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.
I have filed a
petition
in Los Angeles County Superior Court on the inadequacy of the grievance
procedure in California prisons. I’ve also written letters to the
California Attorney General’s Office, the LA County District Attorney
Office, the Governor’s office and various media outlets in order to seek
their assistance in forcing the California Department of Corrections and
Rehabilitation (CDCR) staff to honor their own policies and regulations.
All of my above efforts were to no avail.
The LA County Superior Court ordered an informal response when I filed
my petition. The California Attorney General’s office assumed the
position of respondent to my petition and asked for an extension of time
to reply to my petition, and then they failed to meet even that
deadline. Before the Attorney General replied, the court denied my
petition stating that I was not in compliance with the grievance
procedure, despite being unable to cite a single grievance regulation
that I hadn’t complied with. This judicial abdication of CDCR staff
lawlessness is routine in California state-level courts.
I had tried addressing the inadequate grievance procedure in the federal
courts, by way of a federal civil suit that I filed against California
State Prison - Corcoran. The ruling on this was that the CDCR’s
violation of their grievance procedure does not create a federal
constitutional violation, basically saying that the due process clause
is meaningless. The case is now pending in the 9th Circuit Court of
Appeals, case number 12-17419.
My “take-away” from my efforts so far is that in dealing with these
government types (da pigs, bureaucrats, politicians, government,
attorneys, etc.) in general, you’re up against brazenly
socioeconomically biased, unreasonable, spiteful, hypocritical,
out-of-touch, legitimized sociopaths. They work together to justify
clearly unlawful behavior, and are adverse to a system of legitimate
checks and balances. They see barely disguised partiality, in the
disposition of their duties, as reasonable and good. We see evidence of
this daily. I mean, the recently exposed
NSA
spy program is beyond any reasonable dispute a violation of the
Fourth Amendment, yet they go on unapologetically violating the same
constitution that they claim to cherish, absolutely Orwellian with the
“double-think.”
What irritates me even more is the public’s complacency in the face of
this brazen tyranny by this nation’s power elite. The Declaration of
Independence states that it is not only a right, but a duty for the
people to replace a lawless government. When will we honor that duty?
Thank you for your time, consideration, and your work performed on
behalf of the people.
MIM(Prisons) responds: We agree with this comrade’s conclusions,
and of course, we harbored no real expectations of action from the
bureaucrats’ offices and courts going into this campaign. This is why we
constantly stress the need to organize people around these demands. The
pigs are not usually going to do something just because it’s right. They
are more likely do something when they are pressured to do it. And
pressure can only be applied when prisoners are organized for their
common interests.
This is class struggle of the imprisoned lumpen against the bourgeois
classes. When this struggle does not exist, our so-called “rights” under
bourgeois democracy disappear, demonstrating that they never really
existed in their own right. That is why we don’t hesitate to report this
comrade’s failures, because they underline that important lesson. They
also allow us to highlight the real victory in the grievance campaign,
which is prisoners across many states acting in unison, sharing
information and strategizing. Our strategies around this campaign need
to keep the big picture of the balance of power in mind so that we do
not get lost in an endless cycle of give and take with the pigs.
Today marks day 10 of the hunger/work strike - only a few of us in the
entire cell block of 50+ men [in one of the Pelican Bay Security Housing
Units] are still on hunger strike. Most went 7 days and a few went a
couple of days more and now we are down to a few.
The prison has been telling people who go out to medical etc. that
“everybody is eating.” One person was told “All of the short corridor is
eating” and this was on the 4th day. Everyone knew it was bullshit. Then
today on Democracy Now! we heard that many here are still
striking.
Today is the 10th day and the prison has still not weighed us, they said
all protocol is out the window and they are now going by what Sacramento
says. Even while we listened to Democracy Now! in the middle of
the program on the hunger strike the signal was mysteriously interrupted
and switched over to classical music for the best part of the show when
the people were speaking on our behalf but the part where the CDCR
spokesman slandered us was played just fine.
Our current treatment shows that we receive our treatment ultimately
from the state, the prison is just the arm or tentacle but the state
makes the decisions even in regards to prisoners who are in torture
kamps from California to Guantanamo and beyond.
