MIM(Prisons) is a cell of revolutionaries serving the oppressed masses inside U.$. prisons, guided by the communist ideology of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism.
Under Lock & Key is a news service written by and for prisoners with a focus on what is going on behind bars throughout the United States. Under Lock & Key is available to U.S. prisoners for free through MIM(Prisons)'s Free Political Literature to Prisoners Program, by writing:
MIM(Prisons) PO Box 40799 San Francisco, CA 94140.
Last year myself and various comrades within the anti-prison movement
came under heightened political repression during Black August and
Bloody September well into October. The Palestinian National Liberation
after Operation Al-Aqsa Flood seemed to keep the war games intact
against us prisoners/revolutionaries.
The Stop Cop City activists and myself have been branded as domestic
terrorists by the U.$. empire and are facing the new type of political
persecution greenlit after September 11, 2001. I quote Obama: “We do not
use drone strikes to punish people but to eliminate those who pose a
continuing and imminent threat to the American people.” It was said in a
cleverly written and well executed speech, and also layered very
carefully.
The Supreme Court says the only question to ask to a case like this
is whether the speech “transcends the bounds of freedom of speech which
the constitution protects.”
How far can the phrase “imminent threat” be stretched? We are the
domestic guinea pigs. Security Threat Group (STG) units all over the
empire have war plans that move into operation mode in Bloody September,
prison activists and deemed leaders will be hid inside the various
control units that pockmark the penal landscape. Get ready.
This is that season again. There is no need for Congress or state
legislature approval. The authorization for use of military force is a
unilateral decision by executive power. Beware the drone strike for
rebels and those in their reach. Beware the raid for rebels and those in
their reach. Beware the heightened political prosecution/assassination
of the Republic of New Afrika. This is a defense of the state’s right to
wage war against New Afrika.
i wanted to take this opportunity to lend my voice to this ongoing
discussion around so-called “snitching”, as this is a serious topic
of principle and ideology which affects Our ability to succeed in Our
tactical and strategic approaches.
As MIM(Prisons) pointed out, this question was originally raised due
to captives organizing around police terrorism inside prisons and other
captives refusal to participate in the paper trail aspect of the
resistance. However, the issue raised in ULK 83’s article
putting forth the slogan “Stop Collaborating” and the response in
ULK 86, “Stop
Snitching on Pigs”, need to be discussed as they all derive from the
same source and it needs to be spelled out.
The California Prisoner in ULK 86 opens by saying “Let’s
look at this from a practical perspective and not from an ideological
one.” Then says “Snitching is telling on people. It’s giving information
on someone else to a higher authority to act on it. We can all agree on
that definition.”
i begin by stating: NO! We cannot all agree on that. It is a fallacy
that telling on someone and snitching is always the same. See, snitching
necessitates that We’ve had some sort of prior bond, or understanding.
If your co-defendant “snitches on you” it is different from the old
church lady down the street “telling on you.” It may produce the same
result, but these are two different things. And it is indeed an
ideological question, We can’t get around that. The co-defendant has an
understanding with you, usually an unspoken one that each of you are
equally committed to the morals and principles of the criminal
subculture, which means no cooperation with law enforcement even if it
means saving your own skin. When the co-defendant goes against that they
have snitched on you, not only because they told but because they
violated your trust by going against a principle each of you swore to
uphold. The presence of the betrayal factor and the deceit, the
inability to honor a commitment, these are the key factors that
represent the phenomenon We call snitching. These are indeed
universal principles that virtually no one likes when people go against.
Regardless of walk of life, We as humyns want to have assurance that
commitments will be honored, that sacrifices will be made, and that
trustworthiness will be present in those We associate with. It is for
this reason real snitching is universally frowned upon.
However, when We bring the old church lady into the equation, she,
while frowning upon the Judas in her bible and those who exhibit those
same traits in her world, will tell on you for whatever perceived slight
or transgression you’ve committed against her. She hasn’t swore to any
principles of the criminal subculture, she has no bond with you other
than being a community member, and that bond was broken by you in your
antisocial act against her. So she cannot possibly “snitch” on you, even
while proceeding to tell on you. There is a significant difference, and
We cannot hold people to standards that they have never
acknowledged.
As MIM(Prisons) said, abuses must be exposed by so-called authorities
and this goes towards undermining the legitimacy of their authority.
A crooked cop is not an ally to a revolutionary prisoner simply
because they are crooked or they bring something in. This question has
to really be worked out on a case-by-case basis, but i’ll just say that
in most cases the crooked cop isn’t an ally and the situation is just
transactional, there’s no understanding either way of the intentions
behind either the taking or bringing of illicit things: it’s only a
transactional relationship like most in a capitalist society. So, to say
the pig (the profit-driven crooked cop) is my ally because they bring me
phones and dope is to say that i am allowing myself to be bought off by
these items. As a NARN i stand on the principles put forth in the
FROLINAN Handbook for REVNAT Cadres: Standards 5: “Potential members
must have outgrown the lust for coveting things or material goods.” And
from the Codes of Conduct 4: “No member of the revolutionary cadre
organization will place any material commodity above or before the
organization, the people, or the NAIM.” 6: “No member of the
revolutionary cadre organization is permitted to use, produce,
distribute, process, fund, or take part in the sale of heroin, cocaine
(in any form), LSD, PCP, or any hard drug, nor will they take any pill
for the purpose of getting high and no member will distribute such pills
or take part in the sale of such pills or other illegal drugs.”
i share to illustrate the standards and codes of conduct We should be
upholding, even when no one else is, or even when it benefits Us to do
otherwise. So if We follow this as spelled out it would limit Our
dealings with that crooked pig anyway. We have a mandate to liberate
political prisoners and if they believe in the principles of the
revolutionary movement, then maybe that rare individual is an ally. But
We all know there aren’t many who are willing to put their life and
freedom on the line to liberate Us, even if they’re willing to help Us
saturate the pen with distractions. So this says “i am willing, as a
crooked pig who is profit driven, to help you distract yourself and
others while in prison, but i am not willing to help you get out of
prison.” i don’t think that’s a real ally and it’s because of the profit
motive itself.
This brings me to my next point. The California Prisoner uses the
terminology that We all use. “Our struggle.” But i think We need to
define exactly what “Our struggle” means to us, because it doesn’t mean
the same thing to everyone at all times. Some think the struggle is for
power and influence within the prison, some think it’s to tear down all
prisons right now, some think it’s to reform the criminal mentality in
order to produce good law abiding citizens of the corporate states of
amerika and all these and other trends coexist to make up what Our
struggle objectively is, but what is Our struggle subjectively, to Us?
The Dragon pointed this out the best when it was said, that the whole
point of the prison movement, the underlying motive for all the actions
is to develop the capacity to field a People’s Army. i am paraphrasing.
So in my experience, and something i lament to cats around although i
can’t speak for cats here or elsewhere, but those who have “plugs” are
not using them for any sort of dissent activities. Those who have plugs
and dope are usually those policing the cats doing the dissident
actions, whether those actions are paper trial related or organizing
direct action.
Rarely is it the cats who have plugs and dope doing anything for the
movement, and even when these are comrades with knowledge and experience
and proven track records of struggle, while they have access to those
plugs and dope their activism and commitment to it either ceases or
severely lessens. Why? Because these are not only distractions but are
corrupting influences. It is no coincidence that usually the prisons
with the least amount of “motion” are those with the highest level of
rebel activity and ideological training going on. So although plugs
could theoretically be used for a lot of good they are by and large not
being used in that way. [MIM(Prisons) adds: This is our experience as
well.]
So, while I would agree with the Cali Prisoner about not throwing the
baby out with the bath water, i do so largely because We cannot do so
anyway. The prison system creates its black market economy through its
laws of prohibition. Therefore there will always be some pig somewhere
itching to take advantage of the unique economic opportunity to provide
distractions and corrupting influences to those that want them and want
to provide them. i am not advocating telling on crooked cops, but let me
be clear they’re not allies to revolutionary prisoners, unless they
themselves support the revolutionary principles We uphold. Let me also
be clear that those who decide to tell on these crooked cops, here
meaning specifically those who are driven by profit, those acts are not
snitching, even though they are telling as explained at the top of this
writing.
The two main things that hold the revolutionary prison movement back
are gangs/gang mentalities and the drug trade. Therefore, anyone who
perpetuates the latter is holding back the movement. On the gang
question, there are those who are solid revs and come from this cloth, i
am one of them. However, this doesn’t change the fact that the
introduction of and expansion of gangs, particularly street gangs inside
prison, at least in the case of Texas, coincides with the downward slope
of revolutionary consciousness and commitment within the walls.
