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.
Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole (2010)
We have to give props to a kids’ movie that can portray an anti-fascist
struggle, while downplaying the glamor of war. Soren is a young owl who
dreams of meeting his heroes, the Guardians of Ga’Hoole, who are
legendary for defending the owls against evil forces. He and his brother
Kludd are kidnapped by the fascist owls, “The Pure Ones”, who recruit a
select few from their species of owls to join their army and enslave all
other species of owls. Soren escapes and flees to find the Guardians for
help while his brother joins the Nazi owls.
Soren’s journey to the Guardians requires him to learn to fly and take a
difficult trip with a few fellow travelers who believe in the mission.
As the Guardians gather information and prepare for battle with the
fascists they learn that one of their leaders is working for the enemy
and has betrayed them. This is a good lesson in the need for vigilance
against spies and turncoats in the anti-fascist struggle.
Kludd’s decision to join the fascists is played as a simplistic need for
recognition after a childhood of struggling to achieve next to his
brother. But this is not so far off. Fascism appeals to people who are
easily convinced that their lack of success can be overcome at the
expense of others. In Amerika we have a large labor aristocracy who are
paid more than the value of their labor with profits brought home from
exploitation of Third World workers; these workers have a material
interest in imperialism. Those who are in the lowest stratum of the
labor aristocracy look around and see that they are not achieving the
same wealth as their peers. This group of people are the most likely to
go for fascist rhetoric that blames their failures on immigrants and
Third World workers with promises of greater wealth for those who
deserve it (i.e. the white nation). There was no labor aristocracy in
The Owls of Ga’Hoole but the oppressed nations were represented by the
different species of owls who, just by nature of birth, were considered
inferior to “The Pure Ones.”
When Soren meets the Guardians he gets to know one who is somewhat crazy
and a bit of an outcast, only to learn that he was the heroic leader in
previous battles. From this owl Soren learns that war is not all glamor
and has real consequences. The decision to fight the fascists was taken
seriously with this in mind.
For a kids’ movie, Legend of the Guardians has a lot to offer, but we’d
rather see the oppressed nations (or species in this case), organize to
rise up and fight for themselves. The movie makes that impossible by
drugging all the slaves and implying that the rest of the owls from
other species were completely in the dark about the fascist plot to take
over the world. This plot twist might have been possible if they had
gone further and The Pure Ones struck out in battle so that other
species realized what was happening.
That a group of heroic owls had to save the world and defeat the
fascists was made somewhat better by their failure due to turncoat
betrayal requiring Soren and his fellow travelers to join the battle and
save the day. At least this reinforced that anyone could be a heroic
part of the anti-fascist struggle, not just the special heroes of
Ga’Hoole.
On November 28, WikiLeaks began releasing U.$. diplomatic cables that
have been extremely embarrassing to the U.$. government and its allies.
This resulted in increased persecution of the WikiLeaks site and staff,
and an international debate about the role of websites like WikiLeaks.
This story underscores the failure of mainstream media to do more than
serve as a mouthpiece for the imperialists. But it also reveals the
lengths to which imperialist governments will go to persecute activists
and those causing damage to imperialism.
Humynity benefits from more availability of information about
imperialism. As revolutionaries, we welcome the opportunity to expose
U.$.-backed atrocities and the imperialists’ back room deals. Meanwhile,
the attacks on WikiLeaks and its staff present the opportunity to
further expose the myth that capitalism = democracy. The basic premises
of democracy include transparency of government and freedom of speech.
While the communist government in China under Mao encouraged the people
to criticize their leaders during the Cultural Revolution and went so
far as to provide free paper and space to post big character posters to
propagate free speech, the Amerikan government is doing all it can (in
collaboration with other governments and capitalist corporations) to
shut down the speech of those who are merely exposing facts.
WikiLeaks launched in 2007 to publish documents from anonymous sources
that generally expose the actions of imperialist governments and their
lackeys. WikiLeaks states that “One of our most important activities is
to publish original source material alongside our news stories so
readers and historians alike can see evidence of the truth.” On their
website WikiLeaks summarizes the major stories they have broken; an
impressive list of government and corporate corruption, brutality and
war.(1) It has been particularly valuable in exposing U.$. atrocities in
Afghanistan and Iraq.
