Under Lock & Key

As revolutionaries we recognize the important role of understanding history and culture and how a correct analysis of them aids the people in breaking the chains of national oppression.

If imperialism is the control and exploitation of poor nations by rich nations then cultural imperialism is the domination and negation of a poor nation's culture and history. When an oppressed nation practices the culture and participates in the celebrating of the national holidays of their oppressors, they are, in fact, celebrating their own oppression, cultural domination and genocide.

In the United $nakes, oppressed nations tend to celebrate the oppressive white nation's holidays and culture with more enthusiasm than the white folks. Back during chattel slavery this could have been understandable, because it meant we didn't have to work in the white man's fields for free. But today, the reality is different.

The 4th of July (Amerikkka's day of independence) is upon us again and New Afrikan (Black) people and other internal oppressed nations have absolutely nothing to celebrate. It is a downright disrespect to our people's historic struggle to be out celebrating, partying and bullshitting, when we should be in the streets agitating, educating and organizing the masses for social revolutionary struggle for national independence. When we gain our independence, then let's celebrate.

The 4th of July is a Euro-Amerikan cultural and political holiday in recognition of their successful revolutionary struggle to break the chains of English colonial bondage. On July 4, 1776, Black, Latino and First Nation people were catching hell! We were enslaved, being exploited and murdered, so what the hell is our cause for celebration? Do we suffer from some sort of cultural and historical amnesia?

Check out what Frederick Douglas had to say to the white folk who asked him to speak at a fourth of July celebration:

"Fellow citizens, pardon me and allow me to ask, why am I called upon to speak here today? Perhaps you mean to mock me. For what have I to do with your celebration? What to the American slave is your fourth of July? I answer, a day that reveals to him more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is a constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham, your boasted liberty an unholy license, your national greatness, a swelling vanity, your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless, your denunciation of tyrants, brass-fronted impudence. Your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery, your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgiving, with all your religious parades and solemnity, hypocrisy - a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages."

What you say and do is a reflection of who you are. The only true culture of the oppressed is a revolutionary culture that is built throughout the struggle for national liberation. The people's culture is not some far off distant time that has long ago burned out in some distant land. It is alive and developing out of the people's struggle against oppression and exploitation.

The Department of Corruptions, under the guise of safety and security is slowly but surely succeeding in their divide and conquer strategy. They have already been successful at convincing individuals to snitch by offering those who choose to take that road a safe haven. While at the same time they're inciting conflicts in General Population. Here recently the captain of D-yard told a crip inmate that a blood inmate informed on him. Instead of them seeing this for what it was, these two guys ran around the yard telling anybody who would listen that the person was a snitch. The result was that the blood stabbed the crip in the law library. This resulted in the whole Black population being placed on lockdown for 60 days. The excuse for the lockdown was that they had to investigate the situation.

They released a program status report the day after the incident and passed out copies to everyone. They wanted everyone to know it was a blood and crip that was involved. Under any other circumstances it takes the pigs 30 days to release a program status report. At the same time the pigs were walking around like school kids making comments intended to incite the blood and crip conflict. Normally when something like this occurs they only lockdown the groups involved. But this time they locked down all Blacks, which was strange because this was a one-on-one issue that was provoked by the pigs. But this is the norm here in Kern Valley.

This is a maximum security prison. Guys around here claim to be militant revolutionaries, hardcore gangsters and solid convicts. But all I see is a bunch of fools looking for some type of recognition and popularity, until we all wake up and realize that we have to unite in order to overcome the oppressors then we must accept what we get. United we stand, divided we fall, together we can stand tall. Until that happens the pigs will continue to divide and conquer.

I must promptly apologize for not writing in a while. These pigs here are opening my letters to you and destroying the contents inside. I've also been helping the brothers (Black and Brown) here at the notorious Clinton max.

