MIM(Prisons) is a cell of revolutionaries serving the oppressed masses inside U.$. prisons, guided by the communist ideology of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism.
Under Lock & Key is a news service written by and for prisoners with a focus on what is going on behind bars throughout the United States. Under Lock & Key is available to U.S. prisoners for free through MIM(Prisons)'s Free Political Literature to Prisoners Program, by writing:
MIM(Prisons) PO Box 40799 San Francisco, CA 94140.
I’m a sick fuck But so are you Been trained like Pavlov’s
dog Getting off on watching you Suffer Have we had
enough Role playing hierarchy Is this really the way you want
it Baby Angry and violent Scared and simpering Playing the
part like Pavlov’s dog Bells and whistles – spittle
buckets Nooses, nines, suicides Wiping up our messes I want out
your pornography Show me the way out this insanity I’m a sick fuck
for wanting you This way Your sick smile Why do we play It’s
not the way we want it But it’s the way we get it Patriarchal sex
toys manipulated by playboy Ignorant puppets pushing,
pulling Lipsticked lips quivering, smiling Hiding the tears
beneath our sweat Mascara, muscle, gritted teeth,
fingernails Buried sickness in holy matrimony You done yet
As crazy as this may seem, Don’t nothing come to a sleeper but a
dream. Fighting against the oppressor, Has gotten the capitalist
wanting to scream.
Hurray! I say unto you. My Comrades are my pride and joy. Together
in this struggle, Like an army ready to deploy.
With every difficulty there is ease, So we must continue demanding
more. While oppressors continue squirming in their chairs, I’m
trying to keep their asses sore.
They break the law to punish lawbreakers Unconstitutional conditions
and censorship policy They give us four envelopes a
month Expecting our return to society be successful with no
one They create these dungeons, punishing revolutionary
behavior Been alone so long with no telephone, mind and family
gone They believe they are gods chosen and we are Satan’s
spawn Going home to beat wives, child porn and manicured
lawns They mourn 9-11 like we didn’t deserve it Sending sons and
daughters off terrorists hunting patriots They hate prisoners,
Blacks, Latinos and First Nations White dark night killer deserving
of understanding and forgiveness They wonder why the world hates them
beyond words Military bases spread like cancer the earth over They
seem so pretty, smart, happy and photogenic Just the rich man’s
puppets on Broadway, Hollywood, Pennsylvania Ave Dropping bombs on
Nagasaki, Hiroshima, unmanned drone celebrations They could come in
the morning and shoot me like a dog But it’s not going to save them,
we will never stop
My security level was recently lowered and I was immediately assigned as
an inmate orderly, to my chagrin. It is like a trustee who works on an
assigned cell block, and I know of all the pigs’ malicious intent of
using certain prisoner orderlies as tools. Tools used to hurt other
prisoners.
I got my block assignment and was given the usual lecture about all the
things I could not do – basically anything that would ease my fellow
prisoners plight/suffering. I politely related to this sergeant, while
maintaining every intent to help those confined on this segregated cell
block. I was not too long ago confined behind the door, so it was an
obvious obligation to do so.
Anyway, that was Wednesday. By Sunday, another shift tried to enlist me
as a complicit to starve an individual prisoner, to which I declined.
But, the other orderly slaving with me agreed to help. Through
intimidation I was able to persuade this orderly to do otherwise.
I warned the target of the pig’s intent and, days later, the other
prisoner about the plot against them. Well, this orderly informed the
pigs that I was alerting all targeted prisoners. So the pigs tried,
through aggressive body language, to scare me. The pigs claimed that I
wasn’t playing with the team, blah, blah. Took all my property and
locked me down pending trumped up disciplinary charges.
A few days later, the other punk ass orderly gives another inmate an
empty food tray. This prisoner did not take it lightly. The target
became disorderly – and rightly so. This led to the individual being
administered chemical agents. And he refused to tap out after several
rounds of being gassed. Dude forced the pigs to run the cell extraction
team, which beat this man stupid. Eight on one.
