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.
by Simon of The Dawnland Group July 2024 permalink
UAW members creatively tie political repression on University of
California campuses to unfair labor practices, but an undercurrent of
exploiter-country economic demands remains
On May 13th, UAW Local 4811 voted to authorize a statewide stand-up
strike across University of California campuses. Though representing
largely class enemy strata, the United Auto Workers union (UAW) has, in
the past few years, been an innovator in strike tactics. “Stand-up
strikes,” as they are called, differ from traditional strikes by having
local branches be called to the picket by a central coordinator, as
opposed to having all members strike at once. This tactic reduces
burnout among the strikers by introducing “shift work” into the nature
of the picket, and psychologically attaches rank-and-file members more
closely to movement developments with anticipation of not knowing until
the day of whether it is their turn to strike.
The public response of the university administration has been
traditionally liberal. Unable to argue on the morale grounds of the
genocide and their active support of it, administrators displace the
discussion to either the process of dissent (whether it’s “through the
right channels”) or how the dissent affects the lives of settlers. After
failure to challenge the legal grounds of the strike, the UC office of
the President moved to pearl-clutching,
“UAW’s goals of ‘maximize chaos and confusion’ have come to fruition,
creating substantial and irreparable impacts on campuses and impacting
our students at a crucial time of their education.”
As of the writing of this article, all universities in the state of
Palestine have been destroyed in the genocide.
The UAW represents 5,000 workers at UC Irvine, 8,000 at UC San Diego,
and 3,000 at UC Santa Barbara, totaling 31,500 members for all six of
the universities affected by the strikes. According to an interview
conducted May 31st by The Orange County Register, “UAW Local 4811 is
asking the UC schools to give amnesty to all academic employees and
students who faced arrest or disciplinary actions for protesting at
campuses. The union also wants the students to have guarantees of
freedom of speech and political expression on campus and is asking for
researchers to be able to opt out of funding sources tied to the Israeli
Defense Force.”
Like much university faculty outrage across the country following the
student intifada of the past few months, faculty demands have been
animated by, and primarily center protecting students and staff from
criminal charges, less so the criminal slaughter of civilians by the
zionist entity. Even if driven by a racist instinct that the well-being
of their peers are of more value than the faceless masses of the Third
World, this is an interesting case study in how labor-aristocratic
elements may be leveraged as an auxiliary for genuinely progressive
ends.
This case study, and the many parallels of it across Turtle Island,
reinforces the need for approaching international solidarity work in the
imperial core with united front tactics. Were all actors on these
campuses concentrated into a single organization or coalition, outrage
over the arrests of students and faculty would have quickly gobbled up
all the air in the discussion surrounding Palestine. Though not
intentionally designed, the separation of student activists and union
organizations has contributed to the success of the student intifada. As
has the organic separation between faculty and students, though
sometimes muddled by unionized students in the UAW. This separation has
permitted, but not guaranteed, the more principled students to take
initiative in fighting their local foot-soldiers of ethnic cleansing.
Many have taken the opportunity to occupy key locations, destroy
property facilitating genocide, or symbolically renaming liberated
buildings on their campus to Martyrs slain in the liberation
struggle.
So long as the student radicals keep ahead of the social fascists
keen to rally around them, they can keep efforts centered on Palestine
and fix these tertiary elements into a supporting role behind their
initiatives, lest they be dragged down into drivel like the UAW’s
campaign to hijack the movement into unionizing
arms manufactures, as we reported last issue. This is only possible
if the students maintain organizational independence from the forces
which risk slowing them down. While united front tactics don’t guarantee
success – it’s up to the students to center the right lines and pick the
correct strategies to see their goals fulfilled, without it they will be
tackled at the starting line. As the next school semester approaches on
the horizon, we wish the student radicals the best of luck in their race
against backward elements.
MIM(Prisons) adds: The “social-fascism” thesis was
applied by Bolsheviks to Western Europe’s social-democracy of the late
1920s and early 1930s. Behind this thesis was MIM’s understanding of
social-democracy as not always based in a politically foggy sector of
the proletariat but usually in the super-profit bribed petty-bourgeoisie
known as the “labor aristocracy” –at least in the imperialist countries,
especially those long-established imperialist countries with colonies or
neo-colonies. The “social-fascist” term applied to social-democrats who
appeared socialist on the outside while serving fascism in content. MIM
applies this term to all those today who appeal to the economic
nationalism of the imperialist country labor aristocracy. Those calling
for closing the borders, import restrictions etc. and calling themselves
“socialist” or even “communist”–these are the social-fascists today.(2)
In a recent episode of the RevLeft podcast, a couple of
student leaders reflected on their experiences so far in the student
encampments demanding university divestment from I$rael. Here we will
briefly summarize some of their lessons learned and connect them to
similar experiences in the prison movement.
The biggest regret expressed by one of the students, and echoed as
important by the other, was conceding to closed-door negotiations with
the administration. A comrade once described a campaign that ended up
with a large group of prisoners being in a room with administration. The
administration expressed that they had heard their demands and would go
deliberate on them and let them know their decision. The comrade
correctly saw the risk of divide and conquer and kept everyone there
until the admin would commit to how they would actually address their
very reasonable requests. When making demands of the powers that be it
is important to mobilize the masses as fully as possible to participate.
Behind closed doors, individual negotiators, whether due to
inexperience, opportunism, fear, etc, will not get the same outcome.
A related demand that the admins often made of the student
encampments was to exclude community members from the struggle on
campus. This similarly helped to isolate students, potentially from more
experienced organizers in particular.
Another big critique one student made of eir group was too much
hemming and hawing over escalation of building occupations to the point
of losing the momentum they had.
The students discussed the varied interests of different parties
involved, whether on campus or off-campus students, staff with tenure or
not, income levels, etc. This is paralleled in prisons where people with
different amounts of time often have very different attitudes towards
things, and some groups are often granted privileges by staff in order
to divide and conquer. Related to this is the fact that many of the
students didn’t know each other at all, so there was a lack of trust and
familiarity. This might be easier to overcome in prison, but speaks to
the need for developing relationships with others and organization prior
to events like this.
The students mentioned how they should have studied the history of
how their institutions responded to similar events in the past more. We
offer the pages of ULK to document the history of the prison
struggle for others to study.
Finally, they self-criticized for succumbing to reformist language
that was coming from the administration in their own outreach. They
stressed the importance of going into a movement with established
principles in order to stick to the goals and the messaging when things
get hectic and confusing. They stressed how much language matters.
These are very universal lessons that we can all benefit from better
understanding. We encourage our readers to write in with more examples
of lessons learned from their experiences of fighting oppression so we
can all get better at what we do.
NOTES: Revolutionary Left Radio, 5 June 2024, Student
Encampments for Palestine: An Interview with Student
Organizers.
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes 10 May 2024 PG-13
Spoilers
A main theme throughout both series of Planet of the Apes
movies is the question of whether Apes differ from so-called “humyn
nature.” In the first series (produced 1968-1972) especially, humyn
nature is blamed for the hubris of nuclear weapons that brings humyns’
downfall. In this latest movie of the new series (produced 2011-2024),
apes have been setback in this search for truth, but perhaps this can be
explained by the very existence of class struggle that they share with
humyns.
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (2024), the fourth film in
the modern Planet of the Apes film series, is the first to take
us into the future a few generations after the events that led apes to
become competitors with humyns for dominating planet Earth. In it we see
glimpses of the emergence of class society, in the form of slavery. But
it is a slave society that is shaped by a relationship to the formerly
dominant humyns that still reflects a colonial relationship in many
ways.
The Eagle Clan, who are the center of the film, live in a primitive
clan society, with elders who set the laws that are taught to the young
and passed down via tradition. Later in the film, we encounter a larger
ape society that is a kingdom led by King Proximus, that has absorbed
many clans and uses them as slaves. It is not clear that the slaves
produce material wealth for the slavemaster class of the kingdom, as the
film only shows them working to break into an old humyn military bunker
to extract the technology. But someone must be producing the food, tools
and weapons for the soldiers who run the kingdom.
Proximus claims to be the new Caesar. Caesar was the founder and
leader of the apes in the first three movies, and was also a king
figure. But Caesar was a benevolent leader who fought and worked
alongside the others. A virus gave Caesar super-ape intelligence to lead
the apes to liberation from humyn society.
