MIM(Prisons) is a cell of revolutionaries serving the oppressed masses inside U.$. prisons, guided by the communist ideology of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism.
Under Lock & Key is a news service written by and for prisoners with a focus on what is going on behind bars throughout the United States. Under Lock & Key is available to U.S. prisoners for free through MIM(Prisons)'s Free Political Literature to Prisoners Program, by writing:
MIM(Prisons) PO Box 40799 San Francisco, CA 94140.
An Arkansas prisoners reports 11 December 2024: At
Larry Norris Unit (formerly known as Tucker Max Unit) in Arkansas, the
captain on night shift was doing his daily “legal mail” to inmates. They
are now bringing a shredder/copy machine/cam recorder for the legal
mail. They turn the camera on, give you the ledger to sign stating you
were expecting the mail, they open and check your mail, copy it off,
then they shred it. The captain also said they just started this today.
ADC (Arkansas Department of Corrections) has a policy saying before any
new policy takes effect, a memo is supposed to go out 30 days in
advanced so everyone can be informed. This is a violation of our
attorney-client communications. I have been reading my “Prison
Litigation Manual” and I haven’t read any other cases where they
copied legal mail. They do copy regular mail but not legal mail.
In Arkansas we don’t have a lot of writ writers and there’s no unity
among the prisoners to stand up for anything. I’m still learning that
the prisons, courts, everyone works together. You said something in your
last letter “Freedom
from oppression can’t be won through the courts. The law is a tool of
the oppressor.” Break that down some more. Guys were telling me it’s
a dirty game and even the law books don’t give you the truth. I’m 23 and
still learning all of this but I know I can’t win with violence. Please
get back at me and spread the word. Thank you.
I also read about the book ban as well; they’re doing that in
Arkansas, you can only order from 1) Bargain book catalog 2) Books a
Million 3) Barnes and Noble. You can’t order from Amazon or anywhere,
how are the other states fighting it?
A Federal prisoner at USP Tucson reports 25 February
2025: Yesterday, February 25th, I got mail through the regular
mail call and got documents from the Supreme Court… THE Supreme Court.
It contained 3 pages from the Office of the Clerk dated 5 February 2025.
I thought, “Why didn’t I get this through Legal Mail?” Documents from
the Supreme Court is LEGAL mail, even if it is not marked as such. By
policy staff are supposed to make an intelligent attempt to determine if
the address is actually a legal address or not. But this would not apply
to nationally known addresses, like the White House, or a United States
Senator… or the Supreme Court! which also states “Official Business” on
it.
I also noticed that my mail was photocopied. Why would the mailroom
staff make copies of documents from the Supreme Court, without my
knowledge? The general idea of making copies was to prevent the
introduction of drugs into the prison, but surely USP Tucson is not
accusing the Supreme Court of sending contraband, are they?
In addition to this tampering with my legal mail, the letter got to
me on 25 February. Even if we allowed 5-6 days to deliver from
Washington DC to Tucson, that is almost TWO WEEKS before I got the
document.
MIM(Prisons) responds: In response to our comrade in
Arkansas, we will try to break down what we said in ULK 87
another way. You mention people telling you the injustice system is a
dirty game. That is true, it exists to maintain the system of power of
some groups of people over others. Some will conclude there is no point
in fighting because in prison we have no rights anyway. This is not a
crazy conclusion to come to based on what one sees happening around you
in prison, but it is a defeatist and limited view of things.
MIM(Prisons) works to support prisoners organizing against the
system of oppression. That organizing requires filing paperwork
and waging legal battles. But it is not the legal battles that are
decisive, it is the oppressed working together. There are no rights,
only power struggles. If we stop struggling, that’s when we’ll have no
rights. That is why to say there’s no point in fighting injustice is a
defeatist approach.
What too many of our readers fail to grasp is that, as a group, we
will not be free until we seize freedom from the oppressors. And we
cannot do that as individuals. Rather the majority of the world’s people
are oppressed by the current system of imperialism. We work in alliance
with that majority to change that system. The courts are part of the
existing system. The system can be used to gain some breathing room here
and there because the oppressor wants to fool others into believing they
are not oppressing people. The system however will not let you change
the system, that requires other forms of organizing.
Basic rights like legal privilege to communicate with your lawyer,
First Amendment rights to read and communicate with who you want are
important protections for the oppressed to be able to defend themselves
and develop themselves. As long as the system claims to uphold these
rights, we must fight to have them implemented.
You sent me an introductory study group assignment. I only received
pages 1,3,5,7,9,11,13. I believe it was because all of our mail is
photocopied. They only copy the front page. So I am missing all the rest
of the pages. We are also on lockdown currently 24/7. Thank you for
ULK 88 and thank you for your support.
MIM(Prisons) adds: This will be the third time we send
this comrade a letter trying to get em eir study materials. The first
one we sent ey got our envelope, but it came with another prisoners’
letter. That’s not just a violation of privacy, but potentially
dangerous. For years our mail has been tampered with, lost and delayed
via these digital mail systems being instituted across the country.
Maybe Elon Musk can approve a $300 purchase for USP Hazelton so they can
afford a two-sided scanner? Of course, most prisons are using private
services to handle their mail now, just as Musk wants to do with all
government services. They spend a bunch of extra money to pay private
companies to handle mail with a lot less efficiency. But they don’t care
that mail plays an important role in rehabilitation, mental health,
education and the safety of prisoners.
When tablets came out in 2017 the very first tablets were sold to the
prisoners. I had a loved one to buy me one. Then FDOC decided to change
the mail to digital mail, so FDOC picked up all tablets that the
prisoners paid for and came back around and passed out free tablets for
every one. Since then all tablets have been updated no less than three
times.