All because of a stool pigeon. Shit crazy.
Even more crazy, I receive a kite from someone who was my neighbor
before classification made me an orderly. The kite informed that the day
after I left the cell block, a white shirt and four officers popped up
at the cell with a minicam. Long story short, the pigs were coming with
the intent to inflict bodily harm. The veracity of the event was
confirmed by an affiliate.
They missed me by one day!
My belief is this was planned because I was part of a core group which
gave voice to the rampant pig violence towards prisoners.
“MIM had come to the conclusion from the degeneration of numerous
genuine forces like the Progressive Labor Party in the United States
that such especially difficult ideological struggle is a permanent
fixture in the imperialist countries where the material basis for
degeneration is much greater than in the oppressed countries…”
“Since it is unlikely that imperialism will be able to come up with too
many more entirely new tricks, there will come a time in MIM’s
development where our principal task will be to unite those who can be
united around our very confrontational line. Right now we are emerging
principally from struggle against revisionism, imperialist economism and
pseudo-feminism. When we have finished going into detail on our
differences with others on the above questions we will focus on unity as
the principal way to advance the overall struggle. We will prepare for a
strategic length of time to do battle with imperialist economism,
revisionism, pseudo-feminism, Trotskyism, anarchism and so on in a
distinctive way. However, even in seeking unity, MIM will find itself in
struggle much more often than many parties in communist history for a
variety of reasons what MIM has said is rare to non-existent in the
imperialist countries. So even as the labor aristocracy thesis becomes
clear as day to us and ‘old hat’ it will seem fresh to many for some
time to come.” - The Journey Back to Maoism.
MIM Theory 5, Diet
for a Small Red Planet
So what do these passages mean? We’re so bought off it’s ridiculous!
Worse still, as a result of our being bought off we’re that much more
susceptible to bourgeois manipulation a la ideological
trickery. Therefore we cannot obtain a proletarian mindset without some
hard study.
We in the imperialist countries have the distinct strategical advantage
of not having to be in armed struggle at this time. And in connection to
this fact we have a responsibility not only to the international
proletariat but to our own oppressed that when conditions do begin to
change and armed struggle actually becomes a possibility we’ll be ready
to not only lead, but lead right! We have the advantage of learning from
and building on all the rational and empirical knowledge left to us by
our predecessors, both the good and the bad; especially the bad! We have
to learn from past mistakes so that we don’t commit future ones, or
worse still, repeat the old ones. It’s too late in the anti-imperialist
game for us to be messing up the way some of our leaders did before us.
Have we learned nothing?! What part of “ideological struggle in the
imperialist countries is a permanent fixture” are we not understanding?
It’s almost as if the revolution really is dead.
The fact that more and more of the oppressed nation imprisoned lumpen
are beginning to finally wake up to the reality of imperialism is a good
thing - a very good thing! However, the fact that most of these new
lumpen organizations aren’t taking the time to study and learn from the
concrete lessons of history and movements passed speaks volumes for the
dire need of these new groups to formally hook up with MIM(Prisons) and
United Struggle from Within (USW). It indicates the need for individuals
to remain within USW much longer to develop theoretically before forming
new single-nation revolutionary cells or parties. USW should serve as a
place for the most advanced to sharpen their swords together until
conditions do change within the prison population in general and within
the prison movement in particular, before calling for the building of
new organizations.
Comrades behind bars have all the time in the world to study and hence
develop themselves and others theoretically. Therefore, those of us who
are serious about revolution have no excuse for such low levels of
theoretical development within our ranks, especially those of us working
directly with MIM(Prisons).
A big part of the problem is the failure of some of us within USW to
correctly grasp the philosophy of dialectical materialism, which results
in a failure to apply it to the prison movement, and as a result we have
paralysis within the prison movement. The need for us to seriously study
dialectical materialism is directly linked to our ability to put it to
use; without a concrete understanding of dialectical materialism all
will be lost. Is this an over-exaggeration? Of course not; it’s a hard
truth. Within our conditions MIM(Prisons) makes up part of our external
causes and therefore is a part of the conditions of change with us being
the basis of change. Based on what I’m seeing, or rather not seeing,
there hasn’t been any real change thus far. Are my words too harsh? If
they are, then that’s too bad. What is MIM(Prisons) here for if not to
help us develop politically?