I have gone ten days so far on hunger strike and refused a total of 30
meals and I have not been weighed, nor have I had my vitals checked, no
blood pressure check nothing! These maggots run around giggling and
acting like this means nothing, pigs, nurses all these employees act the
same. I have seen more concern over commercials for a dog pound.
All this tells me that in any future hunger strikes, here in Pelican Bay
or anywhere in prisons, people must not set a 3 day or 1 week date as
many will only do the bare minimum. One needs to always set it as go as
long as you possibly can! Because the state does not understand anything
else, we must deepen our commitment for justice! Nothing else will get
us to the victory lane.
Since early April there have been at least three prisoners shot, all in
the head/face, and other shots fired resulting in lockdowns, two
institutional lockdowns, and a number of pig assaults on prisoners
including one in the seg unit I was released from and two on prisoners
in the unit where I am currently housed. Most recently (last week) a
Black comrade was assaulted in retaliation for exercising his first
amendment right to expose pig misconduct. All of these assaults have
been on Black prisoners by white pigs.
Amidst the above the food issue has been revived but has met textbook
excuses - all of which boil down to:
A prevailing sense of hopelessness among prisoners here
A prevailing attitude of complacency among prisoners here and
Fear of retaliation against prisoners here
The common factor? The state of mind of prisoners.
The Texas brothers demonstrated that victories are possible even with
the grievance system, and history teaches us that: “In all ages and
under all circumstances there will always exist abundant reasons not to
fight but that will be the only way not to obtain victory.” (Fidel
Castro)
History teaches us that our victories are always the result of the work
of a few against the many. It teaches us that we will never be a
majority so we must fight that much harder and with greater
determination and not allow few numbers and temporary failures to
terminate the struggle. At this moment there are a few of us here
fighting for proper food, proper medical treatment, and an end to staff
abuse, assaults and retaliation and theft/censorship of mail. We are
simultaneously trying to bring unity within the prisoner class. This
will not happen today, but there is always tomorrow, as our Texas
brothers so accurately noted in ULK 32,
we
are all fighting for tomorrow.
A while back I had sent the
petition
MIM(prisons) circulates to the director of CDCR, Internal Affairs,
the Department of (In)justice, and the ombudsmen.
First I got a response from the third level (Sacramento), J.D. Lozano
(chief), saying they received my complaint. I had checked 3 boxes in the
petition for: 1) screening out appeals to delay, 2) detaching documents
and refusing to process 602 due to missing documents, and 3) using
dishonesty to screen out 602s. In fact one 602 filed kept getting sent
back for 3 months until I had to water it down!
A while later I was interviewed by a Lt. E. Noyce. Word is he was a
former IGI (Institutional Gang Investigation). Well at first he asked me
about the grievance petition: where did I get this “form” and did I make
it. He had never seen it before so it astounded him that a prisoner
could get something like this. After this he went on a tirade saying the
people who sent me this are making money and I should have sent this
petition to the institution appeal coordinator instead of Internal
Affairs, and how I should just ask staff to “solve” the problem. That is
the problem, but he’s too deep in oppression to care. Finally he told me
I am not a lawyer.
When I was returned to my cell I wrote to internal affairs again but
this time I put it on an Inmate 22 Request Form. This way I can have a
copy of what was said and if they didn’t act I could move forward with
‘legal’ action. Always leave a paper trail!
I wrote internal affairs and told them that Lt E. Noyce had intimidated
me, chilled my right to redress or file a grievance and I’d like to talk
to someone from internal affairs. Days passed by and I was approached by
a Sgt. and asked if I’d like to add anything to my “citizen complaint.”
I told him that everything’s on the paper.
So to wrap this up the petition seems to rattle some piggy nerves. I
recommend it to be used when applicable. And at least here in Tehachapi
we’re getting responses now.
MIM(Prisons) responds: It is interesting that the interview of
the prisoner included a criticism of him for not being a lawyer. That’s
the point of the grievance petition: it makes these battles accessible
to prisoners who don’t need to know the details of the law. This is a
key contribution that jailhouse lawyers participating in the Prisoners
Legal Clinic can make to United Struggle from Within organizing work. If
there is no petition for your state, write to us to get a sample that
you can customize for use there.
We know these individual battles to address grievances will only gain
small victories, at best. But the fight to improve conditions for
prisoners, especially conditions that impede prisoner’s ability to
organize and educate themselves and others, is a critical part of
building the anti-imperialist movement. Through campaigns like this one
we plug new comrades into broader education and ultimately build
communist leaders.