As a result of their work exposing governments, corporations, and
churches around the world, Wikileaks has faced significant persecution.
According to their website, “Since formation in 2007, WikiLeaks has been
victorious over every legal (and illegal) attack, including those from
the Pentagon, the Chinese Public Security Bureau, the Former President
of Kenya, the Premier of Bermuda, Scientology, the Catholic & Mormon
Church, the largest Swiss private bank, and Russian companies.“(1)
Julian Assange has taken the role of public spokespersyn and as such has
faced dramatic persynal persecution, particularly after the release of
the U.$. diplomatic cables.
What’s the big deal about the U.$. diplomatic cables?
Before we get into the issues of censorship and political persecution,
let’s take a look at what these diplomatic cables really contain. The
U.$. government employs thousands of foreign service staff posted in
embassies and consulates around the world. According to the U.$
Department of State website, these people work in one of 5 general jobs:
Consular: Consular Officers protect Americans abroad and strengthen U.S.
border security.
Economic: Economic Officers work on economic partnerships and
development, support U.S. businesses abroad, and cover environmental,
science, technology, and health issues.
Management: Management Officers run our embassies and make American
diplomacy work.
Political: Political Officers analyze political events.
Public Diplomacy: Public Diplomacy Officers explain American values and
policies.
In other words, many of these people work in foreign countries
acting as spies. But not spies who are working in secret; they are overt
spies whose job is to meet with people at various levels in other
governments and then write up reports about their meetings and the
situation in those countries. This is how the U.$. government collects a
lot of its information about what’s going on around the world. The
foreign service staff don’t try to hide what they are doing. It’s a
political game which foreign diplomats sometimes use to get messages
through to the U.$. government without having to make public statements.
There is a lot of backroom deal making done this way, without having to
make information public.
So when people say that the diplomatic cables that WikiLeaks released
are embarrassing, what they really mean is that imperialist governments
and their lackeys don’t want the truth to be known publicly. As
WikiLeaks summarizes, “the cables show the extent of US spying on its
allies and the UN; turning a blind eye to corruption and human rights
abuse in ‘client states’; backroom deals with supposedly neutral
countries; lobbying for US corporations; and the measures US diplomats
take to advance those who have access to them.”(1) So the U.$.
government doesn’t want people to know these things. They are probably
not so much worried about the Amerikan public whose response to this
story has been split with many taking the side of their imperialist
government, but rather concerned about what people in other countries
are going to learn, especially those in the Third World being screwed by
the imperialists and the deals they make with their own lackey
governments.
Imperialists and censorship on a global scale
There was a quick and coordinated attack against WikiLeaks by the U.$.
government and their allies in the international and corporate
community. This included a coordinated December 2 attack shutting down
their domain via the New Hampshire-based company EveryDNS, and
Amazon.com cutting off the infrastructure services they were providing
to WikiLeaks. Forced to move to the French internet company OVH,
WikiLeaks then faced attacks by the French government looking for ways
to ban hosting of the site.
The finance capitalists got in on the game quickly too. On December 3
PayPal cut off the account that was collecting donations for WikiLeaks,
claiming that the account violated its “Acceptable Use Policy” by
engaging in “activities that encourage, promote, facilitate or instruct
others to engage in illegal activity.” On December 6 MasterCard
announced its plan to cut off WikiLeaks from accepting MasterCard
payments because “MasterCard rules prohibit customers from directly or
indirectly engaging in or facilitating any action that is illegal.” Visa
took similar action on December 7. On December 8 WikiLeaks released
diplomatic papers that revealed lobbying by the Obama administration on
behalf of MasterCard and Visa.(2) And finally, the Swedish bank
PostFinance froze Julian Assange’s persynal bank account on December 6,
using the flimsy excuse that he provided an incorrect address on his
account.