Related to this point is a prisyner’s letter I just read in the
revisionist Revolution newspaper of the Crypto-Trotskyists
RCP=U$A. This article was filled with the usual, flowery verbiage of
“much love to y’all beautiful people at the RCP…” and “Bob Afakean is my
daddy” type nonsense, typical of their articles. Half the articles in
Revolution don’t really say anything, while the other half are
filled with imperialist country oppressor nation chauvinist politics.
Anyways, there was a California prisyner’s letter featured that was
speaking on the Pelican Bay Short Corridor new directive. This prisyner
was writing in to basically agree that it was about time that the
prisyners put a stop to the fighting and come together for change.
However, towards the end of the letter this prisyner made a call for the
Pelican Bay Short Corridor to separate themselves from the lumpen if
they were to really have a shot at victory in their struggle.
Yup, leave it to the RCP=U$A to spread division in the guise of unity to
the prison masses at such a critical time. But how, pray tell, is the
Short Corridor to achieve its goals in their struggle (which is all our
struggle) if they separate themselves from the prison masses? Not only
does this prisyner’s line attempt to separate the Corridor leaders from
the wider prisyn movement, but it essentially makes the petty bourgeois
argument that only individual groups of prisyners should be designated
as political prisyners, and not the entire U.$. prisyn population. As if
the Short Corridor prisyners were on a different plane than the rest of
the population, or as if the short corridor weren’t lumpen-based
themselves. That RCP=U$A article makes it seem as if the mass of
California prisyners were holding the movement back. Quite the contrary:
without the prisyner masses the Short Corridor prisyners are like
generals with no soldiers, or a gun with no bullets. Instead it is the
prisyner masses that will push the prisyn movement forward.
My point here is that the RCP=U$A prints this garbage, and lots of
prisyners just eat it up. And we at USW know where “new synthesis” (old
revisionist hat) leads the movement to: oblivion.
Now assuming that a prisyner actually wrote that letter (and not just
another revisionist weed, we all remember agent Quispe and the attempt
to derail the Sendero Luminoso: strategical equilibrium) what does that
say about the theoretical development of politically-conscious and
class-conscious prisyners? And these are the leaders?!
We need real proletarian-based political development if we are to
succeed in the years to come, and the only place prisyners are gonna
find that is by working directly with MIM(Prisons). Our liberation as
oppressed nations and as a class is inextricably bound with Maoism, not
“new synthesis” politics. Don’t believe me? Go ask the klan in the
RCP=U$A where they stand with respect to the liberation of Aztlán, New
Afrika, and the various First Nations. Watch how they dance and shuffle,
deflect the question, and fake left in order to go right.
Still too busy to study theory seriously? Busier than the New People’s
Army in 1970? Good question: who or what is the New People’s Army? Who
was the Tupac Amaru for that matter? And what’s the difference between
lumpen and lumpen-proletariat? How is this question relevant to our own
conditions? And what about Kautsky – who’s his contemporary, and why
should we care?
The tenet that the revolutionary vanguard be made up of professional
revolutionaries is a Leninist tenet. Anything less than putting
revolutionary politics in command means watering down correct political
line. And correct political lines could only be put forward if there was
an organization consisting chiefly of people professionally engaged in
revolutionary activity that would devote their entire lives to the
movement subsuming the persynal for the good of the cause. We don’t need
no weekend revolutionaries and we don’t need those just in it for the
remainder of their imprisonment; we need better than that. “Better,
fewer, but better.” It’s not enough to simply read an article in
Under Lock & Key. The bulk of our imprisonment should be
spent developing the mind.
Take the sample of the prison artists. How did they get so good? By
drawing here and there, or only when there was something in it for them?