Recently a fellow prisoner told me he had heard that Nevada was the only
state in which a CO had never been killed. Knowing that I have more than
3 decades in this system, he asked if this was true. I looked back and
had to admit despite hundreds of assaults, attacks, hostage situations,
takeovers, etc., I could not recall one CO being killed, ever.
Up until Nevada State Prison (NSP) closed (2011-12) it was the oldest
prison still in use in the united states. The building in which the
first experimental execution with gas occurred (on a cat) still stands
as a testament to the gravity of the statements above.
In the early 1980s NSP received attention on “Good Morning America” as
the most dangerous prison in the continental united states. This was
true for prisoners only (apparently), who’ve died by the score.
I arrived in 1979 and the two dominating prison-formed organizations
were well established, all other groups were extensions of existent
street organizations. These two prison-formed orgs were based on
racially charged genesis mythologies of defense from other prisoners.
The COs tended to “turn a blind eye” to, or participate in,
prisoner-on-prisoner violence out of fear of retaliation or through
“negotiation.” Prisoners also turned a blind eye to, or participated in,
guard-on-prisoner violence/oppression in return for concessions,
creating an environment which thrived on the victimization of prisoners
facilitated by guard/prisoner cadres. This relationship still exists in
Nevada, though less visible.
Many prisoners have been killed, assaulted and raped at the hands and/or
instigation of COs, myself included.
The point of this is that, historically, Nevada prisoners organize on
one of two opposing platforms: 1) persynal defense/safety 2) profit.
Some combine these two and others degenerate from the former to the
latter. This approach inevitably results in a contradiction of defense
vs. predation with the consequence of a self-perpetuating condition of
disunity among prisoners, due to the self-replicating nature of these
positions.
In Nevada this is an entrenched proxy of the prison political landscape
which must be dismantled.
Alongside the two groups above, there have formed new organizations
whose lines continue to define fellow prisoners as enemies or potential
victims. In such a climate, racial polarization is inevitable in the
defense camp and predatory capitalist expansion is inevitable in the
profit camp.
These philosophies embrace, advocate and promote a prisoner vs. prisoner
paradigm, a mirror image of the Amerikkkan/prison paradigm used to
oppress the masses and to prevent organizing among prisoners. By making
prisoners impotent, it facilitates their continued oppression and the
violence and exploitation visited upon them, their families, and
community by the state.
It was against this background that
SAMAEL
emerged in defense against the state and it is against this
background that Nevada prisoners are oppressed today. It is time for
Nevada prisoners to wake up to the reality of our mutual conditions. We
reject the prisoner vs. prisoner paradigm out-of-hand and refuse to
cooperate, facilitate, or participate in our abuse, oppression and
genocide, or that of others. We are calling on all Nevada prisoners to
join us in:
Organizing for our mutual defense against our mutual enemy, the state,
by opening dialogue and forming alliances with all fellow prisoners to
address conditions of confinement as a single body.
Ending all inter-tribal disputes by adopting the
agreement
to end hostilities as proposed by the PBSP-SHU short corridor
collective. This should include all facilities in Nevada and all custody
levels in these facilities striving to expand this initiative beyond
prison walls and into our respective communities.
Rejecting all racial, gender, sexual, religious and custody divisions as
counter-revolutionary distractions. The enemy does not limit its
capabilities based on these distinctions and we must stop allowing these
distinctions to be an exploitable weapon against us. Our weakness is
their strength.
Ending prisoner-on-prisoner predation. While Nevada prisoners are
victimizing and exploiting each other, the state is fomenting and
capitalizing on this disunity to further abuse and oppress us. Do not
assist this process through inaction or abuse and oppression of fellow
prisoners.
Breaking silence:
when
a CO mistreats you, grieve it. Put it on paper and into a public
forum. When a CO mistreats a fellow prisoner, step up and back their
play. Put it in writing and get it into a public forum. The COs back
each others’ play without question and we must do the same. We will only
be oppressed further by enabling them with silence, and they are
exploiting this reluctance to speak up. Every voice counts (see
addresses below)
Back up the
California comrades. It is not just their struggle – many prisoners
in Nevada have been segregated/tortured for decades and their voices are
not being heard. We must speak for them because all prisoners are united
by captivity, suffering and oppression.
