Under Lock & Key

Freedom:
is contraband in prison because free thinking, independence of spirit and open mindedness are like acids that eat away at a prison bars and locked doors. Liberating the heart and mind, even when the body is not free.

Equality:
is contraband in prison because brotherhood always speaks out against oppression and poses threats to the power structures. Color-blind prisoners overcoming racism, prejudice and hate, to see each other as equals, is the system’s biggest fear.

Justice:
is contraband in prison. How many of my brothers are here who shouldn’t be? Some innocent of guilt, others guilty of innocence. While many here have harmed others, still there are those whose “crimes” have no victim. Moreover, we must never forget that cops, judges, jurors, and prison guards often see to it that justice is not done for the poor, oppressed, and helpless inside these walls.

Peace:
is contraband in prison. From fists and shanks to shields and batons, violence is the way of all tyranny. Remember: The system wants us at each other’s throats because it makes us much easier to control. And the worst violators of the peace are often those pledged to defend it (e.g. killer cops, military leaders, jingoistic politicians, etc.).

Love:
is contraband in prison. The warm embrace of family and friends. The touching and holding of lovers dear. The fires of passion, stoked and quenched by hands, lips, tongues, and bodies. All this is denied and forbidden here. There is no room for love in Hell! When you can’t be with your loved ones in times of joy or crisis…That is when the contraband nature of love in a carceral state becomes most clear…But really…In a society where hatefully punitive laws, institutions and practices are all too often the established norms…Should anyone be surprised that love is nowhere to be found in prison??

Truth:
is contraband in prison because, if we knew even half of what the system didn’t want us to know, surely the walls would come tumbling down. For their bricks are laid with the mortar of doublethink and their foundations are always built upon falsehood. This is the house Orwell’s Big Brother built. But, by developing a new and revolutionary consciousness…Together perhaps, we can find a way out of this deception, this misnomer, this evil hoax, this lie the system dares to call “corrections”, when, in fact, it is absolutely nothing of the kind. For the ultimate truth is this: The ruling elites need to keep the most marginalized elements of our society stuck in the revolving door of recidivism, because they fear them!

Reason:
is contraband in prison. How else can it be in a place like this? Where inane rules, illogical policies, twisted thinking and warped minds reign supreme…Among both prisoners and staff. Here, the authorities often make up the rules as they go along. What regulations do actually exist are always interpreted in ways that serve the interests of the powers that be…So…If you’re a victim of wrong-doing in prison, don’t expect there to be a common sense resolution to your problems. Especially not if it inconveniences those who run the hell holes in any way, shape or form they please. Critical thinking means nothing where arbitrariness is the order of the day. Power always trumps fairness and logical deduction and rationality are never approved of in slaves.

Happiness:
is contraband in prison. As powerless beings we are jammed into tiny cubes, forced to live in unnatural close quarters or unnatural solitude. Manacled, thwarted, squelched, isolated and restrained at every turn. Required or compelled to do this; prohibited or punished if we do that. Deprived of simple pleasures and quite often necessities as well…When you are locked up, contentment can be as fleeting as a lightening flash and seeking joy can be as futile as a dog chasing its tail. Those who say: “Prisoners have no right to be happy,” just don’t understand. Such people should be made to suffer and endure the demeaning life behind bars and locked doors which is our constant reality, but not part of our sentences, because then, such hateful fools wouldn’t be so quick to open their mouths against us!

Dignity:
is contraband in prison. When you’re treated like a cross between a wayward child and a potentially dangerous or predatory animal, it’s often as if you’re a nonentity, devoid of rights, privacy and humanity. So how can respect for the inherent worth of the life, person and meager possessions of inmates ever be achieved? Such a thing stands an ice-cube’s chance in Hell as long as the modern day slavery of imprisonment in penal institutions, mental hospitals and all other such places continues to exist.