No, they developed their skills via a passion for the arts, and as a
result they’re now pretty damn good. We now come to them whenever we
need to send something home.
What about the legal-beagles? How did they get so good? They too
developed their skills with a passion, a passion to make it back home.
And as a result of that, some of them actually make it back home despite
having the deck stacked against them. Unfortunately some of them don’t
make it out. But through the skills they’ve developed some of them make
it their mission in life to file grievances, lawsuits, etc., in the name
of the prisyner population. And who do we go to when we need legal
advice or something filed?
Just as those people are great examples within their field and are
derived directly from the prisyner population, so should USW and our
allies aspire to become great examples within the revolutionary prisyn
movement so that when the time comes we can be damn well sure we don’t
lead the prisyn masses into oblivion.
Comrades breaking away from USW in order to prematurely form their own
organizations when their revolutionary skills are not yet developed are
perfect examples of being ultra-left in matters of “one divides into
two” dialectics and a form of adventurism as well.
Once again, are my words too harsh? Hell no! We’re not yet in the stage
where we should be seeking to unite all who can be united. We’re still
in the ideological struggle. The fact that I have to write this to say
as much should prove it.
Revolutionaries in the prison movement should have a concrete
understanding of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism and not a fragmentary one. We
should be well versed in political economics and revolutionary theory.
Indeed, this is our own strategical equilibrium. “Better, fewer, but
better.” There is no other way.
MIM(Prisons) adds: We have laid out the five principles of the
United Front
for Peace in Prisons (UFPP) to unite all who can be united at the
mass level in U.$. prisons. We do this alongside the tasks Ehecatl
describes for building ideological unity within USW. And this is a
different practice than MIM had when writing the article quoted in the
beginning of this letter. We find ourselves in a position similar to the
Communist Party of the Philippines at the time (discussed in that
article) who were also trying to lead a broad united front and a
vanguard party at the same time. We learn from their mistakes and
rectification campaign in order to maintain the independence and
leadership of the vanguard within the UFPP, and separate party work from
united front work.
Comrades in MIM(Prisons) and USW work hard to facilitate study groups
for prisoners who are interested in developing ideologically and not
just reading ULK. A new introductory course starts every few
months, so write us to get on the list. For more on the question of
forming new organizations, see MIM(Prisons)’s 2011 Congress resolution
on
“Building
New Groups vs. Working with USW and MIM(Prisons)”, published in
ULK 21. And if you want to know more about the history of
Ehecatl’s criticisms of the RCP=U$A, check out our
study pack on the
Revolutionary Communist Party (USA). If we don’t study, we will
lose.
I refuse to lay down, in my struggle against the
oppressor. Anti-imperialist efforts, settling for nothing lesser.
Striving together with my brotherz and sisterz – Utilizing
knowledge, wisdom and understanding. “We’re fighting for world
peace!” Is what my comrades past and present is demanding.
Anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist, fuck it! I’ll be devoted to
fighting against that old slave mentality that my older peers seem to
keep holding.
We rise together and never fall. Nor stumble in sudden speech. So
to the brotherz and sisterz down in this struggle – Without
initiative and motivation you’ll forever remain stuck with your slave
mentality!
Like many of you who are reading this issue of Under Lock &
Key, I was saddened to hear about the senseless killing of 20 young
humyn beings at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut. They were
babies, taken away from us far too soon. After shaking off the initial
shock, my analytical Maoist mind kicked into overdrive. I went into my
locker and I retrieved my July/August 2012 issue of Under Lock &
Key 27. I would like to quote comrade Soso of MIM(Prisons) in
her/his piece entitled
“Trayvon
Martin National Oppression Debate.” “A recent report by the Malcolm
X Grassroots Movement cited at least 110 Black people killed by Amerikan
cops and security in the first half of 2012.”
Is this report not alarming? Should there not have been public outcry?