Within 10 years of the events of Rise
of the Planet of the Apes (2011), Caesar had already begun to learn
that apes have the same tendencies as humyns as he had to ally with a
humyn to combat a rogue ape attempting to usurp eir control of ape city
to wage war on humyns.
We previously discussed the themes of integrationism in the newer
series, in contrast to the older series that takes a more scientific
approach to uniting humyns and apes through struggle and re-education.
While the inability of apes to build a a lasting harmonious society may
appear pessimistic, we’d say it is realistic; accurately reflecting the
myth of humyn or ape nature despite the producers’ intentions.
The original series (produced 1968-1972) ends with a humyn ally
remarking that the apes have finally become humyn after the first ape
murder of another ape. This story line is framed more as a biblical
original sin story than class struggle. But in both series the first
ape-on-ape murder occurs because of the struggle between the apes who
want to wage war to annihilate all humyns and those who do not. The
question the producers seem to be asking is do apes have a war-like
nature like humyns supposedly do. Despite the revolutionary themes of
the first series, it largely reinforces this concept of humyn
nature.
When we criticize the concept of humyn/ape nature, we are not
criticizing the “natural” we are criticizing the metaphysical view of an
unchanging phenomenon. In other words, “natural” itself is a myth in
many ways, in other ways “natural” could be dialectical materialism and
the scientific method that explains the world around is. As dialectical
materialists we understand all things to be in a constant state of
change motivated by the contradictions within that thing; the class
struggle in society being the prime example of this in Marxist
thought.
Observed by humyns in our reality, chimpanzees and gorillas have one
leader who is a male silverback. While bonobos have an alpha male role
as well, the alpha female plays the more determinate role.
Interestingly, the king Proximus is a male bonobo. Meanwhile orangutans
in real life tend to be more solitary, which is reflected in this film
with Racka being a loner and no other orangutans being part of
Proximus’s kingdom. As we know, and as Engels lays out in The
Origins of the Family, Private Property and the State, humyns have
gone through various social structures; from more collective matriarchal
societies to the more modern hierarchical patriarchal societies, and
these structures have changed to adapt to changing modes of
production.
In our world, we suspect humyn societies have changed more over the
last ten thousand years than other great apes, because their
relationship to the rest of the natural world has changed more through
gaining knowledge and technology. Therefore in the new series of movies
we would expect apes to go through a very similar evolution of
hierarchies and class society as humyns did as they change their
relationship to the production of their material needs. This is
reflected in the kingdom that operates as a primitive system of slavery,
the earliest class system of humyns as well.
However, the evolution of ape society is colored by the existence of
a previous, advanced humyn society. Learning from humyn books and
accessing humyn armories full of technology are ways that Proximus
attempts to make a leap in ape knowledge and technology. As ey does
this, Proximus maintains a line that humyns cannot be trusted, and apes
must work together, even though this is applied cynically as ey is shown
to happily sacrifice the lives of many apes in eir own attempts at power
through humyn technology.
The main character in Kingdom is Noa, a member of the Eagle
Clan, whose father was a master of training eagles. Noa learns about
Caesar for the first time from the last true follower of Caesar after
the rest of the Eagle Clan has been captured by Proximus. Before this,
Noa had no knowledge of the history of humyns or apes; perhaps because
of eir age. But Noa also states that eir elders did not want to know
such things and remained ignorant on purpose through isolation.
The major transformation that Noa makes is to reject the idea that
law is handed down from some higher power. Ey does this overtly by
rejecting the laws of the king, and more subtly by pursuing knowledge
eir elders forbid. This is the transformation of thought that humyn
society went through during its transition to capitalism, when
liberalism, plurality, democracy and the pursuit of scientific knowledge
rose to replace ways of thought that were more stagnant, based more in
idealism and following a god-king. So we see Noa make a shift towards
materialism, that we expect will transform the Eagle Clan as it rebuilds
its village. But Noa’s understanding of ape nature at the end of the
movie still seems behind that of Caesar’s, generations ago. We see this
type of pre-scientific thinking among our comrades today who believe the
white man is literally the devil and the Black man/humyn is god. Like
Noa, they’re on the right side, but are guided by idealist thinking that
can easily lead them astray. Of course, we all struggle with idealism
and subjectivism, which might be considered part of the “nature” of
beings that can reason with limited knowledge and perspective. Part of
the power of the vanguard party, as layed out by Lenin, is its ability
to produce a more scientific approach to social change by pooling
experience and knowledge production at group level for a whole
class.
In our review of Dawn
of the Planet of the Apes (2014) we compare the Caesar
loyalists to the Gang of Four in China, who were those in the leadership
who both understood and represented the Maoist line after Mao’s death.
The Orangutan, Raka, would be like a young persyn in China today who has
deeply studied Mao and Chinese history but has no real experience in
building socialism and no one to help em put into practice. Proximus
might be compared to the revisionists in power in China, exploiting the
people while trying to strengthen China against the U.$. imperialists
all in the name of “Marxism” (or “Caesar”).
The problem that Noa faces in determining what the right path is, and
what Caesar was really about, becomes a question of trust and judging
what is morally right. In contrast, we can judge the correct Maoist path
by studying history, and putting science into practice. While Noa’s path
in this movie echoes Caesar’s in the previous one, this is only because
they both tried to help their own people. While serving the people is
part of the communist road, we must be more than do-gooders to end
oppression, we must have a scientific understanding of society, what
forces are at play within it, how it is changing and how we can shape
that change.
In practice it seems that Noa may have acted against the interests of
Apes overall by eir alliance with the humyn, Mae. Another sequel will
probably reveal this. This is where the colonial parallels come in. Mae
is part of a humyn society that is no longer dominant, but still
possesses historical knowledge and technology that gives them a great
advantage. The Eagle Clan parallels many primitive groups in humyn
history that have encountered colonialists and allied with them against
other known enemies, perhaps seeing the colonialists as friends and
allies, before being subjugated by them in turn. In this way Proximus
proves more correct in eir distrust of the humyns and calls for ape
unity, despite coming from an exploiter class perspective.
This is why in a United Front the proletariat needs its own party to
represent our class, and to act independently of other classes. It must
be a party based on science, that can see all sides of the situation. At
this slave stage of ape society there is no such leadership available
and therefore no basis for forming principled alliances with either the
humyns or the exploiter class of apes.
The movie ends with Noa asking Mae if humyns and apes can ever live
together in trust. The ending hints that such a future is far off to say
the least. A theme that was more prominent in the original series is the
political question of if the oppressed rise up against white Amerika,
will they wipe out white Amerika or live harmoniously side-by-side. In
the original series, we see many years after the ape revolution that
such a reality is still in the works. There is still distrust, as some
war-mongering humyns still exist in the city, and many apes remember the
past oppression by humyns. While we draw some analogies above about the
latest movie, there are no real revolutionary story lines like the
original series, which showed the joint dictatorship of other great apes
over humyns and discussed the need for a long period of transforming
society and its citizens to build the trust necessary for peaceful
coexistence. Of course, the dictatorship of the proletariat is not just
about trust building, it is about continuing the class struggle to
eliminate all class differences – the internal contradictions of society
that lead to oppressive relationships between groups. That is the only
basis upon which a true communist society can be built. Something none
of the Planet of the Apes movies have brought us to yet.
In ULK 84 we reported on a sharp
drop in donations from prisoners in 2023, and a gradual decline in
subscribers in recent years. We asked our readers to answer some survey
questions to help explore the reasons for these declines and to begin a
more active campaign to expand ULK in 2024. Below is some
discussion with comrades who have responded to the survey so far about
drugs, gangs, COVID-19, generational differences and more. If you want
to participate in this conversation, please respond to the questions at
the end.
Problems We’ve Always Had
A North Carolina prisoner on censorship: i pass my
copies around when i’m able, what i always hear is “Bro i wrote to them
but never received the paper.” Then there is a couple guys who were on
the mailing list who say they’re not receiving the paper no more.
MIM(Prisons) responds: The obvious answer to this is
the newsletter is being censored. Any prisoner of the United $tates who
writes us for ULK will be sent at least 2 issues, and if you
write every 6 months we will keep sending it. Censorship has always been
a primary barrier to reaching people inside, but we have no reason to
believe that has increased in the last couple years. Relaunching regular
censorship reports could help us assess that more clearly in the future.