Nevada prisoners must unite against our captors and stop enabling and
assisting in our own destruction.
Expose abuses to:
NV-CURE, 540 E. St. Louis Ave, Las Vegas, NV 89104 Jonathan Smith,
Chief, Civil Rights Div U.S. Dept of Justice, 950 Pennsylvania Ave N.W.,
Washington DC 20530
MIM(Prisons) adds: Also send your reports on abuse to
MIM(Prisons) for publication in Under Lock and Key!
According to Article IV of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty
(N.P.T.), all signatory member nations possess the “inalienable right”
to “develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful
purposes without discrimination.”(1) As a signatory nation, the Islamic
Republic of Iran is entitled to this most basic right, just like any
other nation. However, the United $tates and its allies are seeking to
infringe upon and limit Iran’s right to produce nuclear energy for
civilian purposes, asserting that the Iranian government is using its
civilian nuclear program as a smokescreen for an alleged covert nuclear
weapons program.(2) These assertions are backed by no credible evidence,
just the assurances of the U.$. and Israeli governments respectively. It
is further insinuated that once Iran develops nuclear weapons, it will
certainly use them to “wipe Israel off the map of nations,”(3)
presenting an existential threat to the Jewish people.
Despite the belligerent public tone of the U.$. government, however, its
intelligence community has consistently reported to Congress that Iran’s
military strategy is strictly geared towards “deterrence,
asymmetric retaliation, and attrition warfare” (emphasis
mine).(4) Even the U.$. National Intelligence Director, James Clapper,
recently admitted to Congress that “we do not know if Iran will
eventually decide to build nuclear weapons” and implicitly confirmed
that Iran is not presently seeking to do so because if it were, such
activities would certainly be discovered by the “international
community.”(5) In spite of all this, President Obama maintains that “all
options are on the table” to thwart Iran’s nuclear program, with a
military attack on Iran taking place as early as June 2013.(6) As we
shall see, the United $tates is merely using Iran’s nuclear program as a
pretext to justify further military intervention in the region in a
larger effort to redesign the landscape of the Middle East in order to
secure the continued global hegemony of the U.$. empire. After the
collapse of the Soviet Union, the United $tates remained standing as the
world’s lone superpower. In 1991, President Bush declared the
establishment of a “New World Order,” that is, a unipolar global system
completely subjected to the imperial dictates of the United $tates and
its junior partners.(7) Foreign policy experts and government policy
think tanks immediately began mapping out blueprints for a new century
of what can be called trilateral imperialism (the United $tates, Western
Europe and Japan).(8)
To this end, the Bush I administration called for “the integration of
the leading democracies into a U.$.-led system of collective security,
and the prospects of expanding that system, [to] significantly enhance
our international position and provide a crucial legacy for future
peace.”(9) Within this collective framework, the United $tates would act
to “preclude any hostile power from dominating a region critical to our
interests, and also thereby to strengthen the barriers against the
reemergence of a global threat to the interests of the United States and
our allies.”(10) In other words, the First World should unite under the
leadership of the United $tates to dominate and exploit the resources of
the Third World (cheap labor, oil, cobalt, etc.), while preventing any
other power from emerging which could disrupt this neocolonial
relationship.
At the time, Russia was deemed to be the only military power capable of
potentially deterring U.$. imperialism. Thus, during the late 1990s
Council on Foreign Relations member and Clinton foreign policy advisor
Zbigniew Brzezinski advised that Russia “ought to be isolated and picked
apart” in order to extend “America’s influence in the Caucasus region
and Central Asia,” both formerly under Russian control.(11) In doing so,
the United $tates could secure its domination over Eurasia, long deemed
to be the strategic “heartland” of global power.(12) The NATO-led
“humanitarian intervention” in the former Yugoslavia during the late
1990s must be understood in this light.
