Under Lock & Key

Fifteen years of prison, so-called, life, and still I am surprised at times by the way these pigs are willing to sink to new lows.

This 602 appeals system at Corcoran is extremely scandalous. Not only have I received the 602 appeals of several other people, having to get their mail back to them by a transporter and fishing line, in 2012, 5 appeals I sent to my "counselor" (nothing but a plainclothes CO) to be referred to the appeals coordinator, had just disappeared! And yet the pigs still ask you to submit evidence to them with your appeal. Why? So they can throw it away? 2013 is not any different. We get a total runaround and boldfaced filibuster.

In the past months I have been 602ing the issue of the pigs only choosing English on these silly movies they play. They know I have an issue with a few court rulings associated to it, and the game this time was to wait a month with my 602 in their hooves and send it back to me one month to the day, unanswered or stamped or even declared "rejected" which they do for incredible "reasons." Now, when I refile, they will say I didn't "take action" within 30 days, as if they didn't sit on my 602 for a month. As if I didn't do anything.

The other issues include trying to get SHU inmates to be allowed chess and cards, like on the mainline. I have received 10 dirty trick filibuster moves from them. One appeals coordinator says I attached "inappropriate forms" in my appeal, my response was to show how the form I got came from another appeals coordinator!!! Then they say I have to resubmit the original appeal because the new one duplicated what they stamped as "rejected." So, I tore up parts of that and submitted them as proof that the original is torn up, "can't retrieve from sewers" I wrote. They will reject that too for some ridiculous pretext. I am collecting all of their confetti, to show to the new convicts and people on the outside who don't know yet, this system isn't broken, it is meant to work exactly as it is, that is against us, against our interests.

I am incensed and enraged that I am undergoing the same type of gimmicks that I have read about describing the state craft of "Israeli rejectionism" where only if you are an obedient Israeli can you get a license to drive or build a home or work on a farm: they "reject" all attempts at life outside their monopoly. They want to maintain jurisdiction over me.

The same gimmicks were employed in South Africa, under apartheid where we learn from studying the example of that tyranny, how it "thrives on details." Bureaucratic delays and technicalities employed ad infinitum to deliberately runaround any application or petition or appeal. The paperwork would not work if filed by a Black African. "I can't hear you, I can't see you, I can't say anything."

The courts will reject you too if you don't exhaust your administrative procedures. It's good for prisoners to get this runaround game out of the way as soon as they get here, to learn that, wherever one class of people is slave to another class whether in a colony or the pen, or on a city street, such gimmicks have to exist alongside of the oppression. And its vital to know the futility of trying to beat the pigs, at a game played by pig rules. And it guarantees an explosive response.

MIM(Prisons) adds: We agree that it is good to work through the administrative procedures for grievances even though they are set up so that most grievances will fail. This does teach prisoners a lesson about the game that is played by pig rules. But we can also use these rejections to educate others to fight the system on their own terms. This rigged grievance system is why United Struggle from Within initiated the grievance campaign in California, which has now spread to many other states. The petition is just one more way to put pressure on the criminal injustice system to play by their own rules. Some victories have been won with persistence. But we know that even with a systematic campaign we can not hope to fundamentally alter the criminal injustice system under imperialism. This is why the grievance campaign is just one small part of our larger anti-imperialist battle.