Under Lock & Key

Welcome to the Revolution! This is Alien, back with Part II to my last article from ULK #86: Response to “Stop Snitching: Stop Collaborating”.

I disagree with this California prisoner’s definition of snitching in the 2nd paragraph of the “Stop Snitching on Pigs” article (also in ULK 86). Not all snitching is done to a “higher authority.” To snitch is to incriminate an ally, or should-be ally, through written/verbal statements made to anyone who could be a pig/rat/enemy, in general. If I take incriminating info/intel to a rat, or to somebody who views the pigs as “allies”, through gossip/rumors/incriminating raps (AKA rhyming witness statements), then this is snitching. It’s well-known that this type of gossip/rumors often finds its way to the higher authorities. The problem is that this form of snitching, via gossip/rumors/raps, happens so routinely that everybody is typically guilty of doing it, which means that nobody’s trying to enforce anti-gossip/anti-rumors/anti-incriminating rap. You never know you’re gossiping to a MFer on 60-days-in, or a fuckin’ pig dressed up/tatted up like a convict. I’ve seen many rats feed all kinds of gossip to the enemy. Convicts gossiping about other convicts is just as bad as convicts writing grievances on other convicts, snitch-wise, it’s just that grievances are documented on paper while gossip isn’t always documented. However, just because an incriminating statement isn’t documented on paper doesn’t mean it’s not what it is – snitching. Gossip, rumors, and incriminating raps aren’t silence, and thus, violate the code of silence.

Why would you gossip about somebody who you claim to be loyal to, when that “somebody” is somebody you claim you’d never snitch on? Some say “a man’s only as good as eir word,” but if you’re using your word behind somebody’s back, it means your words can’t be trusted. If your word can’t be trusted, it’s no good. How am I supposed to be loyal to people who I can’t trust? Besides, if you’re gossiping about everybody else, then why can’t they be gossiping about you? What they’ll do to you, they’ll do to me. An organization plagued by gossip is a ship that’ll sink at the words of loose lips. (Mao discussed this in part in eir essay Combat Liberalism). Plus infiltrators can weaponize gossip to keep everybody against each other. The revolution demands open confrontation. In a time of war (seeing as how prison is war, gossiping to any enemy about an ally is disloyalty/snitching. Don’t be scared to pull MFer’s up and encourage confrontation.

Gossip/rumors, as an aspect of communication, are a contradiction within the masses that stirs up all kinds of dramatic manipulation/schemes/disorganization/confusion/division/etc. If we’re to wage a campaign against gossip/rumors/incriminating rap. Criticism/self-criticism is not to be conducted behind comrade’s backs. We need our organizations gossip/rumor-free, if we’re to succeed in our number-one goal.

Time, for a Revolutionary, is more than just money; Time, for a Revolutionary, is waging Revolution – with emphasis placed on the word “wage”/“waging.” You wage Revolution against the enemy, not with the enemy. Don’t waste much time loosening one’s lips with the enemy, if it’s not words spoken in the name of the Revolution.

Seeing as how Communism is a society where no group has power over any other group, I’d like our next articles to discuss how we can change individuals, who collaborate with our powerful enemies and view them as allies, into viewing the powerless as allies, who aren’t to be collaborated against, or snitched on – a shift in loyalties, through dialectical materialism’s resolution of contradictions.

In y’all’s experience, what strategies/tactics have y’all applied behind bars, in order to internally change other prisoners’ loyalties, in favor of Revolution? What new strategies can we come up with? How do we get people to start caring about people who need help, instead of $, drugs, sex, and power?

Can a communist society exist with individuals abusing powerful words against each other, through snitching, gossiping, rumors, incriminating raps, etc., or with collaboration against one another? (I personally don’t see a communist society tolerating bullshit like that). What will communication, on/off the internet, look like in a communist society and how will it be organized? Remember, communication rules the nation(s), so it’s very important to address this in our campaigns, if we’re to succeed. The problem is that it’s hard enough for many of us to control our own mouths, let alone the mouths of an entire society. How do we organize our communications leading up to socialist Revolution?