On December 23 Apple dropped the WikiLeaks app (program for iPhones)
from their app store, just 10 days after it was approved for sale. The
app gave users access to the WikiLeaks Twitter feed and the ability to
access leaked documents. An Apple spokespersyn gave the official excuse:
“Apps must comply with all local laws and may not put an individual or
group in harm’s way.”(3) These examples of corporate censorship help
demonstrate the complicity between the imperialist government and big
corporations. The imperialists make backroom diplomatic deals to give
the capitalists financial advantages, and those same corporations look
out for the government’s interests by denying anti-imperialists access
to resources to exercise their free speech.
While diverting resources from WikiLeaks’ primary mission, these attacks
have also served to expose the imperialists, who only give lip service
to freedom of speech when it serves their interest. And this has
galvanized a counter attack by defenders of WikiLeaks. This counter
offensive includes hackers who have launched denial-of-service attacks
to shut down web sites that have cut off WikiLeaks, targeting EveryDNS,
Amazon, MasterCard and Visa among others.
In the United $tates, the imperialists are running around with their
pants down, unsure how to control the information already released. On
December 3 the White House issued a directive that forbids unauthorized
Federal employees from accessing the classified documents that are now
available on WikiLeaks. Carrying out this order, the Library of Congress
blocked access to WikiLeaks from its computers. Government employees,
military personnel and employees of some private corporations are
prohibited from reading the documents, even from home. Meanwhile,
college students are being threatened that if they post info about
WikiLeaks online they will not be eligible for government jobs after
graduation.(8)
Amerikan public opinion is split between those who think it’s right to
investigate those in power and those who want to see Assange prosecuted.
It might be surprising that so many Amerikans care about freedom of
speech when the imperialists so clearly oppose it. This is promising for
activists looking for ways to win over people who have a material
interest in imperialism, even if only for specific battles against the
imperialists.
Political persecution of activists
Julian Assange and others have complained of surveillance and harassment
in various countries in the past, but after the release of the
diplomatic cables this has stepped up to a level that may lead to death
or permanent imprisonment of those associated with the site. While
throwing around baseless accusations of “terrorism” against Assange,
North Amerikan politicians have openly called for him to be illegally
assassinated - the definition of terrorism.(9)
The U.$. Justice Department has been scouring the books searching for
something to prosecute Assange on, some way to punish him and stop his
work, and they are negotiating with Sweden to get him extradited to the
U.$. Assange was taken into custody in Britain after an arrest warrant
was issued by Sweden to question him on allegations of sex crimes, and
has since been released on bail.
In the United $tates, there has been a strong push to make it illegal to
conduct investigative journalism that is not approved by the State.
Senator Dianne Feinstein, chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee,
argues that Assange’s actions violate the Espionage Act, a World War
I-era law crafted to punish individuals who spy on the country during
wartime. This is despite the fact that WikiLeaks has not released any
Top Secret documents and even offered to work with the U.$. government
to redact any facts that would endanger individuals in the field (which
the U.$. turned down). An initial hearing on WikiLeaks and the Espionage
Act was held on December 16 by the House of Representatives Judiciary
Committee. So far no decisions about prosecution have been made. Senator
Joseph Lieberman goes further and has urged the administration to
consider charges against media outlets that produced news articles based
on the leaked documents. These organizations, according to Lieberman,
have “committed at least an act of bad citizenship, but whether they
have committed a crime - I think that bears a very intense inquiry by
the Justice Department.”(4)
In the 1970s a very similar attack against Daniel Ellsberg was carried
out after he released the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times,
exposing the Amerikan government’s lies about the Vietnam War. The U.$.
government attacked Ellsberg both covertly and overtly in court where
they put him on trial for theft and conspiracy under the Espionage Act.
Ellsberg explains, “The truth is that every attack now made on WikiLeaks
and Julian Assange was made against me and the release of the Pentagon
Papers at the time.”(5)
If the outcome is more chilling this time around, it will be with the
mainstream media cheering for the repression of their own rights to
report on facts. They’d rather talk about sex and persynalities anyway.