A Pennsylvania prisoner on the younger generation: I
think it is these younger generation people who are coming into the
prison system or people who have been pretty much raised by the judicial
system, and the guards become mommy and daddy to them… They do not want
to or are possibly afraid to change the only life they have ever known.
I know some of these younger guys here who have gotten too comfortable
and think: “Oh, I am doing so good, I have a certain level of say-so
here, the guards are my buddies, they get me, et cetera.” When on the
outside they did not have that.
Also, on my block, many people are illiterate and cannot read. I know
this because I am the Peer Literacy Tutor.
MIM(Prisons) responds: Most of this doesn’t sound new.
Older prisoners have been talking about the lacking of the younger
forever. Illiteracy is also not new in prisons. There is some indication
that the COVID pandemic has impacted literacy in children, but that
would not be affecting our readership (yet).
A California prisoner: I think a lot of prisoners do
not want to hear negativity or incendiary language, we get enough of
that in here and I notice a lot of unity around positivity in here. I
suggest less dividing language and more unifying language. In
particular, the “who are our friends and who are our enemies” line could
certainly drop the “who are our enemies” part. Prisoners don’t want
someone telling them who to be enemies with, prisoners want to be told
who to be friends with.
I have trouble passing on ULK, natural leaders won’t even
accept it (I try to revolutionize the strong). As soon as I say “it’s a
communist paper”, the typical response is “I’m not a commie.” Any
suggestions??
MIM(Prisons) responds: Not sure if you’re leading with
the fact that it’s a communist newspaper. But when doing outreach, the
fact that we’re a communist organization will not come up until we’ve
gotten into an in-depth conversation with someone. We want to reach
people with agitational campaign slogans, hopefully ones that will
resonate with them. What in this issue of ULK do you think the
persyn might be interested in? Lead with that.
As far as who are our friends and who are our enemies goes – this is
actually a key point we must understand before we begin building a
united front (see MIM Theory 14: United Front where a prisoner
asks this same question back in 2001). We must unite all who can be
united around anti-imperialist campaigns. Our goal is not to have the
most popular newsletter in U.$. prisons; that might be the goal of a
profit-driven newsletter. Our goal is to support anti-imperialist
organizing within prisons. As we’ve been stressing in recent months,
prisons are war, and they are part of a larger war on the oppressed. If
we do not recognize who is behind that war, and who supports that war
and who opposes it, we cannot stop that war. If you see a group of
people that wants to carpet bomb another group of people as a friend,
then you are probably not part of the anti-imperialist camp yourself.
Prisoners who are mostly focused on self-improvement, parole, or just
getting home to their families may be willing to be friends with anyone
who might help them do so. But we must also recognize the duality
of the imprisoned oppressed people as explained by comrade Joku Jeupe
Mkali.
Problems That May Be Getting
worse
A Washington prisoner on the drug trade: Drugs and
gangs are the biggest threat to radical inclination in the system. Drugs
keep the addicted dazed and unable to focus on insurgency. Whereas the
self-proclaimed activist gang member who actually has the mental fitness
to actually avoid such nonsense has become so entrenched in a culture
aimed at feeding on the profit he gains in the process has forgotten his
true goal and would rather stand in the way of change to maintain
profit.
MIM(Prisons) responds: This is perhaps the biggest
shift we’ve seen in reports on conditions on the inside in recent years.
Of course, these are not new issues. But there are new drugs that seem
to be more easily brought in by guards and have more detrimental effects
on peoples’ minds. Meanwhile, the economics of these drugs may have
shifted alliances between the state-employed gangs and the lumpen gangs
that work together to profit off these drugs.
When we launched the United
Front for Peace in Prisons over a decade ago, it was in response to
comrades reporting that the principal contradiction was lack of unity
due to lumpen organizations fighting each other. In recent years, most
of what we hear about is lumpen organizations working for the pigs to
suppress activism and traffic restricted items. While Texas is the
biggest prison state and much of those reports come from Texas, this
seems to be a common complaint in much of the country as regular readers
will know.
Related to drugs is the new policy spreading like wildfire, that
hiring private companies to digitize prisoners’ mail will reduce drugs
coming into prisons and jails. Above we mentioned no known increase in
censorship, but what has increased is these digital mail processing
centers; and with them more mail returned and delayed. In Texas, we’ve
been dealing with mail delayed by as much as 3 months for years now. As
more and more prisons and jails go digital, communications become more
and more limited. Privatized communications make it harder to hold
government accountable to mail policies or First Amendment claims. There
is no doubt this is a contributor to a decrease in subscribers.
A Pennsylvania Prisoner reports a change in the prison system
due to COVID-19: The four-zoned-movement system has been
implemented here at SCI-Greene because of COVID. Before COVID,
everything was totally opened up. Now everyone is divided from one
another and it makes it that much harder for someone like me who is
constantly surrounded by an entire block full of people with extreme
mental health or age-related issues.
MIM(Prisons) responds: This is an interesting
explanation that we had not yet thought of. While we don’t have a lot of
reports of this type of dividing of the population in prisons into pods
since COVID, we know that many prisons have continued to be on lockdown
since then. An updated survey of prisoners on how many people are in
long-term isolation may be warranted. But even with the limited
information we have, we think this is likely impacting our slow decline
in subscribers.
This does not explain why donations went up from 2020 to 2022, but
then dropped sharply in 2023. However, we think this could have been a
boom from stimulus check money, similar to what the overall economy saw.
In prisons this was more pronounced, where many people received a couple
thousand dollars, who are used to earning a couple hundred dollars a
year. While we would have expected a more gradual drop off in donations,
this is likely related. In 2023, prisoners were paying for a greater
percentage of ULK costs than ever before. We had also greatly
reduced our costs in various ways in recent years though, so this is not
just a sign of more donations from prisoners but also a reflection of
decreased costs. We’d like to hear from others: how did stimulus checks
affect the prisoner population?
Like many things, our subscribership and donations were likely
impacted greatly by the COVID-19 pandemic and the state’s response to
it. Another interesting connection that warrants more investigation is
how the stimulus money may have contributed to the boon in drug
trafficking by state and non-state gangs in prisons. And what does it
mean that the stimulus money has dried up? So far there is no indication
of a decline in the drug market.
A California prisoner on “rehabilitation” and parole:
The new rehabilitation programs in CDCR are designed to assign personal
blame (accept responsibility). A lot of prisoners are on that trip.
“It’s not the state’s fault, it’s my fault cause I’m fucked up.” That’s
the message CDCR wants prisoners to recognize and once again parole is
the incentive, “take the classes, get brainwashed, and we might release
you.” I call it flogging oneself. But a lot of prisoners are in these
“rehabilitation” classes. It’s the future. MIM needs to start thinking
how to properly combat that.
MIM(Prisons) responds: The Step Down program in
California in response to the mass
movement to shut down the SHU was the beginning of this concerted
effort to pacify and bribe prisoners to go along with the state’s
plan.(1) As we discussed at the time, this is part of a
counterinsurgency program to isolate revolutionary leaders from the
rebellious masses in prison.
Our Revolutionary 12 Step Program is one answer to the
state’s “rehabilitation.” Our program also includes accepting
responsibility, but doing so in the context of an understanding of the
system that creates these problems and behaviors in the first place. Yes
we can change individuals, but the system must change to stop the cycle.
The Revolutionary 12 Steps is one of our most widely
distributed publications these days, but we need more feedback from
comrades putting it into practice to expand that program. And while it
is written primarily for substance abuse, it can be applied by anyone
who wants to reform themselves from bourgeois ways to revolutionary
proletarian ways.
In other states, like Georgia and Alabama,
parole is almost unheard of. The counterinsurgency programs there
are less advanced, creating more revolutionary situations than exist in
California prisons today. In the years leading up to the massive hunger
strikes in CDCR, MIM mail was completely (illegally) banned from
California prisons. Today, it is rare for California prisoners to have
trouble receiving our mail, yet subscribership is down.
Solutions
A California prisoner: Personally I would like to see
play-by-play instructions for unity. I saw something like that in the
last Abolitionist paper from Critical Resistance. A lot of us
want unity but don’t know how to form groups or get it done. I know
MIM’s line on psychology, however it has its uses. The government
consults psychologists when they want to know how to control people or
encourage unity among their employees. I suggest MIM consult a psych for
a plan on how to unify people, then print the play-by-play instructions
in ULK. It’s a positive message prisoners want to hear.