It’s time to put the Revolution where your mouth is.

NOTE: This is why MIM said that, under the dictatorship of the proletariat, party members will be paid the rate of the lowest paid workers in society.

I would like to clarify terms or, perhaps better stated, to give solidity to concepts. Those of us in these revolutionary spaces tend to preach to those who are already converted who don’t need convincing. We become a sort of revolutionary ghetto developing our own lingo so that we become isolated and our movements incognito. An essential part of any resistance is the ability to reach people, the common people, where they are, and to do that they have to know what we’re talking about. So, what does it even mean to protest? To resist? What is the best way to deal with oppression? The proletariat (common people) need to know.

Protesting usually takes the form of taking to the streets en masse to express grievance about an issue. An archaic definition of the word is “to make known,” which protesting excels at, getting the word out. The problem with this tactic is that it is the only tactic people, the masses, are familiar with. Protesting is temporal in nature, it cannot last forever, and every oppressor knows this. People come out, make a lot of noise, but ultimately go home and go back to regular life. Moreover, in the United States there are rules on how citizens are allowed to protest, because protests have to be “peaceful” and “lawful”. Note: anytime an authority is telling you how to “resist” them it is because they know it will not work. Can a movement be effective while following the rules of the oppressor? Any movement that tries to be peaceful, unoffensive or otherwise not disruptive is still-born in its inception. By nature, resistance is not peaceful. It will offend, and it must disrupt the actions of those who seek to oppress you. Protesting is a viable tactic, but we must recognize its limits.

Resistance is something different than a mere protest. Resistance makes an all-out effort against whatever power is creating the negative condition under which the people suffer. It does not marry itself to a singular strategy or tactic. Rather, resistance is “by any means necessary”. It can pick one tactic, use it, then switch to another tactic. Resistance has the flexibility to change according to circumstance. Resistance also has no time limit. It can last for months, years and even generations before victory is won. Case in point: NATO, which contains some of the world’s most powerful militaries, occupied Afghanistan for 21 years. When they pulled out in 2021, the Taliban, which had been resisting occupation for decades against military superpowers, took the country within the month. From this example we can learn some essentials of resistance. (1) It has no time limit. (2) There must be the belief that victory is possible. (3) It must come from ideology, not a mere trend. And (4), perhaps the most important, resistance comes from self-sacrifice. When you make the decision to align yourself against oppressive systems, take stock of the cost. Know that your movement may well out-live you. You must believe what you’re fighting for is not only righteous but also possible. The movement may cost you time, money, status, relationships, even your life or your freedom. You may not live to see the good you’re fighting for be actualized. Will you put in the work anyway? For the sake of future generations? If you are not able to pay the costs, this is not the right place for you. Self-sacrifice is not for everyone. “Revolutionary suicide” was the phrase the founder of the Black Panther Party coined.

Power does not lose its grasp willingly. Power wants to proliferate itself, to maintain its experience of control. It will not let go without a fight. If you’re willing to keep resisting, not just merely making noise in protest, then there is room at the table for you. And if you’re serious about tomorrow’s work you will start wherever you are, with whatever you have, today.

MIM(Prisons) responds: We agree with the righteous call of Fred Hampton, “I am the proletariat, I’m not the pig”, as we too fight in the interests of the international proletariat. However, today we’d say the vast majority of people in this country are not of the proletariat, and this is important for understanding the class interests around us and how to organize those around us to be in line with the proletariat, who are mostly located in Third World countries. And we agree sacrifice is necessary, but everyone should get in where they fit in. The movement’s success requires all levels of support.

As many of our readers know, one of the primary obstacles MIM(Prisons) and AIPS face in our work is the censorship of our mail by prison administrators. In ULK 86, we published a censorship report detailing some of the brazen lies these administrators use to justify withholding mail from their rightful recipients. Not much has changed on this front, but that’s to be expected. After all, did we really expect the pigs to stop their oinking?

