclusion from the degeneration of numerous genuine forces like the Progressive Labor Party in the United States that such especially difficult ideological struggle is a permanent fixture in the imperialist countries where the material basis for degeneration is much greater than in the oppressed countries…”

“Since it is unlikely that imperialism will be able to come up with too many more entirely new tricks, there will come a time in MIM’s development where our principal task will be to unite those who can be united around our very confrontational line. Right now we are emerging principally from struggle against revisionism, imperialist economism and pseudo-feminism. When we have finished going into detail on our differences with others on the above questions we will focus on unity as the principal way to advance the overall struggle. We will prepare for a strategic length of time to do battle with imperialist economism, revisionism, pseudo-feminism, Trotskyism, anarchism and so on in a distinctive way. However, even in seeking unity, MIM will find itself in struggle much more often than many parties in communist history for a variety of reasons what MIM has said is rare to non-existent in the imperialist countries. So even as the labor aristocracy thesis becomes clear as day to us and ‘old hat’ it will seem fresh to many for some time to come.” - The Journey Back to Maoism. MIM Theory 5, Diet for a Small Red Planet

So what do these passages mean? We’re so bought off it’s ridiculous! Worse still, as a result of our being bought off we’re that much more susceptible to bourgeois manipulation a la ideological trickery. Therefore we cannot obtain a proletarian mindset without some hard study.

We in the imperialist countries have the distinct strategical advantage of not having to be in armed struggle at this time. And in connection to this fact we have a responsibility not only to the international proletariat but to our own oppressed that when conditions do begin to change and armed struggle actually becomes a possibility we’ll be ready to not only lead, but lead right! We have the advantage of learning from and building on all the rational and empirical knowledge left to us by our predecessors, both the good and the bad; especially the bad! We have to learn from past mistakes so that we don’t commit future ones, or worse still, repeat the old ones. It’s too late in the anti-imperialist game for us to be messing up the way some of our leaders did before us. Have we learned nothing?! What part of “ideological struggle in the imperialist countries is a permanent fixture” are we not understanding? It’s almost as if the revolution really is dead.

The fact that more and more of the oppressed nation imprisoned lumpen are beginning to finally wake up to the reality of imperialism is a good thing - a very good thing! However, the fact that most of these new lumpen organizations aren’t taking the time to study and learn from the concrete lessons of history and movements passed speaks volumes for the dire need of these new groups to formally hook up with MIM(Prisons) and United Struggle from Within (USW). It indicates the need for individuals to remain within USW much longer to develop theoretically before forming new single-nation revolutionary cells or parties. USW should serve as a place for the most advanced to sharpen their swords together until conditions do change within the prison population in general and within the prison movement in particular, before calling for the building of new organizations.

Comrades behind bars have all the time in the world to study and hence develop themselves and others theoretically. Therefore, those of us who are serious about revolution have no excuse for such low levels of theoretical development within our ranks, especially those of us working directly with MIM(Prisons).

A big part of the problem is the failure of some of us within USW to correctly grasp the philosophy of dialectical materialism, which results in a failure to apply it to the prison movement, and as a result we have paralysis within the prison movement. The need for us to seriously study dialectical materialism is directly linked to our ability to put it to use; without a concrete understanding of dialectical materialism all will be lost. Is this an over-exaggeration? Of course not; it’s a hard truth. Within our conditions MIM(Prisons) makes up part of our external causes and therefore is a part of the conditions of change with us being the basis of change. Based on what I’m seeing, or rather not seeing, there hasn’t been any real change thus far. Are my words too harsh? If they are, then that’s too bad. What is MIM(Prisons) here for if not to help us develop politically?

Related to this point is a prisyner’s letter I just read in the revisionist Revolution newspaper of the Crypto-Trotskyists RCP=U$A. This article was filled with the usual, flowery verbiage of “much love to y’all beautiful people at the RCP…” and “Bob Afakean is my daddy” type nonsense, typical of their articles. Half the articles in Revolution don’t really say anything, while the other half are filled with imperialist country oppressor nation chauvinist politics. Anyways, there was a California prisyner’s letter featured that was speaking on the Pelican Bay Short Corridor new directive. This prisyner was writing in to basically agree that it was about time that the prisyners put a stop to the fighting and come together for change. However, towards the end of the letter this prisyner made a call for the Pelican Bay Short Corridor to separate themselves from the lumpen if they were to really have a shot at victory in their struggle.