Since the new superintendent took over back in April 2010 there's been a slew of assaults by corruption officers on the Black and Brown. Keep in mind this superintendent was once an officer, sgt, capt, and deputy. Back in April a pig broke his nightstick over a brother's shoulder after the individual was laid out on the yard grounds. In May a young Muslim brother who was wearing sweatpants to the yard was assaulted by several dastardly pigs so badly that the brother defecated on himself. Of course you know they charge the prisoner with assault so that they can justify using force that is extremely excessive with impunity.

Also in May an older Mexican brother who doesn't speak much english, nor does he understand it, was told to place his hands on the wall, only the pig motioned with his finger. He didn't understand so he put both hands on top of his head, he was then assaulted. This same brother was assaulted again when he was being escorted back to his cell. He was punched in his ribs and hit by a nightstick in his kidney area along with his wrist being twisted and bruised. This brother is 119 pounds soaking wet. He was also denied food. He's a diabetic and has mental issues and was spitting up blood.

The next day I saw him in the yard and a few Mexican brothers told me what happened and I was furious! As a brother and a member of the Inmate Liaison Committee(ILC) I took the prisoner, who was still spitting up blood, to the COs post and explained his need for medical attention. He did receive medical treatment, and x-rays and reports showed that he had fractured ribs, photos of bruises and a twisted wrist. After I translated a grievance form from Spanish to English about the abuse, he was threatened by more abuse if he didn't "sign off" the grievance. He didn't sign off and because of that he was retaliated on while coming back from commissary. He was picked out of line an put on the wall, while everyone else locked in. He was then handcuffed and a plastic bag was put on his head until he passed out. He woke up in a daze (still shackled) and now wet from the waist down from urinating on himself. The coward ass pig hurled racial slurs at him, and that's when brothers started yelling "leave him the fuck alone!" He left for a so-called hospital trip in June and he hasn't been seen since. I have all of this information first hand from the prisoner.

In May a brother was accosted in E-Block (SHU) by two pigs who jumped on him. There was blood high on the walls. After handcuffing they swing you like a pendulum high against the wall and watch you drop on your face, head, body, etc. There was so much blood that it ended up underneath the E-block door. I personally know the brother who did the clean up and he told me "It looked like something out of CSI."

Two years ago, then Supt Artus issued a memo after numerous complaints by ILC and individuals throughout the population. He issued one on "use of force" and another on "professional demeanor." These memos have been and continue to be blatantly disregarded just like many complaints and grievances. The administration speaks with the same rhetoric "staff abuse will not be tolerated" but as you can see nothing has changed. The roughshod is becoming more and more like the practices at Gitmo!

Today, while in the yard, there was friction between the Muslims and the LOs. Yesterday got real ugly between the two, resulting in brothers being scared for their lives. As they met in the center of the yard, the pigs were well prepared with rifles in hand and nightsticks. As they recorded the yard I could see it in their eyes that they were anticipating "tribalism." Many brothers couldn't see what was about to take place. Although the beef was squashed (thanks to the Muslim brothers), I just can't see how we don't recognize who our true enemy is!

In hindsight, almost 40 years ago when troopers entered into the notorious Attica prison on a "murderous rampage" killing 29 prisoners and 10 of their own, they also used "dum dum" bullets which explode on impact. I'm forgetting to mention it was against Geneva codes back then as it is now. There's also footage that shows caucasians (COs) yelling "white power" after the gunshots rang out. Even now, almost 40 years later, a plaque still remains in front of Attica honoring the co-called bravery of the 10 pigs who they killed. Autopsy showed they died from ground shot wounds. It doesn't show any type of condolences for us prisoners who were murdered. This shows that 1) These pigs will not only kill the Black and Brown with impunity but also kill their own and call it bravery, friendly fire, etc. 2) I personally feel that there should be only 2 gangs: us and them!