At the same time, our efforts to combat this censorship have not wavered. We have continued to respond to every instance of censorship we receive notice about, whether that notice be from the prison itself or from a comrade on the inside. Since our last report, we have issued over 20 appeals to censorship cases which have included more than 50 letters being sent to prisoners, wardens, and various government institutions. Unfortunately, most of the appeals we send out do not result in successes where our mailed materials get to their intended recipients. The most frequent conclusion of our appeals is that the prison simply stops responding to our communications. Even when we play by their rules, the oppressors still can decide, at any point, to do whatever it is they want. This is exemplified by the following case of censorship in Georgia.

Georgia and CoreCivic

Back in October 2024, we received several letters we sent to prisoners at Coffee Correctional Facility in Nicholls, Georgia marked “Return to Sender” and “Unauthorized Materials”. The materials we sent them were, ironically enough, our guide to fighting censorship as well as our unconfirmed mail form simply asking whether they received the materials we had previously sent. When we tried to file an appeal for this censorship and to follow up with the prisoners at this facility over the proceeding months, all of our attempts were returned with the word “BANNED” handwritten on the envelopes. It is worth noting that Coffee CF is ran by the company CoreCivic and that we have had similar issues with getting mail to prisoners located at other CoreCivic-ran facilities.

The U.$. courts have ruled that prisons are not allowed to institute blanket bans on materials sent from a publisher, yet this is exactly what has happened to us at Coffee CF. Despite the fact that the materials contained nothing that could be construed as a “security threat” (a favorite of the pigs that work in the mail room), the prison administration has refused to address anything we sent them. The lesson here is the same as outlined above: the government and prisons make up endless rules, protocols, and policies while selectively choosing, on any given day, which to follow and which to discard. The natural question, then, is, why do we commit to fighting censorship when our efforts can be nullified by any random C.O. working in the mail room?

Censorship as a Site of Struggle

It is common in political spaces for people to talk about “human rights”. Endless debate is had over defining what exactly a “human right” is and when it is okay to violate said rights (which is typically just a post-hoc justification of the abuse and murder of the oppressed). We here at MIM(Prisons) and AIPS, however, disdain the very category of “human rights” itself. We say that there are no rights, there are only power struggles.

Thus, when we discuss a subject such as censorship in prisons, there are two ways to view it. From one perspective, the prisons are infringing on the rights of prisoners as established by government institutions and this is morally incorrect because violating someone’s rights is intrinsically wrong. An alternative perspective, and the one we in MIM(Prisons) and AIPS advocate for, is that prisoners receiving mail and prison administrators deciding what mail to censor are two competing forces who are engaged in a struggle for political power. When you view the world through this lens, it becomes clear that discussions over “human rights” are nothing more than a way to obfuscate the underlying struggles taking place. The state says you have the “right” to send and receive mail while in prison, but provides endless stipulations on this “right”: you can’t send too many pages, your mail has to be formatted in this way, you can’t have this type of image, you can’t say these certain combinations of words, and you certainly can’t suggest any unorthodox political ideas.

Our fight against censorship, then, should not be misconstrued as us capitulating to the logic of the Amerikan state which claims to uphold the “rights” of all. We see reality for what it is. When we push back against prison censorship, we are standing on the side of prisoners in their struggle for power against the oppressors of the U.$. state. We stand for the oppressed. We stand for you. Won’t you stand with us in this struggle for power?

Freedom is never voluntarily granted by the oppressors. It must be demanded by the oppressed at all costs. The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of convenience, but where he stands in moments of challenge, moments of grand crisis and controversy. Freedom is never given to anybody. Privileged classes never give up their privileges without strong persistence. Colonialism was made for domination and exploitation. Often the path to freedom will carry you to your death or to prison. As oppressed people we have experiences when the light of day vanishes, leaving us in a desolate midnight, moments when our highest hopes are brought to shambles of despair, when we are victims of terrible exploitation. During such moments our spirits are almost overcome by gloom and despair and we feel there is no light anywhere. But again and again we discover that there is another spirit which shines even in the darkness, and frustration becomes a beam of light. There are those who write history, those who make history, and those who experience history.