We talk about sex to stop talking about sex
Pseudofeminists have lined up on two sides of the Julian Assange “rape”
debate. One recognizes the obvious truth that this is a political ploy
by the imperialists to distract from the facts and attack Wikileaks. The
other side says we need to stand by all wimmin who claim that they are
raped. The latter are a dream come true for the FBI. The former are on
the right track, but falter in their attempts to define “real” rape.
This situation was painfully obvious in a series of debates on
Democracy Now! this week that degenerated into a pornographic
discussion of the details of various sexual encounters.(6) To both
defend Assange and uphold that some sex is not rape, Naomi Wolf ended up
making some embarrassingly incorrect claims.
If we can just admit that all sex is rape, then we can get on with the
original discussion of hundreds of thousands of wimmin (and men of
course) dying at the hands of the U.$. military as exposed by WikiLeaks
documents. The real feminist here is white male Julian Assange who
responded to TV news host Larry King’s inquiry about the sex charges
with: “It is not right to bring in sensational and, in fact, false
claims, a relatively trivial matter compared to the deaths of 109,000
people… CNN should be ashamed of doing that.” Assange was referring to a
death toll released on WikiLeaks that was recorded by the U.$. military
in Iraq who previously claimed to not be tracking Iraqi deaths.
To assure readers that these tactics are nothing new, a parallel story
played out within our own movement just 2 years ago. The decades old MIM
website at etext.org was shut down by people outside of MIM on January
9, 2009. This occurred as the primary editor of the website was
reporting death threats and the circulation of rape charges by multiple
white wimmin. He has referred to this as a “lynching,” as rape charges
have always been a tool of social control of oppressed nation men under
the rule of white power. While MIM(Prisons) and at least one other cell
made efforts to restore the content of the site, the damage was done as
all incoming links were defunct. Traffic to those documents remains at a
fraction of what it used to be.
The editor of the etext.org MIM site later explained that he did not
restore the site immediately as it could just as quickly be taken down
again. WikiLeaks is unique in its resources and high profile status, so
it has largely managed to remain online, with its mission receiving a
net benefit from the press coverage. But when decades of material are
separated from their domain name as happened to MIM, as well as many of
the over 80 hip hop websites shut down by Homeland Security last
month(7), their access to the rest of the world is seriously challenged.
As we have mentioned in the past, independent institutions of the
oppressed online are very fragile. Some combination of technology,
security tactics and alliances with the national bourgeoisie in
anti-imperialist nations will need to provide solutions to this problem
as the imperialists increase their repression on the internet.
This message replaced the content of over 80 hip hop websites in
November 2010
The need for anti-imperialist media sources
A University of Maryland study titled “Misinformation and the 2010
Election” found that people who are exposed to mainstream news sources
are quite misinformed about the facts. For instance, 42% of people
surveyed didn’t know that Obama was born in the U.$. The survey looked
at newspapers and news magazines, network TV news broadcasts, public
broadcasting (NPR or PBS), Fox News, MSNBC and CNN. They found “Looking
at the frequency of misinformation among the consumers of various news
sources, one striking feature is that substantial levels of
misinformation were present in the daily consumers of all news sources.
Even the daily consumers of news sources with the lowest levels of
misinformation still included substantial numbers with
misinformation.”(10)
This doesn’t mean we should all stop following the news; people with
higher levels of exposure to news sources had lower levels of
misinformation. This last fact had a few striking exceptions, for
instance, Fox News topped the misinformation list with the viewers with
the most incorrect information and a trend showing that the more a
persyn watches Fox the more misinformed they become. However, consumers
of other mainstream media sources were also very mislead on key facts,
including NPR and PBS consumers and viewers of other daily TV news.(10)
Without a viable daily source of anti-imperialist news, revolutionaries
still need to use mainstream media, but we need to look at it with a
critical eye and use as many international sources as we can get our
hands on.
The clear misinformation being spread by mainstream media, combined with
the constant covering up of even the most mundane of facts by the
imperialist governments and their allies, mean that the value of
alternative media sources can not be overstated. WikiLeaks provides a
clear service to anti-imperialists even without any significant
political analysis on their website. The politics are clear in the
context of the content that comes through WikiLeaks daily exposing
imperialism as a system of corruption, brutality and exploitation. News
sources like this are crucial to revolutionaries and we must defend
their existence.