This comrade just got released from a Close Management Unit and was
transferred to Hamilton C.I. Since I got here I found out that for the
past year the Property Room Sergeant has been confiscating tablets, most
of the time giving prisoners a disciplinary report for tablet tampering
in which prisoners are found guilty 99% of the time and are suspended
indefinitely from having another tablet. On top of this, most now have a
loan on their inmate trust fund account of $130 restitution. FDOC gave a
little for a period of time, then turned around and took everything.
They gave the tablets, tablets belong to the state, and now they have an
excuse to take them.
The Prisoner Population
I’ve been in prison for 28 years and this whole thing changed. This
is not a prison anymore, this is a child care center for these fools to
hang out. Everybody wants to belong to a gang but let me remind you that
before you take that oath, you need to find out why that nation, group,
or gang was born. It was born by the oppressed to fight in unity as a
group against oppression. Who is the oppressor? Pigs that work here, the
administration, the system, the state, the government. I know my
history, do you know yours?
FDOC have a total of no more than 30 officers per shift (with 1/4 of
them pushing overtime) and that is counting the front controls
operators. It is embarrassing how that a small group of pigs can
control, oppress, and abuse no less than 1250 to 1500 prisoners, thugs,
gangsters, criminals, and gang-members. FDOC prisoners have no unity and
no self-respect. I said self-respect because I might have a debt of a 78
cent soup and you ready to kill me, but the pigs call you and the whole
dorm a “bunch of bitches” and you put your head down.
FDOC prisoners, mostly gang members, would rather have the pigs as a
friend than anybody else with the same uniform color. They respect the
pigs more than their fellow prisoners. Ali-al
haf from Georgia, I read your article in the ULK Winter 2025 issue –
you are not alone! I think it is a virus that is spreading. Now
prisoners do the pigs’ jobs. They check and make sure that your cell
door is secure, they pass mail, they make sure you don’t eat twice in
the chow-hall, they even stand next to some of the pigs like bodyguards.
All this ass kissing and at the end of the night your ass is just like
mine: locked down behind a door. It doesn’t matter how down you might
think the pigs will be, at the end of the day they will not put their
paychecks on the line because of you. Coño Preso – look at the fucking
color of your uniform. Ain’t have you noticed that has a different
color!
Learn the difference between a right and a privilege. Use the
grievance process, you must leave a written historical track in case
issues need to be handled at another level. Written proof is all there
is that shows a peaceful avenue was tried before going all the way out.
All those comrades that in the past sacrificed their prison sentences,
release dates, family, and some of them even their lives for this new
generation to throw their hands up and surrender. Really? That is how
we’re doing time in 2025?? Where are your cojones??
Let’s get together in the same line of thought. Before you complain
about not having a tablet or not being able to watch the game on TV, we
need to think about how high canteen prices are, receive more gain time,
bring parole to lifers like me, get better food. Sorry, but prison is
not a place that you come to to hang out with your homies and have a
good time. This is the cemetery of the walking living dead, where your
whole future could change in 15 seconds. Don’t forget where you are,
your culture, where you came from. Do not submit to do the pigs’ work. I
won’t be surprised if in a few more years visitation is done solely via
video and they stop all contact visits. If we don’t get together and
stand up and work as a group, as a family, we are going to keep losing.
Remember that before you became a gang member you were a man, a human
being – not a beast. And I refuse to be trapped like one. No quiero
abrazos con la vida hasta que mi pueblo sea libre
Revolutionary greetings comrades. To take the words of Comrade
Triumphant of USW’s headline
in his powerful article in ULK 83: the Minnesota Department of
Corrections “joins list of states using digital mail to disrupt and
surveil communications.”(1)
As all dedicated readers of ULK know well, this has been a
constant pattern and practice of the fascist predatory pig
administrations across AmeriKKKa’s carceral apparatuses contracting with
these pig-assisting surveillance companies, such as TextBehind.
On 30 October 2024, the pigs here at so-called Maximum Security
Prison - Oak Park Heights distributed the enclosed TextBehind flyer
announcing that beginning 1 November 2024, all general mail to prisoners
must be sent to TextBehind located in Phoenix, Maryland to be scanned,
then re-routed over here to us. Come to find out, every person in the
state of Minnesota received this same flyer. Notably, the flyer says
that TextBehind does not accept legal mail. However, the Oak Park
Heights PIG Administration issued additional memos, those of which I
have obtained copies of and enclosed with this letter, outlining policy
changes/changes to the definitions of what constitutes legal mail. As
shown, the memos mention that some sort of “verification” device, QR
code that attorneys must obtain before sending correspondence to their
imprisoned clients.
Have you comrades heard of this type of process taking place anywhere
else in terms of legal mail?
About a month or so prior to this mail memo, another memo was issued
by the pigs (which I haven’t yet obtained a copy of) removing Amazon as
an “approved vendor” that we as well as our family and friends can order
us books from. The options we were left with are companies that don’t
carry a lot of titles, like Blood In My Eye by George L.
Jackson; Our Enemies in Blue: Police and Power in America by
Kristian Williams; We Reserve the Right to Resist: Prison Wars and
Black Resistance by Dequi Kioni-Sadiki; and Black Power
Afterlives by Sekou Odinga and Dequi Kioni-Sadiki.
This change was allegedly because of “drugs.”
The entire captive population has been under relentless terroristic
attack all under the guise of drugs coming through the mail. Captives
are being falsely accused by pigs of being “intoxicated” and sent to
solitary confinement even after drug and alcohol testing results are
negative; captives have had their visitation and phones wrongfully
taken; comrades have had every single piece of paper in their cells
confiscated and destroyed by the pigs. I’m talking about one’s trial
transcripts, legal documents, book manuscripts, poems, letters, etc.