In conclusion, prisons are the Alma Mater of terrorism with quasi-torture tactics! Think about it, how else can a small group of people (COs) maintain and rule a much greater number of people (prisoners)? Stop reading this article and actually think about that. The most concise answer is by "terror"! We are all victims of the Amerikan social order. Violence is an Amerikan tradition, it's citizens thrive off it, and are addicted to it and enchanted by it. We have been so desensitized that we fall victim so easily to Willie Lynch syndrome, this modern day even. Bottom line is we need more solidarity between the Black and Brown!" It seems that my efforts are becoming useless due to the hostility I get when I confront my brothers involved in these Lumpen Organizations. The leaders especially insist on dismissing me as "stuck in the 60s mentality." So now the mentality of the masses is "thuggery" and "gangsterism."

MIM(Prisons) adds: Too many people are brainwashed by BET and XXL into thinking self-hatred and individualism is something new and trendy. We join this prisoner in calling for a United Front for Peace of all Lumpen Organizations active in prison and on the streets. We are currently drafting a statement of unity for this United Front and will look to leading LOs to sign and propagate it behind bars. Write to us to get involved in this project.

I sent the grievance petition to the Director of Corrections [in the California Department of Corrections (CDCR)] on the flawed grievance system and how prison officials are purposely violating our rights by using oppressive tactics to stop and hinder us in filing administrative appeals. I received a letter back via a Redding CC II supervisor of high security and transitional housing, stating my letter was received and that the office of the inspector general has the authority to investigate complaints of officials of the CDCR for acts of administrative wrong doing. Basically, the CDCR isn't going to investigate said allegations but I'm welcome to try and get somebody else to. I'm going to strike up an administrative appeal on this issue for I have had a lot of appeals screened out for arbitrary reasons that in some cases can't be met, appeals lost, and just given the run around when trying to get my issues heard. But the appeals coordinator has previously screened out an appeal on him for arbitrarily screening out one of my appeals saying that the appeals coordinator's decision to screen out an appeal "can't be appealed" so I already know filing any kind of an administrative appeal on such an issue will be an uphill battle.

I am one of the 50 to 60 northern hispanics who were wrongly swept up in a mass validation sweep on High Desert State Prison's (HDSP) C-yard and placed in Z-unit (Ad-Seg) on false, unreliable, and insufficient information that doesn't amount to "some evidence" that I'm a prison gang associate. HDSP and CDCR are continuing to deny our administrative appeals, when we can show clear violations of their regulations and the law in how they validated us. I currently have appeals in on my validation. The fact is that they are not allowing us to receive our appliances in Z-unit when our privilege group allows such, the inadequate law library herein, and the fact that we are being held in Z-unit for years and not being transferred to the Security Housing Units. HDSP staff acts as if they're above all laws/rules and can do whatever they want.

I would also like to comment on the false snitches HDSP is breeding. For example, I was placed in Ad-Seg due to Institutional Gang Investigations (IGI) claiming they had sufficient evidence to validate me. But when I was given my validation package it was seen that I was placed in Ad-Seg when I only had one point towards my validation and I didn't receive the other two points that they needed for almost another month. Now IGI was hoping that someone would break and be willing to say anything to get out of Z-unit. You see when someone starts snitching they are moved to a building that allows them to have their appliances and other extra privileges that we are denied here in Z-unit so people desperate to get out of Z-unit will tell the debriefers exactly what they want to hear, be it true or, in most cases, false. Further, the prisoners snitching are usually validated, meaning they went through the whole process, know what the prison officials want to hear and the wording/terms to implicate someone. This system is highly unreliable for anyone can name a prisoner, give h a label/title and prison officials will validate themj just on that type of information.

These are issues that I'm currently dealing with and fighting and I thank you for reading it and also giving it some exposure in your newsletter.

MIM(Prisons) adds: The petition this comrade is referring to is part of the campaign to demand an answer to grievances that are often ignored, destroyed, or screened out for arbitrary reasons. Currently comrades have created petitions specific to California, Missouri, Texas and Oklahoma. If you know prisoners who are having their grievances ignored, get in touch with us to get involved in this campaign.

I am caged up here in this racist Texas Department of Criminal Justice where Mexicans and African-Americans are treated unfairly. As everyone knows, this justice system is one of the biggest in the country. It is so overcrowded. Texas is in debt so bad that they need to make budget cuts to save money. But they won't even consider releasing people as a way to save money.