The Middle East has long been assigned a very narrow role within the
imperialist world system, being seen as “a stupendous source of
strategic power, and one of the greatest material prizes in world
history.”(13) This is of course only because of the region’s massive
natural gas and oil reserves, which the United $tates considers to be
vital to its national interests. U.$. foreign policy in the Middle East
in the post-war period has been geared towards three main objectives: 1)
securing and maintaining “an open door” for Western companies to the
region’s vast oil and gas reserves; 2) maintaining a “closed door” for
potential rival powers (i.e., Russia and China) to Middle Eastern oil;
and 3) preventing Middle Eastern “radical and nationalist regimes” from
coming to power that might use their oil and gas resources for the
“immediate improvement in the low living standards of the masses” and
development for domestic needs.(14)
In the bipolar world of the Cold War, the Soviet Union was able to
counter U.$. ambitions in the Middle East, supporting various secular
nationalist regimes relatively hostile towards U.$. imperialism. After
the collapse of the USSR and the subsequent isolation of Russia,
however, the United $tates was in a position to fundamentally alter the
political map of the Middle East so as to “ensure that the enormous
profits of the energy system flow primarily to the United States, its
British client, and their energy corporations, not to the people of the
region” or potential rival powers.(15) It is in this light that we must
view the recent wave of “humanitarian interventions” conducted by the
United States and NATO in the Middle East and North Africa, as well as
the current confrontation with Iran.
In 2000, the Project for a New American Century published a report
entitled “Rebuilding America’s Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources
For a New Century,” which was extended and adopted as official national
security policy in 2005. Drawing on the themes of the first Bush
administration and Brzezinski, the report recommends that U.$. military
forces become “strong enough to dissuade potential adversaries from
pursuing a military build-up in hopes of surpassing, or equaling, the
power of the United States.”(16) As noted above, there was nothing new
in this goal of American hegemony per se, but what was new was the
emphasis placed on “transforming” the political landscape of the Middle
East. Due to the rise of Islamic terrorism and the stubborn existence of
“rogue states,” the “stability” of the Middle East, North Africa, and
their oil reserves were deemed to be essential objectives of U.$.
national security and foreign policy.
Using the 9/11 terrorist attacks as a pretext for this grand imperial
project, the Bush administration outlined a list of seven “rogue states”
targeted for regime change in order to secure de facto U.S. control over
global oil supplies. Those seven countries were Iraq, Syria, Lebanon,
Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Iran.(17) Of course, Iraq was invaded,
occupied and “democratized” by the United $tates in 2003. The threat of
Hezbollah in Lebanon has been satisfactorily neutralized as a result of
Israel’s 2006 invasion, the Jamahariya government of Libya was utterly
destroyed by NATO and Al Qaeda in 2011, the Assad regime of Syria is on
the verge of collapse today as it is under attack from NATO and its
Islamic mercenary forces, while there are ongoing covert military
operations being conducted against Somalia and the Sudan. Only Iran
remains intact as a nation-state out of the seven countries targeted by
the U.$. imperialists for regime change.
The current U.$. propaganda campaign would have us believe that the
United $tates is targeting Iran because it is seeking to develop nuclear
weapons with which it will destroy Israel. As we have seen however, U.$.
intelligence – that is, the agencies responsible for obtaining such
information – does not have strong evidence to prove that Iran is
pursuing nuclear weapons. Further, in its assessment, Iran’s military
strategy is not geared towards aggression or the offensive, but strictly
deterrence and defense. Therefore, there must be some other reasons why
the United $tates is gearing up for war against Iran.
In light of U.$. policy objectives to dominate global oil supplies and
to subvert or overthrow “nationalist regimes” that seek to use their
natural resources to benefit their domestic populations or to promote
independent development, it should be fairly obvious that Iran is a
target because its oil is nationalized and it pursues a program of
independent development. Indeed, when Iran first nationalized its oil in
1953 under Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh, the CIA and British MI6
quickly organized a coup d’etat to overthrow Mosaddegh and reprivatize
Iranian oil.(18) The oil industry wasn’t nationalized again until the
1979 Islamic revolution, led by Ayatollah Khomeini, which quickly set
Iran on a path of independent nationalist development.
Also of grave concern to the United $tates is Iran’s growing commercial
and economic relations with Russia and China. Iran exports 22% of its
oil exports to China,(19) while it has cultivated a strong economic
relationship with Russia on various fronts, especially in military
equipment and nuclear infrastructure.(20) The Iranian regime’s
independence from Washington has afforded Russia and China a foot in the
door of the Middle East, which hinders the ability of the United $tates
to completely dominate the region and prevent the rise of potential
rival hegemons in the world system, perhaps the greatest threat posed by
Iran.