The strip searches have been incessant. Literally blitzkriegs of
sexual assault strip searches. In relation to strip searches in general,
I’ve been struggling to end them across the states men’s prisons in
Minnesota to be replaced with body scanners. In the women’s prison, they
successfully campaigned to have unclothed body searches replaced with
body scanners. Minnesota effectively banned the use of strip searches on
juveniles. I had an article published on this topic in a local
newspaper.(2)
In terms of the mail issue, myself and a few other captives who’ve
had their mail from courts opened are exhausting our administrative
remedies (grievance process) and conducting research into this issue to
bring challenge to this policy in the courts – the struggle is
constant.
Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, where the Palestinian resistance factions
(of which the Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, was the largest)
united in response to the continued occupation of their homeland by the
Zionist entity, was launched on 7 October 2023. Since then, the brutal
daily oppression by the occupation forces, and the continued desecration
and assaults on Al-Aqsa Mosque atop al-Haram al-Sharif in occupied
Al-Quds continues.(1) In the last 15 months, there have been many
occasions to have political discussions and pass out literature
regarding Palestine in the hopes of bolstering the support for Palestine
among the imprisoned lumpen here in the South Bay. I would never assume
this to be an easy task, and it hasn’t been, but slowly but surely more
people are breaking from the miasma of post-9/11 anti-Arab/Islamophobic
sentiments (which itself is an accomplishment as this has been deeply
ingrained in the Amerikan consciousness since the beginning of the
so-called “War on Terror”).
Here in the majority liberal South Bay, the main sources that
prisoners get their news from is the San Jose Mercury News
newspaper and the local news channel, Fox 2 News. Like all
bourgeois media, both have been reporting on the genocidal Zionist war
on Palestine from the general viewpoint of the Democratic Party, that
is, a pro-U.$., pro-i$rael view (with some small exceptions, most coming
in the form of re-prints of articles by New York Times columnist
Nicholas Kristof and the occasional pro-Palestinian letter to the
editor, though they have never printed any that I persynally have
sent).(2) So on that note, it has been of paramount importance to combat
the repetitive assertions of the usual incessant line, “the war began
when Hamas terrorists (sic) launched a surprise attack on southern
Israel (sic) …”, which is taken as unquestionable truth in line with the
discourse of post-9/11 hysteria plaguing the psyches of those here on
Occupied Turtle Island.
Being that the events of 11 September 2001 (9/11) are the main source
of today’s generalized sentiments in a large portion of Amerika’s
collective psyche, I believed it to be fitting to begin my organizing
work by passing out and making available copies of Ward Churchill’s
wonderfully insightful 2001 essay “On the Justice of Roosting Chickens
(Some People Push Back),” which echoes a quote made by Malcolm X shortly
after the assassination of John F. Kennedy on 22 November 1963. I chose
this essay because it, more than any other short and concise work on the
subject, blows out of the water the commonly accepted reasons,
propagated by the U.$. government, on the causes of 9/11. Churchill
centers the reasons firmly on the shoulders of Amerikan imperialism and
neocolonial exploitation and oppression of the Arab world.
I paired this essay with copies I made of AIPS comrade Lila’s equally
insightful and engaging article “What is
Hamas?” (see Under Lock & Key No. 85). USW comrade Da
Pale One’s October 2023 article “A
Brief History on Palestine” from ULK No. 84 was also very
helpful for laying a basis for those willing to challenge their
preconceived notions on Palestine, and those who had no previous opinion
on the region and its indigenous inhabitants and wanted to learn
more.
The conversations I had regarding the above writings led to much more
interest into what the actual truth is behind the Palestinian people’s
valiant struggle against the ideology of Zionism and its
settler-colonial project, and why it seems that Amerikan media has over
the decades either been completely silent or ambivalently acquiescing to
the will of the Zionist entity, protecting its blatant aggression and
genocidal mentality towards the Palestinian people and its denial of
their legitimate claims to the hystoric land of Palestine.
Who Supports Palestine
vs. I$rael?
Though it is probably obvious, those who are most against Palestine
in this jail are most of the Euro-Amerikans, as well as the
bible-thumping Christians. On the flip side, the people I have been
working with and who I have persynally found to be most interested are:
the Vietnamese prisoners and the Samoans/Pacific Islanders. There are
large communities of both in San Jose and, just like the New Afrikan
neighborhoods and the Chican@ varrios, they are also subject to brutal
occupation and surveillance by SJPD pigs and at times also catch the
ever-watching gaze of the FBI, which has a main field office in the
largely gentrified town of Campbell, west of downtown.
I have had many interesting conversations with Vietnamese prisoners,
not just on Palestine, but also on the the genocidal Amerikan war
against the people of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. I get a general
feeling from these discussions that, though they are fiercely proud of
their peoples’ decisive victory against the world’s #1 bully,
imperialist Amerika, they are also troubled by the largely unanswered
and undiscussed questions of, “What went wrong? What happened to our
peoples’ beautiful vision of a future communist nation?” I am glad to
see them attempting to answer these questions, decades after many of
their family members fled the atrocities of the Amerikan military and
their South Vietnamese puppets.
On a final note, both the people of Vietnam and the people of Samoa
have had firsthand experience with European colonialism and Amerikan
hegemony. The fact that they are able to connect their peoples’
struggles to the relatable struggles of the people of Palestine is a
success that I am willing to celebrate.
Prison Tablet
Propaganda Continues, With a Victory
A barrier that those organizing for Palestine behind the walls, have
had to deal with since Al-Aqsa Flood is the Christian Zionist prison
ministries whom, as comrade Firewater noted in ULK No. 87,
“have a monopoly on [the] tablets … [that] needs to be broken up!”(3) I
want to thank both comrade Firewater and comrade Triumphant very much
for their insights on this topic in the Texas Department of Criminal
Justice (TDCJ). Before writing my original article on it, comrades in
California began submitting multiple complaints related to the education
app on Our tablets, “Edovo”, which allows ministries like the right-wing
evangelists who produce the “Real Vida TV” podcast from their studio in
Tyler, TX, to continue to upload content that radiates conservative
Christian or Christian Zionist rhetoric and beliefs. Much of this
messaging is equal parts antisemitic, anti-Arab, Islamophobic, queer and
transphobic and anti-immigrant. Thankfully, in apparent response to this
deluge of complaints, Edovo removed all of Real Vida’s content from
their platform, which is as much of a win as We could have hoped. A more
long-term goal would be to get MIM content on our tablets for a
refreshing counterpoint to Our enemies’ propaganda.