Gone are the days where L.O.’s are built upon revolutionary and
progressive principles. Gone are the days of traditional groups
spreading knowledge and going at the system. They’re only spreading
dope, gangsterism, and discord amongst each other. The exceptions to
this rule become obsolete within their groups, and the revolutionary
prisoners who really stand on revolutionary bizzness are not the cool
cats with all the luxuries, they’re usually the ones outcast, not liked,
shunned, isolated, because everyone wants to be crime bosses in here. In
order to bring the proper orientation and programs back to the prisons,
revolutionary and progressive prisoners have to make allies and build up
institutions to help those who need and want it. It won’t be too many
who want it, and that’s just the sad and true reality we’re in these
days. Capitalism + dope = genocide.
These MF’ers are preventing us from building the People’s Army and We
are talking about protecting them and their interests and that they are
allies? Come on homie, what wrong with that picture!?
In the history of the prison movement the most effective tactic of
changing conditions has been inmate litigation. In order to litigate you
must create a paper trail. How can we do that if we are not filing any
complaints? i encourage comrades, those who live by revolutionary codes
of conduct to be mindful of exactly how you implore the enemy
institutions. Not because it is or isn’t snitching, but because, again,
Our point is to build a People’s Army and We still have to do that even
though We complain about the reactionary notions a lot of Our peers
have, these are still the peers We have to organize with and among, and
therefore like any shrewd politician We must be mindful of the landscape
and the dominant ideologies and ideals, even those we disagree with, and
navigate the terrain in a way that doesn’t neutralize Our effectiveness
at organizing people under Our umbrella. We won’t be able to build the
army if they all distrust Us because they think we are snitches. We
won’t even have the time or space to argue otherwise because credibility
has been lost.
For this reason, it is not politically correct to tell internal
affairs on the crooked pig about profit driven acts, whereas documenting
acts of pig brutality where people can see and understand the negative
intentions behind the pig’s actions and therefore are less likely to
side with the pig against you either directly or ideologically, that is
an action that is politically correct. Be mindful comrades, and stay
focused on the ultimate objective. Don’t snitch, and i mean really
snitch (betray you honor and commitments) and don’t collaborate with the
state.
Texas attorney general Ken Paxton has sued yet another organization
involved in support for immigrants and immigrants rights. This is the
13th organization Paxton has used his state prosecutorial powers to sue
in hopes of shutting down the organizations.
The organization in question here is different than the others in
that the other organizations worked more directly at the border,
organizing safe houses, and delivering food and water for passing
migrants. The 13th organization is called FIEL, a Houston area
organization that has been around since 2007, providing outreach
resources for immigrant families and students in the Houston area.
FIEL HOUSTON has been outspoken on social media regarding the
immigrant policies and bigotry coming from Texas governor Abbott and
Trump. It is the social media posts Paxton is attacking with this
lawsuits, seeking to shut FIEL down for purportedly violating a ban on
non-profits participating or intervening in political campaigns.
Earlier this year Paxton investigated and brought suit against over a
dozen organizations he or his base disagree with, particularly around
the immigrant question. His other efforts failed to shut these
organizations down.
In the case against FIEL Paxton targets only the group’s speech,
criminal political speech opposing Trump and Abbott… If allowed to stand
immigrant families in one of the most diverse cities in America will
miss out on the various programs FIEL offers.
The battle against censorship is an inside outside battle.
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) is a pro-Zionist, reactionary
watch-dog organization that has posed as an unbiased civil rights
organization since 1913.
The ADL is one of the main groups whose connections and influence
help drive the false narrative that anti-Zionism is anti-semitic. This
false narrative is now driving the erosion of First Amendment free
speech protections, backlash against university campus protests and
their demands related to Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS). As
such, ADL is not only a threat to those of us who support the national
liberation of Palestine, but also otherwise unengaged people in the
Corporate States of Amerikkka.
ADL is funded, as a non-taxed 501(c)(3), by mega donors on the far
right. And has been lobbying for legislation to criminalize political
dissent against settler-colonialism in I$rael. The ADL did the same
thing during the South African apartheid years. Even going as far as to
spy on anti-Zionist and anti-apartheid activists for the FBI during the
1980s and early 1990s. In total ADL spied on 700 socio-political
organizations. In the McCarthy era the ADL snitched on communists and
anarchists to the House of Un-Amerikan Activities Committee.
The ADL runs and operates a non-governmental police education program
which sends police to I$rael for training. The ADL has said publicly,
through its “research director”, that the “American Left that’s the
biggest threat to American Jews”.
It is this conclusion that has led the ADL to insult, snitch, and spy
on nearly every major New Afrikan organization from the era of SNCC and
the BPP to today’s Black Lives Matter.
For this reason we believe that you, the reader, should contribute to
exposing the ADL’s track record. Sign the open letter, “Open Letter to
Progressives: The ADL is Not An Ally” (DropTheADL.com).
Our aboveground parties must be
centralized
The revolution shall not be televised
all party disagreements must be internalized
Because the foe uses the media to spread lies
and the likes to use their snitches to stigmatize
They use their C.I’s (confidential informants) to infiltrate our party
lines
Some of their C.I’s
are pretty tempting to the eyes
They’ll spew back at you revolutionary rhetoric to deceive and
hypnotize
They’ll give you a spiel that their “handlers” help them organize
But they’re really pigs in disguise
The real reason they’re around us is to spy,
and gain access to our leadership
So they can tag and identify
Because they’re really working for the F.B.I
Trying to assassinate our leadership
marking them to die.
Like Huey p. Newton said, it’s Revolutionary Suicide,
C.I’s quoting revolutionary jargon and slogans that they memorized
Rhetoric that they falsely digested and regurgitated in order to keep us
mesmerized
This is why the revolution shall not be televised
Because the media stay spreading lies,
So we must be forever cautious and wise
Because its through the crosshairs of that rifle scope that our leaders
are crucified
So you better open your eyes
and recognize
That these are the lessons from the past to help us better
organize!
We ask our imprisoned lumpen readers, can snitching really be
stopped without independent power from the oppressor?
What would it mean to be loyal to “your people” or “your
folks”?
Can the principle of anti-snitching be applied to the enemy who it
is designed to protect fellow oppressed nations or lumpen from in the
first place?
Lumpen as Aspiring
Oppressors
First off, I’m not gonna sugar coat shit. We must identify the
‘oppressed’ and the ‘oppressor’, with a concrete analysis, which can get
confusing; because the two groups are united under the flag of the 2nd
Beast and because the oppressed lumpen in the United $tates of Amerika
are struggling to ‘transform themselves’ into the oppressors, so when
they look in the mirror their reflections often resemble the opposite;
in a political, spiritual, psychological, geographical and sexual
essence. Keep in mind that, subjectively and objectively, the U.$.
lumpen are in a figurative yacht compared to the canoes of the
proletariat and peasants of the Third World, as seen in their past and
present conditions. They also sail on entirely different waters,
figuratively speaking.
However, neither ship has an arsenal of cannon balls, as does the
oppressive Imperial Navy, which is a similarity. The problem is that the
U.$. lumpen are trying to arm themselves with cannons inside their
yachts, as a means of initiating the Imperial Navy and are aspiring to
become oppressors themselves, not as a means of internationally ending
oppression/exploitation – it’s the Amerikan nightmare. They are a
spitting image of their culture. They want to grow up and get spanked by
porn stars, like Donald Trump, with herds of piggy banks to save the day
like captain-save-a-rate. The majority of them worship Amerikan Idols,
not because they have to, but because that’s what they strive, with
blood, sweat and tears, to become.
What use is it for the lumpen of the oppressed nations to wrestle
power away from the oppressors only to use that power to restore, or
intensify imperialism? Chances of success is less than a gamble, with
these people steering the ship, it’s a guaranteed loss, because they
only understand bourgeois revolution, not a communist endgame. In a
materialist sense, the lumpen have never demonstrated, throughout
history, any success in establishing socialism. The lumpen have always
failed as a vanguard for very specific reasons, because they are a root
of imperialism. And if you don’t uproot the entire plant, from the roots
up, then the weeds resurrect, inside of the garden, and we find
ourselves in the same situation. It’s a rookie mistake to paint an
idealistic picture of the lumpen dictating to the rest of the world; not
only that, it would be revisionism for the lumpen to jump the
proletariat’s place, as dictators.