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) is a pro-Zionist, reactionary watch-dog organization that has posed as an unbiased civil rights organization since 1913.

The ADL is one of the main groups whose connections and influence help drive the false narrative that anti-Zionism is anti-semitic. This false narrative is now driving the erosion of First Amendment free speech protections, backlash against university campus protests and their demands related to Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS). As such, ADL is not only a threat to those of us who support the national liberation of Palestine, but also otherwise unengaged people in the Corporate States of Amerikkka.

ADL is funded, as a non-taxed 501(c)(3), by mega donors on the far right. And has been lobbying for legislation to criminalize political dissent against settler-colonialism in I$rael. The ADL did the same thing during the South African apartheid years. Even going as far as to spy on anti-Zionist and anti-apartheid activists for the FBI during the 1980s and early 1990s. In total ADL spied on 700 socio-political organizations. In the McCarthy era the ADL snitched on communists and anarchists to the House of Un-Amerikan Activities Committee.

The ADL runs and operates a non-governmental police education program which sends police to I$rael for training. The ADL has said publicly, through its “research director”, that the “American Left that’s the biggest threat to American Jews”.

It is this conclusion that has led the ADL to insult, snitch, and spy on nearly every major New Afrikan organization from the era of SNCC and the BPP to today’s Black Lives Matter.

For this reason we believe that you, the reader, should contribute to exposing the ADL’s track record. Sign the open letter, “Open Letter to Progressives: The ADL is Not An Ally” (DropTheADL.com).

What is to be done? That’s the most important question for a revolutionary. “How can it be done?” is as important. Theory and practice are of equal importance when it comes to revolution. Theory without practice, ideas without action, are useless. Practice without theory leads to failure. That’s why Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels decided that scientific socialism will accomplish what utopian socialism could only dream of. An event such as the Great October Revolution of 1917 required a leader such as Lenin, a philosopher. Now, a revolution is for the people. That’s why we need to educate the people, and to do that we should educate ourselves. Study politics, history, science, psychology, philosophy, but most importantly study revolutionary history and the writings of past and present revolutionaries. It’s impossible to exaggerate the importance. We need well-educated revolutionaries.

The Black Panther Party was committed to educate the people and they required their members to study. They studied Mao, Lenin, Marx, and the works of Black radicals. The Black Panther newspaper was meant “to educate the oppressed”. That was its primary purpose. Che Guevara was a brilliant man who educated people through his speeches in a clear manner. Mao, Lenin, Marx, Engels, they all wrote extensively in order to guide their readers before, during, and after a revolution. Why wouldn’t we take advantage of all that wisdom?

Karl Marx was a philosopher, sociologist, economist and a voracious reader. Lenin too. And they studied the works of different types of radical thinkers. They studied, and admired, the French Revolution. Lenin was a fan of Peter Kropotkin’s history of the French Revolution. Karl Marx admired Charles Darwin’s work, and noticed how Darwin was influenced by Thomas R. Malthus. How can we claim to support scientific forms of socialism and never actually read any science, or economics at least?

I recommend the following: “Quotations From Chairman Mao Zedong” edited by Lin Biao, “Essential Works of Lenin” edited by Henry Christman, “Theories of Surplus Value”, “The Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844”, and “The Poverty of Philosophy” by Karl Marx, “The Black Panthers Speak” edited by Philip Foner, and any other books on radical politics, history, science and philosophy.

And remember, comrades: “Hasta la victoria siempre!” -Che Guevara

MIM(Prisons) responds: We welcome this statement from the study group of the Iron Lung Collective, and we support its sentiments. Through our Free Political Books to Prisoners Program, comrades inside can receive any of the books Modern Cassius recommends, with the exception of Quotations from Chairman Mao Zedong or “The Little Red Book.” We believe all of the historical texts of revolutionaries must be studied and understood in their historical context. The mish-mash of quotes from different periods of the Chinese revolution in “The Little Red Book” make it very difficult to do so.