This removal of Real Vida from Edovo does not account for the fact
that on other tablets and apps in other states’ jails and prison
systems, Real Vida continues to be available as Triumphant and Firewater
have noted from the Texas prison system. In research I conducted after
reading both comrades’ responses, I found out several things. Firstly,
the tablet app called “Pando” is indeed, as Firewater suspected, created
and maintained by “right-wing evangelist kooks” as I was able to
ascertain from watching a podcast interview with the main creator of the
app, Isaac Holt.(4) I further learned that the apparent go-to excuse for
Pando refusing content from providers is because “they only want to
upload high-quality Christian content”(4), which apparently means
refusing content from Christian organizations and denominations with a
more liberal/progressive worldview like Unitarian Universalists.
I also heard a radio show/podcast that our TX comrades are likely
familiar with called “The Prison Show” (which airs every Friday night
from 9-11 PM central on KPFT 90.1 FM out of Houston). They recently
uploaded about 50 of their previous episodes to Edovo, from December
2023 to November 2024. In several episodes they discuss the ridiculous
game of stringing along and avoidance that both TDCJ and Securus
Technologies played with David Collingsworth (the current producer of
the show) for over four years in the shows quest to get on the tablets
so everyone across TDCJ and in other states could tune in. He also spoke
about their meetings with Pando executives who asked them to sign a
mandatory contract, that states that in order to be allowed to upload
content, you must agree that all content will emphatically “preach the
word of Jesus”.(5) This ridiculous prerequisite should tell you all you
need to know about Pando, its CEO Jake Bodine and what they and the TDCJ
are trying to promote: an endless cycle of brainwashed evangelic “field
ministers”, of which I’m told TDCJ already has a great deal of.
Origins of Zionism and
Christian Zionism
Central to the understanding of the land of Palestine and the
Palestinian liberation struggle is understanding the twin ideologies of
Zionism and its mostly Amerikan cousin, Christian Zionism.
Both ideologies are antisemitic in nature and began that way from
their respective origins. Zionism, like any other settler colonial
project, is based in the genocidal erasure of the indigenous inhabitants
of a land, in this case the Palestinian Arab people, and the
self-indigenizing of the settlers. The strange thing about Zionism is
that far from being helpful to the Jews, both ideologies are grounded in
antisemitism. This can be hard to grasp for people, as one would think
that something supposedly in favor of the Jews couldn’t possibly be
antisemitic. The truth however, as with most things, lies in its
hystory.
Zionism, began as a political ideology, grounded in the antisemitic
belief that the Jews did not belong in Europe and therefore should be
removed from Europe to some other locale. The land of Palestine was also
not the first place that Theodor Herzl, the founder of Zionism, proposed
to remove all of the Jews to, as Herzl considered locations in Uganda in
East Afrika and South America before landing on Palestine.(6)
This removal to Palestine was of course fully backed by Britain,
culminating in the oft-cited Balfour Declaration of 1917 written by Lord
Arthur Balfour, himself an antisemite, with strong backing from other
British and Amerikan antisemites like Lloyd George, Woodrow Wilson, and
Harry Truman. Britain was the major imperialist power vying for control
of the region at the time, with France a close second.(7) This is the
same Arthur Balfour who was quoted as writing in an August 1919
memorandum, “The four great powers are committed to Zionism, and Zionism
be it right or wrong, good or bad, is rooted in
age-long tradition, in present needs, in future hopes, of far
profounder import than the desire or prejudices of the 700,000
Arabs [the actual number at the time was at least several hundred
thousand more] who now inhabit that ancient land. In my opinion
that is right.”(8)
Having an ostensibly European outpost in the Arab world was also
thought by the Amerikans and Western Europe to be a strong tool for
holding the spread of both Islam and communism at bay.(9)
As the horrors of the Nazi genocide became apparent and as European
Jewish refugees continued to flood out of German-occupied Europe aside
other groups singled out by the Nazi regime, instead of accepting these
refugees into U.$.-allied countries, they were vehemently refused and
forwarded on to seek refuge in the New Yishuv (in Hebrew:
settlement/community) created by the Zionists in the land of
Palestine.(10)
The Old Yishuv of Jews had been living in Palestine long before the
creation of Zionism and the First and Second Aliya (Zionist-sponsored
immigration waves of Jews to Palestine beginning in 1882). It bears
mentioning that the Old Yishuv was, until the end of 1945 and WWII,
majorly against Zionism and the hopes of the Zionists of creating a
Jewish state on top of and instead of Palestine. However, this mostly
changed after the world was made fully aware of just what the Nazi
regime planned and carried out in regards to their so-called “Final
Solution” to the so-called “Jewish problem”.