Iran itself is deemed as a threat to U.$. interests in the Middle East,
as it is devoted to “countering U.S. influence” and becoming a regional
dominator.(21) To this end, Iran has been fostering political, economic
and security ties with other actors in the region, appealing to Islamic
solidarity and resistance to imperialism. Iran has become influential in
both Iraq and Afghanistan, undermining U.$. objectives in those
countries, and has maintained its support for the Assad regime in Syria,
thwarting NATO’s efforts there.(22) All of these factors make Iran a
formidable obstacle to U.$. objectives in the Middle East, halting
Washington’s ability to totally redesign the political landscape of the
region.
Iran also gives financial and military support to various
politico-military organizations in the region. As the United $tates
considers many of these organizations “terrorists,” Iran is then a
“state sponsor of terrorism.” Most of its support is channeled to
Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Both of these groups
are opposed to the Zionist colonization of Palestine and to U.$.
imperialism in the region more generally. Through Hezbollah and Hamas,
Iran is able to exert its influence in the Middle East, creating
political “destabilization” in Lebanon and Palestine.(23) The continued
existence of such armed groups is considered a threat to U.$. objectives
in the region and is another main reason why the United $tates is
seeking to attack Iran.
When we place the current threats towards Iran in their proper
geopolitical and historical context, it becomes clear that Iran’s
nuclear program is not the real reason why the imperialists are gearing
up to attack it. In fact, there is sufficient evidence to suggest that
the alleged threat posed by Iran’s nuclear program is merely a
propaganda fabrication designed to garner popular support for the
immanent invasion of Iran, similar to the lie that Saddam Hussein
possessed “weapons of mass destruction” in Iraq. In truth, Iran was
targeted for regime change at least ten years ago, but because of its
resistance to the “Washington Consensus,” its economic nationalism, its
growing commercial and economic ties to Russia and China, its potential
to become a regional authority, and its support of politico-military
organizations opposed to the United $tates and Israel, not because of
its nuclear program.
The drums of war are now beating in the United $tates as Washington
prepares to launch the final phase of its grand strategy to remake the
Middle East. This plan is merely one component of a much larger plan to
maintain the world system of trilateral imperialism. In order to
maintain the global supremacy of the West, the United $tates and its
junior partners are determined to prevent the rise of Russia and China
to hegemonic status. Thus, an attack on Iran will surely be viewed as an
indirect attack on both Russia and China. A war on Iran may very well
quickly escalate into a global military conflagration, consuming other
states in the region, as well as Russia and China. To prevent such a
scenario from unfolding, academics and intellectuals must dispel the
propaganda about Iran’s nuclear program and expose the imperialist
ambitions behind the U.$. government’s agenda to the Amerikan people.
As all oppressed nations within the U.$. injustice system know there is
no such thing as justice or rehabilitation, let alone rights!
In prison is where we see fascism getting out at its harshest.(1)
Recently governor Jerry Brown spoke about how prisoners’ lawsuits are
costing the tax payers (parasites) money.(2) We should know better than
this as it’s a coverup to implement more restricted measures in prison.
Not only is he seeking support to curb lawsuits but now Brown wants to
implement policies limiting what prisoners can actually sue about. Like
an enemy telling his combatant he can only shoot at the ground. Perhaps
the recent events of prisoners waking up has caused prisoncrats to put a
gag order on us. If tax payers really want to save money they should
realize how much more officers (pigs) get paid for working in the SHU
(ASU, PSU) than working in general population.
As a comrade wrote in ULK 30 about a
case
concerning the suppression of Black Panther literature, (Tani
Toston v. Muchael Thurmer et al. no#10 cv 288) “The ruling is a
joke and more about suppression and control.” Here in California the
state apparatus is gearing up for repression and suppression of our
so-called “freedom of speech.” This time they are attacking our right to
redress a grievance. Prisoners should be aware of the consequences this
plan can have on our fight against repression. Once this policy is
implemented it’ll be much more difficult to rectify issues we face. Of
course when push comes to shove the state will not hold back to silence
the resisters, as the Attica prison rebellion has shown us.
Time should be taken to study and realize the hows and whys. Giving them
an inch will only do us harm and further sink us into the hole of doom.