It is our task to go further and provide context for the facts and help
people make connections between all the terrorist acts committed by the
U.$. and other imperialist countries and the just revolutionary
struggles of the oppressed peoples around the world.
This sequel to the 1982 original Tron movie which was a technical
trailblazer for its use of CGI but not a big hit, includes dazzling 3D
special effects but not much else. The plot focuses on Sam Flynn, the
grown son of Kevin Flynn who was the main character in the original
Tron. Kevin, a computer visionary, disappears when Sam is 7, because he
got stuck inside The Grid of an alternate computer universe that he
created. The grown up Sam gets himself transported into this alternate
universe and some dazzling race and fight scenes and trite plot lines
ensue.
Tron: Legacy had a lot of potential for some interesting
political content. There is the new digital race of people who came into
being inside the computer universe. These people were all but completely
wiped out by the evil dictator program Clu in his quest to eliminate all
imperfection. Clu, the not so subtle fascist dictator, is a program that
was created by Kevin Flynn, to help him build the perfect world. So we
get a good solid anti-fascist message here. But the alternative, from
Kevin, is praise for individualism and it’s inherent imperfections, now
that he’s realized his mistake with Clu.
Rather than have the masses (of program beings) rise up against the
fascist dictator, we’re just told dismissively that they were all killed
(but one). There are a few rumblings of the other programs being unhappy
with dictator Clu, but they are incapable of organizing themselves into
any resistance and the few we see either die or end up being turncoats
serving the fascists. The only signs of useful resistance come from
heroic individualist actions by programs who break with their fascist
leader but with no explanation or organization.
In the end, the big individualists themselves are the only ones who can
defeat the fascist dictator and save both the real world and the
digitized alternate universe. This leaves us with three super-heroes who
only need to kill off the dictator and all is right in the world.
Fundamentally Tron: Legacy promotes individualism and worship
of leaders while dismissing the revolutionary potential of the masses.
It suggests that the masses can only be liberated/saved by a leader who
is much smarter than them. And so, in spite of it’s lip service to
anti-fascism, MIM(Prisons) doesn’t recommend Tron: Legacy.
As our readers already know, MIM(Prisons) runs political study
groups with our comrades behind bars. And as some of you know, and have
experienced, the state generally finds our non-violent, non-law
breaking, communist study in poor taste. In October 2009, a study group
assignment for the pamphlet “What is MIM?,” which included other
participants’ responses to the previous assignment, was mailed to a
participant held in Arizona. This study group assignment was censored
because allegedly it “may be obscene or a threat to security” generally,
and “promotes racism and/or religious oppression” specifically. Yes,
this is coming from the state that is fighting the federal government in
court to be allowed to use the color of one’s skin as probable cause for
investigating immigration law violations.
Our comrade imprisoned in Arizona appealed this decision, and
MIM(Prisons) wrote to the prison administration to request an
explanation as to how this study group assignment could “promote racism
and/or religious oppression” without even mentioning races,
nationalities, or religions:
“It is truly fascinating that your mailroom staff could find the
promotion of racism and/or religious oppression in this document.
Nowhere in the letter are the following words even mentioned: religious,
religion, christian, muslim, baptist, KKK, white, mexican, latino, asian
or arab. The word”black” is written once in the context of a reference
to the Black Panther Party’s education programs. How can you even talk
about religion or race enough to speak against it if you don’t use any
of the above mentioned words?” - MIM Distributors, Legal Assistant
No attempt has ever been made by Arizona Department of Corrections (ADC)
administration to address this point. ADC General Counsel Karyn Klausner
offered her opinion: “I have reviewed the materials sent by MIM
Distributors and find the decision to exclude the publication due to
content ‘promoting racism and/or religious oppression,’ was
appropriate.” She gave no explanation of how she came to the conclusion
that it was an “appropriate” violation of Constitutionally protected
rights. In a later letter Ms. Klausner clarified that with this
statement she didn’t mean she was “upholding” the censorship in her
official capacity as General Counsel of the Office of the Director of
ADC, just that she agreed with it on a persynal level.