The lumpen of the oppressed nations often as not tend to feed into
the weed of imperialism, by cheer leading for and supporting the pigsty
with its state and federal criminal injustice system. What I’m trying to
say is that, even if the oppressed nations establish independent power
from the oppressor, they are likely to keep the same police system in
place, or worse. So, not only will snitching not ‘really be stopped
without independent power from the oppressor,’ snitching will not stop
even with independent power from the oppressor. There’s no
telling what the lumpen will do, if they get cannon for their yacht, but
the way that it looks from my hypothetical perspective is that the
lumpen are likely to use cannons to hunt down, loot, rape and sink the
canoes of the Third World proletariat, who aspire to eliminate
imperialism. Yachts, canoes and the Imperialist Navy represent the
material forces keeping each group afloat. Cannons represents an ability
to commit piracy, to dominate and sink other ships.
The Other Side
People need to wake up and realize that the reason why the
oppressed/exploited have historically been opposed to the oppressors
(the pigs, badge-less pigs, rodents of all varieties, who serve the pigs
for many flavors of cheese/slop, and reptilian serpents of the
Illusionati) is because they were common enemies who openly oppressed
along all three strands of oppression (nation, class, and gender). The
fucked up part that’s got all of the oppressed clawing at each others’
throats is that the slick ass enemies are disguising themselves as
friends and acting out delusional charades to convince the oppressed
masses into believing that the united snakes of pigtropolis are friends
and not infiltrators.
On to the next aspect of the contradiction; silence versus full
disclosure. To this day, the oppressed lumpen do not truly uphold and
adhere to a code of silence in a solid, revolutionary way. Originally,
the code of silence was meant to bolster organizational unity and
loyalty amongst the communities, so that our oppressed nations could
grow, struggle and develop internally. Making moves in silence is a
powerful organizational strategy and tactic, when applied correctly.
Codes of silence are meant to shield allies, who we are loyal to,
from incrimination. They are not to shield enemies, who are not loyal to
us, from incrimination. Why would we show loyalty to the enemy? Showing
loyalty to the enemy is showing disloyalty to your allies. The problem
is that we’ve got snakes and such trying to silently ride with the enemy
and apply codes of silence to them, in their defense.
With that said, it’s one thing to disseminate information to the
enemy to get should-be allies targeted, but it’s on a whole other level
when somebody, who’s claiming to be anti-pig, decides to put in actual
work in collaboration with the pigs. The collaborators even go so far as
to let these pigs into their L.O.’s, so that they’re official gang
members who get to transform at will and exercise their ability to set
you up on fraudulent disciplinary reports to get you stuck in maximum
security prisons. To get away with murder and police brutality, with
manipulating sex-starved prisoners into weird ass situations, with false
jacket allies, etc. Cooperating and coordinating with pigs on these
types of levels is against the code and should be serious violations for
all L.O.’s involved.
In my experience, these L.O.’s typically police the prisons and
streets more so than the actual pigs, with detective investigations full
of incriminating ass pig-questions and their violent enforcing of
childish rules, laws, codes, etc. Different names for the same shit. The
key word is enforce. When they enforce laws, that makes them
law enforcers. Their game of dress-up comes with the same biased and
prejudiced judgments that lead to sentences which are much more
oppressive than the pigs prisons and jails. These sick mfer’s are liable
to force innocent people into physical and sexual torture chambers,
where they do fucking weirdo shit to em, on an intense level that
happens in prisons. They use coded lingo like pigs, they wear uniforms
and badges like pigs they hide behind numbers for protection like pigs
and they get paid to do evil ass shit like pigs.
It sucks if I hurt anybody’s soft, mushee-gushee, sensitive ass
feelings, but I’m not going to refrain from speaking the truth in
criticism.
Our Tasks
What I’m wondering is why do we even maintain a code of silence
towards any of these piggly-wiggly ass L.O.’s, when they ride with the
enemy against us on a regular basis?
Nevertheless, it’s important to remember that, in order for the
oppressed to win power and keep our feet down on the necks of those who
prayed on our downfall, we’ll need an independent intelligence network
of our own. So, technically we just need to redirect intelligence
gathering apparatuses in our favor and win them over to our side of the
fight, so as to counteract the counter-revolutionaries and others of
their ilk. And by this, I mean that snitching isn’t to be stopped when
we have our own independent institutions of the oppressed but that we
have to look at this aspect of the contradiction in a different light.
We have to call it something positive instead of a hackneyed,
connotative phrase that’s been abused and distorted since its conception
and use it to our advantage against our enemies, who seek to use such
tactics and strategies against us. It’s impossible to support an
emerging socialist government without an agency that specializes in this
field of work. What I’m saying is that we need to police the police.
In the meantime, we can locate the enemy’s snitches, show em mercy
and recruit em to our side without letting the enemy know. Then, we
flood the imperialists with double-agents who feed the imperialists
misleading or false intel. I mean, one way to look at this is that if we
try to “kill all the rats/pigs,” we’d have to kill almost the entirety
of every imperialist country. We can’t kill the entire world.
Oppression is a contagious disease that is transmitted through
imperialist society like an opioid addiction with withdrawals and
cravings. Once one contracts the disease, ey becomes desensitized,
individualistic and apathetic towards society. Voluntary and involuntary
participation in capitalist society is the cough that spreads this
disease. This sickness has an infinite array of symptoms, but the main
symptoms that pertain to this article are disloyalty, disunity and the
inability to distinguish ally from enemy. The oppressed nations have
maxims such as ‘it’s not about what you know, but who you know.’ The
oppressed seek to make friends with the powerful oppressors as a means
of rising from oppression to become oppressors themselves, and these
oppressed people will turn over all kinds of incriminating info (‘what
they know’) to these powerful enemies.
Successful socialist revolution is the medicine for the ailment.
Under communism, there are no pigs for rats to snitch to and no pigs to
police us. So if you wanna liquidate rats, pigs and serpents thus ending
snitching, socialist revolution welcomes you into the rank-and-file with
open arms.
The next question (one of my own) that I’ll explore is “what strands
of oppression are keeping snitching and policing alive?” Oppressed
nations don’t ‘keep snitching and policing alive’, per se. And from an
amerikan perspective one would automatically assume that the bourgeois
males of the white oppressor nations are the only ones to slam.
Nevertheless, snitching existed long before capitalism-imperialism and
long before white people had a nation. Despite what these ‘white power’
lunatics think, ‘power’ (snitching/policing being what ‘white’ people do
with ‘power’) is colorless. Ultimately, societal oppression itself, in
all three strands, is what fuels snitching/policing, because it concocts
an opportunity for all government of society to incentivize oppressed
people to desperately find a way out of said oppression through
cooperation with the oppressors, who have the power to lift the
oppressed up to their level. So if you end oppression altogether,
there’s no logical reason to snitch on anyone. Those who advocate for
the imperialist sources of oppression are to blame for keeping snitching
and policing alive. The criminal injustice system created oppressive
consequences for those who oppose their power structure and they feed
scooby snacks to the mystery-gang members who assist them in targeting
their enemies. Basically, it’s not the ‘strands of oppression’ that
keeps snitching/policing alive, but the oppressors who create oppression
that encourage people of every class, nation and gender to sell each
other out.
Snitching and policing will remain if current society remains. Only
under a communist society will snitching and policing end.
MIM(Prisons) responds: While these harsh critiques of
lumpen organizations do not apply to all L.O.s for all time, they
certainly will ring true for many. And while we look to the imprisoned
lumpen in this country as one of the most oppressed groups, which has
historically produced some dedicated and effective revolutionaries, it
is true that they are not the proletariat. And they/we all must
transform ourselves and combat the class (and often nation and gender)
interests that we are born into.
As this comrade points out, L.O.s power often comes from their
willingness to act outside what is normally allowed. “The ends justify
the means” is one version of this. This is why Tupac
and Mutulu
Shakur worked together to develop the THUG
LIFE code to promote among the oppressed nation lumpen via Tupac’s
music. They recognized the progressive capacity of the L.O. rejection of
the imperialist code, but the anti-people tendency of the L.O.s that no
longer had a code of their own, or had a very reactionary one.
This comrade gets to the heart of it when ey says we need to use the
tools that work to build an independent path for the oppressed towards
socialism. Just as the imperialists have intelligence operations, so
must we. Though our intelligence cannot mimic the pigs like so many
L.O.s do that use torture, sexual abuse, and other anti-people behaviors
to promote fear among the masses.
“Snitching”, or sharing information, is a tool that goes both ways.