Finally, after the initial 1948 Nakba (“the catastrophe”, or ethnic
cleansing of Arabs) and into the present day, the Zionist entity has
supported, partnered with, trained the military forces and death squads
of, and aligned themselves with some of the most genocidal and
virulently antisemitic regimes and individuals in recent decades. These
range from Somoza and the Salvadoran and Guatemalan generals and Central
American dictators (11) to recent interactions in late 2023 and 2024
between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other i$raeli leaders and
Elon Musk, a purveyor of antisemitic and white supremacist rhetoric and
conspiracy theories, all in the name of Zionism apparently.(12)
The ideas behind Christian Zionism were around long before Herzl’s
ideology in Christian Europe. Christian Zionism, like its cousin
Zionism, is predicated on antisemitic tropes about the Jews which date
back to the Christian belief that the Jews (in the biblical form of the
Pharisees, an ancient Jewish sect) are responsible and to blame (and to
be hated for eternity) for the death of Jesus. As I’ve discussed
previously in ULK, Christian
Zionism is led in Amerika primarily by sections of the Christian
Right, mostly consisting of right-wing evangelists.(13) These
evangelists descend from the Protestant sect of Christianity that
seceded from the Roman Catholic Church during the Reformation and
adhered to the doctrine of Martin Luther, a staunch antisemite who
authored the antisemitic work, “On the Jews and their Lies”, in
1543.(14) Hitler and the Nazis were admirers of Martin Luther, as
exemplified by a 1933 Nazi propaganda poster that read, “Hitler’s fight
and [Martin] Luther’s teaching are the best defense for the German
people.”(15) Today the Trump administration supports Netanyahu, includes
Evangelical Christians and the richest man in the world Elon Musk who
gave a Nazi salute at the inauguration.
Christian Zionists see the Jewish people as simply a pawn in their
deranged so-called “End-Times prophecies”, believing that the only Jews
who are “redeemable” in their eyes are those who accepted Jesus as the
“messiah” and their “lord and savior”, thus converting to Christianity
and leaving their own religious beliefs behind. They call these converts
“Messianic Jews”. According to these “prophecies”, those who do not
convert will burn in hell with the rest of the non-believers, as the
true believers ascend in “glorious rapture” with their “messiah” Jesus
Christ to the pearly gates of Lala Land. In short, those “washed in the
blood of Jesus” are worthy and all others are the scum of the Earth.
The largest specific grouping of those who hold these hateful and
outrageous beliefs in the United $tates are known as the New Apostolic
Reformation (NAR), a right-wing Christian nationalist movement of around
3 million Pentecostal and evangelical Christians whose ideology also
commands adherents to capture the so-called “Seven Mountains” of
societal influence – education, religion, family, business, the
government and military, the arts and entertainment, and the media.(16)
They are an organization that we, as revolutionaries, should keep an eye
on, especially in lieu of the “Oompa-Loompa Man” and his MAGA fanatics
taking control of the presidency and both houses of Congress this
year.
Groups like the Proud Boys have been relatively inactive since the
Capital riot on 6 January 2021, mostly due to fracturing after their
leadership was locked up. In addition, other white
supremacist/nationalist formations, like the “White Lives Matter” crowd,
the virulently antisemitic Goyim Defense League, Identity Evropa,
Patriot Prayer, Blood Tribe, Nick Fuentes and the “Groypers”, the
so-called “Active Clubs” and many others (some of which have been
reported as trying to worm their way into the Palestine solidarity
movement with antisemitic signage, chants and pseudo anti-Zionist
discourse, i.e. anti-Jewish rhetoric masquerading as being
pro-Palestinian or anti-i$rael) may feel they have some wiggle room to
recruit and organize after Genocide Joe leaves office and MAGA becomes
the “law of the land”. These concerns stem from discussions I’ve had
with some of my outside comrades that have been active in the Palestine
solidarity movement recently in college campus “Liberated Zones” and in
the streets.
Concluding Thoughts
As the Palestinian resistance continues on, steadfast in their
struggle for liberation and return and in fierce opposition to the
genocidal logic of Zionism and settler-colonialism; as the Lebanese
resistance takes time to restructure their leadership apparatus in lieu
of the aggressive Zionist
assassination operation of Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah and the majority of
the political and military leadership of Hezbollah; as the brave
members of the Yemeni Ansar Allah party continue their assault on the
Zionist entity and their widely successful operation to throw
innumerable monkey wrenches into the gears of the imperialist war
machine and a global capitalism in unshakable support of the Palestinian
people and their resistance; and as uncertain possibilities
open up in Syria, all of Our eyes should continue to be firmly
focused on Palestine and the Levant. The Christian Right’s “stand-in
messiah”, Trump 2.0, is threatening there will be “hell to pay” if the
Palestinian resistance doesn’t return the i$raeli citizens taken during
Al-Aqsa Flood. Trump may also take revenge against the Islamic Republic
of Iran for allegedly plotting to assassinate him before the
election.
May we all continue to learn from the steadfast courage of the
Palestinian people, and may they find swift victory against the Zionist
entity in the coming year.
Glory to the Marytrs
Freedom to the Prisoners
Healing to the Wounded
Revolution until Victory
Notes: 1. Hamas Media Office, January 21 2024, “Our
Narrative… Operation Al-Aqsa Flood”,
www.palestinechronicle.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/PDF.pdf 2.
Nicholas Kristof, November 24 2024, “Warrant for Netanyahu’s arrest also
implicates United States”, San Jose Mercury News 3. Firewater and
Triumphant, October 2024, “Christian Zionism Tablet Propaganda Helps
Keep Support for Palestine Small”, Under Lock & Key 87 (Fall
2024) 4. Inside Out Podcast, Season 1 Episode 7, “The International
GPT Version” 5. The Prison Show, September 27 2024, KPFT 90.1 FM
6. Edward W. Said, 1992, “The Question of Palestine”, Vintage Books, pg.
23; and Ilan Pappé, 2022, “A History of Modern Palestine” (3rd Edition),
Cambridge University Press, p.47-48 7. Noam Chomsky, 2014, “The
Fateful Triangle - The United States, Israel, and the Palestinians”,
Haymarket Books, p.96-97 8. Said, op. cit., p.16-17 9. Ibid,
p.29 10. See generally, David S. Wyman, 1984, “The Abandonment of
the Jews: America and the Holocaust, 1941-1945”, Pantheon Books 11.