Instead of explaining how the study group mailing in any way promotes
racism and/or religious oppression, ADC administrators then began to
rely on their policy of violating MIM Distributors’ First Amendment
right to free speech and association to censor this study group
assignment:
“There is nothing in case law that gives rise to a publisher’s right to
appeal a decision to exclude its material on an administrative appeal
level. . . You are not entitled to a forum within the prison system.” -
ADC Director, Charles Ryan
Director Ryan clearly had not investigated the matter on the prisoner’s
end either. He claimed that our imprisoned comrade had not appealed the
decision to censor, yet s/he had, on multiple levels, and submitted
requests for the results of these appeals.
“You claim that MIM Distributors has no rights to appeal the censorship
of their mail. While we are not lawyers, and may have put too much
weight on the Procunier case, we still uphold that we have First and
Fourteenth Amendment rights according to federal law. As employees of
the state you may not deny anyone their rights to free speech and
association arbitrarily and without due process. In fact, if you read
Thornburgh v. Abbot, 490 U.S. 401, which you referred [COLLEAGUE] to,
you will see that its procedural protection was provided because the
publisher was notified of the censorship and given the right to
independent review. A number of U.S. Court of Appeals decisions have
upheld the right of the publisher in such instances (Montcalm Publ’g
Corp. v. Beck, 80 F.3d 105, 106 (4th Cir.), Trudeau v. Wyrick, 713 F.2d
1360, 1366 (8th Cir.1983), Martin v. Kelley, 803 F.2d 236, 243-44 (6th
Cir.1986) ).” - MIM Distributors, Legal Assistant
And ADC’s response?
“You assert that ‘MIM Distributors’ First Amendment right to free
speech’ is not being respected. The Arizona Department of Corrections is
obligated to respect, within the confines of legitimate penological
interests, an inmate’s constitutional rights. It does not follow
that ADC is likewise obliged to do the same for an independent
distributor such as MIM.” - General Counsel, Karyn Klausner
It is apparent that the ADC believes themselves to be exempt from the
legal straitjacket of the United $tates Constitution, which they don’t
see as having an application in the 10th Circuit. This isn’t surprising
coming from an institution whose administrators believe that one can
promote racial and/or religious repression without ever talking about
race or religion!
Amerikans like to pretend they hold no political prisoners, yet
political repression is an integral part of the U.$. injustice system at
every step. In our struggle for a world without oppression, MIM(Prisons)
works to build public opinion for national liberation struggles amongst
prisoners through our newsletter Under Lock & Key, our free
books for prisoners program, and our study groups. Within prisons, there
are two primary ways in which the state enacts political repression:
through physical torture techniques such as solitary confinement, forced
drugging, beatings, starvation and murder; and through the control of
the spread of ideas, which also includes solitary confinement as well as
the censorship of mail, and outlawing oppressed nation organizations.
In pre-fascist Amerika, we are still promised certain rights under
United $tates laws. While we recognize that U.$. law will never lead us
to communism (a world without oppression), we still need to fight for
more room to organize and educate for revolution. Fighting against the
censorship of revolutionary literature is vital to maintaining the
connection between the inside and out, which may make the difference
between being turned on to communism or not for many people. For those
already turned on, we need to fight against censorship so that we can
continue to build our revolutionary understanding.
Like a MIM Distributors Legal Assistant mentioned above, we are not
lawyers. We do what we can to protect our Constitutional rights from the
outside with the resources we have, and we rely on prisoners to fight to
maintain their rights from the inside. If there is a lawyer who wants to
get involved with this specific incident in Arizona, or with
anti-censorship work in general, get in touch!
Determining who to write to regarding a specific issue is a tactical
question. One day it may be most important to write to the Director of
Corrections, the other it may be the Office of the Inspector General. We
make tactical decisions based on our conditions at the time. In this
circumstance, participants in the campaign to
end the
Z-Unit Zoo were bringing this issue to many government bodies,
including the Director of Corrections and the Inspector General.