MIM(Prisons) responds: As mentioned above, building the
United Front for Peace in Prisons was a top topic in ULK for a
long time, so you might want to reference back issues of ULK on
that topic and MIM Theory 14. Psychology is a pseudo-science
because it attempts to predict individuals and diagnose them with
made-up disorders that have no scientific criteria. Social engineering,
however, is a scientific approach based in practice. By interacting with
people you can share experiences and draw conclusions that increase your
chances of success in inter-persynal interactions. This is applying
concepts to culture at the group level, not to biology of the
individual.
Again, the key point here is practice. To be honest, the engagement
with the United Front for Peace in Prisons has decreased over the years,
so we have had less reports. Coming back to the question of how to
approach people in a way that they don’t get turned off by “commie”
stuff, a solution to this should come from USW leaders attempting
different approaches, sharing that info with each other, and summing up
what agitational tactics seemed to work best. Comrades on the outside
could participate as well, but tactics in prison may differ from tactics
that work on college campuses vs. anti-war rallies vs. transit
centers.
A North Carolina prisoner: i look forward to receiving
the paper and i love to contribute to the paper. ULK is not
just a newspaper in the traditional sense of the word it’s more than
that. It’s something to be studied and grasped, and saved for future
educational purposes. In my opinion its the only publication that hasn’t
been compromised.
i think ya’ll should publish more content on New Afrikan
Revolutionary Nationalism (NARN) then ya’ll do. To be honest, the
ULK is probably the only publication that provides content that
elucidates NARN. Nonetheless, ya’ll keep doing what ya’ll doing.
MIM(Prisons) responds: We’ll never turn away a
well-done NARN article, so keep them coming. This is a newsletter by and
for prisoners of the United $nakes.
A Pennsylvania prisoner: As with everything,
“education” is a key factor. A lot of people really have a lack of
comprehension of the Maoist, Socialism, Communism agenda or actual
belief system is about. I have a general idea, but not the whole
picture. Many people are ignorant to what it is all about. … I was a bit
of a skeptic when I first began writing MIM(Prisons), but I no longer am
3 years later.
As I have continued to write and read all your ULKs I have
begun to realize what you stand for, and that is the common people who
are struggling to survive in a world full of powerful people, who do not
play by the rules. … Those powerful and wealthy who have forgotten what
it is like to be human. … When I get released from prison later this
year and get back on my feet I do plan to donate to MIM(Prisons) because
I strongly support what you stand for.
…It was word of mouth that got me interested in ULK, and
that is what we should use to spread the word. Sooner or later someone,
somewhere is gonna get interested.
MIM(Prisons) responds: We appreciate this comrade’s
continued engagement and struggling with the ideas in ULK. Eir
description of what we do is accurate. Though, the same could be said
for many prisoner newsletters. We recommend comrades check out “What is
MIM(Prisons)?” on page 2 to get an idea of what differentiates us from
the others; and to ask questions and study more than ULK to
better understand those differences.
A Washington prisoner: I believe there has not been
enough exposure of ULK in the prison system. I only happened on
it by chance. I sought out communist education on my own after not being
able to shake an urge that there was something incredibly wrong with the
political and economic structures in my surroundings. I believe we
should launch a campaign of exposure and agitation. Create and pass out
pamphlets and newsletters geared to helping people see the relevance of
communism and their current situation. For a start, I would like to
receive copies of the Revolutionary 12 Step Program pamphlets
to strategically place in my facility so prisoners can have access to
them.
MIM(Prisons) concludes: Expanding ULK just for
the sake of it would be what we call a sectarian error. Sectarianism is
putting one’s organization (one’s own “sect”) above the movement to end
oppression. The reason we are promoting the campaign to expand
ULK is that we see it as a surrogate for measuring the interest
in and influence of anti-imperialist organizing in U.$. prisons. As
comrades above have touched on, there is always a limitation in access
and numbers do matter. Most prisoners have never heard of ULK.
The more we can change that, the more popular we can expect
anti-imperialism to be within U.$. prisons and the more organized we’d
expect people to get there.
We are working on expanding our work with and organizing of prisoner
art. As they say a picture is worth a thousand words. More art that
captures the ideas of our movement can help us reach more people more
quickly. So send in your art that reflects the concepts discussed in
ULK. We also offer outside support for making fliers and small
pamphlets. What types of fliers and small pamphlets, besides the
Revolutionary 12 Steps, would be helpful for reaching more
prisoners with our ideas and perhaps getting them to subscribe to
ULK?
Another way to reach people in prison is through radio and podcasts.
We are looking for information on what types of platforms and podcasts
prisoners have access to that we might tap into.
We only received 4 responses to our survey in ULK 84 in time
to print in this issue. This is another data point that indicates the
low level of engagement with ULK compared to the past. Another
possible explanation for lack of responses is that this survey was more
difficult to answer than previous surveys we’ve done because it is
asking for explanations more than hard facts. Either way, in our attempt
to always improve our understanding of the conditions we are working in,
we are printing the survey questions one more time (also see questions
above). Even if your answer to all the questions below are “no”, we’d
appreciate your response in your next letter to us.
Have you noticed changes in the prison system that have made it
harder for people to subscribe to ULK or less interested in
subscribing?
Have you noticed changes in the prisoner population that have
made people less interested in subscribing?
Have you noticed/heard of people losing interest in ULK because
of the content, or because of the practices of MIM(Prisons)?
What methods have you seen be successful in getting people
interested in or to subscribe to ULK?
Do you have ideas for how we can increase interest in ULK in
prisons?
I have already taken measures to develop peace and unity between
factions here at the Bay Correctional Facility in Panama City, Florida.
As a basis here we are opposing oppression of prisoners and oppressed
people in general. Work has begun, and we will campaign around the
September 9th Day of Peace and Solidarity.
The objective this month is getting every organization on the
compound to make sure every member of their various organizations send a
short, one paragraph letter to the USW Council pledging allegiance to
the Runaway Slave Movement and making sure every member of the various
respective organizations are on MIM(Prisons) newsletter subscription
list.
MIM(Prisons) adds: Greetings to the Runaway Slave
Coalition and all associates in Florida that are working towards a
united front of the oppressed. This comrade wrote asking for
certification and official sanction for eir group. We do not certify
anyone who is not a member of MIM(Prisons). And no one locked in prison
can be a member of MIM(Prisons). United Struggle for Within (USW) is an
independent org working under our leadership. This means they should not
be promoting things that disagree with our 6 main points (see page 2 of
ULK) - if so, they are no longer USW as they have broken their
charter. Even if they are acting under the broad definition of USW as an
anti-imperialist prisoner organization, that does not mean we agree with
everything they say or do, and we do not have any say in their
day-to-day operations. In the case where someone reports a USW member
breaking USW policy, even then it is hard for us to investigate or
intervene.
Similarly many organizations have signed onto the UFPP, but that
doesn’t mean we agree with everything they say or do. We have only
pledged to agree to the 5 principles of the UFPP. This is how united
fronts work, everyone maintains organizational independence, while
uniting around common goals or principles (see MIM Theory 14: United
Front for more info).
Anyone can write to us to get Under Lock & Key in U.$.
prisons. Just because someone is distributing ULK or claiming
they have articles published in ULK does not mean that we
endorse them. Everyone should be judged by their actions. USW comrades
must be accountable to the masses. Ultimately it is the masses at your
locality that must judge the correctness of a USW leader or chapter, not
MIM(Prisons). We do our best to support comrades from a distance in
these endeavors.
I wanna add my voice to the ongoing conversation on Sex Offenders
(S.O.’s) and LGBTQ people from a revolutionary perspective.
One key hurdle I think has to be constantly attacked and can only be
attacked through criticism and self-criticism: so-called
revolutionaries, activists, and political prisoners self-identifying as
these things but still holding to the vestiges of their gangster,
reactionary world views that make them comfortable.
A political activist analyzes people, places, and things from a
political perspective. What is this person, place, or thing’s worth, or
lack thereof, to the political programs that political group/individual
is striving for? The military activist analyzes people, places, and
things from a military perspective, analyzing what will be most
advantageous to the military goals of their army, militia, unit,
etc.