Chomsky, op. cit., p.29-31 12. Shane Burley and Ben Lorber, 2024,
“Safety Through Solidarity: A Radical Guide to Fighting Antisemitism”,
Melville House, p.219-220 13. Grim, July 2024, “On Christian Zionism
and the Prison Tablet Propaganda Machine”, Under Lock & Key 86
(Summer 2024) 14. Burley and Lorber, op. cit., p.82 15. Facing
History and Ourselves, June 2022, “Nazi propaganda depicting Martin
Luther”,
https://www.facinghistory.org/resource-library/nazi-propaganda-depicting-martin-luther
16. Burley and Lorber, op. cit., p.160 and p.163-164
This past summer, we gathered commentary from our readers on the
student uprising against the genocide in Gaza, which is now expanding
across the region. These articles were used in a
pamphlet that many USW comrades received, and were all printed in Under Lock & Key
86.
Comrades on the streets distributed the pamphlet and ULK 86
to students (and non-students) in a number of regions across the
country. We attended rallies and speaking events, visited the remnants
of encampments and shared publications at conferences.
In general, the response was enthusiastic to the articles written by
prisoners, especially regarding solidarity with Palestine.
Anti-Imperialist Prisoner Support (AIPS) maintained a presence at
Socialism Conference 2024 which took place in Chicago during the end of
August. Over 100 copies of ULK were handed out at the
conference, while also agitating against prisoner repression.
At a New York hacker conference, audience members eagerly grabbed
copies of the Palestine pamphlet at a talk on prison surveillance. The
speaker exposed most of the issues we discuss in our Prison
Banned Books Week articles. Ey also exposed how Securus has a patent
to use the phone numbers of prisoner contacts to track their spending
data. And Securus already provides location data to Correctional
Officers by phone number! We hope comrades can understand why we’re
sticking to snail mail. This also happened to be the only talk at the
conference where the speaker shouted “Free Palestine!”
At a southern California Palestine solidarity event comrades were
able to give out ULK 86 to a large group of students and
noticed that others would grab a copy on their way out. Reactions were
mostly positive with one criticism being that it may have been too tough
on the students. This was presumably referring to the critique
written by an outside comrade involved in the student movement.
Comrades have communicated with a number of student groups to solicit
responses or statements for this issue of Under Lock & Key.
While at least one group expressed interest, we did not get any reports
from students on the ongoing legal struggles and political repression
they are facing for this issue. It is clear more work is needed to
strengthen a connection between the prison movement and the student
movement. But progress is being made.
Decades ago, Under Lock & Key was a section in the newspaper
MIM Notes put out by the original Maoist Internationalist
Movement and its party in the United $tates. For a time, MIM distributed
newspapers on the streets at 20-30 times the amount they sent to
prisoners, and their paper came out every 2 weeks. Since MIM(Prisons)
launched Under Lock & Key in 2007, it has always been a
primarily prisoner newsletter. Though in the past we’ve estimated our
online readership to be bigger. A couple years ago we set the goal of
distributing as many newspapers on the streets as we do in prisons.
While not quite there, ULK 86 was by far the closest we’ve
gotten to reaching that goal.
If you want to help expand ULK distribution on the street,
send us $55 in cash or postage stamps with a return address and we’ll
send you 100 copies of the next ULK we print. ULK
currently comes out at the beginning of November, February, May, and
August.
by a Tennessee prisoner September 2024 permalink
Tennessee is introducing JPay tablets to prisoners
I am lucky this far to have received my mail [including many
newspapers, study packs and books from MIM Distributors], but the
tablets are soon to arrive. As far as books go, I am unable to order any
as there seems to be some type of mystery in that realm. No books until
further notice, and nobody appears to be able to guide you in the proper
direction.
Their goal seems to be to stop the flow of contraband into the
prison. Yet, there seems to be more of it than food on your tray. People
are falling out and sent right back to the place they came out of to be
back in the same shape they left in: on drugs. They appear to do nothing
about the problem. A person on drugs can walk right past an officer and
he acts as if he doesn’t see him. The smell of something on fire stays
in the air. You are forced to sleep in a room with unbearable smoke
fumes in the air. All they want is for the alarm to not go off. Smoke
bailing out of some buildings; isn’t that something?
Yes, we’re going to have to accept the tablets because they can solve
the problem of unbearable conditions - or so they say!
MIM(Prisons) adds: Despite word from prisoners in
Tennessee that there are new restrictions on books coming in, we have
not been able to confirm the new rules. We have heard from other Books
for Prisoners programs that they have stopped sending books to
Tennessee. The Tennessee Department of Corrections’ website hosts the
Inmate Mail policy dated 8 December 2023, which states:
“Printed materials may be received by inmates in an unlimited amount,
provided they are mailed directly from the publisher(s) or recognized
commercial distributor.”
Despite some censorship, and
mail gone missing, MIM Distributors has been able to deliver books
to TN prisoners prior to December 2023. And lately our biggest problem
has been with Tennessee rejecting manila envelopes because they think
they might harbor drugs!
As we’ve reported in Texas
and elsewhere, drugs in prisons have risen to all-time highs,
despite Covid-19 restrictions on visitations and new digital mail
policies. And science has proven that drug addiction is a product of bad
living conditions. So not only are prison staff bringing in drugs, they
are driving prisoners to use them through their repressive and
alienating conditions.
UPDATE 28 September from a TN prisoner: I’m
currently being held at Morgan County Correctional Complex and I need
your help/advice. Excluding religious books, I’m only allowed to receive
5 books, from only 3 vendors that prison officials have chosen! How can
I further my education if I’m only allowed to receive 5 books? I’m
working on my pending criminal and civil cases, and of course I’ll need
more than 5 law books, but with this restriction, that’s not possible!
This restriction is under the guidance of Warden Shawn Phillips who can
be reached at (423) 346-1300.
The comrade included documentation showing the only approved vendors
to be: Abebook.com [sic], bookshop.org and 21st century Christian
bookstore. And apparently prisoners can give books to mailroom to be
thrown away in order to receive additional books!