Did not President Obama state: “If I had a son he would look like
Trayvon.” Well then why the hell didn’t he form a special task force
then to address gun violence? Was not Oscar Grant enough? What about
James Craig Anderson in Jackson, Mississippi? What about young Jordan
Davis of Jacksonville, Florida, murdered in cold blood because his music
was “too loud”? All these young men of color murdered by white men,
however, for some reason their deaths did not solicit the same response.
Five hundred murders on the streets of Chicago this year! One fourth
were under age 18. President Obama barely mentioned the gun violence in
Chicago during his campaign. Why?
Comrades, the sad truth of the matter is, a Black life is not equal to a
white life in Amerikkka. And it is not just the lives of Black youth
that are under-valued. Latino, Arab, Asian, all are viewed as less than,
undesirable, or expendable by the Amerikkkan Injustice System. This
problem is pervasive and saturates the racist news media. Now here comes
new gun legislation and “new” task forces. Who do you think the alphabet
boys are going to be carting off to U.$. penitentiaries? Not white bread
gun fanatic NRA members, that’s for sure. It’s going to be us! The
Black, Brown, Asian and Arab lumpen underclass.
I recently was listening to a Houston hip-hop radio show on KPFT (90.1
FM) called Damage Control. The host “young Zeke” said “if a Black man
shoots a bunch of people in Amerika he is a criminal. If a foreigner
does it, he is a terrorist, and if a white man does it he’s classified
as mentally ill - that’s bullshit!” Remember comrades “to be aware is to
be alive!”
MIM(Prisons) adds: Since this comrade wrote this reflection,
there was an incident in New York City where an Amerikan womyn pushed an
Indian man in front of an oncoming train and killed him. She’s been
widely quoted as saying, “I pushed a Muslim off the train tracks because
I hate Hindus and Muslims – ever since 2001 when they put down the twin
towers I’ve been beating them up.” The victim, Sunando Sen, was Hindu.
Sunando Sen’s funeral in Queens, New York.
Erika Menendez was charged with murder as a hate crime, but has been
ordered to have a mental health exam. Whatever Menendez’s mental health,
it is not like she said she killed Sen because he had brown eyes, or was
too tall. She killed him because of his perceived religion and
ethnicity, which are both proxies for national oppression. Sen would not
have been murdered if Amerika did not promote hatred of other nations
who try to free themselves from the grip of U.$. imperialism.
Just because most Amerikans aren’t sophisticated enough to distinguish
different religions and cultures does not make their national oppression
any less real. Islam has been branded by Amerikans as the culture of a
dangerous foreign enemy people. Armed resistance against imperialism has
been strong across South and Central Asia for over a decade and it
continues to spread. This is the material basis for Menendez’s actions.
Some theorists that dabble in Maoism have hypothesized that
nation
is no longer principal in the age of neo-colonialism (simply defined
as white power in black/brown face). But MIM(Prisons) still holds that
the principal contradiction remains nation under imperialism today, even
if it is not as black and white as it used to be. In the discussion
around Trayvon Martin, we already said that
George
Zimmerman’s Latino family does not preclude him from being associated
with white supremacism. Similarly, we do not need more info on
Menendez’s background to state that she was clearly acting within the
ideology of white supremacism. Neo-colonialism isn’t just for those with
political power anymore. There is a whole movement to enlist young men
from Latin America to fight for U.$. imperialism in the Middle East.
The concept of nation is based in social conditions, not in phony ideas
of genetics as race is. So while Amerika was a nation built on a racist
ideology, it is in constant flux, like all things are. Similarly,
nations can be transformed through assimilation. And even as separate
nations exist in the United $tates, different segments of those nations
will have different interests at different times. Those who use identity
politics and simplistic expectations to negate the national
contradiction ignore these ever-changing and interacting forces. In the
United $tates the national contradiction is at a bit of a crossroads,
but internationally the contradiction is stronger than ever. This is why
the internal semi-colonies would be smart to stay on the right side of
history and stand against imperialism as their ancestors did.