Unity:
is contraband in prison. Because through unity, we can join the fight against cruelty, malfeasance and corruption as a bulwark of mighty solidarity. For unity always stands tall against unfairness of all kinds. But, if I take your hand…You, me and tomorrow link up as one. Regardless of race, creed, color, class or cultural background, no matter who or what we are, or what some of us have done, we must never forget that we’re all in this together. “Gung Ho” is the Chinese word for “All together now!” This must become our motto! For united there is little we cannot do! Making vows against injustice. Raising voices in loud protest against harm masquerading as “Rehabilitation”. Speaking truth to power, we are a resounding war cry, shouting down all that is unfair! Together, our siren duet can reach a great thundering crescendo. Shaking rafters of established order, from chambers of crypto-Fascist inhumanity, our voices will be heard, like clarion trumpet calls wailing! Until the rotting floors of authoritarian control collapse and fall away. As one for all and all for one, we must fight and work and scream and bleed. We are a pair! We are a team! We are a movement for a better way! We are the caged wretches, whose words are a conspiracy against the silence of indifference. And our voices will never stop yelling “Foul!” until we are heard. The bottom line is that all prisoners lives matter!

Therefore…

We refused to be branded, “The irredeemable dregs of humanity”.

We, the first world’s lumpen proletariat who vacillate between the jail cells, street shelters, crash pads and alleyways of your plutocratic, quasi-police state, nightmare society.

We, the poor souls caught between the stigma of our criminal past and our society’s refusal to truly help us integrate.

We, the oppressed ex-offender, caught between the violence of poverty stricken urban jungles on the one hand and the violence of the constant threat of re-incarceration or death on the other…

We, the disenfranchised masses for whom the promises of “Free Enterprise”, “Democracy” and Bourgeois bliss ring hollow.

We, say:

No More!

No More to locking people up like animals!

No More to police shootings and brutality!

No More to all the evils that the prison industrial complex perpetuates.

Our Demands for recognition.

Our Demands for fair treatment.

Our Demands for radical change should never be deemed…

Contraband!

The recent Zionist attacks on Rafah signaled to the world that the imperialists are in lock step as they cut a hideous path of genocide through Palestine. U.$. imperialism has given the nod and wink to forge ahead as we all watch, as we all mourn.

The imperialists have circled the wagons despite the world responding in disgust. The people should also come together, all sectors here in the internal semi-colonies also known as the United Snakes.

Of special interest is two sectors who defy the pull of capitalist bribes. This defiance arrives from different paths and yet our party feels they are both anti-imperialist in nature. These sectors in the United $tates are the prison movement – made up of prisoners, former prisoners and outside supporters, and the other sector being the student movement – being the students on school campuses across the country.

These two sectors have the least to lose and the most to win when it comes to revolution. Both bring that passion and fire needed to ignite the flame of real resistance and thus should find ways to resist in tandem.

A free Palestine, like a free Aztlán, will only happen when anti-imperialism is exercised in a united front between all oppressed and allies. The world sees that Palestine is deserving of peace, for it is life while Israel signifies death!

The student encampments that were attacked by the state and their goons were a glimmer of hope that the youth here in these false U.$. borders hold on to their humynity in the face of repression. Standing up for the national liberation of Palestine, putting their freedom and their lives on the line so that the Israeli settler colonialists stop the attacks on Palestine.

Chican@s stand with Palestine because we are also colonized by imperialists. The Chican@ nation stands with the students who dare to struggle. Imprisoned Aztlán awaits our student allies in the concentration kamps so we can build and solidify our struggle with a common political enemy.

The Chican@ movement struggles against imperialism too, we stand up to settler colonialism, and genocide as well. Imperialism is what creates the conditions where kids in cages is normalized whether we are talking about in U.$. prisons or Israeli prisons.

We have a moral obligation to stand against the genocide in Palestine. We are obligated as conscious people to stand with oppressed people always.

Power to the people!

Everyone has been watching the atrocities happening on the news and the genocide going down in the Middle East. Israel seems to think that Palestinian lives mean nothing. Many are shocked at how the news describes the situation as if Palestine is in conflict when it’s clear that Israel has reduced Palestine to rubble.

Not one persyn here has felt Israel is in the right. It is clear as day that a genocide is happening and that U.$. tax payers are complicit as the U.$. sends billions of dollars to Israel every year.