You can tell the imperialists on the revolution, or you can tell the
revolutionaries about what the imperialists are up to. The real crime is
collaborating with the imperialists in either direction.
In May of this year, Texas governor greg abbott pardoned a man named
daniel perry. Some of you may remember the incident in which daniel was
convicted of murder. Recall the summer of 2020. The hope, optimism and
liberty many felt as they bum-rushed the streets in protest in cities
worldwide decrying anti-blackness.
In the midst of this surge of proactive and progressive human energy
after the murders of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor, was
a tag team, husband and wife duo in Austin, Texas. Austin, the state
capital, was the most active and longstanding protest site in the state
during that summer. In the eye of this storm was Garrett Foster and eir
wife, Whitney Mitchell. Mitchell, who was confined to a wheelchair,
wanted to be involved in the ground swelling movement of humynity, and
would not let being confined to a wheel-chair detour em. Garrett was eir
guide and aid.
Garrett and eir wife attended many of the protests that summer,
mostly centered around the police headquarters and state capital in
downtown Austin. Garrett, a u.$. air force veteran, routinely adorned
fatigues and carried a rifle which ey was legally permitted to possess
by the laws of the state. In July of 2020, while walking and escorting
eir wife Whitney down Congress Avenue, Garrett and daniel got into a
verbal altercation. daniel was an Uber driver and was on the job. daniel
was also legally armed. daniel, behind the protection of an Uber
vehicle, began revving eir engine up in order to intimidate protesters.
Mr. Foster addressed this behavior verbally and after doing so, daniel
rolled down the window and shot Garrett Foster multiple times, killing
em.
During the pre-trial proceedings, this case, along with the case of
kyle rittenhouse, received a swarm of media attention on conservative
networks. The neo-confederates believed that the two white supremacists’
acts of murder had struck a blow for all of them (them being the white
settler amerikans, particularly the neo-confederacy).
At that time in 2020, greg abbott appeared on the tucker carlson show
and vowed that in the event of guilt ey would pardon daniel perry. In
May, abbott made good on this vow and pardoned daniel perry, stating
that ey “stood his ground”.
i hope this news upsets the reader. At the very least i hope this
news brings you in on the not so little secret my comrades and i have
long known. You wanna know what that secret is? Sure, i’ll tell you.
THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS LAW, ONLY POWER STRUGGLES.
The good, if i can even call it that, is that some will see this and
finally realize the illegitimacy of law in Texas and amerikan society.
To understand why this was such a thrust and showcase of reactionary
power, we have to understand the history of the pardon and commutation
in Texas. Briefly, in the 1980’s the legislature passed measures to
limit the power of the governor to pardon and commute sentences. What
they passed made sure that in the case of pardons, at least 10 of 18
members of the Pardons and Parole Board, all of which are appointed by
the governor, would have to recommend a pardon. All 18 members
recommended the pardon of daniel perry. A spit in the face of bourgeois
democracy and the bourgeois legal process. So now We can see that it’s
okay not to play by the rules, this will free us of some of our
handicapping hang-ups. Will you step up and commit to wrestling power
out of the hands of tyranny? We All Have A Choice To Make; Power to the
People! Power to New Afrika!
by Grim of United Struggle from Within July 2024 permalink
Same Struggle - a piece connecting the liberation struggles of New
Afrika and Palestine from the years of their colonization
At the end of Orisanmi
Burton’s Tip of the Spear: Black Radicalism, Prison Repression, and
the Long Attica Revolt – a book USW cadre have been studying
since its release in late October 2023 – Burton correctly labels the
prison tablets supplied to the imprisoned lumpen by predatory prison
communications companies like Securus and Global Tel Link(GTL)/ViaPath
Technologies as “the cutting edge of carceral war.”(1)
Much has already been written by
MIM and USW comrades about these tablets including the several areas
Burton shortly discusses: the use of predatory pricing strategies that
extract even more money from oppressed nation communities, expanding the
surveillance state, and behavior modification/digital babysitters.(2)
What has not been discussed in much detail is the use of the tablets as
imperialist propaganda machines.
Of course, all of the content on the tablets is highly censored, with
an extensive vetting process for orgs who want to place their content on
them. On the GTL/ViaPath tablets we have at Main Jail in San Jose (Model
VT-TABLET-5081S) the only app we have besides the GTL phone app is the
free edu-tainment platform “Edovo”, which is – to no ones’ surprise –
full of garbage content.
Shortly after the Palestinian resistance launched Operation Al-Aqsa
Flood, smashing the Iron Wall and entering the rest of their homeland as
a force to be reckoned with, there was an almost weekly upload of
Christian Zionist and other Zionist propaganda pushed onto the platform.
The first of these that I noticed was the feature film “Exodus: Gods
& Kings” which details the Old Testament story of Moses leading the
Israelites to Palestine, or as it is called in the movie, Canaan. This
story, along with several other books of the Old Testament, are the
basis for what Zionists today use as their claim to Palestine as their
“ancient homeland”. And yet, as Palestinian hystorian Nur Masalha
writes, “The Old Testament is not actual history but imaginative
fiction, theology, sacred literature, ethics and wisdom.”(3) In short,
the stories that Zionists base their land claims to Palestine on are
myth narratives, not proven hystory.
Roughly around the same time, episodes of a Christian Zionist podcast
started to be uploaded to Edovo. This podcast, called “Real Vida TV”, is
put together by evangelists from Tyler, Texas who use their show to
spread vaccine/COVID conspiracy theories popular among the Amerikan
right, as well as anti-immigrant, queer & transphobic rhetoric
alongside Bible verses.
Since October 7th they’ve been spreading the usual Zionist
lies of mass rape, beheading babies, etc… that the imperialist media
continues to propagate. They also have been tying everything occurring
in Palestine and the Middle East into the strange and insane “end times”
prophecies that are the main reason for the strong support of Christian
Zionism, led mostly by Amerikan evangelists.
To understand this a bit better, let’s take a step back from the
Zionist podcast and take a closer look at Christian Zionism, which, to
my knowledge, hasn’t had anything substantial written on it in
ULK.
Evangelical Christians, the bulk of Christian Zionists in the United
$tates, take the writings in the bible literally. To get a numerical
picture, there are roughly around 15 million Jews around the world today
(which I’d like to note, a large percentage are anti-Zionist and
completely reject the genocidal state of “i$rael”); in comparison there
are over 70 million evangelicals who share the same “ironclad” support
of “i$rael” as Genocide Goe in the United $tates. Christian Zionism also
finds its roots in the Bible, but it is not because of some altruistic
wish to “return” the Jews to the safety of their so-called “ancient
homeland”. The return and consolidation of the Jews in the land of
Palestine is supported so strongly by the Christian Zionists because
they believe once this has been finally accomplished their “messiah”
Jesus Christ will return, render judgement(punishment) upon the
nonbelievers (which includes Jews as they do not believe Christ is the
“messiah”), and then get into motion the so-called end-times prophecies
of the Book of Revelation (which depicts Armageddon), where the
non-believers will burn and the true believers will float up with Jesus
to LaLa Land.
No, I am not making this up sadly.
Even more sadly, these views are being used by those who produce the
podcast to justify the ongoing genocide and dispossession of Palestinian
people, the actual indigenous inhabitants of the land of Palestine.
What’s worse, at least for Our comrades in Texas, is that these
Christian Zionists go to and have access to all of the TDCJ gulags where
they can spread this poisonous rhetoric, possibly making it even harder
to shift public opinion in the units in favor of the Palestinian
liberation struggle (I’d be interested to know the point of view of Our
comrades in Texas on this). As the Zionists and their imperialist
backers continue to spread their lies to try to sway the opinions of the
masses toward support of their genocidal logic, We must counter them in
every way We can, especially in the writing and dissemination of
articles on Palestine in the pages of ULK, and by
supporting/working on the USW Palestine campaign.
From the river to the sea, Palestine will be
free!
MIM(Prisons) adds: A USW leader in Florida wrote an
article on the Biblical “history” of the Jewish people. We are not
printing that article. But here is their explanation for the approach
they took in that piece:
“I’m hearing pro-I$raeli comments in the quad and on the yard every
day. Prisoners are completely swallowing and promoting the CIPWS zionist
pro I$raeli narrative, ie., that the Palestinians brought the genocide
upon themselves when they attacked I$raeli citizens, rather than
settlers/invaders, on October 7, 2023, rather than in response to
70-plus years of CIPWS zionist occupation and oppression.