In this response from the office of the Division of Adult Institutions,
A. Redding advises the participant to exhaust the appeals process.
Clearly in the petition, it says that many grievances have been filed
and none have been answered. This response is a good example of how
inhumane conditions and abuse can hide behind the bureaucracy of the
state under capitalism.
The above letter is a response from a Corrections Counselor II
Specialist (CCII) of the California Department of Corrections and
Rehabilitation (CDCR) to a prisoner in California who submitted to h the
grievance for the proper handling of grievances. Even though a CCII is
in a position to influence whether grievances are handled in a legal or
illegal manner, at least within h institution, in this letter A. Redding
advises the prisoner to file a lawsuit or contact the Inspector General
on the matter.
In this response to a grievance petition from California sent to the
Department of Justice (DOJ), they minimize the widespread scale of
corruption of the grievance system in the California state prison
system. Instead they are asking for facts and dates related to single
incidents or perpetrators.
In
“Bad
Apples” in the Pig Pen we explained why a focus on targeting
individual pigs is incorrect in most cases in our struggle because the
problems we address are societal. Although societal problems manifest in
individual pigs, focusing all of our energy trying to get one or two
pigs fired from our facility doesn’t significantly impact society as a
whole.
One may argue that the DOJ just needs a place to begin their
investigation. However, the petition makes it clear that this problem is
widespread throughout the system. Realistically they could interview
prisoners at random for details and receive enough information to begin
an investigation. Their narrow and sterile approach to “justice” is just
a cover for their interests in maintaining the status quo.
Hundreds of people gathered in downtown Oakland to mourn Oscar Grant and
express outrage at the light sentence given to his murderer, Johannes
Mehserle. Mehserle shot Grant in the back while he lay face down on the
ground. For this execution-style murder, he got 2 years in prison with
credit for time served on an involuntary manslaughter charge. The judge
gave the jury incorrect instructions for how to apply the gun
enhancement, and decided to just drop it, thus lowering Mehserle’s
maximum possible sentence to 4 instead of 14 years, rather than retry
the case. According to those inside the courthouse at the time of
sentencing, the judge openly blamed Grant and his friends for the
murder.
We didn’t expect justice from the system, but the whole struggle did
bring advances in revolutionary organizing in the region. The November 5
demonstration looked like others from the movement for justice for Oscar
Grant, but missing were the non-profits trying to run the show and
divide the protesters. It was refreshing to hear consistent messages
that encouraged people to get organized, stressed the need for
nation-based organizing (while uniting Black and Brown), refused to work
with the government and denounced the
outside
agitator line.
The city-sanctioned demo ended with a live performance of “Operation
Verdict (Fuck Dat)” by local artists Unity, Sinista Z, & Ras Ceylon.
Here’s the last verse:
Revolutionaries speak with clarity and overstand an injury to
one affects us all like Oscar Grant. Cuz I am we and we are
he So you will see us in the streets Yellin “Fuck da
Police!” No justice, no peace these non-profits is weak tryin’
to water down the movement and cut off free speech gettin paid by
the beast to calm the rage of our seeds that are sick of the
oppression that they daily gotta see and live with. You
idiot ain’t no outside agitators ’cept these murderous
pigs with the gun, badge and a taser so see ya later if you
tryin to claim that leadership you ain’t nothing but a snitch and
a politician’s bitch Fuck dat! Police out here knockin brothers
down Fuck dat! Trying to move the cats to somewhere out of
town Fuck dat! You know the state wanna water this shit
down Fuck dat!
Flattbush’s newest album Otomatik Attak (Koolarrow Records) is
a prime example of form meeting content to create a superior piece of
cultural art. A metal/grind band out of Los Angeles founded by two
members originally from the Philippines, Flattbush keeps a “fuck the
system” tradition alive with themes of atheism, revolt, and
anti-capitalism. These comrades scream for liberation in English,
Tagalog, and Kapampangan, accompanied by guest vocals in Spanish. They
go the distance lyrically by focusing on U.$. fascism and imperialism in
the Philippines, calling on the people to stand up against the Gloria
Macapagal-Arroyo dictatorship in people’s war.