Yup, leave it to the RCP=U$A to spread division in the guise of unity to the prison masses at such a critical time. But how, pray tell, is the Short Corridor to achieve its goals in their struggle (which is all our struggle) if they separate themselves from the prison masses? Not only does this prisyner’s line attempt to separate the Corridor leaders from the wider prisyn movement, but it essentially makes the petty bourgeois argument that only individual groups of prisyners should be designated as political prisyners, and not the entire U.$. prisyn population. As if the Short Corridor prisyners were on a different plane than the rest of the population, or as if the short corridor weren’t lumpen-based themselves. That RCP=U$A article makes it seem as if the mass of California prisyners were holding the movement back. Quite the contrary: without the prisyner masses the Short Corridor prisyners are like generals with no soldiers, or a gun with no bullets. Instead it is the prisyner masses that will push the prisyn movement forward.

My point here is that the RCP=U$A prints this garbage, and lots of prisyners just eat it up. And we at USW know where “new synthesis” (old revisionist hat) leads the movement to: oblivion.

Now assuming that a prisyner actually wrote that letter (and not just another revisionist weed, we all remember agent Quispe and the attempt to derail the Sendero Luminoso: strategical equilibrium) what does that say about the theoretical development of politically-conscious and class-conscious prisyners? And these are the leaders?!

We need real proletarian-based political development if we are to succeed in the years to come, and the only place prisyners are gonna find that is by working directly with MIM(Prisons). Our liberation as oppressed nations and as a class is inextricably bound with Maoism, not “new synthesis” politics. Don’t believe me? Go ask the klan in the RCP=U$A where they stand with respect to the liberation of Aztlán, New Afrika, and the various First Nations. Watch how they dance and shuffle, deflect the question, and fake left in order to go right.

Still too busy to study theory seriously? Busier than the New People’s Army in 1970? Good question: who or what is the New People’s Army? Who was the Tupac Amaru for that matter? And what’s the difference between lumpen and lumpen-proletariat? How is this question relevant to our own conditions? And what about Kautsky – who’s his contemporary, and why should we care?

The tenet that the revolutionary vanguard be made up of professional revolutionaries is a Leninist tenet. Anything less than putting revolutionary politics in command means watering down correct political line. And correct political lines could only be put forward if there was an organization consisting chiefly of people professionally engaged in revolutionary activity that would devote their entire lives to the movement subsuming the persynal for the good of the cause. We don’t need no weekend revolutionaries and we don’t need those just in it for the remainder of their imprisonment; we need better than that. “Better, fewer, but better.” It’s not enough to simply read an article in Under Lock & Key. The bulk of our imprisonment should be spent developing the mind.

Take the sample of the prison artists. How did they get so good? By drawing here and there, or only when there was something in it for them? No, they developed their skills via a passion for the arts, and as a result they’re now pretty damn good. We now come to them whenever we need to send something home.

What about the legal-beagles? How did they get so good? They too developed their skills with a passion, a passion to make it back home. And as a result of that, some of them actually make it back home despite having the deck stacked against them. Unfortunately some of them don’t make it out. But through the skills they’ve developed some of them make it their mission in life to file grievances, lawsuits, etc., in the name of the prisyner population. And who do we go to when we need legal advice or something filed?

Just as those people are great examples within their field and are derived directly from the prisyner population, so should USW and our allies aspire to become great examples within the revolutionary prisyn movement so that when the time comes we can be damn well sure we don’t lead the prisyn masses into oblivion.

Comrades breaking away from USW in order to prematurely form their own organizations when their revolutionary skills are not yet developed are perfect examples of being ultra-left in matters of “one divides into two” dialectics and a form of adventurism as well.

Once again, are my words too harsh? Hell no! We’re not yet in the stage where we should be seeking to unite all who can be united. We’re still in the ideological struggle. The fact that I have to write this to say as much should prove it.

Revolutionaries in the prison movement should have a concrete understanding of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism and not a fragmentary one. We should be well versed in political economics and revolutionary theory. Indeed, this is our own strategical equilibrium. “Better, fewer, but better.” There is no other way.