“I am surrounded by prisoners who hear the word”Israel” and
automatically think “Jesus”. Prisoners see the entire
Israeli-Palestinian conflict and situation from a biblical point of view
rather than a historical and U.$. imperialist political one.
“The average prisoner had never heard of Hamas, Zionists, Hizbullah,
Houthi, etc. until recently. Prisoners identify with Israel mostly due
to religion and all they are told is that Israel was attacked by
Palestinians, and that Palestinians want Israel extinct, even as they
see the total opposite happening with their own oppressed eyes. Even
Muslims here, due to subliminal incognizance, do not support or identify
with he Palestinians’ plight. They see the Palestinians, not as victims,
but as terrorists, not as brothers.”
As members of United Struggle from Within (USW) have come out in
strong support of the Palestinian resistance, we see this is not
representative of the consciousness of the imprisoned lumpen as a whole.
Thus the need for our leaders inside to continue this campaign to
support Palestine in the realm of education and ideological struggle
among the oppressed in this country. People who are suffering a lower
level genocide through the prison system itself are somehow identifying
with their own oppressor. If the national liberation struggles were
stronger in this country, we would be seeing a lot more support for
national liberation of Palestine here as well.
Notes: (1) Burton, Orisami, “Tip of the Spear: Black
Radicalism, Prison Repression, and the Long Attica Revolt”,(University
of California Press, 2023),p.227 (2) Ibid. p.228 (3) Masalh,
Nur, “Palestine: A Four Thousand Year History”,(I.B. Taurus, 2018)
p.30
“I held my gun so that the generations after me could hold a sickle…”
-Palestinian song, Ahd Allah Ma Nerhal (By God We Won’t Leave)
“… [W]e have hope because we know, now more than ever, that these
horrors in the name of upholding a racist settler-colonial occupation
are not going to last forever. Anyone who ever thought it would will be
astounded in hindsight.” -Rawan Masri, “Operation Al-Aqsa Flood Was An
Act of Decolonization”
I, like most of Our comrades who contribute to and/or read
ULK and organize behind the gulag walls, have been following
the ongoing genocide carried out by the Zionist entity upon the people
of Palestine with varied mixtures of feelings, with the number one
emotion being unadulterated rage alongside an equal amount of awe at the
steadfast courage of the Palestinian resistance and their allies
throughout the Middle East.
You might think that the rage stems from the atrocious conduct that
sadly has been par for the course of the Zionists since at least 1947 in
the beginnings of what would become the Nakba carried out by the various
Zionist terror organizations such as the Haganah, Irgun and LEHI who
most infamously were responsible for the April 9, 1948 Deir Yassin
massacre in which 250 defenseless Palestinians were slaughtered,
including 100 wimmin and children, and then the village was looted and
plundered. While I cannot deny that the daily depredations of the
Zionist occupation forces raises my ire profoundly, the rage actually
stems more from the stunning ignorance of the so-called “friends and
supporters” of I$rael who voice their profoundly inaccurate, and most of
the time entirely false statements, “history lessons on the so-called
‘conflict’,” (non)interpretations of the international law, and most
importantly their insistence on not calling the Zionist entity’s actions
and policies what they’ve been since the start of the ethnic cleansing
under Plan Dalet beginning in April 1948: genocidal. Many of these
people are probably of the opinion as well that the vast majority of
other settler-colonist projects (such as the United $nakes, New Zealand,
Australia, Canada, etc.) were also not genocidal from their beginnings,
likely using the age old excuses of blaming the so-called “savages” for
provoking the “reasonable” and “peace loving” settlers into defending
themselves and the land they mistakenly believe they didn’t steal thanks
to their belief that God gifted or promised it to them in perpetuity
because “he’s God” and “what he says goes.”(1) These “friends and
supporters” of I$rael will do absolutely no research into the validity
of their statements, instead choosing to equate the Palestinian struggle
to liberate all of the historic Palestine and finally be free to return
to their lands with a genocidal Arab conspiracy to wipe out the
Jews.
So in the interests of correcting the misinformation and lies, and
cutting through the Zionist propaganda it stems from and in full
solidarity with Our comrades across historic Palestine, in the diaspora,
on campuses and in the streets, this article will attempt to deconstruct
some of the most common discourse that is parroted in the mainstream
media which has fueled this latest round of anti-Arab hysteria and
Islamophobia and crucially, the pattern of Amerikan rejectionism to
Palestinian Liberation and indifference to the crimes of its client
state.
As communists or anarchists (as many of Our comrades who read
ULK identify as), it behooves Us to study history, and studying
the histories of what has become known as the Palestinian-I$raeli
conflict and the principal actors and organizations is not an exception
to this rule.
So in that context, I will begin with one of the Zionists’ more
devious lies; the so-called I$raeli “purity of arms” and its common
usage, that I$rael never targets civilians or civilian infrastructure.
Although any cursory observation of I$rael’s conduct from the 1948 Nakba
to the present day would prove otherwise, We can look to none other than
Zionist hero and first prime minister David Ben-Gurion for the proof. In
his Independence War Diary, he set down on paper the military doctrine
that would become standard protocol throughout the history of the
Zionist project.
There is no question as to whether a reaction is necessary or not.
The question is only time and place. Blowing up a house is not enough.
What is necessary is cruel strong reactions. We need precision in time
place and causalities. If we know the family – [we must] strike
mercilessly, women and children included. Otherwise the reaction is
inefficient. At the place of action there is no need to distinguish
between guilty and innocent.(2)
This specific entry was written on January 1, 1948, one day after the
Haganah occupied the Palestinian village of Balad al-Shaykh, the burial
place of Shaykh Izz ad-Din al-Qassam (one of Palestine’s most revered
resistance leaders of the 1920’s and 30’s), massacring over 60
Palestinian civilians, men, wimmin, and children, most while they were
asleep in their homes. This massacring of civilians in their sleep over
75 years ago lines up exactly with the countless stories told by
survivors of today’s indiscriminate bombings to the doctors that have
been working nonstop within the largely destroyed remains of Gaza’s
hospitals.(3)
Let us also remember that when Ben-Gurion wrote those words, the
Zionist leadership at the time was working on “Plan Dalet”, finalized on
March 10, 1948, which was the military blueprint for the ethnic
cleansing of historic Palestine.(4)
To illustrate before moving on to the next topic, lets look back at
two of the lesser known massacres during the initial Nakba; “Lydda and
Ramla” and “Safsah.”
On a blistering hot Ramadan day in July 1948, a Haganah general named
Yitzhak Rabin (who would later become ambassador to Washington D.C.,
then I$raeli Prime Minister, then sign the Oslo accords on the White
House lawn, then be assassinated for it by I$raeli reactionaries)
descended upon the Palestinian towns of Lydda and Ramla with his unit
and violently expelled approximately 50,000 men, wimmin and
children.
In Lydda, dozens of Palestinians were gathered and detained in the
Dahmash mosque and church premises, all unarmed, and were subsequently
gunned down. Afterwards the Zionists gathered an additional 20 to 50
Palestinians to clean up the mosque and bury all of the bodies. After
they had placed the bodies in their graves, they themselves were slot
into the open graves and left there to bleed out and die. In total
between 250 to 400 Palestinians were massacred in Lydda. An additional
350 more died after being expected and forced to march to the frontlines
of the Arab armies in what would become known as the Lydda Death
March.(5)
As a sidenote, the events that occurred at Lydda and the subsequent
death march after, were a formative event in the life of a young George
Habash, who was from Lydda, and in 1948 at age 19 left the American
University in Beirut, Lebanon where he was a medical student and
returned to Lydda during the war to help his family. The Haganah
attacked the town soon after, and in the subsequent death march, without
water or food, during Ramadan no less, his sister died before they
reached the Arab army’s frontlines. This could possibly be one of the
reasons which fed his uncompromising leadership and opposition to the
Zionist regime as a pivotal leader of first the Harakat al-Qawmiyyin
al-Arab (Arab Nationalist Movement) and then of the Popular Front for
Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).
Lastly, we come to the massacre at Safsaf during the initial Nakba.
Though this is one of the lesser known atrocities of the Nakba, it is
vital to the overall understanding, as a quarter of the 12 well
documented instances of rape by the Zionists were recorded here (though
many more may have occurred, lost to history but not to the long memory
of the people and the land of Palestine).