Because of this, morals and standards in political and military
groups, among such people are constantly shifting. When one is on the
battlefield, even the most avowed racist, sexist, homo-transphobe, sex
offender bigot, will not allow their hate or disdain for the “other” to
cost them their lives. The primary concern for the soldier or military
commander would be can this person maintain discipline in battle, can
they perform under pressure, will they desert their comrades in battle
or go AWOL, are they reliable. If the S.O. or non-heterosexual was
saving your life on a battlefield, no one would say “let me die I don’t
like your kind” or “you’re irredeemable.” At that moment, the equality
of humankind will shine bright and true and all the self-gratifying lies
we tell each other will shrink in comparison with the truth.
I am not saying you should have no concern about the moral fabric of
comrades. Usually morality and politics overlap. What I am saying is
that a person/group’s political line and commitment should be of
deciding and primary concern if you yourself are indeed a political
activist or military activist.
How many times in prison have we seen the “rules” of organizations
bent for certain “stomp down” individuals. How many times have we seen
people look the other way when a member of their org partakes in sexual
gratification that the org prohibits or has a case that’s frowned upon
by the org? When this occurs it is usually because those in the org
recognize the person in question is a practitioner of violence and that
violent aggression is better with you than against you. So people make a
tactical or strategic decision to condone, accept what they would
otherwise attack or shun. For better or worse, this is political
maneuvering at its core and it’s done every day in every prison. I am
not promoting it, simply stating truths. The purpose of pointing these
truths is to say that if the apolitical populace can discern these
nuances then why can’t the politically do so when our causes are so much
more noble and worthy of forgiving of one another’s trespasses (real
& perceived).
Try a new way of relating to the people on the compound with you. If
we’re revolutionaries then we should be revolutionizing the
social relations and castes in prison. The prison culture fosters a
caste system based on criminal history, skin color, material wealth,
propensity for violence, and sexual orientation. As revolutionaries we
must check ourselves if we’re not actively establishing a new prison
culture and eliminating the hard-line caste structure. How? It starts
with building and maintaining relations based on ones level of
revolutionary ideology and practice.
Instead of greeting people with “Where you from, what you in for?” or
being concerned about who they’re attracted to or intimate with, your
greetings, concerns, and inquiries should be, “What are your politics?
What do you think about capitalism? How do you think we could organize
against the issues we face? Check out this political program, and tell
me what if anything you’d be willing to contribute to advancing it.” If
you aren’t doing that in some form or fashion you need to engage in
self-criticism, are you a revolutionary or a convict bound by the rules
and ideas of prison culture?
Lastly, the notion that any group, or person is exempt from recovery,
rehabilitation, or transformation is metaphysical, subjective, and thus
incorrect. Despite the subject matter, the universe and everything in
it, including one’s ideas and impulses, attractions, are in constant
movement and development. Nothing remains stagnant. This universal truth
is the only universal truth, that nothing remains the same. Therefore to
predetermine that anyone or anything is irredeemable is out of
compliance with reality and is therefore incorrect thinking, and merely
a reflection of one’s biased and narrow analysis. Another small point I
want to turn on from ULK #82, ‘Thugs
Are Sex Offenders Too’, where the writer says:
“The problem is that most transgender men-women in prison are sex
offenders, they are in for preying on children.”
This statement is obviously biased and subjective, and leads to
flawed analysis. It is possibly true that the trans people that writer
has encountered in prison are all S.O.’s, but it is the exact
opposite for my own lived experience. No transgender person I’ve
encountered has ever been locked up for a sexual offense, outside of
soliciting prostitution. Here’s what I mean by a purely subjective
analysis, one that is narrow and one sided relying on one’s own
experience only. The truth is that trans people are most often victims
of sexual predators in and out of prisons. Those who’ve become predators
themselves, whether trans or not, are most often victims of prior sexual
abuse. Though this may not align with the writers lived experience it is
the majority experience in society as told by polls and statistics. Yet
the metaphysical, subjective, nature of postmodernist philosophy has us
giving more credence to our own individual lived experience than that of
the society at large or a wide array of the population. If we’re in the
business of transforming society at large that sort of analysis will not
work well.
by a North Carolina prisoner September 2023 permalink
The No. 80, Winter 2023 edition of Under Lock & Key hosted an article titled “Sacrifice Behind Bars”, wherein a comrade expressed very heavy sentiments that I intend to magnify and address from a revolutionary perspective. The details of his mention were strikingly consistent with the circumstances and characters of the North Carolina prison system enabling an apparent conclusion that our obstacles as lumpen are, indeed, collective. To that extent I consider it necessary to re-evaluate our responsibilities as revolutionaries from within; as they are comparable to our revolutionary history as Marxist-Leninist-Maoists.
The central theme of the comrade’s message can be boiled down to one question he posed: “what are you willing to sacrifice?” The comrade illustrated his legacy of sacrifice to which he is honored and should know he’s not alone in that identical regard. However, for the new-coming comrade who may not understand his conviction yet and is attracted to his energy and posture; for the seasoned comrade who may be becoming burned out; for the growing comrade who may be struggling with understanding this political line; and for the critic, we must unify on the collective understanding of why sacrifice is necessary and how to measure the particular type of sacrifice to be offered for our revolutionary objective.
The author of that article asks the question of sacrifice to comrades on the streets and comrades within alike. Demonstrating his willingness to actualize guerrilla tactics amidst similarly situated individuals who have been compromised in exchange for goods supplied by the opposition makes it apparent that a revolutionary united front is diminished in that environment, to say the least. Essential to being compromised is the viewing that an individual – or a class – is not only without, but is desperate, moralless and to whatever degree, gullible. With respect to comrade’s mention of such individuals, we should not haste into judgment nor spring into belligerence without careful and scientific observation of our own perspective. It is not sound to conclude that it is an immaculate practice of social science for the opposition to infiltrate a mind that has never operated outside of its conditioning by that opposition. “Boy they got you good” etc. is not technically true if that person is underdeveloped morally, politically, and intellectually. Even if that person is from where you are from and have been through similar experiences. If you are a conscious revolutionary – conscious in the sense that you are aware of and intuit the frame of thinking employed by Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin and Mao Zedong – then you are unique: especially coming from capitalist-imperialist Amerikkka. That’s nothing to pride yourself on in arrogance nor egoism, its to empower your desire to fulfill your responsibilities to those unconscious. Therefore, to be ‘revolutionary’ in its most rudimentary expression is to redirect the impulses to be inhuman as you usher in humanism.
If one is morally sound, intellectually competent, and has a desire for general welfare of others, then from those perspectives that one is enriched, if he/she/they have not sequestered the abstract and subtle impetus of the capitalist-imperialist nature of his/her/their cultural (and political-economic) domicile then even with the above virtues, in those contexts, what will be is a repeat of what Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels called in The Communist Manifesto ‘reactionary socialism’; the remnants of feudal socialism. This is to the extent and in the regard of issuing counter-narratives in sole order to arouse sympathy in those who aren’t as ‘enriched’ as you to behave in a way that secures your sense of comfort. The motivations are not comparable in that example and the circumstances are as night and day by juxtapose. However, by principle and mentality its enough to say that one could be more creative from a revolutionary vantage point.
Sacrifice of any sort is rooted in the intention for a net-positive future occurrence. Therefore, the theoretical objectification of that sacrificial act bears no weight on the immediate circumstances one experiences. To add on to the comrade’s thoughts, what you are willing to sacrifice depends on your measure of awareness of what is to come of it. The knowledge of the accuracy of what is to come is based on your ability to identify with the material circumstances – emphasis on the conditions that define them – of that situation as it relates to your theory, essentially, of the world. From a revolutionary perspective ‘the world’ includes others, so when we speak of practice, i.e., sacrifice, it is necessarily unbalanced without theory.
If the masses, even in the prison setting, are viewed to be slumbering it is not for the revolutionary to wake them with a cacophony of political rhetoric, especially if their slumber is characterized by the fanaticals of capitalist production. So, we do place a high emphasis on practice. It is that practice must be guided by theory. Lenin stated:
“Without revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary movement.” (V.I. Lenin, What is to be done?)