Every time the news comes on talking about Israel, one of the prisoners here yells, “Yo Israel, get the fuck out of Palestine!” Everyone claps in agreement. Some are bewildered as to why the U.$. is enabling genocide and the more conscious are explaining the history of Amerika and what it has done to this continent and beyond for the dollar. Humyn lives are worth more than profit and the courageous students in their encampments are proving that! To be arrested in a time of genocide is an honorable thing to do.

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes
10 May 2024
PG-13

Spoilers

A main theme throughout both series of Planet of the Apes movies is the question of whether Apes differ from so-called “humyn nature.” In the first series (produced 1968-1972) especially, humyn nature is blamed for the hubris of nuclear weapons that brings humyns’ downfall. In this latest movie of the new series (produced 2011-2024), apes have been setback in this search for truth, but perhaps this can be explained by the very existence of class struggle that they share with humyns.

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (2024), the fourth film in the modern Planet of the Apes film series, is the first to take us into the future a few generations after the events that led apes to become competitors with humyns for dominating planet Earth. In it we see glimpses of the emergence of class society, in the form of slavery. But it is a slave society that is shaped by a relationship to the formerly dominant humyns that still reflects a colonial relationship in many ways.

The Eagle Clan, who are the center of the film, live in a primitive clan society, with elders who set the laws that are taught to the young and passed down via tradition. Later in the film, we encounter a larger ape society that is a kingdom led by King Proximus, that has absorbed many clans and uses them as slaves. It is not clear that the slaves produce material wealth for the slavemaster class of the kingdom, as the film only shows them working to break into an old humyn military bunker to extract the technology. But someone must be producing the food, tools and weapons for the soldiers who run the kingdom.

Proximus claims to be the new Caesar. Caesar was the founder and leader of the apes in the first three movies, and was also a king figure. But Caesar was a benevolent leader who fought and worked alongside the others. A virus gave Caesar super-ape intelligence to lead the apes to liberation from humyn society.

Within 10 years of the events of Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011), Caesar had already begun to learn that apes have the same tendencies as humyns as he had to ally with a humyn to combat a rogue ape attempting to usurp eir control of ape city to wage war on humyns.

We previously discussed the themes of integrationism in the newer series, in contrast to the older series that takes a more scientific approach to uniting humyns and apes through struggle and re-education. While the inability of apes to build a a lasting harmonious society may appear pessimistic, we’d say it is realistic; accurately reflecting the myth of humyn or ape nature despite the producers’ intentions.

The original series (produced 1968-1972) ends with a humyn ally remarking that the apes have finally become humyn after the first ape murder of another ape. This story line is framed more as a biblical original sin story than class struggle. But in both series the first ape-on-ape murder occurs because of the struggle between the apes who want to wage war to annihilate all humyns and those who do not. The question the producers seem to be asking is do apes have a war-like nature like humyns supposedly do. Despite the revolutionary themes of the first series, it largely reinforces this concept of humyn nature.

When we criticize the concept of humyn/ape nature, we are not criticizing the “natural” we are criticizing the metaphysical view of an unchanging phenomenon. In other words, “natural” itself is a myth in many ways, in other ways “natural” could be dialectical materialism and the scientific method that explains the world around us. As dialectical materialists we understand all things to be in a constant state of change motivated by the contradictions within that thing; the class struggle in society being the prime example of this in Marxist thought.

Observed by humyns in our reality, chimpanzees and gorillas have one leader who is a male silverback. While bonobos have an alpha male role as well, the alpha female plays the more determinate role. Interestingly, the king Proximus is a male bonobo. Meanwhile orangutans in real life tend to be more solitary, which is reflected in this film with Racka being a loner and no other orangutans being part of Proximus’s kingdom. As we know, and as Engels lays out in The Origins of the Family, Private Property and the State, humyns have gone through various social structures; from more collective matriarchal societies to the more modern hierarchical patriarchal societies, and these structures have changed to adapt to changing modes of production.

In our world, we suspect humyn societies have changed more over the last ten thousand years than other great apes, because their relationship to the rest of the natural world has changed more through gaining knowledge and technology. Therefore in the new series of movies we would expect apes to go through a very similar evolution of hierarchies and class society as humyns did as they change their relationship to the production of their material needs. This is reflected in the kingdom that operates as a primitive system of slavery, the earliest class system of humyns as well.