Well, another reason I'm writing is to address the issue of racism and censorship. Whenever Mexicans attempt to order books on our culture, especially revolutionaries, it is denied. Their excuse is that it is "gang-related." The general library here at this facility has a few books, maybe 5, on a little Mexican history. But when we take notes for our knowledge, and future use, these notes are confiscated by officers during routine cell searches, and labeled as "gang-related." Then the person who was in possession of it is placed on a watch list.

So these people all across Texas prisons do this to us, we are being denied our culture, to be able to study it without fear. Meanwhile, all of their racist propaganda material is readily available, and allowed to enter with no problems.

We've also had to deal with officers racist remarks toward Mexicans and Blacks. The grievance system here is useless. This is a whole network of klansmembers. So they all cover for each other. When we speak up and make it known we won't tolerate any of this, we are retaliated against.

I really appreciate your newsletter. It is very informative. I can relate to the revolutionary mindset completely. I educate myself as much as possible and I do my best to get others around me to do the same. I stand up for my rights as much as possible. These people know I won't be intimidated. They can lock me up but they won't take my pride or will to fight for what is right.

First and foremost, I would like to salute all the comrades around the world that stood up and protested against Arizona's Jim Crow laws of segregation. Amerikkka's up to its dirty tricks once again. All was fine when they rode the backs of Latinos for cheap labor, but now that individuals are using their minds and starting their own small businesses, they (the U.S. or Arizona) want them out because they can't use (exploit) them any more. Never turn your back on a snake! Amerika was built upon corporate capitalism. If Latinos are all illegal then Christopher Columbus was illegal when he "came" to Amerikkka.

The Columbus anniversary is a celebration of mass murder, slavery, and conquest. He used religion and guns (after he was welcomed as a guest) against the Blacks and the indigenous in the Americas, mistakenly called Indians. All this was done in the name of white supremacy based upon the concept of "chosen people" and manifest destiny, and was designed to further cultural genocide and maintain mental slavery. Arizona is trying to put this back in full swing. They are capitalist parasites; blood-thirsty opportunists. People who would sell their own grandmother's burial plot. Amerikkka is a region of political injustice and great suffering. Columbus didn't discover shit, he came to America and exploited America with his illegal ass!!!

I'm a powerful Black conscious man, so I yell out Black Power and I fully support my Latino comrades in struggle and solidarity. And we demand justice or there will be no peace!

In struggle

I'm writing in regards to a letter I had read asking for us prisoners to provide art in order to convey the message of injustice in prison. As you know in prison there are many unjust actions that occur on a daily basis so there is a lot to draw on. However, one of the many recent hardships brought upon us Mexicans (specifically northerners) is a mass validation sweep in High Desert State Prison on 8/4/09. 58 northern hispanics were taken off the mainline without due process and stuck in Ad-Seg (Z unit). Now we are all diligently striving to appeal these false fabricated lies on our people but administration has found a new way to hinder our progress by preventing us ample time to go to the law library, making it difficult to get Title 15s, make copies, etc.

I am writing to you to seek advice, assistance or referral on how to get word out about biased racial profiling, mass validation, and their failure to follow their own policies and laws. Now let me just give a quick run down on what is going on here at High Desert State Prison (HDSP). In August 2009, the California Department of Corrections' goon squad, Institutional Gang Investigators, took all personal property from all "northern Hispanic" inmates on C-facility and at this time removed between 40 to 50 "northern Hispanics" from the mainline and validated us as prison gang members. Several inmates were placed on potty watch. (This is where inmates are placed in a diaper taped up and handcuffed 24 hours a day and forced to use a plastic bag to relieve themselves.) The inmates were eventually validated as gang members and are retained in ASU and we are not being transferred to appropriate prisons. Most of the points used against us were either made up or do not meet guidelines of the law to validate us. There are a lot of violations of federal and state laws going on here but I'm going to keep this brief.