From “Dear Uncle Sam,”
the sadistic american imperialists they are always at war and they
always dictate so they can maintain their self interests but uncle
sam we are not afraid of your high tech warfare and atomic
bombs uncle sam fuck you uncle sam it is necessary to take
action it is necessary to oust the u.s. gloria fascist regime if
not now then when?
And from “Otomatik Attak,”
automatic attack on the people the strike of the fascist to
wipe out the solution to their attack is to counter
attack people’s war
Flattbush hopes to expand their cultural work to the Philippines in the
near future, live! To show solidarity with the peasant masses, the lead
vocalist often performs in a conical straw hat and plain jacket, similar
to a Mao suit. Supporting his powerful and compelling vocals, the
bassist, guitarist, and drummer are all phenomenal players. On stage
they are humble, not pausing for applause between songs. This album
would satisfy anyone into metal for the music, or anyone who is fighting
intensely for revolution. Get more info about Flattbush from
[url=http://www.flattbush.com.]www.flattbush.com.
When people react this way to a Black man being murdered execution style
by the pigs, the city of Oakland blamed it on “outside agitators.”
1 November 2010, The San Francisco Giants won the World Series, and in
addition to the tens of thousands of fans in the stadium, an estimated
12 million people watched the game on TV (not counting the millions
watching in sports bars, restaurants and other public venues). As in
other winning cities in years past, the city of the winning team erupted
into “joyful mayhem,” as the San Francisco Chronicle calls it,
with tens of thousands of people taking to the streets in drunken
celebration that included property destruction, traffic disruption, and
violence.
In classic bourgeois press form, pretending neutrality, the SF
Chronicle’s headline article today was titled “SF Giants Series
Celebration is Joyful Mayhem” and stated: “On Market Street, the
celebration quickly turned wild and unruly, with an estimated 7,000
revelers in the streets, some jumping on cars, rocking Muni buses,
tossing beer bottles, lighting fireworks and blocking traffic at Seventh
Street.” A much smaller article, hidden on the Chronicle
website, also mentioned “In the Mission, there have been reports of
fires, broken windows and an alleged stabbing.” Compare this with the
same newspaper’s January 8, 2009 report on the Oscar Grant protests. The
article was titled “Protests Over BART Shooting Turn Violent” and gave a
negative review of the protest which “mushroomed into several hours of
violence Wednesday night as demonstrators smashed storefronts and cars,
set several cars ablaze and blocked streets.”
We see that the same street violence is condoned when it’s in the name
of professional sports. Police wandering the streets after the World
Series were friendly, often clapping and cheering, and shutting down
streets to help out traffic while enabling the celebration. During the
Oscar Grant protest the cops showed up in riot gear and
attacked the crowd.
While we’re no fans of imperialist
elections, the World Series victory happened the night before election
day and begs the comparison: people are more passionate about baseball
than they are about the political future of their country/state/city.
This is no surprise to those of us familiar with the decadence of
Amerikan imperialism. Amerikans don’t need to worry about politics – the
government is working in their interests to secure resources at the
expense of Third World peoples to maintain wealth at home.
Sports passion includes a remarkable number of fans cheering “we did
it!” and “we won!” as if they had anything to do with the team that won
the game. In reality the SF Giants, like all professional sports teams,
are made up of players from across the country, who are paid a
ridiculous amount of money to wear a jersey for this team. Their
allegiance to the city lasts only as long as the paycheck continues. In
fact people point to statistics about the Giants’ last World Series
victory 56 years ago when they were based in New York as if that team
had something more in common with the SF Giants than the font they use
for their logo.
MIM(Prisons) would like to take all the sports passion in Amerika and
turn it against imperialist violence or world hunger. We’d even call it
progress if people get off the couch and play sports rather than get
drunk watching millionaires play. Perhaps the improved circulation would
help people think a bit more rationally about politics and the relative
importance of professional sports.