The Zionists started by cleansing the town by using their “patented”
strategy of surrounding the town on 3 sides, firing into the air and
into the sides of buildings in the hopes of driving the population out
of the fourth, open side of the town. Then they entered the town,
gathering up all of those who still remained in their homes, initially
shooting and killing 12 young men. The remaining 52 men were caught,
then tied together and thrown into a pit the Zionists dug, then
subsequently shot and killed. Seeing this, the remaining wimmin of the
town came and asked the Zionists for mercy. The Zionists, not being
satisfied with the massacre they had just committed, told several of the
wimmin to go and fetch water to the town. Once they moved away from the
others, they were followed by the militiamen and raped, two of the
wimmin being killed in the process. The womyn who survived was a child
of fourteen years old.(6) These are just a few of the massacres of
civilians by the Zionists during the initial Nakba. If we line them up
alongside others, for instance, the October 1953 massacre in the West
Bank village of Qibya by Ariel Sharon’s (another past war criminal made
prime minister) infamous unit 101 of the I$raeli Defense Forces (IDF)
special forces, the October 1956 Kafr Qasim massacre, the full IDF
support given during the 1982 Lebanon war to their proxies, the
Christian Phalangist and Maronite militias, to massacre 2,000 civilians
in the Palestinian refugee camps Sabra and Shatila (which in hindsight
was probably the last time there was mass protests within I$rael by Jews
over their regime’s crimes against Palestinians), to the more recent
wars, like today’s war, but also ones such as during “Operations Cast
Lead” in 2008-09 which the UN’s fact finding report (Goldstone report)
called a “deliberately disproportionate attack designed to punish,
humiliate, and terrorize a civilian population”, a certain pattern
starts to emerge; one of the ethnic cleansing and genocide, funded and
with political cover by Amerika.
Genocide & Denial
Genocide, the word as well as the action hangs heavy over Amerika and
I$rael, so much so that it has stopped many from speaking out and
acknowledging the Zionist regime’s actions against Palestine as
genocidal.
A comrade over at Slingshot Collective in Berkeley, CA wrote an
article for their latest newspaper issue, trying to elaborate on the
reasons behind the silence during an active genocide, and though I agree
with many of their conclusions (not wanting to sound “anti-Semitic”,
general Amerikan apathy and indifference to the suffering of others and
not wanting to split the Democratic Party base leading to a Trump
victory this election year), I think there are other, deeper
explanations for this, as well as outright genocide denial.(7)
When most Amerikans and I$raelis think about the word genocide, it is
inevitable that they will first think of the Holocaust. The mass
shootings carried out by the Einstatzgruppen and the gassing and
immolation of millions of Ashkenazi Jews are rightfully called genocide;
and yet many of these same Amerikans and I$raelis forget the genocide of
approximately half of the 2 million Sinti and Romani peoples (Gypsies)
of German occupied Europe known as the Porrajmos in the Romani language,
nor do they seem to remember the systematic massacres of Slavic, gay,
and disabled peoples along with many political dissidents during the
same time period by Nazi Germany.(8) And so, the benchmark for both
countries for some act to count as genocide is something which looks
like the Holocaust; a massive extermination of people in a relatively
short amount of time.
And yet, the Nazi genocide and Zionist genocide do not resemble each
other structurally or in any other meaningful way.
Like the settler colonial regimes of the United $nakes, Canada, New
Zealand and Australia among others, the genocides that took place upon
the indigenous First Nations have taken place over many decades, a small
act here, a large act there, and this is what the genocide of the
Palestinian Arab people by the Zionist regime has looked like and
continues to look like to this day.(9)
As this practice of genocide continues against the people of
Palestine, so too does Amerika continue this practice upon the internal
semi-colonies of New Afrikans, Chican@s, and the First Nations here on
occupied Turtle Island. Amerika also has a very interesting, as well as
appalling, history relating to the UN Convention of the Prevention and
Punishment of the Crime of Genocide that bears mentioning.
After its founding convention in San Francisco in 1945, the United
Nations set about sponsoring the creation of an international legal
instrument for the prevention and punishment of genocide. The job for
drafting this document was handed down to the Economic and Social
Council of the UN General Assembly (GA) which retained several
international legal consultants foremost among them Dr. Raphael Lemkin;
an exiled Polish-Jewish jurist who had in 1944 coined the term
‘genocide’ in his work “Axis Rule in Occupied Europe.” Lemkin, who
authored most of the draft, submitted it in June 1947, and a month later
it was rejected by several member states of the General Assembly,
foremost among them the United $nakes, because of “important
philosophical disagreements.” It was edited and then finally adopted by
the GA on December 9, 1948. By 1951 enough countries had ratified it to
afford it the status of binding international law; except for a partial
ratification (with conditions and edits) in 1988 by the Reagan
Administration, the U.$. has still not ratified the convention in its
entirety.(10)
First off, lets look at what parts of Lemkin’s draft were so
“philosophically disagreeable” to the United $tates. Lemkin was
extremely thorough in the draft document, where he included linguistic
and political groups under currently protected groups of racial,
national, and religious groups. Also importantly, he included in the
list of punishable acts (enumerated in Article 3 of the current
convention) engaging in a number of “preparatory” acts such as
developing techniques of genocide and setting up installations for the
purpose of committing genocide.
Already we can see that if the above made it into the final draft,
both Amerika and I$rael would have been in the ‘hot seat’, so to
speak.
Lemkin also included preventing the “preservation or development” of
the above groups as a punishable act as well as policies that would
bring about the disintegration of the political, social, or economic
structure of a group or nation (author’s note: Settlers &
Neocolonialists Beware!).
Lastly and most crucially, Lemkin detailed 3 distinct and specific
forms of genocide: physical, biological, and cultural. For physical
genocide he included “slow death” measures such as the “subjection to
conditions of life which, owing to lack of proper housing, clothing,
food, hygiene and medical care… are likely to result in debilitation or
death of individuals”, as well as “deprivation of all means of
livelihood by confiscation of property, looting, curtailment of work,
and denial of housing and supplies otherwise available to the other
inhabitants of the territory concerned.” Biological genocide, apart from
compulsory abortion and sterilization, included segregation of the sexes
and obstacles to marriage. Cultural genocide included forced and
systematic exile of individuals representing the culture of a group, as
well as the destruction of a groups historical or religious monuments
and the destruction of a group’s historical, artistic, and religious
documents or objects.(11)
If one looks to the UN Genocide Convention today, it would be
entirely accurate to say it no longer resembles in any meaningful way
the original intentions of the author(s).
One might ask what the consequences of this are, and though there are
many, I’ll only go into one.
Consequently, it has continued to further obfuscate what constitutes
genocide, further allowing imperialist and reactionary regimes to
continue policies of genocidal oppression, domestically as well as in
the Global South. Yet as a direct result of this in the case of I$rael,
many countries in the Global South have had enough of the genocidal
Zionist regime. Most importantly South Africa (where the Zionists
supported the apartheid regime before its collapse) charged the Zionist
entity with genocide at the ICC in the Hague. Many Central and South
American countries, like Chile and Honduras, who both had to deal with
genocidal reactionary regimes propped up by the support of both Amerika
and I$rael, have both said enough is enough, and recalled their
ambassadors to I$rael over the Amerikan funded genocide.(12) And also
extremely important, and as a great way to segue into my last topic of
this article, it has set off an explosion of support for Palestine from
within the belly of the imperialist beast, in the U.$. but also all
across Europe; vital to this effort has been Our comrades on college
campuses across Turtle Island.
Student
Activism and U.$. Attempts to “Silence the Intifada”
When the first encampments and building occupations were setup, from
Columbia University to campuses across Turtle Island all the way to UC
Berkeley, though I wasn’t surprised, (and forgive me for my emotional
subjectiveness) tears of joy and pride sprang to my eyes as I watched
the moving images on CNN move across the screen. Not since the Vietnam
War and organizations like Student for a Democratic Society (SDS) have
we seen the anti-war movement, nor the BDS movement since South African
apartheid, consolidate into such a huge outpouring of love, rage, and
solidarity on college campuses.
I was sadly also not surprised when the Pro-Zionist reactionaries
sent the pigs in to silence the movement, nor have I been surprised at
the Zionist propaganda campaign attempting to label the entire
Palestinian solidarity movement “anti-Semitic” and “violent”, even going
so far (a la Stop Cop City activists) as calling all protesting for
Palestine “terrorists” and “supporters of terrorists”. Here in the Bay
Area, there have been lies spread saying that the BDS strategy is no
longer viable or legally possible for UC Board of Regents to
boycott/divest from the Zionist entity, which has been uncovered as a
lie to get Our comrades at Berkeley to abandon their camp and goals.