MIM(Prisons) adds: We have laid out the five principles of the United Front for Peace in Prisons (UFPP) to unite all who can be united at the mass level in U.$. prisons. We do this alongside the tasks Ehecatl describes for building ideological unity within USW. And this is a different practice than MIM had when writing the article quoted in the beginning of this letter. We find ourselves in a position similar to the Communist Party of the Philippines at the time (discussed in that article) who were also trying to lead a broad united front and a vanguard party at the same time. We learn from their mistakes and rectification campaign in order to maintain the independence and leadership of the vanguard within the UFPP, and separate party work from united front work.

Comrades in MIM(Prisons) and USW work hard to facilitate study groups for prisoners who are interested in developing ideologically and not just reading ULK. A new introductory course starts every few months, so write us to get on the list. For more on the question of forming new organizations, see MIM(Prisons)’s 2011 Congress resolution on “Building New Groups vs. Working with USW and MIM(Prisons)”, published in ULK 21. And if you want to know more about the history of Ehecatl’s criticisms of the RCP=U$A, check out our study pack on the Revolutionary Communist Party (USA). If we don’t study, we will lose.

chain
[Rhymes/Poetry] [United Front] [ULK Issue 31]
expand

The "Slave Mentality"

I refuse to lay down,
in my struggle against the oppressor.
Anti-imperialist efforts,
settling for nothing lesser.

Striving together with my brotherz and sisterz –
Utilizing knowledge, wisdom and understanding.
“We’re fighting for world peace!”
Is what my comrades past and present is demanding.

Anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist,
fuck it! I’ll be devoted
to fighting against that old slave mentality
that my older peers seem to keep holding.

We rise together and never fall.
Nor stumble in sudden speech.
So to the brotherz and sisterz down in this struggle –
Without initiative and motivation you’ll forever remain stuck with
your slave mentality!

Join this United Front for Peace!

chain
Go to Page [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] [20] [21] [22] [23] [24] [25] [26] [27] [28] [29] [30] [31] [32] [33] [34] [35] [36] [37] [38] [39] [40] [41] [42] [43] [44] [45] [46] [47] [48] [49] [50] [51] [52] [53] [54] [55] [56] [57] [58] [59] [60] [61] [62] [63] [64] [65] [66] [67] [68] [69] [70] [71] [72] [73] [74] [75] [76] [77] [78] [79] [80] [81] [82] [83] [84] [85] [86] [87] [88] [89] [90] [91] [92] [93] [94] [95] [96] [97] [98] [99] [100] [101] [102] [103] [104] [105] [106] [107] [108] [109] [110] [111] [112] [113] [114] [115] [116] [117] [118] [119] [120] [121] [122] [123] [124] [125] [126] [127] [128] [129] [130] [131] [132] [133] [134] [135] [136] [137] [138] [139] [140] [141] [142] [143] [144] [145] [146] [147] [148] [149] [150] [151] [152] [153] [154] [155] [156] [157] [158] [159] [160] [161] [162] [163] [164] [165] [166] [167] [168] [169] [170] [171] [172] [173] [174] [175] [176] [177] [178] [179] [180] [181] [182] [183] [184] [185] [186] [187] [188] [189] [190] [191] [192] [193] [194] [195] [196] [197] [198] [199] [200] 201 [202] [203] [204] [205] [206] [207] [208] [209] [210] [211] [212] [213] [214] [215] [216] [217] [218] [219] [220] [221] [222] [223] [224] [225] [226] [227] [228] [229] [230] [231] [232] [233] [234] [235] [236] [237] [238] [239] [240] [241] [242] [243] [244] [245] [246] [247] [248] [249] [250] [251] [252] [253] [254] [255] [256] [257] [258] [259] [260] [261] [262] [263] [264] [265] [266] [267] [268] [269] [270] [271] [272] [273] [274] [275] [276] [277] [278] [279] [280] [281] [282] [283] [284] [285] [286] [287] [288] [289] [290] [291] [292] [293] [294] [295] [296] [297] [298] [299] [300] [301] [302] [303] [304] [305] [306] [307] [308] [309] [310] [311] [312] [313] [314] [315] [316] [317] [318] [319] [320] [321] [322] [323] [324] [325] [326] [327] [328] [329] [330] [331] [332]
Index of Articles