As we’ve discussed elsewhere, there is ample evidence that
most
“mental health” problems are social problems, which can be addressed
with a re-ordering of the society we live in. By ending national
oppression, ending militarism and ending the competitive individualism
of capitalism where people get left behind and become alienated from
society, we can prevent the types of incidents that happened in New York
and Connecticut.
Well comrades after months of trying to get the grievance department to
produce a grievance that they insisted was returned, the truth has come
out! In June 2012 I was housed on C-wing on Estelle Unit High Security
which is located in Huntsville, Texas. At the time, my cell and many
others were infested with roaches, every meal was served cold, and the
smell of sewage was extremely pervasive. I and a fellow comrade filed a
Step 1 (I-127) grievance.
Unit Grievance Investigator Mr. Allen Hartley lied to me, his co-worker
Ms. Monica Nichols, and numerous other TDCJ (Texas Department of
Criminal Justice) employees and insisted that he returned my Step 1 with
response on August 22, 2012. However, I never received it. A TDCJ
employee told me that Mr. Allen Hartley has a “special relationship”
with the prison administration on the High Security Unit in which he has
agreed to destroy any offender grievances which may shed a negative
light on the High Security administration.
On October 22, 2012 I sent a
grievance
petition courtesy of USW-MIM(Prisons) to Senator John Whitmire who
happens to be the Chairman of the Criminal Justice Committee in the
Texas state legislature. I requested that the senator have someone
investigate my “mysterious” disappearing grievance. I also addressed the
cold-substandard meals served on the entire unit, rampant racism among
officers, and administration, as well as the collusive and
conspiratorial relationship that exists between unit grievance
investigator Mr. Allen Hartley and Assistant Warden Steven T. Miller and
Major David M. Forrest (bonfire Klansman extraordinaire). The USW
Grievance Petition does an excellent job of articulating the true nature
of the problem here in Texas. Our due process rights are being trampled
on and we can’t get fair and unbiased resolution of our grievances under
the current system (period).
Comrades I am glad to report that the food service department at Estelle
Unit - High Security has been issued “Hot-Carts” which really keep our
food hot/warm! The portions have improved a little and so has the
quality. We even get salt and pepper once a week. This may not be
fantastic in some prisoners eyes but it is progress. I believe it was a
collective effort by a small group of motivated comrades who got tired
of being treated like sub-humyns.
In reference to the grievance problem, the central grievance office
wrote me and stated that the grievance in question has been “lost.” They
offered me the opportunity to re-submit the grievance. However, they
failed to address the main root of the problem and that is Mr. Allen
Hartley’s blatant disregard of the U.S. Constitution! This is not the
first time that these prisoncrats have played this game. This is an
ongoing problem. Their actions have rendered the grievance process
ineffective. So with that being said, I have filed a complaint with the
Department of Justice - Civil Rights Division - utilizing the grievance
petition as my guide.
MIM(Prisons) adds: We currently have grievance petitions for many
states. Write to us for a copy and if you are in a state not currently
covered by the grievance campaign, we will send you a template for the
petitions and you can look up citations and policies specific to your
state for reference. If you do this research and send us what needs to
be rewritten for your particular state, we will gladly send an edited,
accurate copy back to you.
I’ve recently been engaged in an ideological struggle with a fellow
Chicano and potential anti-imperialist ally concerning the current state
of captivity of the Chicano nation by the imperialist United $tates,
it’s liberation, the oppressive and exploitative reality that Third
World people are subjected to on a daily basis, and of the unique place
the lumpen of the internal semi-colonies exist in all of this. Needless
to say, we’ve been discussing some highly political and philosophical
questions and topics not necessarily confined to the existentialist
school of thought, but rather questions and topics more closely tied to
the very existence of Third World people in an imperialist dominated
world. We’ve also touched on the psychological baggage better known as
alienation which imperialism itself ties to the individual, whether in
the First World or the Third. These discussions have been had not within
the context of mere conversational purposes, but for the explicit
purpose of waking up a potential ally not just to the reality of our own
oppression as Chicanos, or of putting the reality of our oppression into
complete context for him; but so as to wake him up to his own productive
power as a revolutionary force within the belly of the beast.