Combating the issue of censorship should be one of the top issues we
fight right now.
MIM(Prisons) adds: Jerry Brown knows how to rally the Amerikan
tax payer against the imprisoned lumpen. Not a difficult task we might
add. The federal government already passed the Prison Litigation Reform
Act in 1996, which severely restricted prisoners’ ability to file
lawsuits. Yet Brown claims California still can’t afford the lawsuits
that make it past these restrictive measures. He claims lawyers are just
scouring prisons looking for problems. Well,
MIM
Distributors was officially banned from sending mail to prisoners locked
up by the CDCR for years, a ban that still comes back to haunt us
every so often, by bureaucrats who didn’t get the memo that it ended in
2008. Yet no lawyers came out of the woodwork to fight for our
constitutional right to free speech (Brown claims these constitutional
issues are easy money). And we’ve got a long line of prisoners with
serious grievances, of not just censorship but physical abuse and
neglect, who would love to talk to these lawyers looking for this
supposed easy money. We’d be happy to put them in touch.
My security level was recently lowered and I was immediately assigned as
an inmate orderly, to my chagrin. It is like a trustee who works on an
assigned cell block, and I know of all the pigs’ malicious intent of
using certain prisoner orderlies as tools. Tools used to hurt other
prisoners.
I got my block assignment and was given the usual lecture about all the
things I could not do – basically anything that would ease my fellow
prisoners plight/suffering. I politely related to this sergeant, while
maintaining every intent to help those confined on this segregated cell
block. I was not too long ago confined behind the door, so it was an
obvious obligation to do so.
Anyway, that was Wednesday. By Sunday, another shift tried to enlist me
as a complicit to starve an individual prisoner, to which I declined.
But, the other orderly slaving with me agreed to help. Through
intimidation I was able to persuade this orderly to do otherwise.
I warned the target of the pig’s intent and, days later, the other
prisoner about the plot against them. Well, this orderly informed the
pigs that I was alerting all targeted prisoners. So the pigs tried,
through aggressive body language, to scare me. The pigs claimed that I
wasn’t playing with the team, blah, blah. Took all my property and
locked me down pending trumped up disciplinary charges.
A few days later, the other punk ass orderly gives another inmate an
empty food tray. This prisoner did not take it lightly. The target
became disorderly – and rightly so. This led to the individual being
administered chemical agents. And he refused to tap out after several
rounds of being gassed. Dude forced the pigs to run the cell extraction
team, which beat this man stupid. Eight on one.
All because of a stool pigeon. Shit crazy.
Even more crazy, I receive a kite from someone who was my neighbor
before classification made me an orderly. The kite informed that the day
after I left the cell block, a white shirt and four officers popped up
at the cell with a minicam. Long story short, the pigs were coming with
the intent to inflict bodily harm. The veracity of the event was
confirmed by an affiliate.
They missed me by one day!
My belief is this was planned because I was part of a core group which
gave voice to the rampant pig violence towards prisoners.
Well comrades after months of trying to get the grievance department to
produce a grievance that they insisted was returned, the truth has come
out! In June 2012 I was housed on C-wing on Estelle Unit High Security
which is located in Huntsville, Texas. At the time, my cell and many
others were infested with roaches, every meal was served cold, and the
smell of sewage was extremely pervasive. I and a fellow comrade filed a
Step 1 (I-127) grievance.
Unit Grievance Investigator Mr. Allen Hartley lied to me, his co-worker
Ms. Monica Nichols, and numerous other TDCJ (Texas Department of
Criminal Justice) employees and insisted that he returned my Step 1 with
response on August 22, 2012. However, I never received it. A TDCJ
employee told me that Mr. Allen Hartley has a “special relationship”
with the prison administration on the High Security Unit in which he has
agreed to destroy any offender grievances which may shed a negative
light on the High Security administration.
On October 22, 2012 I sent a
grievance
petition courtesy of USW-MIM(Prisons) to Senator John Whitmire who
happens to be the Chairman of the Criminal Justice Committee in the
Texas state legislature. I requested that the senator have someone
investigate my “mysterious” disappearing grievance. I also addressed the
cold-substandard meals served on the entire unit, rampant racism among
officers, and administration, as well as the collusive and
conspiratorial relationship that exists between unit grievance
investigator Mr. Allen Hartley and Assistant Warden Steven T. Miller and
Major David M. Forrest (bonfire Klansman extraordinaire). The USW
Grievance Petition does an excellent job of articulating the true nature
of the problem here in Texas. Our due process rights are being trampled
on and we can’t get fair and unbiased resolution of our grievances under
the current system (period).