As we work to re-ignite the prison movement, regular, local study groups are the base of our efforts to re-build. We have a guide for starting a local study group, and a decent stock of revolutionary and historical literature you can find on our literature list. Please see page 2 of ULK for more details on how to participate in the Free Political Books to Prisoners Program.

Revolutionary Greeting to you all!

Excuse me if I haven’t tapped in as often as I should or used to… I’ve been on a mission and roller coaster fighting these administrations not only by exposing and being the example as to how not to fear the oppressor when involving yourself and others in direct action politics and hard line… It’s a way of life, it’s a way of existing that comes with much sacrifice. What are you willing to sacrifice? What are you willing to be without? Luxury items? Food? Nice clothes or any clothes at all and have nothing but the fire inside? A loved one or communication with your people? I mean this is what’s at stake when fighting the enemy, this is the truth and all reality specially being a captive in these golden gulags.

I fight for my people and i fight to stay alive every fucking day homie, even when the people I fight for don’t have a spine to stand em straight, no voice to speak fact, no heart to love it’s community nor hand and fire to fight back… But I still do. Doing this guerrilla shit and living as an example ALWAYS send me back to the SHU’s, ASU’s, Solitary Confinement, Control Units of terror. Why? Because I’m a captive warrior of Brown skin, Brown eyes, shaved head and tribal tats smashing the oppressor with my heart, mind, hands, weapons, and pen.

There’s gonna come a time when we stop saying “Enough is Enough” and actually start putting that dialectical theory of knowing and doing into motion homeboy… make these dungeons unlivable, ungovernable, fuck kicking your feet up and being stuck on your tablet all day popping suboxone and snorting bottle… Huh? Sounds familiar Gee? Keep that shit raw and 100% then souljah.

So again to everyone on the streets, yea those street prisoners living lives like robots and that talk about eliminating prison plantations, for that we need a revolution first and foremost… and to all my camaradas/comrades stuck between a hard place and a rock up in them dungeons – what are you willing to sacrifice??

It’s fucked up to say this but I’m living a life where the systems of oppression are actively trying to end my existence for one reason or another… I’m back in the SHU as I explained on the other kite and again the pigs did their games of divide and conquer, smut campaigns, and became the suppliers to the influencers on the yard, in order to be able to execute hits via inmate lap dogs… some of yall know what I’m talking about. How many times does a pig swing off the “Big dawgs” nuts? And simply because of what that pig can do for those whack ass “Big Dawgs” they make those lames set up the real guerrilleros and call a hit on em?? All the fucking time homie… and all of you that talk about stacking your millions while fighting the oppressor behind bars, don’t tell me that you rather have this bitch on fire! Because the only way to stack your millions in prison is by pleasing the cops, do as they say so you can move “freely” and don’t get your “house” hit, and tell rebels to stop bringing heat to the block, stop disrespecting pigs!! So you can continue pushing your dough.

C’mon homie, you talking to a mofo that’s been in prison grounds since he was born!! My entire childhood has been spent in and out of the system and all my adulthood all I’ve known is prison so don’t mess me with that shit… I’m all for moving unseen and that hustle but not at the expense of the People’s fire, nor telling rebels to chill– Fuck that! Get your priorities straight and it’s time we start smashing those “Big Dawgs” on the yards if they on that $ $ign over the homies… Cuz if that’s eir get down then ey ain’t no different than the mofo’s keeping us in these cages.

Next time someone tells you filling 602 Grievances is snitching, or tells you to stop bringing heat to the pad or respect cops– Smash Em! He one of em! It might place you in another box with nothing but yourself and a mattress… But what are you willing to sacrifice? Live by example and turn it up then, cuz it all sounds very pretty on paper and word play but we have to start somewhere sometime… there’s a roll for everyone… are you fulfilling yours and actually building for the end of capitalism?

In Struggle

Push Pull STRIVE !