However, the evolution of ape society is colored by the existence of a previous, advanced humyn society. Learning from humyn books and accessing humyn armories full of technology are ways that Proximus attempts to make a leap in ape knowledge and technology. As ey does this, Proximus maintains a line that humyns cannot be trusted, and apes must work together, even though this is applied cynically as ey is shown to happily sacrifice the lives of many apes in eir own attempts at power through humyn technology.

The main character in Kingdom is Noa, a member of the Eagle Clan, whose father was a master of training eagles. Noa learns about Caesar for the first time from the last true follower of Caesar after the rest of the Eagle Clan has been captured by Proximus. Before this, Noa had no knowledge of the history of humyns or apes; perhaps because of eir age. But Noa also states that eir elders did not want to know such things and remained ignorant on purpose through isolation.

The major transformation that Noa makes is to reject the idea that law is handed down from some higher power. Ey does this overtly by rejecting the laws of the king, and more subtly by pursuing knowledge eir elders forbid. This is the transformation of thought that humyn society went through during its transition to capitalism, when liberalism, plurality, democracy and the pursuit of scientific knowledge rose to replace ways of thought that were more stagnant, based more in idealism and following a god-king. So we see Noa make a shift towards materialism, that we expect will transform the Eagle Clan as it rebuilds its village. But Noa’s understanding of ape nature at the end of the movie still seems behind that of Caesar’s, generations ago. We see this type of pre-scientific thinking among our comrades today who believe the white man is literally the devil and the Black man/humyn is god. Like Noa, they’re on the right side, but are guided by idealist thinking that can easily lead them astray. Of course, we all struggle with idealism and subjectivism, which might be considered part of the “nature” of beings that can reason with limited knowledge and perspective. Part of the power of the vanguard party, as layed out by Lenin, is its ability to produce a more scientific approach to social change by pooling experience and knowledge production at group level for a whole class.

In our review of Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014) we compare the Caesar loyalists to the Gang of Four in China, who were those in the leadership who both understood and represented the Maoist line after Mao’s death. The Orangutan, Raka, would be like a young persyn in China today who has deeply studied Mao and Chinese history but has no real experience in building socialism and no one to help em put it into practice. Proximus might be compared to the revisionists in power in China, exploiting the people while trying to strengthen China against the U.$. imperialists all in the name of “Marxism” (or “Caesar”).

The problem that Noa faces in determining what the right path is, and what Caesar was really about, becomes a question of trust and judging what is morally right. In contrast, we can judge the correct Maoist path by studying history, and putting science into practice. While Noa’s path in this movie echoes Caesar’s in the previous one, this is only because they both tried to help their own people. While serving the people is part of the communist road, we must be more than do-gooders to end oppression, we must have a scientific understanding of society, what forces are at play within it, how it is changing and how we can shape that change.

In practice it seems that Noa may have acted against the interests of Apes overall by eir alliance with the humyn, Mae. Another sequel will probably reveal this. This is where the colonial parallels come in. Mae is part of a humyn society that is no longer dominant, but still possesses historical knowledge and technology that gives them a great advantage. The Eagle Clan parallels many primitive groups in humyn history that have encountered colonialists and allied with them against other known enemies, perhaps seeing the colonialists as friends and allies, before being subjugated by them in turn. In this way Proximus proves more correct in eir distrust of the humyns and calls for ape unity, despite coming from an exploiter class perspective.

This is why in a United Front the proletariat needs its own party to represent our class, and to act independently of other classes. It must be a party based on science, that can see all sides of the situation. At this slave stage of ape society there is no such leadership available and therefore no basis for forming principled alliances with either the humyns or the exploiter class of apes.