Whether divestment is possible, we can look to the success of the BDS
movement in 1986 at Berkeley to finally pressure the UC to divest $3.1
billion from companies doing business with apartheid South Africa.(13)
Aside from this it’s also been insane to watch the bipartisan effort,
from genocide Joe to the outer reaches of the far right, to attempt to
get the masses concerned with some of the alleged rhetoric of
individuals on campus and the violence (which from numerous sources have
been proven to be incited by Zionist counter-demonstrators and the pigs)
at the encampments, to try to get everyone to somehow forget his
“ironclad” support of I$raeli genocide. Sadly for Genocide Joe and his
Pro-Zionist rabble in Congress, students on campuses across Turtle
Island have dug in and refused the false images the imperialists and
their media have tried to paint of them, and have let the imperialists
know 3 things: We are NOT going anywhere, We will NOT be silenced, and
PALESTINE WILL BE FREE!
As the college term wraps up for the summer and many in the Palestine
Solidarity Movement, on and off campus, set their sights this summer on
an explosive confrontation at the Democratic National Convention
alongside many other avenues for protest and action, I’d like to give
one bit of advice if any students or other outside comrades may be
reading: I think aside from the also important avenues of protest and
actions here in the belly of the imperialist beast, it would be
extremely beneficial to send as many comrades (students or otherwise) to
the West Bank this summer, to live and learn among the Palestinian
people themselves. Mao himself called attention numerous times to the
importance of this, as did Huey P. Newton which led him to visit
revolutionary China. SDS and what would become the Weather Underground
Organization (WU) also saw the importance of this in the 60’s and early
70’s meeting with revolutionaries from Cuba, Vietnam, and other
countries to learn about them, their life and their struggle from their
own points of view and in their own voices.
As the Zionists have only continued the ramping up of repression in
the West Bank since operation Al-Aqsa Flood, you could also play an
integral role in getting the stories of Palestinians there back to the
masses here in the U.$. as well as help in the already ongoing
humanitarian efforts going on there. Just something to think about as we
move into the summer.
In case you weren’t aware, We behind the gulag walls admire your
unshakable and uncompromising support for Palestine’s liberation, and
your unwavering courage in the face of wave after wave of attacks by
Zionist reactionaries and their pig helpers. You inspire us behind the
wall and We can’t wait to see what you do next.
From the river to the sea, Palestine will be
Free!
MIM(Prisons) responds: Wimmin and children have fought
bravely in the resistance to Zionist occupation. There is something
concrete to seeing the murder of children as more egregious in terms of
the immiseration of a people via genocide by destroying its capacity to
produce for the nation and build the future. But to treat wimmin’s lives
as more precious or needing additional protection feeds into the
patriarchal thinking that lets I$rael
use myths of rape to rally support for bombing thousands of more
Palestinians. To the extent that it is true that grown men are doing
more of the fighting for Palestine, this only demonstrates the value
their lives have for the nation.
MIM talked about genocide as one of a number of forms of “absolute
immiseration” today:
“there is a sociology discourse claiming that Marx’s ideas
of”absolute deprivation” are incorrect, because supposedly absolute
immiseration of the proletariat has not happened under capitalism since
Marx’s time. …To avoid talking about [examples of absolute immiseration
like] militarism, the environment and prison, the bourgeois social
scientists talk about “relative deprivation” …Genocide is a matter of
absolute immiseration. There can be nothing worse.”
It is no mystery that Palestine is a key contradiction in the
imperialist system today. It is not because Palestinians play an
important role in value production, but because of the absolute
immiseration they face at the hands of U.$. imperialism in its attempt
to maintain a foothold in the part of the world they happen to
inhabit.
Notes: 1. Patrick Wolfe, December 2006, “Settler Colonialism
and the elimination of the native”, Journal of Genocide Research,
814 2. Noam Chomsky, “The Fateful Triangle – The United States,
Israel, and the Palestinians, ( Haymarket Books, 2014), pp. 200 3.
Irfan Galaria, February 23, 2024,”Doctor in Gaza sees only
annihilation”, San Jose Mercury News 4. Noam Chomsky & Ilan
Pappe, “Gaza in Crisis: Reflections on the U.S. Israeli War on the
Palestinians” (Haymarket Books, 2013), pp.69 5. Nur Masalha, “The
Palestinian Nakba: Decolonizing History, Narrating the Subaltern,
Reclaiming Memory” (Zed Books, 2012), pp. 86 6. Adel Manna, “Nakba
and Survival: The Story of Palestinians who Remained inn Haifa and the
Galilee, 1948-1956” (University of California Press, (2022),
pp. 75-80 7. Kermit, “Watching and Waiting?: On Speaking Out &
Being Silent During Genocide”, Slingshot Issue 140 Summer 2024,
pp. 2-3 8. Ward Churchill, “A little Matter of Genocide: Holocaust
and Denial in the Americas 1492 to the Present” (City Lights Books,
1997), pp. 36-49 9. Patrick Wolfe, December 2006, “Settler
Colonialism and the elimination of the native”, Journal of Genocide
Research, 814 10. Ward Churchill, pp. 363-364 11. Ward
Churchill, pp. 265-366 12. FP
Explainers, 3 May 2024, After Colombia, now Turkey: Which other nations
have cut ties with Israel over Gaza war?, FirstPost.com 13. DD,
“Resisting the Neoliberal University & Unethical Investment”,
Slingshot Issue 140 Summer 2024, pp. 5 14. MC5, March 1999, On the
Internal Class Structure of the Internal Semi-Colonies, MIM Theory 14:
United Front, p.57-58.
i want to begin with a sort of disclaimer or qualifier, due to the
fact that many speak on the realities of the lumpen, particularly the
street gang elements, who’re not cut from that cloth, if you will.
Although i am now a committed New Afrikan Freedom Fighter, i was
initiated into what is now the Forum Park Crips, in Houston, Texas, when
i was in my early teens. My life in the streets was one of tribal
animosities and strife, territorial beefs, and a survivalist level of
hustling and scheming. i did everything one does in the street life from
selling narcotics, to thievery, burglary, armed robberies, pimping, and
of course ‘sliding’, as they say nowadays.
As a result of this lifestyle and my social ignorance, and lack of
firm identity, purpose and direction, by age nineteen i found myself
wanted for capital murder, and by twenty-one sentenced to life without
parole for said murder, while holding strong to the key principle one
was taught in the lumpen sub-culture, ‘No Snitching’!
Prior and during my prison stint i operated as a makeshift hystorian,
and due to my persynal background i’ve paid much attention to the
historical development of the lumpen in North amerikkka in general, New
Afrika in particular, and the lumpen-organizational development
specifically. This along with my adherence to historical dialectical
materialist philosophy, i believe, qualify me to speak with a certain
level of knowledge, wisdom and understanding on the subject.
The Foundation
At the moment in time of the founding of the original Crips, one of
its co-founders, Tookie Williams(Ajami Kiamke Kamara) states plainly,
“The crips mythology has many romanticized, bogus accounts.” i believe
We in revolutionary movements take these and other similar ones too
literally and therefore misrepresent the origins and hystorical
functions of the Crips and others within the class and national
liberation struggles. In this realm we often promote an idealized,
non-materialist perspective.
Mr. Kamara(Williams) continues,
“Another version[ of Crip mythology] incorrectly documents the Crips
as an offshoot of the Black Panther Party (BPP). No Panther Party member
has ever mentioned the Crips(or Cribs) as being a spin-off of the
Panthers. It is also fiction that the Crips functioned under the acronym
C.R.I.P, for Community Resources Inner-City Project or Community
Revolutionary Inner City Project.(words like ‘revolutionary agenda’ were
alien to our thuggish, uninformed teenage consciousness.) We did not
unite to protect the Community; our motive was to protect ourselves and
our families.”
i’ve begun this ‘Foundational’ part of this piece within these words
from the late Mr. Kamara, because We too often, and too easily
romanticize the beginnings of the urban amerikkkan street organizations.
Now that i’ve clarified that the Crips weren’t exactly founded with a
revolutionary or progressive intent it makes it clearer why the Crips
have largely stagnated in their operations for so long now.
The late Malcolm X once said that ‘prison is the poor man’s
university’, and proving his maxim true, it was many of the first
generation of Crips who populated the prisons in California, being
influenced by the politicized culture in the prison established by those
who came before them, who began an effort(s) to improve the imagery, and
provide meaning to what Mr. Kamara himself even called, ‘a causeless
cause’.