In his Selected Works Mao Zedong stated:
“Theoretical knowledge is acquired through practice and must then return to practice.” (Mao, On Practice: The Relation Between Knowledge and Practice, 1937)
Mao did not differ with Lenin in this regard, he magnified the principle of Lenin’s point. In real time this means to structure revolutionary practice in a manner that conveys the core principles at work in an action bound language that is interpretable to and for the observer all while being disciplined enough not to exaggerate your behavior as to make the demonstration unrealistic. The standard by which one can scale his/her/their proposed action is in one’s ability to become one with the reality of the situation; being cautious of personal biases and having rational and isolated conclusions about each component of the embodying manifest circumstance. The sum of this process is the base from which to determine what means of action to deploy. To that extent, we in prison have to be realistic without compromising our theory (i.e. political line), some of us have immense anger issues and if that is true for the proposed actor in a revolutionary demonstration then if the action to be had does require a use of force we must consider if that one is sufficient or not for the action. Use of force does not always mean complete annihilation or insurrection. Whatever is decided upon, the objective is to be clear and decisive. The actualizer must be disciplined enough to actualize the task without going too far and thereby jeopardizing the precision of the demonstration. Lenin and Mao actually had a revolution, so this frame of thinking is sound, its relevance here and now depends on our willingness to truly get with the program, i.e., Marxism-Leninism-Maoism.
The answer to the comrade’s question to the world of sacrifice, should be proportional to the details of your circumstance and the individuals and lives it would effect; from a revolutionary perspective. Only a matter of intelligence compels the conclusion that revolution is sustained by an environment prepared for it. The blaze does not come before strenuous economic, political, financial, social, cultural, and theoretical preparation. Let us take the time we DO have and align ourselves with the correct theoretical knowledge.
North Carolina IS in the building. We have recently birthed a movement – S.W.A.P. (Serving With A Purpose) – which I am proud and honored to be a founding member of. S.W.A.P. is a N.C. prisoner-led organizational base empowered by the literary guidance of MLM and in unity with the United Front for Peace in Prisons; a United Struggle from Within initiative. Our halls of learning are open for all sisters, brothers, and non-binary comrades to partake in our programs and we are dedicated to organizing with comrades abroad on the basis of theory and practice – being MLM distinguished. We currently do provide a bi-monthly newsletter called Voice of the Lumpen, by which comrades may submit articles to be published, we host a penpal mentorship program with at risk youth both in facilities and those on the streets, we provide a jailhouse lawyer legal program called “Blue Skies Legal Initiative” where comrades can learn how to utilize legal provisions in a manner that furthers our political line, and are developing more programs as time progresses.
We thank Comrade Slaughter for bringing forth these questions, and as Maoist revolutionaries MIM(Prisons) as a cell has the duty to coordinate this line struggle within the United Struggle Within through unity-criticism-unity. One divides into two: a thing that was in a state of unity will have its contradictions and arrive at a point where the two are split. And through criticism and self-criticism and ridding metaphysics and idealism, the two aspects of the contradiction will find unity where one side will overtake the other.
Before we begin with the following quotes of the responders to Comrade Slaughter, we raise the question Mao Zedong asked when ey and eir comrades were beginning a revolutionary people’s war in semi-colonial and semi-feudal China: who are our friends? who are our enemies?
Comrade Jade responds: In regards to Slaughter’s response I would like to point out a few things you may overlook in regards to sex offenders in general.
First, not everyone convicted of a sex crime is a child molester. Are all white males Aryans? Are all Hispanics Cartel? Are all Black males gang bangers? There will always be diversity in all groups we attempt to label or create. It is a proven fact. We all are individuals who are slightly different even under the exact same conditions.
Next, I believe that you need to truly look at what they did or did not do before ostracizing or mistreating them. Do not just judge them by the label corrupt politics fostered on them.
I agree that those who truly rape/molest and prey on underage children are not likely to be rehabilitated or to further the cause. But, how many of the people convicted of sex crimes are the true predators?
I know from personal experience, as a former psychiatric nurse, that females tend to mature sooner and seek out sex earlier. As puberty shifts from the old 12-15 to 8-11 now due to steroids and worse it makes them even more likely to become sexually active by 14. They will seek out partners where they will, including older more experienced men, who in their opinion can please them or teach them. While I do not advocate for them to be sexually active, especially not with grown men, due to early menstruation and physical development some females 14-17 look like grown adults. Then add to that the over-sexualization of our society, they tend to become aggressive in a sexual nature. As a result, some men may not realize their partner is underage. While this is not an excuse, it does happen.
Then you have men whose adult female partner falsely accuses them in revenge to a variety of things. It is not uncommon in a situation like this for the man to be convicted or pressured into a deal.
This does not mean all sex offenders are able to be rehabilitated, though the ones convicted rarely re-offend according to statistical evidence.
To this end we need a viable alternative to prisons and/or death for all offenders who truly cannot be rehabilitated. None of the current approaches are going to work. It will have to be a new idea.
We also must address the over-sexualization of our society. By making sex less of a pass time, less appealing, less mainstream, we can reduce many sex offenses as well.
MIM(Prisons) responds: Comrade Jade reveals an important aspect of the registered sex offenders status – the moral panic and the scapegoat aspect it represents. How many non-registered sex offenders and non-confirmed sex offenders in prisons (who might perhaps gotten in prison for non-sex related crimes such as murder or drugs) will partake in the ultra-leftist crusade against the confirmed ones? For the readers on the outside, that sentence alone might carry a reactionary and apologist undertones, but that is because petty-bourgeois justice oriented revenge killings is a material reality in prison and much less often outside. The life of a lumpen organization member for example is an oppressive and gritty one, and sexual crimes or sexual relations where consent isn’t prioritized aren’t uncommon; yet most lumpen organization members won’t come to prison on sex related crimes but on drug and homicide related crimes.
Subjectivism, ultra-leftism, and individualist oriented justice is another form of opiate of the masses in prison: take that anger out on the confirmed sex offenders says the pig, but us at MIM(Prisons) know that the pigs are laughing all along as this happens because it’s just that much easier to control a violent lumpen class than a cool and collected one – a class in itself vs a class for itself. Drugs aren’t the only form of individualism that is used to placate the imprisoned lumpen, the imprisoned lumpen’s penchent for ultra-leftist violence will also come in handy as a governing tool.
In a socialist society we will ban things like pornography for profit and misogynistic media and media that is predatory towards children. These things are so common under imperialism and reinforce and encourage sexual abuse.
A Colorado Prisoner Responds: I agree with Wiawimawo. I disagree with Slaughter.
A “sex offense” is whatever a legislature defines as one. It can be anything like actual physical rape to someone who is caught peeing on a dumpster in an alley. In my 14 years in a Corruptarado (as we call this state) prison I have met only a couple of people who were actual “rapists.” The vast majority of sex offenders were people who had younger lovers who chose to be with them. But someone, often a jealous want-to-be lover, found out, ratted the two out, and the older partner was arrested and charged.
Now prosecutors adore sex charges. They require no physical evidence, no witnesses. Only an allegation and a “victim” coached by D.A. investigators to say how they were fooled, manipulated, led astray, by that evil older man (almost always a man). And in states like this one without a time limit for filing, a “victim” can say, “20 years ago he took advantage of me” and the D.A. can file a charge and get a conviction.
Slaughter talks about “children.” A child is whatever the legislator says he is. Anyone under 18 is defined a child. Right now it is 18, which is the “age of consent.” Back in 2009, in Colorado, it was 15. And a female of 12, with parental permission, could marry (official papers) anyone.
In Texas, as in most of the South, the legal age for marriage was 12 when I was there. I don’t know what it is now.
The fact is, the religious right bible-wavers do not like sex, and they do not want these pesky kids having any of it. Thus the law, and the pigs (Amerikkka’s version of the Nazi SA) are used to stop it.
The conclusion of this religious fear will be what was done in the Salem-Keizer school district in Oregon. Reported on broadly, on vice.com, “Teachers Forced to Report All Teens Having Sex in Oregon School District.”
At those schools, since Oregon law only allows sex for those 18 or older, anyone under 18 doing the dirty is a criminal. So any school personnel discovering an under 18 having sex is required to report him or her to the police for prosecution.
Hey, if enough “children under law” would be arrested and thrown into prison then unapproved sex could be stopped. Of course, putting older partners in prison is already being done and that does not stop them from re-offending. So it should work with the children also.