I’m currently in the process of trying to start a non-profit organization to shed some light on the corruption that’s currently taking place in the Florida Department of Corrections and I was hoping that you guys can connect me with some people or provide me with some material to assist me with laying the foundation of this non-profit organization that is guaranteed to last for generations to come. I’m actually currently writing a book that goes into depths about some of the things prison officials have been doing to prisoners in Security Housing Units and I’m planning on using the book as the face of the non-profit. It’s just hard finding people to assist me with this organization, which is why I’m reaching out to you guys in hopes that you guys can assist me with this matter, because it’s time the people of society become aware of what’s currently taking place in the Florida Department of Corrections.

MIM(Prisons) responds: We want to express solidarity with this comrade’s mission to expose oppression in prison, that is one of the goals of the independent institutions Under Lock & Key and prisoncensorship.info, that have been consistently exposing this abuse across the country since 2007. We also agree with the focus on what is going on in the SHU/Ad-Seg/solitary confinement torture units that our movement has campaigned to end for decades.

We want to respond to this comrade publicly though to discuss some points of how to effectively expose these atrocities, and more importantly how to effectively stop them.

We also want to address everyone who has written us for help with or just plans for starting a new non-profit, and everyone who has written to us about their new book they want help promoting. We’ve received countless letters of both types in recent months. So we want to make a couple things clear.

If you wrote a book and you haven’t been doing it as part of your study with us over the years, we’re not going to publish it, we only publish Maoist literature. Similarly, we aren’t going to promote the book you already put out, we only promote Maoist literature.

If you’re trying to start a new organization, first we will refer you to our congress resolution from 2011, that reads in part:

“We only work to build two organizations at this time: MIM(Prisons) and USW. The only organizing group we run for prisoners is the USW leaders group, and even that is mostly done through Under Lock & Key for efficiency and to reach the masses with info on USW work.

“There are only a few conditions that would merit launching a new prison-based organization: [in short, you disagree with MIM(Prisons) cardinal principles, you are migrating an existing lumpen org to become a revolutionary org, or you are building a single nation org]”(1)

This resolution is targeted more towards independent revolutionary organizations. The comrade above, and many others, write to us about starting non-profits. In short, and in general, non-profits use institutional money to fund jobs for people to do reformism who might otherwise fight for real change. Now, we will admit some non-profits do good work. You will see us cite the work of groups like the Prison Policy Initiative and the Human Rights Defense Center/Prison Legal News over the years. In fact, HRDC does a lot to expose the Florida DOC, so we must ask our comrade from Florida, why not just work with HRDC? Why waste all that effort to create a new group that has the same goal when it’s so hard to find supporters? It could be that your strongest supporters already have an org.

Alexis de Tocqueville, writing in the the mid-1800s, commented on how Amerikans create a new organization for everything. Probably something about our crass individualism in this country. This is being amplified today with the internet, where individuals can create online persynalities that feign to be projects or organizations. In these cases they often rely on the cult of persynality, and sometimes become actual cults.

We must question the motivations of people sometimes. Do you want to end oppression, or do you want to create a project that is yours? If you want to end oppression, what do you think the thousands of other organizations out there all got wrong that you need to form a new one?

The only way we will be effective in real change is to unite more forces, not by dividing into more and more little cliques and narrowly-focused non-profits. And while we can ally with and find useful the work of some non-profits today, we must grow the Maoist movement to be able to do the things they do under Maoist leadership to have a greater impact.

We know most of our readers just want to reform the prison system. If that’s where you’re at politically, by all means, join a non-profit. And we are happy to ally with you in battles against things like censorship and solitary confinement. But we know, based on our study of history, that only by completely overthrowing imperialism and building socialism through constant class struggle can we ever hope to end the oppression that certain populations face today in Amerikan prisons. We do not promote books or build organizations that hide this fact. And we work to win over reformists to the revolutionary road through struggle against the state and demonstrating the limitations of efforts that do not actually seek to build power to overcome imperialism.

^{Notes: 1.MIM(Prisons) 2011 Congress Summary and Resolutions}