MIM(Prisons) adds: The U.$. imperialists have divided the Chicano Nation (and Latinos in general) in California by drawing a line across the middle of the state and labeling those who grew up north of that line "northern Hispanics." They call the "northerners" and "southerners" gangs worthy of repression, yet countless comrades have been forced into these groups by the CDCR themselves. Early in the process, they assigned certain prisons and units to "northerners" and others to "southerners." Then when they want to lock up all the Latinos they can do so and say they are dealing with a "gang."

It is an absolute joke that this thinly veiled form of national oppression passes as legal in a bourgeois democracy. Of course, there are neo-colonial agents that have played into these divisions from the beginning. Just as the Amerikans divided Korea and Vietnam between north and south by setting up puppet leaderships, they have done the same in U.$.-occupied Aztlán. This is why the demand for the unification of oppressed nations and their territories is an inherently anti-imperialist demand.

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A new report from the NATO allies revealed the true story behind drone attacks in Afghanistan. A few months back the man of change, Obama, ordered strikes killing three or four Taliban fighters and one hundred and forty some-odd civilians, among them children and wimmin. What a change for the people of the u.$. and the rest of the world! What a change for the oppression of wimmin in Afghanistan! Change came to the Afghan people in the form of 30,000 more troops to oppress, kill and torture them on their own land.

All this was done under the noses of amerikans without a protest. What happened to all those protesters under the Bush administration? The war against the oppressed has not stopped. Have they given up? That is the exact result when people trying to change an oppressive system do not have the right strategy or understanding of how to go about it.

What the Afghan and Iraqi brothers and sisters are going through is what occurred to the Mexica, Incas, Tainos and the rest of the native people of the land now called the Americas.

The capitalist system must destroy, oppress, kill and exploit in order to sustain itself. That is why the united snakes has two war fronts at the same time. We must not allow the destruction that the Iraqi and Afghan people are facing. We must fight to stop the continuation of oppression and exploitation of the rest of the world.

So far, the only way available to stop the exploitation and oppression of humyn beings by other humyn beings is through the formation of a government with a communist philosophy. This is a government we need to struggle harder to form, because the existence of the people of the world is at risk.

You, who believe in caring for your people, study communism. You, who want to help other people and nations, don't wait until a natural disaster hits as the one in Haiti. Study socialism. You, who consider yourself a revolutionary, don't be half-way revolutionary. Revolutionaries are constant causers or helpers of change. Be that every possible moment of your life.

Let's change the capitalist society into a socialist society, and then the socialist into a communist and beyond as we reach communism. For the better well-being of our children's future, brothers and sisters.

note: World Focus with Daijit Dhaliwal. PBS. February 5, 2010.

MIM(Prisons) adds: Today, reports emerged of a u.$./NATO bombing that claimed to be an attack on Taliban fighters, but it turned out to be a civilian convoy and 33 people were killed. Uncounted tens of thousands of people have been killed in Afghanistan since the u.$. occupation began in 2001.

This comrade applies the concepts of line, strategy and tactics to an international issue well in this article. We also commend h for writing an article on international news, and encourage others to follow this example, making connections between the prison struggle and the struggle of oppressed people around the world.

One thing we would add in regards to line is a deeper analysis of the protesters and other amerikans who claim to oppose the occupation of Afghanistan. For those who are serious, we must push a more radical agenda and a studying of Maoism and communism as the writer does. But what holds back most amerikans is that they don't have a life or death interest in opposing imperialism. On the contrary, amerikans benefit from imperialism, so condemnations of war often come in the form of moralistic verbal protests, with little power or force to back it up. That said, our strategy must be adapted to this situation and we must focus on organizing the minority within u.$. borders that can be organized against imperialism. We must organize that minority around anti-imperialist demands that serve them and move them to committed struggle, and we must connect that to the struggles of the international proletariat, which are the foundation of communist revolution. We will explore these ideas more in our upcoming newsletters focused on strategy and tactics.