Slaughter (what is in a name) wants those sex offenders (ey calls them pedophiles – a term created by prosecutors to inflame) to be punished, and people protected from them. In Colorado there are about 4000 sex offenders in prison (CDOC). The vast majority have indeterminate sentences, which means most will die in prison. That number is a full 25% of the CDOC population. And as you probably know, the giving of indeterminate sentences is an easy way for prosecutors to get a life sentence for defendants that did not kill anyone. Great for the D.A.’s stats when a performance review comes around.
The issue is of life sentences in Amerikkka. Get the article, “The Only Way We Get Out of There is in a Pine Box” in the April 2022 issue of News Inside published by The Marshall Project. It tells of elderly prisoners, convicted of murder or other violent crimes who will die in prison. At great expense to tax payers for all their medical care.
…Make no mistake about it, if the Christians like Pence, DeSantis, etc. take over, a new inquisition, just like the Spanish one in the 18th Century will be instituted. And right at the top of the list, below LGBTQ people, will be the communists. Off to the concentration camps for all.
MIM(Prisons) Responds: A recent report by the Prison Policy Initiative exposes the arbitrary repression of so-called “civil commitments.” In cases where someone is not given a life sentence, they can be civily committed after fulfilling the sentence given by the courts. Most who go to civil commitment will never see the outside world again. At least 6,000 people, mostly men, across the country are in civil commitment after serving their time for sex offenses. Unlike court, the process to be sentenced to civil commitment is largely arbitrary. The following will make you much more likely to be civilly committed: being gay, being transgender, being Black, being disabled.(3)
Under imperialism, well-meaning laws that sound good on paper such as ones surrounding the age of consent (or the anti-mask laws first intended against the Klan protesting while cowardly hiding eir identities, but now used against progressives and oppressed nation youth protesting against police violence) will be abused for the interests of the imperialist-patriarchy. The truth is, law in itself for any given class society has been simply state enforced rules to govern the overall humyn society in accordance with the respective class dictatorships. This is why legalism (in this case referring to the idea that good laws will create good society and bad laws will create bad society) is in no way shape or form a scientific solution against the tragic cases such as rape, molestation, and grooming of children.
Under the imperialist patriarchy that we live in, children have no rights or agency to consent and the rape culture of our world will always harm the most vulnerable. “Good” laws under an imperialist patriarchy will be designed and used for the purposes of maintaining it (the nuclear family, heteronormitivity, youth oppression, etc.) that has children raped in the first place while a socialist society/proletarian dictatorship will give power to the youth to properly protect themselves and prioritize abolishing oppression above all else and especially against prioritizing profits and maintaining a patriarchal culture.
A California Prisoner Responds: I can see this comrade has done a significant amount of revolutionary education. However to truly be a communist means one has to recognize the humanity of others. It is here this comrade’s own hate is still an obstacle in the way. The ONLY path forward for this comrade is to forgive his abuser. This comrade must also recognize that the Known Sex Offenders (KSO’s) on the yard are NOT his abuser, meaning this comrade does NOT know their circumstance.
This comrade separates sex crimes from all other crimes by stating that “all other crimes are political crimes,” as a result of capitalism I presume. Sex crimes are an “illness.” This comrade (let me say comrades) states he is in for murder and that murder is somehow NOT an anti-human crime but only a “political crime.” Furthermore, Comrade Slaughter states that he is rehabilitated by saying he has “learned to be objective towards KSO’s.” He also states it is only possible for all other criminals to rehabilitate by saying “unification with the KSOs is futile because after the revolution the KSO will still need to be dealt with” meaning presumably rehabilitation for sex addiction is somehow not possible for the KSO.
I would like to start with the motion this murderer is not as rehabilitated as ey claim. The statement “after the revolution the KSO will still need to be dealt with” proves Comrade S. is not as rehabilitated as ey thinks. It also proves that Comrade S endorses the puniluation method used by the Nazis to “deal with” 6 million Jews. Comrade S. is obviously proposing the genocide of a whole group of people (KSOs). I think a lot of Jews, Armenians, and Africans would tell Comrade S. that his crime of murder is not political as he claims, but in fact is an anti-people crime. Moreover, most KSOs are more rehabilitated than this murderer.
MIM(Prisons) responds: We would say that the comparison of Slaughter’s comments to the holocaust of Jewish, Gay, Romani, and politically subversive revolutionaries under Nazi Germany to be a bit of an exaggeration. Yet it is true that the fascists will mobilize people around persecuting scapegoats, and currently it is this fanatical connection between pedophilia, transgender people and gender non-conforming people in general that is mobilizing the reactionary forces in the streets.
As we assemble this issue of ULK, a news story dropped about Larry Nassar being stabbed in prison. Nassar was convicted of molesting hundreds of young girls over decades while serving as the doctor for the U.$. Olympic team. Whether it’s to make themselves feel better about themselves, as the California prisoner above proposed, or to take out some anger, or to earn some stripes, the collaborative effort to punish people like Nassar undermines the principal contradiction in prisons. These attacks are generally a collaborative effort between prisoners and staff. Staff who may overlap with the fascist movements on the streets threatening drag story times. And while we would not argue there is never a time to ally with staff, it is a rare occasion, when they actually side with prisoners against the system. In contrast, this type of “outlaw justice” is really state-sanctioned. And it does reinforce the idea that there is some common interest between the oppressed and the oppressor in punishing these crimes considered most heinous.
If we aren’t organizing collectively to transform systems and transform ourselves, then we aren’t working towards justice. Triumphant mentions an example on the streets of FPC addressing open air sex markets in the community. Without knowing the details, this seems like an approach that could actually mobilize the people in a way that reduces sexual abuse of children and teenagers. Within prisons we can point to the example of Men Against Sexism, which successfully eradicated rape in Washington State Prison.(1) So if people are serious about taking action against sexual assault, there are actual effective ways to do this.
The ability to truly rehabilitate people will increase as communists increase their power and influence over society. We agree with this comrade that the current system can’t properly address those who aren’t being rehabilitated. And we look to socialist China’s model for how they rehabilitated people who committed crimes against the people.
Comrade Slaughter is right to bring up the question of how and what the morality of a revolutionary should be implemented and look like. To that we answer that proletarian morality must be based on whatever is best for the whole of society to be rid of oppression in contrast to bourgeois morality which is based on individualism, Liberalism, and profit. We tell Comrade Slaughter, and to all comrades in the revolutionary struggle (especially the imprisoned lumpen) to protect themselves as revolutionaries from individuals with bad intentions, but also to push themselves beyond the subjective trauma that ey has faced as oppressed people. Use mindfulness and other resources made available by this imperialist system and use it to better oneself as a revolutionary to heal the persynal scars to better transform the world around us. Don’t let the imperialists weaponize mindfulness or therapy to numb and placate one’s self.
All crimes are political. Post-modernism (the narrative of non-narrative) recognizes phenomena such as this and says that the persynal is the political. Maoism goes beyond this to say that the narrative of the oppressed must replace the narrative of the oppressor with revolutionary violence (rhetoric alone will solve nothing). Persynal scars are political scars, and recognizing the contradiction between the individual and the oppressive system is recognizing that one must recognize eir own lived experiences isn’t all there is to the world and is an unscientific way for the oppressed nations/internal semi-colonies of the United $tates to understand the material reality around them.
After printing our long discussion of sex offenders in ULK 81 we thought we might have spent a bit too much space on the topic. But as all the responses came in, we were reminded why we did a whole issue focused on this topic 5 years ago. It is a topic of great interest to the prison masses. It is important for building the United Front for Peace in Prisons. And we learned some stats on the large percentages of prisoners who are convicted of some kind of “sex offense” across the country (25% in Colorado, 21% in California).
Many of our readers feel they have been wronged or mistreated by other prisoners because they are labelled a sex offender. Others who are not convicted of any sex-related crime spoke up on behalf of those who are. And we know there are many with such charges who are reading ULK, reaching out to MIM(Prisons), who want to be part of the anti-imperialist prison movement. And so the question is, should we be excluding 1/5 to 1/4 of the population in any given prison system from the movement based on this label?
As scientists, we must think in terms of percentages. If 25% of people in a given prison system are sex offenders, that means in a wing of 100 people, 25 of them are convicted of some kind of sex crime. Are 100% of these 25 prisoners enemies of the people who cannot be redeemed? Even those who wrote to say that some cannot be reformed, did not include all “sex offenders” in that category. Yet, often, the way it plays out is 100% of those with known sex crime convictions are treated as outcasts. This is dividing the prison population. This is just one of many things dividing prisoners in the United $tates today. But it is one that affects a lot of people.