When the imprisoned Crips began to become more culturally aware in
the 80’s and onward they sought to stir the crip force in another
direction by establishing a constitution, which was largely influenced
by the BGF constitution, they functioned under acronyms like C.R.I.P,
for Community Revolution In Progress, and other similar ones, brothers
began becoming Afro-centric and instituted speaking ki-swahili. Also,
many around those times became radical and politicized. Some formed orgs
like the Black Riders Liberation Party, a new generation Black Panther
Party that was formed in the 90’s by former Crips and Bloods. Others
formed more groups like the C.C.O.(Consolidated Crips Organization)
which was to be de-tribalized, more centralized and politicized version
of the Crips street gang. Many of these brothers had intentions of
changing the various communities and ‘Crip turfs’ they represented upon
their release from prison. More often than not their efforts were not
effective enough to curtail or re-focus the self-destructive culture
that had by then turned southern California upside down.
Simultaneously the Crips and other similar groups were spreading
throughout the north amerikkkan continent, what wasn’t spreading however
was the more refined and socially aware sectors or versions of the Crips
entity. So instead of ’hoods across amerikkka emulating a Conscious
Crip, they were emulating cats who were Crip Crazy, and this
subsequently intensified elements of self-destruction among the New
Afrikan nation in amerikkka.
Building On The Foundation
As the 21st century came and settled in, the spread of the Crips to
every corner of the kkkountry resulted in different locales placing
their own unique cultural traits and adding on to the hystory of the
original formation Mr. Kamara and Raymond Washington founded along with
Mac Thomas. Therefore, many people, and groups Built of the
Foundation.
i’ll preface the following by stating that lumpen organizations have
repeatedly showcased the capacity to turn away from basic parasitic
criminality. However, they’ve done this in two similar but unique ways.
One way is progressive in terms of its break from basic criminality, yet
it is reactionary in terms of its benefit to the revolution. The other
way is progressive in that it provides the break from the criminal
mentality, and is also revolutionary in that it seeks to join the
revolutionary forces in collective war against the state and its enemy
institutions.
We’ve seen examples of the first way numerous of times. One which may
be familiar to some is the 1966 arranged truce between the then
Blackstone rangers and the East Side Disciples, which was instigated by
the promise of the $930,000 in grant money from the federal government
through the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO). The grant was based on
a deal that the two street organizations would cease their beef and come
together to prevent uprisings, which had become common throughout
heavily populated New Afrikan enclaves throughout the kkkountry.
Local politicians in the Chicago Democratic Party and the Southern
Democrats in Congress did not approve of these particular elements being
provided with Grant money from the government, and the grant was
cancelled a year later(1967). In 1968 the Chicago BPP was founded and
these same lumpen orgs were enlisted or attempted to be enlisted by the
federal government to prevent the rise in influence of the BPP and its
revolutionary line. The Rangers and the Conservative Vice Lords opted
for the former way, and were showered with grant money from the
bourgeoisie(Clement Stone of Combined Insurance of America; Sears; First
National Bank of Chicago, among others). These lumpen moved toward Black
Capitalism, and filled the vacuum in what was then a new non-profit
sector instituted to remove the teeth from the revolution and the
revolutionary potential of the lumpen particularly.
On the other hand, the East Side Disciples changed their name to the
Black Disciples (identifying as Black instead of negro was a culturally
progressive action at the time) and formed an alliance with the Chicago
BPP.
So as this hystorical account illustrates, the lumpen are a
vacillating class. We can flow whichever way the wind blows, but Our
life experience under monopoly capitalism and imperialism, suggested
that absent a form of ‘class-suicide’, We will do like the Rangers and
take the capitalist road, which will have us cozied up with the
bourgeoisie, making love with our enemies and murdering our friends.
Within the Forum Park Crip experience there has been an evolution and
a certain level of class struggle, and ideological struggle (which is
one in the same thing). To quote Malcolm X, again, ‘Prisons are the poor
man’s university’. One member of the Forum Park Crips (FPC) spent time
incarcerated and chose to apply himself.
He learned somethings from the cats like myself who have been
politicized while in captivity and he began to develop a New Vision for
our street tribe. Upon release, he began to institute the New Vision.
See everyone and every entity has a basic Identity, Purpose and
Direction, and as evolution takes place it takes place within the nature
of these three elements of the entity in question. So upon release the
first step was to apply a New Vision to what the Identity of a FPC
was/is.
Like the brothers in California decades ago with their
C.R.I.P.(Community Revolution In Progress), the homie strove to fine
tune the image, by establishing Forever Protecting the Community(FPC) as
an official community organization dedicated to mentoring youth,
minimizing gang violence, and empowering the community.
Because of the numerous influences, and illegitimate capitalism being
foremost among them, FPC in its beginning stages turned down a similar
road as Jeff Fort’s Rangers in 1960’s Chicago. FPC received grants from
the city and used them along with other similar formations to fund a
purchasing of acreage to start community gardens, promoting food
sovereignty, a memorial tribute to victims of police and gun violence.
Prior to the grants FPC provided school supplies and thousands of
backpacks, sponsored summer kids’ festivals, and mentoring school
children by doing speaking engagements at local schools.
As i’ve pointed out, these efforts are progressive in the sense
they’re a long way from the parasitic criminality the homies had been
involved with prior. However, it can be reactionary in the sense that
absent any sense of revolutionary orientation, this amounts to nothing
more than mere community service, and never did at the root of the
systematic problems that cause the surface level expression of the
oppressive social contract.
After discussing this somewhat with some of the guys plans have come
to fruition to establish a campaign that attacks a particular vestige of
genocidal culture in the Forum Park area. This being the out of control
open-air sex trafficking that de-values our community and makes it
uncomfortable and unsafe for elements in Our community. The campaign
will create a class struggle for unity both within the community and the
organization, and will make the bond between the org and the people.
Moreso, it will begin to establish what will hopefully become a distinct
line of demarcation between the local government, and the rest of the
non-profit sector, who’ve become entranced with utilizing the plights of
the people as a stepping stool to gain economic upliftment. As FPC and
other similar formations move out of that mode of operations, and begin
to call others out on it and for their deceitful service to the people,
it will create unity within classes apart of the local class
struggle.
In closing, i’ve found the observation of comrade Jalil Abdul
Muntaqim to be true,
“Beneath the Black working class are the subculture
lumpen-proletariat, the unskilled and menial laborers whose primary
means of subsistence is based on hustling(stealing, selling drugs,
prostitution etc), marginal employment, and welfare. For the most part
the socioeconomic provision within the subculture are maintained by the
‘illegitimate capitalist’ activity of the lumpen-proletariat. In
accordance with their aspirations to fulfill the social values of the
bourgeoisie, they employ business acumen in criminal activity for
subsistence and profit. As they seek material wealth and social status
of the bourgeoisie within the confines of the subculture, they are in
many ways politically reactionary, unconcerned with anything other than
personal survival and individual gain. It is only when the
lumpen-proletariat are educated and become politically aware of their
socioeconomic condition, that the possibility exists for them to become
staunch supporters of the revolution, recognizing their dire standard of
living is based wholly on the system of oppression they are desperately
trying to emulate…”
As has been routinely stated, the revolutionary forces must
ingratiate themselves within the activities of the lumpen organization.
Specifically once they’ve already reached a certain level of collective
social awareness and activity. And then, influence the development of
their social awareness and activity by providing political education, by
conceptualizing programs that are pertinent to the particular lumpen
community one is seeking to organize. The lumpen is a vacillating class,
that can and often does see-saw between revolutionary and reactionary
activities. There are some socially aware and nationalistic elements,
particularly among the oppressed nations of north amerikka, who can be
coached towards full support of the revolution, the choice between
serving the people heart and soul, and the reactionary road are
ultimately up to the lumpen themselves. i’ll leave with a word from
Comrade George:
“Settle your quarrels, come together, understand the reality of the
situation, understand that fascism is already here. That people are
already dying who could be saved, that generations more will die or live
poor butchered half-lives if you fail to act. Do what must be done,
discover your humanity and your life in revolution. Pass on the torch,
join us, give up your life for the people.” - George L. Jackson
SOURCES: 1. Blue Rage Black Redemption, Stanley Tookie
Williams 2. Ibid. 3. Vita Wa Watu #11, Spears & Shield
Publications 4. Ibid. 5. Ibid. 6. We Are Our Own Liberators,
Jalil Abdul Muntaqim, ‘National Strategy of FROLINAN’ 7. Blood In My
Eye, George L. Jackson