After struggling with this individual on a molecular level and trying my
hardest to consistently put the correct political line forward; then
banging my head on the ideological bourgeois brick wall which this
individual vehemently represented every time he opened his mouth, I
understandably felt frustrated and decided to terminate any and all
further political struggle with this persyn, being that he didn’t really
seem to want to struggle with objective answers and analysis from a
revolutionary nationalist perspective; but rather seemed content blindly
defending those cherished Amerikan values or “sugar coated bullets”
which we’ve all been spoon fed from birth.
After some time however and his insistence that I read one of his
bourgeois science books (college edition) for meaningless mental
exercise, aka intellectualism, I begrudgingly agreed on one condition.
If I was to read his bourgeois science book then he was to read and
study my Marx; he agreed.
After a couple weeks and after answering the occasional philosophical
question from him this persyn surprised me by revealing that he’d been
grappling not just with the Marx book I’d sent him, but with the topics
we’d previous discussed. Discussions which began with evolution and
religion but which quickly spiraled into heated philosophical and
political debates ranging in everything from the origins of the humyn
species and society, to super-profits and everything in between. And it
was during this time that I suddenly realized something I’d obviously
lost sight of.
It wasn’t that he necessarily disagreed with my political beliefs
because of some inherent class bias as a First Worlder. Rather he
disagreed with the proletarian worldview exactly because of a First
World ideological bias that defined his worldview. And one does not
change one’s worldview easily.
It’s therefore important for revolutionaries that are new to the
anti-imperialist game to keep in mind that anytime we engage in
political discussion with the philistine, we’re going up against 500
plus years of colonization, not just in the material world, but in the
ideological field as well; as social consciousness is both consciously
and unconsciously bourgeois in the era of imperialism. We must fully
understand that none of us are born with the slightest inkling of the
communal/communist/proletarian worldview, rather, it must be cultivated.
What’s more, political struggle in the ideological realm just like
struggle in any other realm is essentially a matter for dialectics to
resolve in which battles are won one at a time until one factor or
another gains dominance and emerges victorious.
Therefore, it’s equally important to remember that whenever we’re
speaking politics we’re in essence engaging in a struggle over political
line between the oppressed which we represent, and the national and
class enemies whose mouthpieces are not always readily apparent, but
inconspicuous, especially in a First World society such as ours where we
have not just open and closet Trotskyists who are peddling revisionism
on the prison masses in the guise of “revolution”, but honest comrades
who inadvertently and thru no fault of their own push an incorrect line
due to a low level of political development and understanding.
Therefore, we must ensure that this polemical struggle isn’t simply
narrowed down to and carried out through out the confines of the open
national and class enemies of the oppressed nations, but continuously
carried out throughout the class conscious in keeping with Mao’s dictum
of continuous revolution. Continuous revolution, or continuous struggle,
being the only method available to defeat not only old and reactionary
ideas which are at the service of the bourgeoisie, but new age and
mystical ideas as well, which aren’t really “new or mystical at all, but
simply repackaged bootlegs of the bourgeoisie and status quo who seek to
entrench themselves and the enemy line in the revolution in order to
ruin it from within.
Revolutionary thought during this stage of the struggle must have a
shock and awe type value characteristic of the new defeating the old in
which every spectrum of life is held up to the light of revolutionary
science, declare it’s rationale, or surrender it’s right to existence.
If so-called revolutionary thoughts and synthesis don’t offer or
illuminate the best path forward then they too must cease their right to
exist and clear the way for something new, or rather something tried and
true, i.e. Maoism. Thus it is no surprise that Maoism serves as a two
pronged “-ism” (philosophical and political) which leaves the
bourgeois-minded agape and in existential doubt as to the state of
reality and their place in it. Now, this may simply be old hat to the
battle tested revolutionary, but twas not for me, as I myself found this
point made ever so clear through polemical practice. Indeed, just as
communist parties that are engaged in armed struggle are more
politically developed than those that are not, so is the individual
engaged in polemics.