I am a prisoner at Menard Correctional Center in Illinois. There is a
ban here on used books. All books have to be new, and any organization
that sends free books to prisoners can’t send them to Menard.
The other issue at Menard is the restrictions on the tablets. There
is no phone or any access to reading case law on the tablets. Instead
they offer streaming, music, game center, GTL podcasts and GTL newsfeed,
and old movies and television. None of this is any help to prisoners
here at Menard.
MIM(Prisons) adds: There is nothing in Illinois DOC
Publication Reviews Directive that requires books be new, so this
appears to be a practice specific to this facility. Menard
Correctional Center is a maximum security facility that has been
notorious for its use of long-term isolation and other abuses over the
years. This practice of adding restrictions on books to people in
segregation is all too common in this country where prisons aim to
punish and not rehabilitate.
Companies like Global Tel*Link (GTL) (as well as Securus, CenturyLink
Public Communications, Advanced Technologies Group, and Keefe Commissary
Group) offer hundreds, if not thousands, of free books available on
their tablets from Project Gutenberg, meaning these books are majority
95+ years old. So it is little surprise that they are lacking in
practical information that prisoners in Illinois need.
Missouri now has the strictest paper literature policy ever
implemented in a state prison system. People can ONLY obtain paper
literature by purchasing it themselves, in consultation with their
prison caseworker, with money drawn from their own commissary account
from a small selection of “approved vendors.” We’re finding that many of
our subscribers in Missouri cannot receive Under Lock & Key
because they have not paid for it.
Missouri is now contracting with Securus to serve all mail digitally
on tablets. Their contract includes a 1% administrative fee on “all
payments received by the contractor for all products and services
provided under the contract.” However, not all prisoners have tablets,
and some are anxious to get the privilege of paying $0.25 to send emails
to family.
Below are reports from Missouri prisoners in August 2024.
Censorship is real here at Crossroads Correctional Center. They are
trying to find ways to stop Under Lock & Key newspapers
from coming to Crossroads any way they can. Most of the time they have
no real reason to stop it. It’s hit or miss. And me and the brothers
really really need the info and good news that you bring knowing that
the fight is still on.
They stop our catalogs, they stop our books. It’s hard with this K2
taking our young minds and no one really there to push the fight. Most
of us find our fight to be few in numbers.
Here in the hole, they keep our tablets from us. Every prison except
for Crossroads Correctional Center has tablets. They charge us $0.79 a
stamp and really force us to buy them knowing that’s the only way to
reach our families seeing that they won’t give us our tablets in Ad-Seg.
Emails only cost $0.25 on tablets.
They won’t let us order reading books or magazines in Ad-Seg either,
saying we have to be on the yard to order books/magazines.
MIM(Prisons) adds: It is criminally absurd that people
being tortured in isolation are deprived of some of the few things that
can keep them sane in such conditions like reading material.
A comrade at Jefferson City Correctional Center wrote:
I’ve ordered books with donation checks to free services. At first they
denied them in May due to “No free books.” I fought that and paid a
donation. Then their excuse was “wrong order month.” They proceeded to
deny (in March, July, November) the free book services with donation
payments. Then I sent $400 to a bona fide vendor on the precise month of
orders. Now they’re saying we can’t have books in Ad-Seg and that I have
to send them home and my people won’t be able to send them back to me
once I’m out of seg (if I ever get out).
They’re making up arbitrary rules on the premise of punishment and
denying educational and recreational books to long-term segregation
people.
I had the check approved per the Functioning Unit Manager, and
approved with Business Office. Now I’m unable to get them cuz property
denied them.
I’m on hunger strike now at 7 days, 21 meals. No medical has
attempted to assess me, they’re denying legal access (property
paperwork) and staff don’t do rounds. If possible, I need assistance
with legal. I’m filing on medical for neglect/deliberate indifference.
I’m working on the §1983 in the mail but if ya’ll can help or put me
into contact or on a list of pro bono/after win lawyers it would be much
appreciated.
Another Jefferson City prisoner wrote: This prison
policy infringes on my right to receive free religious material, which
is considered “special mail, and can never be censored.” Prison
officials took the regular mail, now books, magazines, and newspapers
that were free, saying that drugs are coming in through the mail! That
is the worst lie I have ever heard. It is a fact that drugs are being
brought in by the prison staff themselves, not the other way around. I
am here to help fight this injustice, let me know what you need me to
do.
MIM(Prisons) adds: Unfortunately, now that this new
policy is already in place we will need a concerted campaign and likely
a lawsuit to reverse course. As the comrade above says, if any lawyers
want to get involved, we can help facilitate. It’s hard to give Missouri
a grade until we get a clearer picture of how this new policy plays out,
but we might have to give them an F.
by Grim of United Struggle from Within July 2024 permalink
Same Struggle - a piece connecting the liberation struggles of New
Afrika and Palestine from the years of their colonization
At the end of Orisanmi
Burton’s Tip of the Spear: Black Radicalism, Prison Repression, and
the Long Attica Revolt – a book USW cadre have been studying
since its release in late October 2023 – Burton correctly labels the
prison tablets supplied to the imprisoned lumpen by predatory prison
communications companies like Securus and Global Tel Link(GTL)/ViaPath
Technologies as “the cutting edge of carceral war.”(1)
Much has already been written by
MIM and USW comrades about these tablets including the several areas
Burton shortly discusses: the use of predatory pricing strategies that
extract even more money from oppressed nation communities, expanding the
surveillance state, and behavior modification/digital babysitters.(2)
What has not been discussed in much detail is the use of the tablets as
imperialist propaganda machines.