The movie ends with Noa asking Mae if humyns and apes can ever live together in trust. The ending hints that such a future is far off to say the least. A theme that was more prominent in the original series is the political question of if the oppressed rise up against white Amerika, will they wipe out white Amerika or live harmoniously side-by-side. In the original series, we see many years after the ape revolution that such a reality is still in the works. There is still distrust, as some war-mongering humyns still exist in the city, and many apes remember the past oppression by humyns. While we draw some analogies above about the latest movie, there are no real revolutionary story lines like the original series, which showed the joint dictatorship of other great apes over humyns and discussed the need for a long period of transforming society and its citizens to build the trust necessary for peaceful coexistence. Of course, the dictatorship of the proletariat is not just about trust building, it is about continuing the class struggle to eliminate all class differences – the internal contradictions of society that lead to oppressive relationships between groups. That is the only basis upon which a true communist society can be built. Something none of the Planet of the Apes movies have brought us to yet.

<sup>Notes:
1. Wiawimawo, August 2011, Prison Themes Central to New Planet of the Apes Story, Under Lock & Key Issue 23.
2. Wiawimawo, July 2014, Maoist Movie Review: Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, Under Lock & Key Issue 40.
3. Wiawimawo, July 2017, War for All of Apekind Trumps Revenge, Under Lock & Key Issue 58</sup>

Greetings, I want to extend my support and appreciation for you courageous students who stand against the tyranny of genocide.

Your acts and resistance have been well-received around the world and deeply appreciated by Palestinian refugees, as I seen it on the world news, painted on the walls of the refugee camps: “Thank you American students”.

Israel is not fighting Hamas, Israel is creating a Palestinian genocide. The greatest hypocrisy in history, just as the Nazis did to the Jews.

In prison we stand in solidarity with your good cause of saving innocent lives.

Hip hop artist Macklemore released a song and music video, called “Hind’s Hall”, unapologetically supporting the students fighting to stop U.$. funding of genocide in Palestine. This is a unique statement that we have not seen from Amerikan celebrities after over six months of bombing and invasion.

Besides saying “fuck the police” and “free Palestine”, to the question of voting for Biden, Macklemore says “fuck no” in this song. This last point puts em ahead of the so-called Communist Party - U$A and Revolutionary Communist Party - U$A, which have both implicitly and explicitly campaigned for Democratic presidential candidates, including Joe Biden. We’d say Macklemore is doing a better job of representing the interests of the Third World proletariat on this point, than the so-called communist parties. In the past Macklemore has sported an Amerikan flag, and campaigned for the Democrats as well. But ey’s an individual, and a rapper. We gotta expect a little more from a communist party that is supposed to be a source of truth and to lead us to ending oppression.

Of course, the MIM slogan has been “Don’t Vote, Organize!” So not voting for Biden in itself isn’t the call for change; rather the recognition of the need to make and change history ourselves instead of casting a vote for this or that celebrity politician.

While it took 6 months and U.$. student protests for this song to come out, it appears that Macklemore has been involved in the anti-war movement since October when ey signed a statement supporting ceasefire. Ey is also donating all proceeds to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East. So good for em, and it is a good thing to use eir voice as a popular artist to reach more people. We hope this cracks open the door for other more popular artists who have been quiet on the genocide.

In the new song, Macklemore also asks “who gets the right to defend? who gets the right to resistance?” flashing pictures from Ukraine and answering that it has to do with skin pigment. This is a righteous defense of the resistance in Palestine that is condemned as terrorism by the same people chearleading the resistance in Ukraine as a natural humyn right. However, skin color is a superficial explanation. Though racism, orientalism, and anti-Arab sentiment is a strong driving force behind the average oppressor-nation Amerikkkan’s stance on Palestine, ultimately the U.$.’s position derives not from disdain for certain skin colors but rather from imperialism. Ukraine, and Zelensky, stand as a junior partner to Amerikkka against their current greatest imperialist enemy, Russia, while the potential of a freed Palestine poses a threat to Amerikkkan and I$raeli imperialism in the Middle East.

Students at Columbia University occupied Hamilton Hall after the university rejected most of their demands, including to divest from weapons manufacturers. During the occupation, they renamed it “Hind’s Hall” after Hind Rajab, a six-year-old Palestinian girl who was killed by Israeli forces in Gaza City while trying to get assistance from the Red Crescent Society after her family had been killed by an Israeli attack.