Simply reading one Marxist book doesn’t make one a Marxist, and simply
winning one individual battle doesn’t win the war. It was foolish of me
to expect the potential ally mentioned in the beginning of this report
to be won over to the side of the oppressed simply because he himself is
objectively oppressed. My overestimation of the revolutionization
process with respect to this individual was itself a failure on my part
to properly utilize the dialectical method; as nothing in this world
develops evenly.
Bourgeois ideology was and remains the dominant ideology within said
individual, and my initial failure to fully grasp this point is proof
positive that in all aspects of life there is always a struggle between
two classes, two lines, and two roads, and thus will be the case until
the end of property relations. My initial failure to win him over to the
side of the oppressed is objectively a victory for the bourgeoisie and
further drives home the point that education cannot be separated from
transformation; but some seeds have been sown and the revolutionary
sprout is slowly beginning to break free from over 500 years of
colonization. It seems this persyn is slowly beginning to take up an
interest in revolutionary politics; a direct result of our interaction.
A small political win, in a small political battle for a correct
political line, which on a world scale is perhaps equal to the rising
forces of the oppressed and repressed revolutionary forces which have
begun to seriously re-develop within u.$. borders.
It is the politics of the oppressors that have put us in here and thrown
away the key, and it will be the politics of the oppressed that will set
us free. If there is anywhere in the United $tates where politics should
take center stage, it is in the prisons and jails; concrete proof in the
most literal sense that there is an ideological struggle actively going
on between the oppressors and the oppressed, in which the oppressor
nation obviously has the upper hand.
These “people-incorporating-genocidal-slavery” have upped the ante once
again. I was targeted by these nefarious boars simply for my political
views. On Oct 14, 2012, two ogres searched and seized my property
i.e. all my essays, my books, and all my Under Lock & Key
dated as far back as 1995. At the biased in-house tribunal two articles
from ULK were presented to me: 1) a 1991 Attikkka issue
explaining the situation before and after the rebellion of 1971. 2) The
July/Aug 2012
issue which calls for “all prisoners to show solidarity and
demonstrate a work stoppage from Sept 9-12, 2012.” Keep in mind I never
passed this publication about nor did I participate in a work stoppage.
I have no prison job. Also, the article mentioned above was for Sept
9-12, 2012. I was keep locked pending investigation on Oct 14, 2012.
That’s 35 days later.
Anyway, I was charged with a Tier III rule violation of 104.12
(demonstration) which reads: “an inmate shall not lead, organize,
participate in or urge other inmates to participate in a work stoppage,
sit-in, lock-in, or any other action which may be detrimental to the
order of the facility.”
At the farce hearing I presented the question: “where in the facility
was there an actual work stoppage?” The response was: “There was no work
stoppage.” My second question was: “when did I urge other prisoners to
demonstrate and when did the alleged work stoppage, sit-in, lock-in take
place?” The response was: “you never participated in nor was there ever
a work stoppage, sit-in, lock-in.” With no further questions I objected
to the entire circus of a hearing only to receive six months SHU time
anyway. This whole ordeal is due to me possessing ULK
publications, although they can’t actually state it at the hearing.
Furthermore, the hearing disposition reads: “although no actual act of
demonstration occurred I believed you attempted it.” Only after a cell
search 35 days later, and after an incident that never took place, do I
receive such a bogus charge. Go figure.
This isn’t the first political witch hunt in which I was erroneously
charged with demonstrations and it won’t be the last! These ruthless
gulags pride themselves on oppressing the free thinkers like me,
especially Attikkka! Keep sending me the Under Lock and Key.
MIM(Prisons) responds: We have heard from a number of comrades
that the article calling for a
Day
of Solidarity on September 9 led to heightened censorship and
punishment of prisoners. We know that there are restrictions on the
types of organizing permitted in many prisons and we are looking closely
at the language used in these types of articles to make possible the
widest distribution of ULK without sacrificing the content of
the publication.