The possibility that we’ve been working to create since before the founding of the United Front for Peace in Prisons (UFPP) in 2012, is a united prison movement that acts in the interests of all oppressed people. People in U.$. prisons are being tortured, starved, denied medical care, denied educations, imposed with mental suffering and being repressed for political activity. A strong, united prison movement is the only way we can overcome these conditions.
The divisions preventing this level of unity is the old way, the way of imperialism. We are fighting for a new way, a revolutionary socialist way. This new way requires changes in how we live and interact. On the level of the individual this means applying the Maoist method of criticism/self-criticism. This is something we all must participate in to be part of the movement to overcome imperialism. It’s not just sex offenders, or drug addicts, or murderers who need to self-criticize and reform ourselves, it’s all of us. All of us have ways of thinking and behaving that are based in the values of imperialism.
We are calling on comrades to lead criticism/self-criticism sessions with the goal of building unity to build for the UFPP’s annual Day of Peace & Solidarity, this September 9th. For years we’ve been promoting the Day of Peace and sharing report backs on events organized by prisoners across the country. What we want to focus on this September 9th is the importance of criticism/self-criticism in the building of unity. We challenge USW leaders to take on the following plan of action:
Every day, ask yourself what is an interaction you could have handled differently to better promote unity among prisoners? This could be a daily meditation question you take on for Black August.
Every week, meet with like-minded people and discuss ways you are working to change yourselves to be better leaders at building unity. Give each other feedback on your shortcomings and progress.
On September 9th, organize others to take the day off from work and school, to fast, and to focus on this question of building unity for common interests on a facility-wide level.
Use the article Criticism & Self-Criticism as a guide and in your discussions in the coming weeks. In addition, last year we released our Revolutionary 12 Step Program. This pamphlet is a guide to self-assessment and self-criticism. It is a framework for transforming yourself along the guidelines of proletarian morality. Get a copy via our Free Political Books to Prisoners Program to help you with the above tasks.
Then send us a report on your successes and failures this September 9th so we can all learn, grow and share in the next issue of Under Lock & Key. Issue 83 will be focused on the theme of “Prisons are War.” We will be printing stories that highlight the political war being waged against oppressed people and politically active people by the U.$. criminal injustice system.
1. PTT, November 2012, Review: The Anti-Exploits of Men Against Sexism, Under Lock & Key 29.
Building Peace, Unity, and Solidarity Behind Enemy Lines
Introduction 1. Security Threat Group Wrongful Validation 2. Case Law 3. Oppressed, Oppressing The Oppressed! 4. What It Means To Be A Leader 5. Peace Behind Enemy Lines
Introduction
“I’m going to join the fight wherever Negroes ask for my help…” - Malcolm X
Amani (PEACE) to all Lumpen Organizations (“L.O.’s”) held captive in Amerikkka’s prisons. As we fight against dehumanizing and tortuous conditions that’s done by prisonkrats, we must get united and stay united!
Eye stand with each and every last one of you. Eye take a solidarity stand to see to it that all our needs are met. Of course Eye am one man, however, though these few pages with revolutionary strength we can all liberate ourselves behind enemy lines.
Eye will be building on some topics that need to be addressed. We are the change. Therefore, we must organize, agitate, and educate. Stay on course comrades as we seize the time!!
Security Threat Group Wrongful Validation
“A healer need to see beyond the present and tomorrow. He needs to see years and decades ahead. Because healers work for results so firm that may not be wholly visible till centuries have flowed into millennia. Those willing to do this necessary work, they are the healers of our people…” - Ayi Kwei Armah
Eye am a general of the Damu Nation. Eye am wrongfully validated as “Security Threat Group” (STG) in the state of South Carolina. An STG is a classification that prisonkrats classify Lumpen Organizational members who they fear pose a threat.
The so-called threat can be educating, organizing, agitating, litigating, money getter, and/or violent. In my as well as many it’s all of the above, however all these pigs have on STG’s are Confidential Inmates (C.I.’s). When pigs validate you they place – rather kidnap – you and hold you hostage in segregation.
The only way off of a STG validation is by “snitching”, make parole, max-out, win through lawsuits, or you die. All sorts of foolishness can get you validated such as wearing flags, tattoos, literature, violence, snitches, and just being in a leadership position. Be mindful who you associate with, watch what you do and say etc.
Amerikkka’s prison colonies have contracts with other prisons throughout Amerikkka. When pigs consider you a threat they will send you out-of-state to other prisons within Amerikkka. Comrades STG is not a game this label is on you for life so be very careful…PEACE.
Case Law
“The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed…” - Steve Biko
Frasie v. Terhune, 283 F.3d 506 (2002)
Taylor v. Rodriguez, 238 F3d 188 (2nd Cir.2001)
Sostre v. McGinnis, 442 F.2d 179 (1971)
Incumaa v. Stirling, 2015 U.S. App. Lexis 11321 (2015)
Koch v. Lewis, 96 F. Supp. 2d 949 (2000)
Harrison v. Institutional Gang of Investigations, 2010 U.S. Dist. Lexis 14944
Rivera v. Long (2011)
Oppressed, Oppressing The Oppressed
“Our objective is the destruction of the evil system of global white supremacy and the re-assertion of our right to self-determination and the resurrection of divine humanity that we brought to the world in the beginning…” - Heru Akki Seb
As EYE build with each of you today know and overstand this – if you fail to overstand how white supremacy works, everything that you think you know will only confuse you!! EYE speak these words too because look at how “we” are carrying on? Every organization is at war with each other.
How are we supposed to fight against oppression but yet we are doing the oppressing? We sell the enemy drugs to one another. We use derogatory language towards one another. We do everything we can to destroy one another.
These prisonkrats no longer have to get “down and dirty” to infiltrate the people anymore, you know why? You have as EYE write this C.I’s (Confidential Inmates) within every lumpen organization. And these cowards are feeding all sorts of information to pigs.
Comrades today think that it is cool to be sitting in the office with female pigs running their mouth. Overstand this – pigs use the women to seek information, in return they pass the information on to the higher up pigs.
Overstand without the drug trade in prison majority of those pigs will not work back here. We have to end this oppression, all forms of it, because as of now all EYE see is agent provocateurs working against our liberation…PEACE.
What It Means To Be A Leader
“The leader who is not loyal to his trust, and to his associates, those above him and those below him, cannot long maintain his leadership. Disloyalty marks one as being less than the dust of the earth, and brings down on one’s head the contempt he deserves. Lack of loyalty is one of the major causes of failure in every walk of life…” - Napoleon Hill
EYE am sure that every lumpen organizational leader has his/her own definition for “what a leader is?” However, a leader is one who leads self first, then he/she leads others. A leader is one who judges according to his/her own actions and ways. A leader leads from the front never from the back in retreat.
A leader teaches his/her subjects the necessary knowledge and skills on how to live a productive life as men and women. A leader listens to the people effectively and intently to overstand the needs of the people.
A leader never moves off feelings or emotions nor do he/she feel fear. A leader has hands-on experience with the people and his community. A leader never plays the role of a politician, he/she is out in the field with the people he/she governs.
To be an effective leader one must know him/herself first, his/her culture, history then one recognizes his/her enemy. You must listen to the people and respond to them without lies and false hope. A leader must investigate everyone who declares themselves a member of his/her community. A leader must always educate, organize, and agitate…PEACE.
Peace Behind Enemy Lines
“Revolution is not a speed race, it is a race for he who runs to the end of his life, it is not a race for racehorses, it is a race for warhorses…” - Kwame Ture
There should not be any wars with lumpen organizations! Comrades EYE need you to overstand how oppression works – it works by turning us against us. EYE overstand that people will have differences however, our differences must stop leading to riots, stabbings, degrading one another and murder.
We must end the beef amongst the oppressed if we want to be liberated. If the various leaders within the L.O.s are not leading right he/she must be removed. The only people that can liberate us-is-us!
P.E.A.C.E means Proper Education Activates Constant Elevation, therefore we greet each other with PEACE. From me to you we all we got so we must act like it…P.E.A.C.E