Comrades I am glad to report that the food service department at Estelle
Unit - High Security has been issued “Hot-Carts” which really keep our
food hot/warm! The portions have improved a little and so has the
quality. We even get salt and pepper once a week. This may not be
fantastic in some prisoners eyes but it is progress. I believe it was a
collective effort by a small group of motivated comrades who got tired
of being treated like sub-humyns.
In reference to the grievance problem, the central grievance office
wrote me and stated that the grievance in question has been “lost.” They
offered me the opportunity to re-submit the grievance. However, they
failed to address the main root of the problem and that is Mr. Allen
Hartley’s blatant disregard of the U.S. Constitution! This is not the
first time that these prisoncrats have played this game. This is an
ongoing problem. Their actions have rendered the grievance process
ineffective. So with that being said, I have filed a complaint with the
Department of Justice - Civil Rights Division - utilizing the grievance
petition as my guide.
MIM(Prisons) adds: We currently have grievance petitions for many
states. Write to us for a copy and if you are in a state not currently
covered by the grievance campaign, we will send you a template for the
petitions and you can look up citations and policies specific to your
state for reference. If you do this research and send us what needs to
be rewritten for your particular state, we will gladly send an edited,
accurate copy back to you.
I’m responding to ULK 29,
“Less
Complaints, More Agitation and Perspective.” While most of the
position is on point, I believe that important considerations were left
out by both this comrade and MIM(Prisons)’s response.
I agree with the broad definition of political prisoners as announced in
MIM Theory 11: Amerikan Prisons on Trial (article “Political
Prisoners Revisited”) precisely because courts are maintained as a tool
of political oppression and inseparable from political oppression. Thus
the political component is inseparable from those who become further
oppressed by imprisonment. The hierarchy of society, cops, courts and
state is one of a functioning cadre in this country.
I also understand the distinctions this comrade makes between inmates,
convicts and the rest – an inmate is the prison version of the “sleeping
masses,” but whether or not these people recognize their oppression does
not determine whether they are oppressed. And we can’t forget that
distinctions such as inmate, convict, POW, PPOW, PP, PS, GP are
meaningless outside of the prison context, rendering these issues
inapplicable to society.
In terms of the bigger fight for prison revolutionaries, these labels
are also somewhat moot outside of a strategic context as well; everyone
will get the benefits brought about by revolutionary action or they will
simply be “washed away when the dam breaks.”
What was missed is part of a larger problem (largely analytical).
Whether one is or is not a political prisoner speaks directly to the
conditions which led to one becoming a member of their class (under the
broad definition), but not the class perception and what it means, nor
what to do as a member of that class. The political conditions of our
confinement being a given, our focus, especially insofar as making
revolution is concerned, should not be on whether or not one is a
political prisoner, but rather if one, as a prisoner, is political
(i.e. moved to political action). If we must distinguish between members
of the same class (i.e. prisoners), and to a certain extent we must in
order to accurately assess conditions on the ground, then let it be a
functional distinction which advances the revolution as a whole.
Subcategories of class must be used in such a way that it produces
knowledge, not conjecture. Even an “inmate” can be turned to use.
Further, people change and there’s no way to know the moment of
awakening of political consciousness in others without objective
observation. By assigning static labels and categories, we limit our
objectivity.
I wholeheartedly agree with this comrade: there are many tactics which
can be tailored to circumstance but the labor of these tactics is
necessarily dispersed to many people of differing skill sets and levels
of political awareness; some are dupes, others are not, some are
soldiers, others are tacticians and printers.
Finally, I believe a common mistake we all make as revolutionaries is to
become solipsistic. We forget that not everyone wants change or
revolution; some are satisfied with their condition. In prison or out,
this distinguishes one as counter-revolutionary. This distinction is
functional and applies to society without getting bogged down in
specific labels. It is part of the equation we must, as revolutionaries,
deal with, but in the end, revolution depends on maximizing our
resources, exploiting the weaknesses of our enemy and most important,
unification of the people.