Of course, all of the content on the tablets is highly censored, with
an extensive vetting process for orgs who want to place their content on
them. On the GTL/ViaPath tablets we have at Main Jail in San Jose (Model
VT-TABLET-5081S) the only app we have besides the GTL phone app is the
free edu-tainment platform “Edovo”, which is – to no ones’ surprise –
full of garbage content.
Shortly after the Palestinian resistance launched Operation Al-Aqsa
Flood, smashing the Iron Wall and entering the rest of their homeland as
a force to be reckoned with, there was an almost weekly upload of
Christian Zionist and other Zionist propaganda pushed onto the platform.
The first of these that I noticed was the feature film “Exodus: Gods
& Kings” which details the Old Testament story of Moses leading the
Israelites to Palestine, or as it is called in the movie, Canaan. This
story, along with several other books of the Old Testament, are the
basis for what Zionists today use as their claim to Palestine as their
“ancient homeland”. And yet, as Palestinian hystorian Nur Masalha
writes, “The Old Testament is not actual history but imaginative
fiction, theology, sacred literature, ethics and wisdom.”(3) In short,
the stories that Zionists base their land claims to Palestine on are
myth narratives, not proven hystory.
Roughly around the same time, episodes of a Christian Zionist podcast
started to be uploaded to Edovo. This podcast, called “Real Vida TV”, is
put together by evangelists from Tyler, Texas who use their show to
spread vaccine/COVID conspiracy theories popular among the Amerikan
right, as well as anti-immigrant, queer & transphobic rhetoric
alongside Bible verses.
Since October 7th they’ve been spreading the usual Zionist
lies of mass rape, beheading babies, etc… that the imperialist media
continues to propagate. They also have been tying everything occurring
in Palestine and the Middle East into the strange and insane “end times”
prophecies that are the main reason for the strong support of Christian
Zionism, led mostly by Amerikan evangelists.
To understand this a bit better, let’s take a step back from the
Zionist podcast and take a closer look at Christian Zionism, which, to
my knowledge, hasn’t had anything substantial written on it in
ULK.
Evangelical Christians, the bulk of Christian Zionists in the United
$tates, take the writings in the bible literally. To get a numerical
picture, there are roughly around 15 million Jews around the world today
(which I’d like to note, a large percentage are anti-Zionist and
completely reject the genocidal state of “i$rael”); in comparison there
are over 70 million evangelicals who share the same “ironclad” support
of “i$rael” as Genocide Goe in the United $tates. Christian Zionism also
finds its roots in the Bible, but it is not because of some altruistic
wish to “return” the Jews to the safety of their so-called “ancient
homeland”. The return and consolidation of the Jews in the land of
Palestine is supported so strongly by the Christian Zionists because
they believe once this has been finally accomplished their “messiah”
Jesus Christ will return, render judgement(punishment) upon the
nonbelievers (which includes Jews as they do not believe Christ is the
“messiah”), and then get into motion the so-called end-times prophecies
of the Book of Revelation (which depicts Armageddon), where the
non-believers will burn and the true believers will float up with Jesus
to LaLa Land.
No, I am not making this up sadly.
Even more sadly, these views are being used by those who produce the
podcast to justify the ongoing genocide and dispossession of Palestinian
people, the actual indigenous inhabitants of the land of Palestine.
What’s worse, at least for Our comrades in Texas, is that these
Christian Zionists go to and have access to all of the TDCJ gulags where
they can spread this poisonous rhetoric, possibly making it even harder
to shift public opinion in the units in favor of the Palestinian
liberation struggle (I’d be interested to know the point of view of Our
comrades in Texas on this). As the Zionists and their imperialist
backers continue to spread their lies to try to sway the opinions of the
masses toward support of their genocidal logic, We must counter them in
every way We can, especially in the writing and dissemination of
articles on Palestine in the pages of ULK, and by
supporting/working on the USW Palestine campaign.
From the river to the sea, Palestine will be
free!
MIM(Prisons) adds: A USW leader in Florida wrote an
article on the Biblical “history” of the Jewish people. We are not
printing that article. But here is their explanation for the approach
they took in that piece:
“I’m hearing pro-I$raeli comments in the quad and on the yard every
day. Prisoners are completely swallowing and promoting the CIPWS zionist
pro I$raeli narrative, ie., that the Palestinians brought the genocide
upon themselves when they attacked I$raeli citizens, rather than
settlers/invaders, on October 7, 2023, rather than in response to
70-plus years of CIPWS zionist occupation and oppression.
“I am surrounded by prisoners who hear the word”Israel” and
automatically think “Jesus”. Prisoners see the entire
Israeli-Palestinian conflict and situation from a biblical point of view
rather than a historical and U.$. imperialist political one.
“The average prisoner had never heard of Hamas, Zionists, Hizbullah,
Houthi, etc. until recently. Prisoners identify with Israel mostly due
to religion and all they are told is that Israel was attacked by
Palestinians, and that Palestinians want Israel extinct, even as they
see the total opposite happening with their own oppressed eyes. Even
Muslims here, due to subliminal incognizance, do not support or identify
with he Palestinians’ plight. They see the Palestinians, not as victims,
but as terrorists, not as brothers.”
As members of United Struggle from Within (USW) have come out in
strong support of the Palestinian resistance, we see this is not
representative of the consciousness of the imprisoned lumpen as a whole.
Thus the need for our leaders inside to continue this campaign to
support Palestine in the realm of education and ideological struggle
among the oppressed in this country. People who are suffering a lower
level genocide through the prison system itself are somehow identifying
with their own oppressor. If the national liberation struggles were
stronger in this country, we would be seeing a lot more support for
national liberation of Palestine here as well.
Notes: (1) Burton, Orisami, “Tip of the Spear: Black
Radicalism, Prison Repression, and the Long Attica Revolt”,(University
of California Press, 2023),p.227 (2) Ibid. p.228 (3) Masalh,
Nur, “Palestine: A Four Thousand Year History”,(I.B. Taurus, 2018)
p.30